A Study On The Development Of Oral Output Complexity Of Elementary Japanese Learners Of Chinese Based On Production-Oriented Approach

This paper focuses on the development of the oral output complexity of Japanese learners of Chinese at the primary level of oral language teaching based on the Production-Oriented Approach,using the methods of corpus analysis and classroom observation.This study is based on four oral output assignments(two from the beginning to the middle of the semester and two from the middle to the end of the semester)of three Japanese learners in the International Class of 2020,in order to analyse their oral output in the output session in terms of the complexity of the linguistic form and the complexity of the segmental structure.By comparing the Japanese learners with another group of Indo-European native speakers in the same international class,the developmental characteristics of the complexity of the Japanese learners’ oral output at this level were further analysed.The result shows that after one semester of the Production-Oriented Approach teaching,the Japanese learners have made significant progress in terms of formal complexity and segmental complexity,particularly in terms of production of target vocabulary,articulation within segments and richness of segmental content.However,in terms of specific trends in the development of each dimension,there was a slight decline or slowdown in the complexity of the Japanese learners’ speaking ontput in the middle and late stages,a phenomenon that is related to the increased difficulty of the output topics and the increased specialisation of the content of the topics in the middle and late stages of the oral teaching.In addition,this study also compares the changes in the complexity of one of the learners’ oral output before and after the same output unit,as well as at the beginning and end of the semester.The results show that the Production-Oriented Approach does have a positive impact on the output of the junior Japanese learners in terms of the complexity of the language form and the complexity of the segment structure,but also shows some shortcomings in the middle and later stages of the teaching.In this paper,we suggest that the textbook writers should adjust the difficulty level of the output topics in accordance with the results of teaching practice and research,and that front-line teachers should think about how to guide students to focus on the content they need to learn and master,so as to maximise the benefits of Production-Oriented Approach in improving learners’ oral ability.