英语毕业论文On Problems and Countermeasures in Oral English Learning of College Students

1、On Problems and Countermeasures in Oral English Learning of College Students A Case Study of Ningbo Dahongying UniversityByFionaA ThesisSubmitted to the College of HumanitiesIn Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements forThe Degree of Bachelor of ArtsUnder the Supervision of Professor XXXAbstract Wit

2、h the advancement of international position of China, the intercommunication becomes more frequent between China and other countries. English, as an international language, plays an increasingly dominant role in various fields. This paper demonstrates that learning English has become an overwhelming

3、 tendency, especially oral English. But learning oral English is always considered as a big barrier in English learning among Chinese students, and it is found that students usually specialize in English listening, reading, writing, grammar and vocabulary but typically are lack of the ability of spe

4、akingConsequently, a host of college students who speak “dumb English” have sprung up. In reaction to the phenomenon, this paper probes into the ways of changing this imbalance and analyze the issue of improving students oral English, which students are not only concerned about, but also puzzled wit

5、hCurrently, its imperative to find sources of Chinese students poor spoken English and provide some feasible methods to help them to improve their oral English, which is of the vital significance.On the basis of the fact that English has become an international language and the necessity of internat

6、ional competition，this essay gives some methods on how to improve students oral ability Key words: problem countermeasure oral English learning college student 摘 要随着中国国际地位的提高，各个国家间的交流也越加地频繁。英语，作为一门国际性语言，在各个领域有着举足轻重的地位。因此英语口语的学习一方面给我们带来了机遇，但同时它也给我们带来了挑战。口语的学习对于中国学生来说一直是一道难以跨越的槛。作者了解到宁波大红鹰学院的学生普遍存在缺乏说

7、的能力的问题，因此，本文根据这一现象，深入探究其根源，最终提出一些相应的解决对策。其目的在于提高学生的口语表达能力，摆脱哑巴英语的尴尬，以促进大学生英语口语水平的提高。关键词：问题；对策；英语口语学习；大学生 Contents Abstract.I摘 要.IIContents.III1. Introduction.1 1.1 The Purpose of the Study1 1.2 The Mode of the Response. . .12. Literature Review.22.1 The Domestic Research on Students Oral English Lea

8、rning.22.2 The Foreign Research on Students Oral English Learning.23. Analysis of the Survey.33.1 The Learning Initiative of Students.33.2 The Learning Awareness of Students.43.3 The Restricting Factor of Students' Oral English Learning.43.4 The Teaching Material of Oral English.54. Strategies o

9、f Improving Students' Oral English Ability.74.1 To Remove Psychological Barriers.74.1.1 To Strengthen Students' Learning Motivation.74.1.2 To Alleviate Students' Learning Anxiety.74.1.3 To Enhance Students' Learning Self-confidence.84.2 To Remove Environmental Barriers.94.2.1 To Crea

10、te a Sound Atmosphere of Oral English .94.2.2 To Form a Good Habit of Practicing English.94.3 To Remove Other Barriers.104.3.1 The Barrier of Pronunciation.104.3.2 The Barrier of Vocabulary.115. Conclusion11References.13Acknowledgments .14On Problems and Countermeasures in Oral English Learning of C

11、ollege StudentsA Case Study of Ningbo Dahongying University1. Introduction1.1 The Purpose of the StudyLanguage is deemed as a systematic mean of communicating by using sounds or conventional symbols, and which is the main channel of communication. Considering the four basic language skillslistening,

12、 speaking, reading and writing, speaking is of more emphases and difficulties. With the globalization of the world, English, as a verbal language, has an increasing application in contemporary China, so that the cultivation of oral communicative competence in college becomes particularly importantHo

13、wever, for the college students, listening and speaking occupy the predominant place in daily communication, which invisibly triggers the biggest barrier in English learning.In this paper, a questionnaire was conducted in Ningbo Dahongying University. After analyzing, the paper gave specific descrip

14、tion to the current situation and problems among students. And combined with the result of the survey, it put forward some solutions to explore new ways of improving college students' oral English.1.2 The Mode of the ResponseThis questionnaire survey chose 100 sophomores as the respondents. The

15、majors included English, financial management, international trade, information engineering, computer science, mechanical automation, electrical automation. This survey was investigated among the students who had experienced three semesters English learning at college and had been participated in th

16、e test of CET-4. Besides, this research chose the second grade students as respondents because having been underwent more than one year of university life, they had more knowledge of college English teaching model and also had formed a comparatively fixed learning strategies. Thus, seven relative qu

17、estions were designed about oral problems in English for college students. The surveys of 100 questionnaires were sent out and 100 valid questionnaires were collected at last.2. Literature ReviewNowadays, learning English has been a tendency, which arouses more and more scholars doing researches on

