| In China, with the growing demand for communicative competence in English and the gradual acceptance of communicative language teaching method, group work has become increasingly popular in English classes. Oral English teaching aims at promoting students' oral communicative competence. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether and how group work influences students' oral English learning and their attitudes towards the teaching method.The study was conducted in the spring semester in 2008 in Changzhou Textile and Garment Institute. A class of 50 students majoring Textile and Business participated in the Oral English course which was conducted mainly through group work. Data collection methods include a pre-course collection sheet on students' background information, classroom observations and a post-course questionnaire and a post-course interview. The result of data analysis indicates that 1) group work offered all members of the group more opportunities to use the target language to participate in the interactive activities that initiated negotiation of meaning. Students felt "pushed" to make their language comprehensible which promoted their notice(interest) in others' input; 2) students used the new words and expressions learned in the texts in communicating with their peers in group work which promoted their self-confidence in speaking English; 3) what is more important is that group work , to some extent, promoted student's communicative competence, particularly in quantity and quality of their language output and negotiation of meanings. The result also indicates that there are other factors, such as their personality differences, learning habits, and pre-course language proficiency, which also influence learners' oral English learning. Oral English is a practical course in advanced vocational colleges. Good teaching method requires data support. Hopefully, this research result encourages more teachers to explore new teaching practice for students' more effective learning.
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