Research On Application Of Peer Instruction In College English Listening And Speaking Teaching

Peer Instruction(PI,in short)was put forward by Professor Eric Mazur of Harvard University.The fact that this teaching method becomes popular among European and American countries is not incidental.PI is based on the learning theory of Constructivism,the learning theory of mastery and socio-cultural theory,etc.PI puts emphasis on stimulating students' initiative thinking and active participation,pays attention to students' collaborative learning and the timely monitoring of the teaching process,which is different from the traditional teaching method.Considering PI can be operated easily and suitable for large lectures,applying it to college English listening and speaking teaching is suggested in this paper.Based on the study of PI's present developing status,and the practicability of applying it to English listening and speaking teaching,a teaching practice that lasts a term is carried out.The experiment shows that the "self-regulated-inquiry-collaboration" teaching mode in PI has changed the students' attitude towards English learning.The new teaching method not only arouses the students' interest in English listening and speaking,but also turns them into active participants from passive recipients.And most important of all,PI does have improved the students' listening and speaking competence,especially have apparent impacts on improving the students' speaking skills.Like all the other teaching methods,PI inevitably has its limitations.However,on the whole,PI can solve some problems that exist in the current college English listening and speaking teaching.It can guide the students to actively participate in the classroom activities,promote their self-directed learning,cooperative learning,and can combine listening and speaking successfully.Therefore,PI should be widely used in English teaching and be made excellent additions to the existing teaching methods of foreign languages in China.