A Discourse-Based Approach To College Spoken English

Nowadays, College spoken English teaching in China is facing great challenge .On one hand, new century sets new requirements on spoken English, which has beenexemplified in College English Curriculum Requirements 2004; on the other hand,College spoken English is confronted with problems like"Dumb English", whichcalls for immed iate resolution.In seeking for a resolution to the dilemma that College spoken English is nowcaught in, this thesis tries to take a completely new teaching approach with adiscourse-based perspective to College spoken English.Unlike the researches conducted previously, the discoursed-based approach(referred to as DBA therea fter) is not to add another level of discourse to the levels oftraditiona l spoken la nguage teaching of EFL, i.e., phonologica l, lexical andgramma tica l levels, but to teach English as a Foreign Language with a discourse -based perspective. First of all, the thesis proposes that a new approach shall be takento spoken English teaching based on its peculia rities in the world of discoursecomposed of spoken la nguage and written la nguage, namely, a discourse-basedapproach. Then the thesis presents a teaching framework of College spoken Englishbased on the four dimensions proposed by Michael McCarthy to describe spokenEnglish. After that the thesis suggests a paradigm of la nguage teaching processproposed by McCarthy, the 3Is model, in combination with the TBL model and thePPP model. In addition, the thesis also adapts Hallida y's view of a three-part divisionof emphasis on the learning of la nguage and holds that when applied in class, theframework should first be illustrated to students with appropriate linguistic data as toenhance la nguage awareness of spoken form of English before class activities areconducted within it. Among all the linguistic data, dramatized speech data fromEnglish TV drama serves best for a pedagogica l purpose.This thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter One introduces the background, significa nce and structure of the thesis.Chapter Two reviews variation of attitudes to spoken la nguage teaching in history and research on spoken English teaching at three levels of la nguage system.Chapter Three explores the discourse-based perspective on la nguage, provid ingtheoretica l foundation for DBA.Chapter Four elaborates the core of the thesis, the discourse-based approach toCollege spoken English teaching, composed of the pedagogica l framework and thepedagogica l model.Chapter Five summa rizes the thesis and indica tes its limitations, proposing somesuggestions for further study.This thesis aims to search for a brand-new approach to spoken English teachingwith a discoursed-based perspective on la nguage so as to provide an alternative wayfor College spoken English teaching in China.