A Study On The Feasibility Of Communicative Approach In The Teaching Of Listening And Speaking In Independent Colleges

Since the students in independent colleges have lower grades in the Entrance Examination, most of them have difficulty in learning English, including speaking and listening comprehension. Hence it is important to heighten the abilities of speaking and listening, especially for English majors. But the traditional methods can not fully motivate the students, so there is a necessity for the change in teaching strategies and patterns. The best solution is to apply the communicative approach, which puts emphasis on"using language to learn"and"learning to use language", instead of simply"learning language"or"learning about language". Thus, the students are acquiring knowledge and enhancing competence through class activities in certain communicative situations.To work out the feasibility of applying the communicative approach to English majors in independent colleges, the author designed an experiment, which was carried out on fifty-two students from two classes of an independent college in Changchun. All of the participants were freshman majoring in English. The experiment lasted for one term. Then, examinations and questionnaires can contribute to analyze whether the students like the communicative activities and what difficulties the approach will encounter when it is applied. Thus, the author draws the conclusion that it is feasible to improve the listening and speaking ability of English major students in the independent college by way of applying communicative approach. However, this research has the limitations of objects, time and the teacher, so it is strongly recommended that more research should be done in the field of education for English majors in independent colleges.