The Effects Of Memorization And Imitation Of Formulaic Chunks On L2 Oral Fluency Development

Fluency is an important component of speech proficiency, and it is commonly measured by temporal variables of speech such as speed, pauses, and length of runs of speech. Psycholinguistic findings have demonstrated that the use of formulaic sequences, strings, and frames of words with specialized functions, mentally stored and retrieved as single words, is key to fluency. While it seems that the pedagogy which involves noticing of formulaic sequences is of benefit to the teaching of oral fluency, other recent work points to a place for memorization as well. Findings from diverse fields such as psychology and psycholinguistics have provoked the rethinking of the pivotal role repetition plays in EFL learning. However, the current literature is short on discussion of the possibility of using memorization and imitation to teach formulaic chunks in oral English classroom.This research is an exploration of L2 oral fluency and how L2 oral fluency development may be facilitated through memorization and imitation of formulaic chunks in classroom settings. First, an overview of research on fluency in second language speech is presented, the key to fluency is discussed in light of psycholinguistic knowledge about mental processes underlying second language production while the importance of automatic retrieval of formulaic chunks being emphasized. Qusetions are raised as to whether memorization and imitation, which characterizes traditional Chinese learning approach, when used in the teaching of formulaic chunks, can facilitate L2 oral fluency development. Then an empirical study is carried out to test the effects of teaching formulaic chunks through memorization and imitation on L2 oral flunecy development in classroom settings.Two classes of first-year college learners from the Engineering& technical College of Chengdu University of Technology participated in this experiment, which lasted 15 weeks. The teaching methodology in the experiment group emphasized the memorization and imitation of formulaic chunks. Two oral tests were conducted before and after the experiment. Considering the great amount of work involved in such a detailed description of measuring oral fluency and limited time period, the author merely selected fifteen subjects in each group at random for the test. The subjects'oral presentations were recorded and transcribed for the further analysis of oral fluency. The author primarily measured oral fluency through three categories of fluency indices: temporal indices, linguistic indices and performance indices. The results show that after the experiment, the subjects in the experimental group could speak more fluently than those in the control group, indicating that the memorization and imitation of formulaic chunks can facilitate L2 oral fluency development.This research serves as a starting point for the pedagogical investigation of oral fluency which combines elements of automatization and formulaic competence. The author hopes that this research can provide some implications for oral English learning and teaching.