The Design Of Speaking Course For Post-4 Students In DUT

Since China entered WTO in 2001, the demand of English talents with high listening and speaking proficiency has become higher and higher. According to "English Course Requirements for Non-English Majors" issued at the beginning of 2004, the teachmg aim of college English is to cultivate students' comprehensive and applied abilities of English, especially listening and speaking abilities, so that they are able to carry out oral and written communications effectively in English in their work and social encounters in the future. Many surveys also show that speaking is the skill a majority of students want to improve most. Although more and more attention has been drawn to this aspect, the teaching of speaking is not so successful that may surveys nowadays show that speaking is still the skill students have difficulty with and have no idea of how to improve.As the leading guide of teaching, curriculum should share some responsibility. In this study, the focus is directed to the design of speaking course for post-4 students in Dalian University of Technology. First, what is involved in course design is explored. A conclusion is reached that there are generally three aspects needs to be taken into account as for course design—language description, theories of learning and needs analysis. Accordingly, 173 students in 7 classes who have taken speaking course in the second semester of the 2004-2005 academic year are chosen to be investigated in these three aspects by means of quantitative and qualitative methods such as questionnaire, interview, class observation, etc. Data got from questionnaire are analyzed by means of SPSS 11.0 as for its reliability and validity. Then principal factor analysis and description analysis are carried out. Data got by means of qualitative methods are summarized into the analysis of questionnaire. Based on the analysis above a tentative speaking course for post-4 students which includes syllabus, material, methodology, evaluation is designed. The course is piloted and evaluated among two classes for about two months. It is hoped that this paper can provide some suggestion to the teaching of post-4 speaking in Dalian University of Technology and other universities.