The Output-Driven Hypothesis And The Cultivation Of Vocational College Students’ English Listening Ability:An Experimental Study

Wen Qiufang (2008) put forward the Output-driven hypothesis based on the output hypothesis (Swain,1985). She classified the main patterns of the communicative activities, made further understanding of the positive effect of the output to the development of language, and raised the requirements for clausal teaching for English majors and the suggestions of adopting the integrated skills teaching approach.The author employs the quasi-experimental study and the qualitative methodology to put forward the hypothesis that the output-driven hypothesis takes effect on those students in vocational colleges, who have lower English level and are facing the similar severe employment problems, and tries to answer the following two questions.1) Does the Output-driven Hypothesis work in vocational college listening courses?2) If it works, in which aspects can Output-driven Hypothesis be effective in the vocational college English listening courses?The subjects involved in this experiment are the non-English major freshmen in Chengdu Vocational College, who major in Finance and Security, and Accounting. The author carries out the experiment which is measured by two questionnaires, two tests in the first college year.Before experiment, the author compares the experimental group and control group and ensure there is no significant difference between them in English level, listening strategies and attitude with the help of questionnaire and pretest. In the course of the experiment, the author leads in the Output-driven hypothesis to the students in experimental group and intentionally gives them more practice of discussing analyzing, presupposing, dialogue-making, performing, retelling and interpreting, while the author uses traditional teaching methods to the students in control group. After the experiment, the data has been keyed into computer and analyzed by the SPSS. The mean scores, standard deviation, a test for independent samples, descriptive analyses and correlation analysis were made and the results were discussed.The experiment of the study shows that output-driven hypothesis can also be put into practice in vocational college listening course, and it is effective in the reform of the listening course in vocational colleges. Teachers should change their teaching philosophy, improve their teaching ability, and cultivate students’integrated ability in the English course to meet the need of the cultivation of integrated and applicable students.