An Empirical Study Of Using Extracurricular Activities For Extending College English Teaching

With the development of the quality-oriented education, College English teaching has improved a lot, and one of the indications is that the extracurricular activity has received increasing attention from English teachers and researchers who have published many papers in this field. However, the researches have not been sufficiently developed. Firstly, most researches simply illustrate the extracurricular activity forms or specific activities without providing the theoretical foundation. Secondly, empirical study is far from enough, and there is no complete pedagogical syllabus as a reference for English teachers when they endeavor to organize activities. Thirdly, many researchers have not devoted enough time to deep and thorough research. And lastly, there are few researches on the relationship between classroom teaching and the extracurricular activity. Therefore, it is hard for English teachers to design and organize suitable extracurricular activities in teaching practice.In this thesis, the author first reviews the previous studies on the extracurricular activity, finds out their limitations, and naturally presents her research purpose. Then, she seeks its theoretical basis from SLA approaches and ELT methodology. According to Krashen's'Affective Filter hypothesis', students may raise their affective filter in the serious and formal teaching environment, whereas the extracurricular activity is beneficial to lowering the filter and boosting students'self-confidence. Motivation, another important affective factor in English learning, is also greatly developed in the extracurricular activity. Students can be highly stimulated and motivated in attending different kinds of extracurricular activities. In addition, task-based approach, one of the CLT methodologies, is also the basic theoretical support for the activities. Students'participation in each extracurricular activity is just compatible with the task-based principle that learners may learn when accomplishing a task. It is also essential that when they learn English, students should be immersed in the favorable linguistic environment which can be built up in organizing extracurricular activities and involving students and teachers in them.Then, the author summarizes the basic characteristics of extracurricular activities. Various and abundant learning activities can complement classroom teaching and enable the students to enjoy the learning process. Besides, they provide positive affective variables in learning, i.e. lowering language anxiety and enhancing motivation, and they also produce situational learning which brings real communicative chances to students.Lastly, in order to prove the hypothesis that the extracurricular activity can...