Effects Of Imitation-Retelling VOA Strategy On Oral English Teaching From The Perspective Of Input-Output Theories

This study, based on the analysis of the phenomenon of mute English in China, has found that oral English teaching class lacks of creativity, diversity, and interaction. Most of the English learners cannot meet the requirements of English teaching syllabus, and they are not able to express themselves clearly. Speaking English is a kind of knowledge output, therefore, to enhance the output needs to refine the input. Input and output are interdependent, which cannot be separately treated, especially in English teaching field. Based on some surveys and one pilot experiment, the author creates the strategy of imitation-retelling Voice of America news materials (IR-VOA), a combination of input and output.Imitation and retelling strategies have stable theoretical foundation:Krashen’s Input Hypothesis and Swain’s Output Hypothesis. To some degree, imitation is a kind of input; after imitation, it is necessary to output the imitation content by retelling. Imitation can quickly improve pronunciation and intonation as well as the language sense; also, imitation can help cultivate native-like English thinking patterns. Retelling, as a way of output, is operable and feasible in China, which lacks English speaking environment. At the same time, retelling can help reduce the anxiety of speaking English. Through lots of imitation and retelling practice, learners will strongly feel that they are progressing, which can enhance their confidence of oral English speaking. Through the experiment, it was found that imitation and retelling can brisk the class atmosphere and increase the interactions. Additionally, the anxiety and pressure of speaking English can also be reduced. Because of all these advantages, IR-VOA strategy can be adopted in oral English teaching.This paper plans to study the effects of IR-VOA strategy based on experimental research. The major instruments include questionnaires and pre and post tests for data collection, as well as the statistics analysis software SPSS for data analysis. In light of the experiment data, it is found that IR-VOA strategy produce some positive effects in oral English teaching:arousing the interest of oral English speaking; improving the pronunciation and intonation as well as language sense; reducing chinglish; enhancing confidence of speaking English; improving the fluency and accuracy; lessening the anxiety and pressure of speaking English, etc. Also, some other effects in vocabulary and grammar were found from the experiment. All in all, IR-VOA strategy can have positive effects in oral English teaching.The innovation of this study is as follows:this study combines the teaching material and teaching methods together. However, most previous studies simply focus either on oral English teaching methods or simply on oral English teaching materials, almost no researches have combined the two parts together. Actually, combining imitation and retelling with the VOA news materials is a combination of input and output. Accordingly, based on all of these ideas, the author creates the strategy of imitation and retelling VOA news materials (IR-VOA).