The Effect Of Metacognition-based English Teaching Model On Spoken English Ability Of Non-English Major College Students—an Action Research Approach

The increasing passing rate of CET-4and CET-6indicates that college students have made obvious progress in grammar, problem-solving and vocabulary. But at the same time, how to enhance their oral ability is still a difficult problem which they have to face with. Causes of the situation are varied, for instance, lacking of confidence in pronunciation and accent, insufficient motivation, being afraid of mistakes, etc. The most important reason lie in the oral English teaching area, however, the dated teaching idea and the changeless teaching model can seldom activate the students’enthusiasm. The problems which exist in an oral teaching class are:(1) Limited class hour made it’s impossible for each student to have the chance of practicing and get the evaluation from the teacher;(2) It is common to see a teacher-centered class. The rate of progress is dominated by the teacher while the students’autonomy construction of knowledge is always neglected. Few students can express things that are not in the textbook. Many teachers focus on the cultivation of oral ability by making them memorize the words and expressions in the book. The questions they ask are based on the book. Teaching model like this cannot embody the function of communication and socialization of oral language, let alone to develop the students’oral communication ability. Therefore, how to make a breakthrough, how to transfer a teacher-centered teaching model into a student-centered self-learning model are the main concerns of this research.The thesis adopts action research as the research method.108non-English major freshmen are involved in this meta-cognition-based oral teaching model which lasted for13weeks, aiming to activate the enthusiasm towards oral English learning, enhance the oral ability and improve the teaching effect. Research instruments include: tests, interviews and class observations. First, the author found out the weak points that exist in students’oral expression through observing their behaviors in class and brought forward the hypothesis. Second, by carrying out random interviews and pre-test, the author knew the specific shortcomings of the students’oral expression and the causes of them, the hypothesis was verified. After the data was collected and analyzed, all the three research questions were confirmed and the preliminary metacognition-based teaching model was formulated. Next step was to follow the model in the teaching process. At the mid-term, an interview was carried out to acquire the students’ opinions toward the teaching model. Improvements of the model were made after the interview. Finally, at the end of the action research, post-test and another interview were performed to collect data. Data of the two tests were compared and analyzed. The results indicated that meta-cognition-based teaching model can increase students’interest in learning oral English and change their learning attitude. As long as the student grasped the learning method, their passive learning attitude transferred into active one. Plus, the anxiety that they felt during speaking English is eased at different levels. From the tests’results, most of the students’ oral English ability is enhanced.