| Based on the College English Curriculum Requirements,"The objective of College English is to develop students’ability to use English in an all-round way, especially in listening and speaking."(Department of Higher Education,2007) However, the reality is that non-English majors’ oral competence in China is far from satisfaction. Especially in one of the usual oral activities of English classes—group discussion, some students do not know how to communicate with each other in an effective manner, lack of some knowledge of turn-taking strategies is an important factor besides the insufficiency of language knowledge. This research therefore aims to explore whether the training of turn-taking strategy in non-English majors’group discussion in CALL environments has positive effect on their oral performance or not. To verify this, a ten-week training of turn-claiming, turn-holding, and turn-yielding strategies on students’ in-class activities—discussions within groups of3-5students at a CALL-based English audio-video speaking class (EAVSC) was designed by the author and the training was conducted by the course teacher of the two classes.The research was put into practice based on the hypothesis that the training of turn-taking strategy in non-English majors’group discussion in CALL environments has positive effect on their oral performance. Through analyses of correlated data obtained from the teacher’s two English audio-video speaking classes, this research attempts to answer the following questions:1) After the ten-week turn-taking strategy training, are there any differences of the subjects’ English oral performance between the experimental group and control group?2) After the ten-week turn-taking strategy training, are there any differences of turn-taking strategies use between the subjects of the experimental group and those of the control group?3) Whether the turn-taking strategy training in experimental group has positive effect on their oral performance? If the answer is yes, which turn-taking strategy is the most effective one in improving subjects’English oral performance?This research was done in a computer assisted English audio-video speaking course (EAVSC) at the author’s university. Control group and experimental group have60non-English major sophomores altogether, they were from the same teacher’s two paralleled classes, and majored in Computer Science and Technology and Information Technology. The30 samples of this research were randomly selected15subjects from each group. The whole teaching process of this course was conducted in a digital language lab which installed the WELL-6000system and the English language skill training system. Students’ in-class activities performance, including pair work dialogue, group discussion (within3-5students), one minute personal statement could be recorded by the WELL-6000system. To measure the effects of the training, pre-and post tests along with follow-up questionnaires were carried out. Meanwhile, students’ feedbacks on the pre-and post-questionnaires were carried out on the English language skill training system and the correlated data were collected automatically by the system, which assures the data validity and reliability of this research.After the processing of the above data, including the scores of subjects in the two tests and the transcription and calculation of the turn-taking strategies used by the subjects, through the SPSS17.0, several conclusions are drawn as follows:The training of turn-taking strategy in non-English majors’ group discussion in CALL environments has positive effect on their oral performance.First, from the comparison of the control group and experimental group subjects’ oral performance, that is, the pre-and post-tests scores, it could conclude that subjects in the experimental group got larger achievements than the ones in the control group did.Second, from the comparison of the control group and experimental group subjects’ turn-taking strategy use; it could conclude that, compared with the control group, the application of the experimental group subjects’ turn-taking strategies increases greatly after ten-week’s training.Third, with regard to experimental group subjects’ turn-taking strategies use and oral performance in the post-test, it was found that there existed significant correlation in general, which means that the application of turn-holding and turn-yielding strategies was helpful in improving their oral performance.Fourth, the positive effect of the CALL-based teaching environment on subjects’ oral production was proved from their feedback on the post-questionnaire, since it assures the conduction of the in-class activities, provides more opportunities for students to practice in the target language as well as guarantees the reliability and validity of this research.The value of this research lies in the following three aspects:Firstly, different form the previous research which was done in the traditional teaching environment; this research was conducted in a CALL-based English audio-video speaking class, the advantage is that the whole teaching process was carried out in a digital language lab which installed the WELL-6000system and the English language skill training system. Under this teaching environment, the teacher can arrange group discussion randomly and students can talk to any group member. Besides, the above systems could record students’oral activities and generate data automatically which assures the effectiveness and scientificalness of the data collection.Secondly, different from the previous research which laid its emphasis on teacher and students’interaction in college English classes, that is, the turn-taking in classroom questioning between teacher and students; this research put its focus on the interaction among students, in other words, it aims to study the turn-taking strategy use among students in group discussion.Thirdly, different from the previous research which based on sole rating standard, this research combined the rating standard of Yang (1999:53-57) and Nunn’s (2000:172-175), since the form of the two tests in this research are a five-minute group discussion which existed some similarity with their testing. As for Yang, he makes the assessment criteria of CET Spoken English Test and group discussion is one of its major components; as for Nuun, he makes the first reliable attempt at evaluating the strategic competence—turn-taking and puts forward detailed standards.This research adopts the methodology of conversation analysis to explore if the training of turn-taking strategy in non-English majors’ group discussion in CALL environments has positive effect on their oral performance, since conversation analysis provides a useful approach for the researchers to analyze real language data, recordings of the spoken output of the interaction among learners themselves in classrooms. By doing the empirical research, several implications and limitations are drawn as follows:In the first place, the teacher should take turn-taking strategy training in group discussion as a feasible channel to develop students’ oral communicative language ability and integrate it into daily in-class activities. Yet, this training should not limit to the merely imparting of turn-taking strategy knowledge, more attention should be paid to authentic corpus-based demonstration and different topic-based practice.In the second place, due to limited time and energy, this research has some limitations, such as the sample is small, the time of the training is short, and the testing topic is fixed, and the analysis of the reason why some strategies fails to help improve students’ oral proficiency is not thorough, for instance, the turn-claiming strategy. It hopes to shed some light on teachers and researches who are interested in the field of college oral English teaching in China. |
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