The College Oral English Course: Guidelines, Design And Implementation

As economy and trade turn the world into a global village, the international communication between different countries has become increasingly frequent. English as an international language plays an increasingly important role, with greater emphasis on the speaking skills in cross-cultural communication. College English teaching has undergone fundamental changes in the past two decades--- a radical transfer from"an ugly duckling"to"a beautiful swan"; however, with the burgeoning demand for oral English proficiency, college English teaching for the non-English majors leaves much to be desired. One possible framework in course design is to run a totally new course shifting its focus from the conventional teaching of grammar and reading to oral skills, a manifestation of the learner's overall language proficiency. Running a college oral English course can be a viable trial to achieve that end.The chief objective of this thesis is to explore some issues concerning the design, implementation and evaluation of college oral English course, which is mainly constructed on the integrated utilization of the Grammar-Translation Method, Communicative Approach, and Constructivism. The emphasis of the oral English course is to optimize students'oral production and enhance their comprehensive skills. The thesis is intended to cover six parts including introduction and conclusion: introduction delineates what intrigues the researchers to carry on this study, including the significance and present situation of the study. Chapter one sets the guidelines for designing the oral English design. Review of the Grammar-Translation Method, Communicative Approach and Constructivism necessarily provides a theoretical foundation for the oral course design. After the preliminary exploration into the previous theoretical framework, the next chapter, the author's controlling point, is tentatively directed towards the construction of the integrated model of the college oral English course from needs analysis, goals and objectives, teaching materials, test and evaluation. As an integral part of the study, such factors as learners, teachers and environment, will be delved into this chapter to guarantee that the model is carrying out within the feasible framework. Chapter three deals with the implementation of the new model in which research questions, subjects and method are addressed; step-by-step procedures of lesson plan are described, which constitutes primarily the"three activities", namely, pre-class preparatory activities, while-class intensive-input activities and after-class output-intensive activities. Chapter four discusses the feasibility of the oral English course a new model if taken under the present teaching environment, its contribution to the present college English teaching and some bottlenecks to be overcome if it is executed. The conclusion summarizes the major findings of the study, the limitations or the undesirable existence which impedes the model under the present circumstances, a focal point of future research endeavor.In the course of the study, the author conducts a three-month real-life teaching experiment utilizing this model with a view to achieving first-hand data either for the study of its effect on teaching and learning or the potential restrictions imposed by the present teaching environment. The researcher collected data chiefly through questionnaires, interview and class observation as a presently viable means to explore whether the using materials would enhance students'comprehensive skills and how the model could activate both teaching and learning from a new perspective. Come what may, a new model is a serious trial, undertaking to facilitate students'second language acquisition, motivate them to maximize their learning efficiency and boost their communicative competence. The results showed that the integrated model of college oral English course has a positive instructional effect on the students'English learning.