A Study On College Students’ Spoken English Ability From The Context Perspective

The main purpose of the thesis is to study the college students’ spoken Englishability from the Context perspective. Being a basic theory of Halliday’s systemicfunctional linguistics, the Context Theory shows an increasingly important role intheoretically guiding the continuous reforms in foreign language teaching. This thesisinvestigates the college students’ spoken English level, clarifies the existing problemsin college students’ spoken English through analysis from the perspective of theContext Theory, and recommends the methods for improvement.Chinese college students’ spoken English ability is insufficient to some extent. Toexplain the reason for this status and to find the methods for improvement, this thesisperformed the following study. First of all, the thesis reviews the development andchanges of the Context Theory and thereby expounds the important role of ContextTheory in foreign language acquisition, and confirms the research status bothdomestically and internationally as well as the fundamental research idea andmethodology. Then, the thesis combines the Context Theory with practice on the basisof the perspective of the Context Theory, conducts questionnaires, unit tests,interviews and tape recording to study the existing problems in junior collegestudents’ spoken English learning, and explain in depth the reasons for insufficientspoken English. The results show that the primary reasons for insufficient spokenEnglish are the following:1. non-context learning leads to the lack of confidence andmotivation of college students in spoken English;2. lack of context guidance;3. lackof context practice. Finally, the thesis recommends the solutions from the perspectiveof the Context Theory, namely, to improve the practical context guidance as well asthe application and design of multi-media content in spoken English teaching.Multi-media technology applied to spoken English practice, whether music-listeningor movie-watching, will help spoken English learning and teaching and improve thespoken English skills. The findings of the thesis are of significance for spoken Englishimprovement of college students through pedagogical approach reform.