Comparative Study Of Spoken English Learning Strategies Between Successful And Less Successful Learners Of Non-English Majors

Since the 1970s, the focus of foreign language teaching has gradually shifted from how to teach to how to learn, thus second language learning strategies have become the concern of many researchers and teachers. However, empirical studies on the relationship between learning strategies and oral proficiency have not been fully conducted in China. Since the end of the 20th century, how to teach English to non-English major students in higher educational institutions has, in China, remained a disputed issue. In the past, most teachers in the College English Department were comfortable with the traditional language teaching patterns, which focus on the explanation of language points, grammar and examination skills. Such teaching and learning patterns generally result in a lack of ability in use of English for communication, particularly oral communication. Meanwhile, outside the universities, the demand for graduates with better spoken English is increasing. Therefore more attention should be paid to improving students'speaking competence.The present study is an experiment by nature, which lasts one term from March 1, 2008 to June 30, 2008. Eighty one students from two classes are chosen as subjects. They are second-year college students majoring in Computer Science in Hebei Normal University of Science and Technology. Class 1 is the experimental group including 41students, while Class 2 is the control group with 40 students. The author is the instructor of both classes.In the process of the experiment, the author employed class observation, pre-oral test, questionnaire and interview to compare the differences in spoken language learning strategies between successful and less successful learners, and then provided an instruction to the unsuccessful students in the experimental group using these strategies often used by successful students. No instruction concerning these strategies is provided to students in the control group. Near the end of the experimental period, all the poor students in two classes were given an oral English test to make a comparison between their performance before and after the instruction, and to see which group improved more and better, and to decide whether or not the instruction on language strategies is effective. According to the data, the successful learners have employed more memory, metacognitive, affective strategies with a high frequency, while the poor students have employed few of them. After the whole instruction, the achievements of the poor students in the experimental group have been improved more quickly than those of the poor students in the control group. Also it is proved in the experiment that such instruction may successfully raise students'awareness of actively utilizing these strategies in their oral English learning process. The study result shows that such instruction might be a good way to effectively promote not only our spoken English teaching but also learners'autonomy.