An Empirical Research On Improving College Students' Oral English Achievements Through The "Method Of Putting The Ability To Ask Questions In Front"

This thesis seeks to argue for the great necessity and usefulness of the method of putting the ability to ask questions in front to improve college students'oral English achievements and the practical use of this method in EFL teaching. This thesis attempts to find a new way, through an empirical study, to solve the problems facing the teachers in English teaching. The author chooses this topic because at present more and more attention is paid to the training of the students'communicative competence, especially oral communicative competence. But currently, there appears the phenomenon that many college students fail to express themselves correctly and freely, although they can skillfully deal with a variety of written test papers. That is to say, they have low proficiency in oral communicative competence, and it can't meet the need of society. English teachers are puzzled by this question all the time.Therefore, this thesis intends to do some researches in this field. By means of questionnaire, classroom observation, and interview, it gives brief descriptions of the present language teaching and learning in college and analyzes the data in empirical study. It focuses on practical performance in carrying out the method of putting the ability to ask questions in front in college. This thesis aims to analyze the relationship between oral communicative competence and the ability to ask questions by drawing on the communicative theory and try to put forward a new oral competence teaching method in college English teaching. The method of putting the ability to ask question in front is one of representative techniques in teaching methodology of"3B"("big students","big classes"and"big teaching materials"). This method claims that in the process of improving students'oral communicative competence, teachers should develop students'ability to ask questions firstly.And this method is feasible in practice because it seizes the key of oral communicative competence, i.e. opening mouth. Cultivating the students'ability to ask questions not only can open their own mouths, but also it can open others'mouths. Finally the target of teaching and learning will be reached. In the middle school English teaching, this method has been proved that it was beneficial to develop students'oral communicative competence. In the works and essays of Professor Sun Changshun and Professor Li Dongmei, they have discussed in detail. In this thesis, the method of putting the ability to ask questions in front is applied in college English teaching and it intends to prove that this method can still improve college students'oral communicative competence. Results show that it is true enough. The innovation of this thesis is that the application range of this teaching method is expanded to a certain extent. It is of great significance to classroom English teaching. This thesis consists of six parts:In Chapter 1, a brief review is first made to introduce the social background and the current situation in college. The necessity of improving the college students'oral communicative competence is also made in this part.In Chapter 2, the author makes a systematic exposition about the theories correlated with this thesis. It presents the theoretical background of the construction——theories of"communicative competence"and theories of"classroom interaction". It introduces the background of the teaching method of putting the ability to ask questions in front. The relationships among"oral communicative competence","oral achievements"and"putting the ability to ask question in front"are also given.Chapter 3 presents an empirical study. By means of questionnaire, classroom observation and interview, the author gets many useful statistics. By analyzing the data of the experimental class and the controlled class, the conclusion can be reached that the method of putting the ability to ask questions in front is helpful to improve the college students'oral English achievements.In Chapter 4, according to the results of research, the author further discusses the reasons why the method of putting the ability to ask questions in front can improve students'oral communicative competence. First, the method of putting the ability to ask questions in front seizes the key of oral communicative competence. Second, macroscopically the method of putting the ability to ask questions in front is a process from the difficult to the easy; microcosmically this method also is a process from the easy to the difficult. Finally, this method can cultivate college students'ability to ask questions with measured strokes.In Chapter 5, seven suggestions for cultivating the college students'ability to ask questions are given. Among them, creating positive climate and implementing various communicative classroom activities can help college students a lot to develop their ability to ask questions.And in the last chapter, some conclusions are made and some limitations and some suggestions for the further research are put forth.The method of putting the ability to ask questions in front is more suitable to our foreign language teaching and more helpful to improve the college students'oral achievements (oral communicative competence). It is a new reform in college English teaching and has the theoretical and practical significance.