A Study On Input Modes Of College Students In English Learning

Input, as one of the basic concepts and the most significant elements in SLA, has been paid close attention and researched deeply and broadly both at home and abroad. Since the birth of Input Theory, a large number of experimental studies have been carried out and given support to the claim that input helps language acquisition. Krashen’s Input Hypothesis has exerted a great influence on the nature of pedagogic provision, and has also been applied to English teaching and learning context in China. Confronted with the biggest problems in China’s English teaching and learning -- the time and energy Chinese students invested into English study is out of proportion to the progress they made--many related researches have been done in this field. However, most researchers mainly conducted studies on the effect of input hypothesis on a certain aspect of English teaching, leaving learners’ general opinions about input modes untouched, so there still exist room for research. Therefore, the paper aims at investigating general opinions of college students in different levels about input modes and the situation of college students’ language input so as to put forward countermeasures in teaching.Guided by Krashen’s input hypothesis and Gass’s classification of input, the study surveyed popularity of different input modes among college students and situation of their language input. The study randomly selected from a certain university 100 freshmen with different majors as the subjects. Then, the students were further divided into higher-level group and lower-level group respectively according to the results of the placement test. Instruments included a placement test, a questionnaire and random interviews. The design of the questionnaire aims to investigate from four aspects:(1) Learners’ overall opinion on after-class input modes; (2) Learners’overall opinion on in-class input modes; (3) Learners’ overall opinion on positive evidence; (4) Learners’overall opinion on comprehensible input. As a supplement, random interviews were employed to further investigate and understand the cause of different opinions. Data collected from the questionnaire were processed using SPSS 19.0. Cronbach’s alpha for questionnaire was computed to examine the internal consistency of the items. Descriptive statistics, independent samples T-test and correlation analyses were conducted.The study of this paper suggests:1) most students are quite passive in English study, relying heavily on the textbook and ignoring various after-class input modes; 2) the most popular and unpopular one are movies and novels respectively, and comprehensibility, interestingness of input and affective filters contribute a lot here; 3) higher-level group shows a strong recognition of in-class input modes than lower-level group; 4) both groups recognized the fact that positive evidence can facilitate their English learning.Based on the above findings, teachers should arouse the subjective initiatives of the college students and create abundant opportunities for students to be exposed to comprehensible input in order to meet the prerequisite to language learning. Graded teaching should be further enhanced and different teaching methods should be adopted in accordance with students’ different aptitude to achieve best teaching results. In class, teachers should try to create a relaxing, friendly and harmonious atmosphere in order to arouse students’ enthusiasm of learning, strengthen their confidence and reduce their anxiety, thus ensuring the effective language acquisition. For the choice of textbooks, the principle of comprehensibility should be followed first. Apart from that, content, interestingness and relevance of the textbook should also be taken into consideration.