A Study Of L2Oral Accuracy And Complexity Development Of English Majors

Oral proficiency of language learners in China is far from satisfactory. Thus,many researchers have become interested in the development of oral fluency andconducted a lot of studies in this field. However, researchers pay less attention toaccuracy and complexity of students’ oral English. Furthermore, except for exploringthe factors influencing oral accuracy and complexity and the methods of improvement,little attention has been paid to the development of oral accuracy and complexity.In order to fill the gap, the present study aims to investigate the developmentaltrend of English majors’ second language oral accuracy and complexity with thequantitative analysis combined with the qualitative analysis for an overall picture,trying to provide some suggestions for improving oral accuracy and complexity and toexplore the development trajectory of bilingual speech production.The subjects are nine English majors in a university in Jiangxi Province,participating on their own willingness, and the research lasts about two years. Threetests were administered to obtain the sample of their oral English during their first twoyears of university study. The tests were transcribed and analyzed in the aspects ofaccuracy and complexity.Oral accuracy is measured by the ratio of error-free T-units and the percentage oferror-free clauses. Syntactic complexity is measured by mean length of C-units afterpruning and subordinate clauses per T-unit. Lexical complexity is measured by thetype-token ratio (type2/token), which is calculated with the help of the software ofRange32. Transcription and calculation work is completed by several postgraduatesto make sure the reliability of the data. Finally, SPSS17.0is utilized for the results ofquantitative analysis.A qualitative analysis with the specific samples is adopted as a supplementaryof the quantitative analysis for an overall picture of the development of Englishmajors’ oral accuracy and complexity.The major findings are as follows:(1) The results of oral accuracy show that English majors have made greatprogress in oral accuracy during about two years’ learning with changes in the main errors types, and the second year is the primary period for oralaccuracy growth. The main reasons are the function of monitoring and thefocus of teachers and students upon the accuracy.(2) The results of complexity are unsatisfying, despite the fact that specificsamples show the gradual improvement in the complex structure of C-unitand diversified subordinate clauses. The limited attention, time pressure ofonline processing, and the overemphasizing of accuracy lead to the generallyslow development of oral complexity.(3) The results of the qualitative analysis in the macroscopic aspect show thatthere are improvements in stating their viewpoints clearly at the beginning,voluntarily using reasons and facts to support ideas, and adopting the refutalof the opposite views.The present study has some pedagogic suggestions concerning oral language,including in-class activities on the basis of developmental trend of English majors, thebalanced development of oral accuracy and complexity, intentional after-classexercises, expanding vocabulary and having a correct view of the languageassessment.