A Study On Chinese Non-English Majors' Beliefs And Use Of Speaking Strategies And Their Oral English Proficiency

Based on the previous theories and findings on learning strategies, this thesis attempts to study the relationship of the specific speaking strategies and oral proficiency, and the influence from the factor of beliefs in the speaking strategies. More of other factors and problems concerning this issue are further explored, in response to the urgent demands from the Chinese EFL learners on promoting their oral English competence.The questions presented in this thesis are targeted at our Chinese EFL oral English classrooms, covering such issues as the correlation between the use of speaking strategies and students'oral proficiency, differences in the use of speaking strategies among groups of different levels, and the influence from beliefs and other factors.This study was conducted by means of questionnaires and interviews among 63 non-English major undergraduates. The result yielded from the statistical study of the questionnaire shows no significant correlation and no significant differences among students of different levels, except some slight differences while comparing the means of the strategy use frequency. On the other hand, the beliefs in the speaking strategies are very high, which indicates a strong effect on the use of the strategies. Combined with students'responses to the open questions and the interviews, it is found that many other factors are also responsible for the English speaking proficiency, such as personalities, learning styles, language background, etc. Students choose the speaking strategies out of their different needs, and high level students tend to use them more flexibly. So no hasty conclusions should be drawn on the findings of insignificant correlations.The thesis analyzes these findings respectively and comes up with some pedagogical implications for the future SBI (strategies-based instruction) and oral English classroom teaching. Some particular problems identified from this study are discussed, such as the lack of language environment, inability to think in English, interference from the mode of thinking in mother-tongue, insufficient vocabulary, inadequate confidence, etc.Since the sample size is rather small, and an ideally empirical study is not involved, further researches based on more reliable data and more convincing evidence are needed, to reach a better understanding in this field.