A Case Study Of Oral English Learning Strategies Employed By A Winner Of "CCTV" Cup English Speaking Contest

This study was undertaken to find out what strategies a winner of the"CCTV"Cup English Speaking Contest employed to improve oral English in daily life and what strategies she employed to prepare for the different items of the contest.The subject in this study was X, a junior majoring in English in Yangzhou University, who had won the championship in the"CCTV"Cup English Speaking Contest (Jiangsu area). The instrument of the study was the researcher who did everything possible to be qualified for the interviews. Data collection involved 4 interviews covering the 4 aspects of how to improve accuracy, how to improve fluency, how to improve complexity and how to prepare for the contest. With X's permission, the four interviews were recorded. The interviews were held in Chinese in a daily conversational style to make the subject express ideas freely. Data analysis involved transcription, translation, coding, categorization, and summarization to see what different types of strategies X employed. The major findings are as follows:First, X employed the imitation strategy for pronunciation accuracy and the note-taking strategy plus the recitation strategy for diction accuracy in her daily life to improve her oral English accuracy. This indicates that these three strategies are effective in improving accuracy. Among the three, imitation strategy and note-taking strategy are the newly found strategies that contribute to learners'oral English accuracy, while the recitation strategy is in line with Oxford's category of memory strategies.Second, X employed the active-exposure-to-native-speakers strategy, the integrative-use-of-organs strategy, and the reading-aloud strategy to improve her oral English fluency. Among the above three, active-exposure-to-native-speakers strategy was the most effective in improving oral English fluency. The integrative-use-of-organs strategy also contributes to the oral fluency improvement. What is more, it is revealed that the traditional way of reading books aloud is not out of date and still has it place in promoting learners'oral fluency. Third, X employed the talents-pooling strategy and the rehearsal strategy for the prepared speech; the question prediction strategy for the"Q. & A."; and the retelling strategy plus the topic-sharing strategy for the impromptu speech to prepare for the speaking contest.This study provides some implications. First, students should pay attention not only to their pronunciation accuracy but also to diction accuracy in their oral English because good pronunciation can make a good impression on the listeners while diction accuracy can reinforce the good impression. Second, students should make full use of the available opportunities and if possible, create opportunities to practice their oral English. Third, to achieve success in the English speaking contest, students should use specific strategies for the specific items of the contest.This study has two limitations. One is the failure to summarize the strategies for complexity improvement due to the researcher's lack of experience in qualitative research; second, there still exists something overlapping among the categories of different strategies, that is too say, the boundary that separates one type of strategies from another may not be very clear.