Improve Spoken English Through Classroom Speaking Activities

With the increasing communication with the outside world, English for non-English majors is becoming more and more important. Recently, college English teaching reform is on everyone's lips, and the appeal for improving teaching method and learning environment has been advocated all the time. Anyhow, as for the non-English majors, under the pressure of the heavy study load and National Band 4 Test, it is not easy for them to improve their spoken English ability. To most people, mastering the art of speaking is the single most important aspect of learning a second or foreign language, and success is measured in terms of the ability to carry out a conversation in the language. From what stated above, it is acknowledged that the significance and difficulty of speaking for Chinese learners have posed a great challenge both for teachers as well as students themselves. Therefore, the paper aims to explore the necessity, efficiency, grouping as well as organization of classroom speaking activities to improve students' spoken English ability based on the relevant theories in the research of second language acquisition (SLA), such as Input Hypothesis, Output Hypothesis and Interactional Hypothesis. On the basis of results from two sets of questionnaires, the author attempts to shed some highlight on how to improve Chinese students' spoken English mainly through classroom speaking activities.