18、this issue. 2.1 The Domestic Research on Students Oral English Learning The current situation of oral English teaching is not quite satisfactory. For the college students, listening and speaking occupy the predominant place in daily communication, which has become the biggest barrier in English lear

19、ning. Therefore, the reflection and reform on oral English teaching system needs to be enforced right away. Apart from improving students own learning ability, teachers also need to stop the exam-oriented education. (Liu Lihua and Gao Yas, 2011) Song Ying (2008) states some reasons of why Chinese st

20、udents are poor in oral English. Being entered into the college, students have been studying hard for the entrance exams; most of who are accustomed to memorizing new words and expressions and paying attention to grammar points and language structure during learning, but it is hard to express themse

21、lves in oral English. Besides, English learners must possess some spirit during English learning, such as the spirit of diligence, industriousness, carefulness, patience and persistence.There are various factors of poor oral English: 1. Indolence of students. It is admitted that the willingness of t

22、he students desire to speak can not be overlooked. The extrovert, confident and serious learners can study better than those who are introvert, unconfident and afraid of speaking English in a strange situation. 2. Over-estimation. Many students are willing to speak English with partners according to

23、 what the teacher asked them to do. But after entering college, they think they have reached a certain high level and do not want to make mistake. The effective way to avoid this is to zipper their mouths. (Ai Pinge, 1997) 2.2 The Foreign Research on Students Oral English Learning Henson KT（1996）in

24、Methods and Strategies for Teaching in Secondary and Middle Schools points out that “speaking and writing is very different and there are many students expressing their minds with mixed English and Chinese thinking. Plus the lack of vocabulary, sometimes they can not clearly state their real thought

25、s. So if you want to learn oral English well, students and teachers must get rid of the traditional ideas of teaching and learning.” Brown Gillian and Yule George（1983）in Teaching the Spoken Language have similar viewpoints “when learning grammar students also need to pay attention to the pronunciat

26、ion. From the perspective of spoken language, oral English ability includes dialogue and monologue. Dialogue has the characteristics of both parts in communication. Dialogue, therefore, is often unprepared and very casual.” Monologue language should pay more attention to the words of administrative

27、levels sense, logic and integrity. Monologue words contain the narrative skill of speaking, presentation skill, evaluation ability and the ability to express personal thought. (Jeremy Harmer, 2000)3. Analysis of the Survey3.1 The Learning Initiative of studentsTable 1: survey of students' oral E

28、nglish learning initiativeQ1：which skill do you most want to improve?Q2：How do you think of you oral English?A: listening40%A: excellent3%B: reading25%B: normal45%C: speaking20%C: poor52%D: writing15%D:beyond expression0%Q3：whats you attitude toward oral activity in class?Q4：The allocation proportio

29、n between listening teaching and oral English teaching?A: participate actively15%A: fifty-fifty30%B: participate occasionally45%B more listening48%C: participate rarely 36%C: more speaking18%D: never participate4%D: without speaking4%The graph shows that most students (nearly 97%) are dissatisfied w

30、ith their current oral English level. But it seems that students are more eager to improve their listening skills rather than speaking (refer to table1). 40% students want to improve their listening skill, whereas only 20% students chose to improve their ability of oral English.with regard to the pr

31、oblem of allocation proportion between listening teaching and oral English teaching in class, the survey also reflects that the student show partiality to the listening teaching. Approximately half of the students (48%) think listening teaching time should occupy more time than oral English teaching

32、. The results may connect with CET-4 and CET-6. In the two examinations, the oral English test is separated out and only the students who have achieved a high written test score have the access to obtain the spoken language test qualifications. In other words, students' oral English level does n

33、ot affect their obtainment of the certificate of the four or six level. So, if the students are passionless, it can be hard to guarantee their learning effect of spoken language.3.2 The Learning Awareness of StudentsTable 2 shows that most students attribute their poor oral English to the insufficie

34、ncy of learning time and less attention on the oral English learning, with the proportion of 47% and 33%. The results show that the students have raised the awareness that they should spend more time and practice into the process of learning to obtain language skills. Plus, it indicates that student

35、s start to engage in introspection rather than shift responsibility to others.Table 2: the analysis of students low ability of oral EnglishQ5: Which one is the biggest reason that leads you to the poor English?A: the unreasonable textbook contents4B: insufficiency of learning time47C: unsuitable tea

36、ching style10D: no oral English test6%E: unawareness of the importance of oral English333.3 The Restricting Factor of Students Oral English LearningTable 3: factors of restricting the development of students oral English abilityQ6: which is the most important factor that restricts your oral English?

