An Acttion Reseaerch On Cultivating Listening And Speaking Competence Of Chinese Adult English Learners Within Continuing Education System

With the popularization of the concepts of“constructing a learning society”and‘lifelong education’, continuing education has received increasing attention from thegovernment. Although English teaching in the area of continuing education has madesome rapid progress in recent years, innovations in terms of teaching contents andmethods are far from adequate. From the perspective of teachers, classroom teachingis basically characterized as “teacher-centered”, ignoring learners’ agency and thecultivation of communicative skills; from the perspective of learners, adult studentsare particularly weak in listening and speaking and are eager to improve theircommunicative skills.Based on the current situation of English teaching in the field of continuingeducation, this study, which adopted the action research approach together withqualitative and quantitative research methods and lasted for4academic terms,attempted to explore the effective ways of cultivating learners’ listening and speakingcompetence, which were largely characterized by activities centering on “dictation”and “cooperative drama performance”. Meanwhile, in the research process, theresearcher also explored the role of strategy training and formative assessment on theeffect of teaching listening and speaking. Data were collected via tests, questionnaires,interviews, learners’ written reports, teaching journals and videos, and were analyzedusing descriptive statistical analysis, T-tests, correlation analysis, and markedinduction method. The findings show that, through four cycles of action research, notonly the participants’ overall listening and speaking competence saw a markedincrease in terms of dictation ability and speaking competence (with the mean ofdictation tests rising from5.25to11.03, and the mean of oral tests from79.83to86.80), their performance in grammar use, vocabulary capacity, spelling, team work,self-confidence, interest, motivation, attitudes, learning strategy and interpersonalcommunication skills were improved to varying degrees as well. On the basis of theresearch findings, the researcher reached the conclusion: dictation and cooperative drama-related activities tailored for learners are fairly effective teaching methods todevelop their listening and speaking competence, and meanwhile, it is of greatimportance for teachers to conduct strategy training and make good use of formativeassessment which are designed particularly for their learners.The findings of the research are of innovative and academic values in threeaspects:1) Participants: Participants are part-time adult English majors in continuingeducation who are barely seen in existing doctoral dissertations in the area of Englishlanguage and literature in China. This learning group is distinctively different fromfull-time college students in terms of learner characteristics. Therefore, how to deepenour understanding of them and summarize their language learning characteristics canhelp enlarge the width and depth of participants in the field of SLA research.2) Research content: The core content of this dissertation is how to creatively use“dictation” and “cooperative drama-related activities” together with strategy trainingand formative assessment to develop learners’ English listening and speaking skills.Compared with previous studies which mainly focus on theoretical discussion andsummaries of teaching experiences in the field of adult English teaching, the studycontent is significant.3) Research methodology: Based on the action research methodology, this study lastsfor four academic semesters (four cycles). In the domain of adult English teaching,the research method and time span are rare and comparatively pioneering.This dissertation consists of six chapters. Chapter One makes an overallintroduction to research background, purpose and significance. The author points outthe necessity of making profound, systematic pedagogical research into part-timeadult learners’ listening and speaking competence. Chapter Two provides a generalreview of relevant literature concerning the present study, which includes: thecharacteristics of adult language learners both abroad and in China, existing researchon teaching of listening and speaking, cooperative learning in language teaching,language learning strategy training, and formative and summative assessment. Basedon literature review, the author clarifies the theoretical foundation of this dissertation. Chapter Three is devoted to research design, including research environment andparticipants, preliminary studies, research questions, methodology, instruments andresearch process. Chapter Four is a detailed description of and discussion on theresearch process which is implemented from the aspects of listening and speaking in aparallel way. Concentrating on “dictation” and “cooperative drama-related activities”,four cycles of action research are conducted with detailed analysis, evaluations andreflections of each cycle. Chapter Five is the overall summary of and reflection on thewhole study. The author takes a bird’s eye view of the four cycles of action research interms of listening and speaking, affirms the positive role of “dictation” and“cooperative drama rehearsals” and generalizes the effective teaching strategies.Meanwhile, she also gives a detailed description of and discussion on how to conductstrategy training and take advantage of formative assessment, which plays importantsupportive parts in the whole study. The last chapter first generalizes the whole studyand draws the conclusion, then it moves on to discuss the pedagogical implications foradult English teaching, reflect on the limitations of this study and point out futureresearch directions in the end.