Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Research Background
Since 1970s, the Input Hypothesis proposed by Krashen has been the dominated theory in the field of second language acquisition. The Input Hypothesis claimed that comprehensible input was the only one and sufficient condition for second language acquisition. However, the Input Hypothesis has been in controversy with the widespread growth of French immersion programs in Canada. In the French immersion programs, English-speaking children were taught some or all of their curriculums in French beginning with the start of school (early immersion), around grade 4 or 5 (mid immersion), or around grade 6 and 7 (late immersion). Then, with the evaluation and tests being conducted, the results show that French immersion students obtained similar scores in French listening and reading compared with the native speakers of French at the same age. However, to people’s surprise, the speaking and writing abilities of French immersion students were at the level below their peers of French. It was those findings that raised doubts about the validity of Input Hypothesis. The reason that caused this phenomenon is that students did not talk as much in French (Swain, 1985). What’s more, the teachers did not push the students to do so in a manner that was grammatically accurate or sociolinguistically appropriate. The input is given enough focus while the output is neglected. Based on the research into Canadian’s students French immersion classes, the “Output Hypothesis” was put forward by Swain.
The Output Hypothesis claimed that compared with input, the output was also indispensable. Swain (1995) outlined three major functions of output in second language learning: 1) the noticing function, 2) the hypothesis-testing function, and 3) the metalinguistic function. As proposed by Schmidt and Frota (1986) in their ‘noticing the gap’, learners may notice that the target language form is different from their usage. “Learners may notice that they cannot say what they want to say in the target language.” (Swain, 1995:1) Therefore, both input and output activities are important for English language learning.
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1.2 Research Purpose and Significance
The POA stresses that input learning and production should be combined closely, which can improve students’ productive skill in a better way. POA is the first teaching theory that originated from Chinese teaching and learning context. As a new teaching methodology, it needs flourishing experimental results as well. Therefore it is used in the present study in order to investigate its effects on learners’ oral English in terms of accuracy, fluency and appropriacy.
The POA starts teaching with production and ends with production.It can provide students with enough chances to practice speaking, writing, translation, and interpretation. Most importantly, to finish these productive activities, it provides students with adequate input material. Besides, The present study is significant in three aspects. First, the framework of POA is relative new. It is worthwhile exploring how to implement it in the classroom in an effective way. Second, the study provides researchers with empirical evidence of how POA affects non-English major students’ oral English in terms of accuracy, fluency and appropriacy. Last but not least, the study can provide an alternative method for students to improve their production.
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Situations of Chinese College Oral English Teaching
Bailey and Savage (1994) hold that speaking in a second or foreign language has often been viewed as the most demanding skill among the four skills. With the development of globalization, English, as an international language, plays an important role in humans’ daily life. Yu (2014) suggested that theoretically speaking, the objective of foreign language teaching is to cultivate the learners’ communicative ability in writing or speaking. Nowadays, most Chinese learners’ receptive knowledge is well beyond the productive skills. That is, after about ten years of formal study, Chinese students still lack communicative ability. Most of them have difficulty in speaking English fluently. The current situation of oral English teaching is not so satisfactory. There are some problems to be noticed and considered.
Firstly, students do not have strong interests in spoken English class. Thus, their learning motivation is not enough and the degree of participation in English classroom activities is relatively low. Ever since middle school, most students are expected to have high grades only in the written tests without oral tests. They seldom pay attention to the importance of spoken English. In college, many students take oral English for passing the CET oral test, and only a few of them learn oral English for interests or the inner desire.
Secondly, the college English teaching materials lack the authenticity. By authenticity, it means that students have access to the authentic material, such as selecting some reading material from newspaper or articles, listening to some radios, speeches, talk shows and so on. This is a way of language learning in non-pedagogic ways and from natural communication. It can be seen that some Chinese college students are at a loss when they meet native speakers. They do not know how to initiate a meaningful conversation. There are several reasons that account for this phenomenon. Firstly, students may feel nervous when communicating with foreigners. Secondly, the real conversation is somewhat different from the dialogues that they have learned from their textbook. Thirdly, it is a bit difficult for them to apply what they have learned into real life communication. There is a mismatch between what they have learned and use in real life. This problem leads to the lack of interests in oral English learning indirectly. Fourthly, students do not have adequate output in class. The class time is so limited that the teachers attach more importance to listening and reading. Students do not have enough chances to participate in productive activities. Sometimes, students may be asked to finish some tasks in class without providing some proper input material. Thus, students feel frustrated in completing those tasks.
