Implications Of CET-SET4 Upon Oral English Teaching

The importance of oral English can be seen in many aspects. Oral English, used to express feelings and also serving as an important instrument of social communication, is an important component of English language, because one of the purposes of learning a language is to communicate with others. Generally speaking, one must speak first in starting the communicative process. From this, we can see that oral language is of great importance during the communicative process. Moreover, it also plays an important role in developing listening, reading, writing and translating abilities in English study, for these abilities are closely interrelated with one another. For example, if a person can speak fluent English with correct pronunciation and intonation and knows how to express himself/herself in proper ways, it would be much easier for him/her to understand others than a person who speaks with many pronunciation mistakes. Further, if one is good at expressing his/her ideas, there are more chances to communicate with others, and learn from others through communication, during which one may learn more about idioms, new words, obtain more information and knowledge about culture or other things. All these are very helpful to developing reading, writing and translating abilities. So it is no exaggeration to say that oral English performs outstanding functions in English learning.According to relevant materials and books available, there are several methods and approaches for spoken English instruction, such as the Grammar Translation Approach, Audio-lingual Method, the Communicative Language Teaching, the Natural Approach and Task-Based Language Teaching, which were once prevalent at their own times. However, they more or less have their inappropriateness or inadequacy under the present language teaching circumstances. By synthesizing the strong points of various methods and approaches for spoken English instruction, the author advocates some suggestions and principles for oral English teaching based on the analysis of the washback effect of CET-SET4.Both testing and teaching are so closely interrelated that it is virtually impossible to work in either field without being constantly concerned with others. Tests may be constructed primarily as devices to reinforce learning and to motivate the student or primarily as a means of assessing the students'performance in the language. Language testing, as a means of evaluation and selection, is an important part in educational system. Generally speaking, a language test comes at the end of teaching and learning process, so it can provide necessary feedback information to the effectiveness of the materials, syllabus and teaching method, as well as to the strengths and weakness of the learners'performance. It has long been agreed that language testing, like the testing of other subjects, can exert impact or power on the parties involved, or the so-called test stakeholders, such as students, teachers, parents and administrators. One of the most obvious or direct influences of this impact is called the washback effect by applied linguists, which refers to the influence of testing on teaching and learning of corresponding subjects. Though the study of washback is a comparatively new field, a large number of theoretical and empirical studies have been conducted, and the findings indicate that washback phenomenon is much more complicated than it was assumed.This paper aims to identify the candidates'problems when they are taking the test and make an investigation of current oral English teaching and learning and then explore the new oral English teaching methods. This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One provides the research background by giving a comprehensive account of the previous studies on language teaching and an introduction to the positive washback of the testing. Chapter Two gives a comprehensive description of CET-SET4, so that we can take good advantage of the positive washback of CET-SET4. Chapter Three introduces the research methods, data collection and analysis procedures applied in the study. Chapter Four conducts a detailed analysis of the results. Chapter Five discusses the findings in the investigation and seeks for the implications of the study by putting forward the principles and suggestions for college oral English teaching.