Proficiency,Gender,and Task-Type:How They Affect Chinese EFL Learners Oral Pair Work

Language is an abstract system used for human communication. In Chinese EFL teaching, speaking increasingly gains its priority among the teachers and students. The communicative approach, which is based on the idea that language is used for communication, aims at developing students' communicative competence. Communicative language teaching needs various activities in the form of group work, of which oral pair work is an effective one.The purpose of this current investigation is to gain insight into the influence of the three elements-IL proficiency, gender and task types in oral pair work. Communicative strategy is viewed as a prominent communicative device for students to make up for language deficiencies in oral communication. In view of its function, the interaction between communicative strategy and the other three elements mentioned above in oral pair work is also investigated in the current study.Through quantitative-oriented study and qualitative-oriented study, the examiner gets the following major findings:(1) Generally speaking, interlocutor's language proficiency really affects students' performance during oral pair work, though it may not cause significant difference to every kind of subjects. Low level partners will be more beneficial when they interact with high level ones.(2) The results of quantitative-study and qualitative-study show that in the use of some certain communicative strategies there really exists significant difference caused by the students' language proficiency. For example, high level students and low level ones have significant difference in their use of reference questions while males and females perform differently in their use of appeal for help while facing HM. To summarize, compared with gender, language proficiency of the interlocutor will have more influence on their use of communication strategies.(3) Females have better performance in two-way task while males do better in one-way task. What really affects their test performance is the students' affective schemata.Based on the data from the quantitative-oriented study and detailed analysis of the two-way task(picture descriptions) via qualitative study, the results of this investigation will be instructive in improving Chinese EFL students' performance in oral interaction and enhance their communicative ability in actual practice. What's more, it also renders to English teachers some instructional suggestions in their future teaching practice. However, in view of the limitations of this study and the complex nature of language teaching, further research on how the three elements (language proficiency, gender and task type) influence the accommodation in oral pair work is invited.