A Study And Practice Of Spoken English Teaching For Non-English Majors

Currently, there appears the phenomenon that many institutions of higher learning - are blindly going after the passing rates of Band 4 and Band 6 College English Tests, thus resulting in the outcome that most non-English majors with ten years or more of English education fail to speak and comprehend spoken English. Although they can skillfully deal with a variety of written test papers, many can hardly speak in English apart from uttering several extremely simple sentences, let alone conduct a conversation; moreover, some graduates serving in joint-venture units have to be trained in English one or two years again before they are competent for their jobs. From the angles of physiology and psychology, the author has conducted an analysis of and a research on spoken English, on the basis of which a spoken English teaching practice has been performed. The paper aims at how one can adopt effective teaching techniques to improve students?verbal communicative competence in limited time. The paper consists mainly of three chapters. In Chapter One the psychological features of spoken language are analyzed and studied from the comprehension and production of speech. The process of the comprehension of speech includes: the perception of speech sound, the perception and the comprehension of words in speech, the perception of the overall structure of a sentence and the perception of the overall speech; the process of the production of speech includes the formulation and the execution of speech plans; Chapter Two analyzes some characteristics influencing the development of a foreign language, such as age, aptitude, cognitive styles, attitude and motivation, and personality; and in Chapter Three a spoken English teaching practice directed by the functional-notional approach as well as its result is expounded. In the practice, I (the author) tried various methods to stimulate the students to develop their English speaking ability, which were found both useful and effective. These methods include: (1) Stimulating students'motivation; (2) Stimulating the interest of students in class; (3) Beginning from pronunciation and intonation; (4) Instilling background knowledge into students'mind; (5) Class should be learner-centered rather than teacher- centered. A year later, the intended purpose was achieved on the whole. This practice is a beneficial attempt to train students?verbal communicative competence, which is a good beginning and has laid a foundation for the author's further explorations in FLT.