Application Of Self-efficacy Theories To The Oral English Teaching In Middle Schools

Self-efficacy beliefs are defined as "people's judgements of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performances"(Bandura, 1986).In the language-teaching field, especially in the teaching of oral English , such a factor has been long neglected . Eighty-eight students of Chengdong Middle School were investigated in this study. English Learning Self-efficacy Questionnaire and Language Classroom Anxiety Scale were administered as measures of students' self-efficacy and anxiety. Through the analysis of the data collected, it is found that most of the students have quite low self-efficacy in English learning. In particular , they have the lowest self-efficacy in terms of speaking. It is also found that there is a negative correlation between their self- efficacy and their language learning anxiety, which means high self-efficacy students have low anxiety in learning English . This study confirms that the key to improve students' oral proficiency is to enhance students' self-efficacy. On the basis of the statistical analyses performed, the research elaborate the strategies of enhancing students' self-efficacy and proposes some countermeasures by adopting a humanistic approach so that the students can confidently take an active part in the oral class in order to improve oral English proficiency.