37、A: lack of vocabulary34B: no proficiency of grammar8C: insufficient learning time15D: environment barrier14E: no interest 10F: no confidence 15G: restricted mind4H: culture barrier20Students hold different opinions about the factors of restricting the development of their oral English ability (see t

38、able 3). Many students (34%) think that the most important factor that restricting their spoken English development is the lack of vocabulary. There is no doubt that the vocabulary is one of the important indicators to measure their ability of English, but not the biggest factor which influence thei

39、r oral communication ability. In 2006, the ministry of education college English test committee issued the new outline of CET-4 (hereinafter referred to as the" outline "). It clearly stipulates: to meet the requirement of CET-4, the vocabulary should reach 4500 words and 700 phrases. And

40、according to our survey, most students have passed the CET-4. Basically speaking, this shows their vocabulary has reached the "outline" requirement. But the students still think their vocabulary is not enough. Mastering about 4000 vocabulary, students only can use broken English to start a

41、 conversation. The author thinks that this kind of situation has some relationship with students' restricted minds. With thinking hindered, it is naturally hard to pick words to express their thoughts. So in oral conversation, it will inevitably produce anxiety, shyness, nervousness and a series

42、 of negative emotions. Moreover, students won't have the initiative to create the opportunity to practice oral English. It is really a pity that only 4% of the students are aware of it.3.4 The Teaching Material of Oral English45 students dissatisfy with the oral parts in the textbook(see table 4

43、). The students think the speaking part of the teaching material has many disadvantages. For one thing, the vocabulary is far away from enough. For another, the sentence pattern is also useless in our daily life. Besides, the content in the textbook is easy to learn and need to make supplement and e

44、xtension. As is known to all, the teaching material plays a very important part in teaching and learning. If the students find the teaching material not satisfactory, their interests in learning decline naturally. Our school has adopted the new horizon college English as the teaching material in lis

45、tening and speaking course and audio-visual tutorial. These materials have the characteristics of stressing listening teaching.Table 4: students attitude toward teaching materialQ7: Whats your attitude toward the teaching material?A: suitable and interested26%B: insufficient content21C: useless24D:

46、unclear29 With regard to the current situation of oral English learning, we have drawn several conclusions. From the respective of language environment, we are non-native speakers so we lack of special environment to practice English. Because each college teachers is different, some schools can equi

47、pped with many foreign teachers, but some schools only have a small number of foreign teachers or even don't have enough teachers with good spoken language. Taking Dahongying University as an example, as a newly built undergraduate college, foreign teachers are urgently needed. To some extent, l

48、acking foreign teachers will inevitably affect the process of students' learning oral English. From the perspective of teaching principles, in the traditional education mode, many teachers lay more emphasis on the scores of the test and they think the written English is much more important than

49、oral English, which artificially ignored the role of oral English ability. Among the college students, we can easily find one who is good at written test but poor at oral test. Thus it can be clearly seen that in the examination education, there is a serious imbalance between written and oral Englis

50、h. The teachers greatly overlook the training of students' oral English ability. From the perspective of students' psychology, there are several aspects. At first, they are at various academic levels, but most four-year college students have a weak foundation and lack good study habits. Seco

51、nd, the grammar knowledge is hard for them to master because they think learning grammar is a tedious process. Third, also the most important one is that the students are lack of interest in oral English. Interest is the biggest driving force in oral English learning. Without it, nothing can be done

52、 well. Many students think that English is difficult to learn, and they are afraid of learning English, showing no interest in learning oral English. Furthermore, they even don't have the awareness of taking participation in class. From the perspective of teaching book, the teaching materials al

53、so contribute a lot to the students' oral English ability. The influence of which can not be underestimated. Only equipped with better teaching material can the courses function well. Because the courses not only offer the school-based curricula to meet the needs of the test, but also are very n

54、ecessary to improve the students' listening and speaking ability.4. Strategies of Improving Students Oral English Ability Confronted with various factors which impede the development of the students' oral English, I point out several methods to figure it out.4.1 To Remove Psychological Barri

55、ers4.1.1 To Strengthen Students Learning Motivation Language learning motivation is an important psychological factor which affects the language learning. Whether language learning can harvest success or not mostly depends on the learners' learning motivation. According to the Gerard, the motiva

56、tion can be classified into the integrative motivation and the instrumental motivation. The integrative motivation refers to learners expect to blend in the target language community life by using the target language to create community interaction and communication. Whereas instrumental motivation take the target language as a tool for economic or other aspects of benefits, such as passing the test, getting a job or promotion and so on. Psychologists think that, in the long run, the former type benefits better than the latter one. Students with integrativ