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2.2 Studies on Production-Oriented Approach
2.2.1 The Framework of Production-Oriented Approach
The POA has developed into a systematic theory gradually over the past decade. The prototype of POA was output-oriented hypothesis, which was designed for the reforming of the English major curriculum (Wen, 2008: 3). Then it was expanded to college English teaching in 2013 (Wen, 2013: 15). The hypothesis was called output-driven hypothesis. Then it was revised into output-driven and input-enabled hypothesis at the beginning of 2014 (Wen, 2014b: 4). In the Seventh International Symposium on English Teaching in China in 2015, it was officially named as POA.
The POA includes three parts: 1) teaching principles; 2) teaching hypotheses; 3) teacher-mediated teaching procedures. The teaching principles include learning-centered, learning-using integration, and whole-person education. The teaching hypotheses include output-driven hypotheses, input-enabled hypotheses, and selective learning hypotheses. Teaching procedures have three stages, motivating, enabling and assessing. All of those stages meditated by the teacher.
The figure (see Page 7) shows the three parts of POA theory and their relationships. Among them, teaching principles are the guiding ideology of the other two parts, teaching hypotheses are the theoretical support of the teaching procedures, and teaching procedures are the ways to realize the teaching principles and teaching hypotheses. At the same time, teachers play a mediate role in the whole teaching procedures.
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Chapter Three Methodology ......................... 18
3.1 Subjects ...................... 18
3.2 Instruments ......................18
Chapter Four Results and Discussion ..................... 24
4.1 Results of the Pre-test ........................ 24
4.2 Results of the Post-test .................... 25
Chapter Five Conclusion ...................... 37
5.1 Major Findings ...................... 37
5.2 Limitations and Suggestions ................ 38
Chapter Four Results and Discussion
4.1 Results of the Pre-test
To make clear whether there is a significant difference or not between two classes in terms of their English proficiency before the experiment, an independent sample test is performed before the experiment. The pretest score results of EC and CC are presented as follows:
The independent sample t-tests results are shown in Table 4-1, from which it can be observed that the mean scores of EC and CC are 9.714 and 9.733 respectively. The results say that the spoken English proficiency of these participants from two classes is at an approximate level. At the same time, the standard deviation of EC and CC are 1.272 and 1.339, which means that the distribution of scores is at a similar range for the two groups. To see whether these two mean scores are statistically significant or not, an independent sample t-test is run (see Table 4-2 next page).
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Chapter Five Conclusion
5.1 Major Findings
The study was carried out in an English listening and speaking classroom in Zhengzhou University. The SPSS was adopted in order to analyze the collected data by means of tests and questionnaire. The primary objective of this study is to investigate the effects of POA on students’ oral production; it is, in particular, to examine how their oral ability has changed in terms of fluency, accuracy and appropriacy. The secondary aim of the study is to examine the attitudes towards POA after a semester’s implementation of POA. It is hoped that the study can provide some proofs and information for future research.
In general, the tests results indicate that POA has a positive effect on students’ oral production. A major finding of this study is that students’ oral production in fluency and accuracy has been improved through the implementation of POA, but there is no significant difference between pre-test and post-test in terms of appropriacy. Besides, the questionnaire results show that students show positive attitudes POA.
As for the first research question, the results show that POA has positive effects on students’ oral production in terms of fluency and accuracy. Firstly, when it comes to the fluency, it is an important criterion in assessing speaking proficiency. The paired sample test for fluency shows that the Mean score for pretest is 3.250 and the mean score for post-test is 3.858. The difference between pre-test and post-test in fluency is considered to be statistically significant. T-test for equality of means of shows p<0.05 (p=0.002), which means that there is a significant difference between the pre-test and post-test in terms of fluency.
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