An Empirical Research On The Effect Of Pairwork On Students’ Performance In Computerized Oral Test

From2011on, students are required to take part in Computerized Oral Test, also called Computer-based English Listening and Speaking Test, which occupies10%of the total scores of English. Therefore, for the first time, listening and speaking has been put into a higher place than ever before. But in English teaching, compared to other language skills like reading and writing, listening and speaking is still being paid less attention to. Besides, some teachers pay much attention to students’ listening and speaking, but the teaching effect is not ideal. There are many reasons for the result. On the one hand, the level of students’ listening and speaking is closely related to the students’affective factors in English learning; on the other hand, the teaching method teachers adopt in teaching has a direct impact on students’ listening and speaking competence development.In daily life, listening and speaking are a unity. Understanding others and express our point of view is needed for the successful communication. Therefore, in English teaching, we must unite listening and speaking together. Previous researchers have done a lot of researches in this aspect. However, in the teaching practice in senior high schools, listening is often separated from speaking, and there are not so many researches on the combination of listening and speaking. Therefore, based on the previous researches and the actual situation of senior high school English teaching, the author chose this topic as the research subject, aiming at exploring a more effective teaching mode and improving the students’listening and speaking ability, so as to improve their English listening and speaking performance in Computerized Oral Test.The theory of cooperative learning is becoming more and more popular, for the significant benefits it brings to language learning. In the second language acquisition theory, Krashen’"i+1" input hypothesis and Swain’s comprehensible output theory give good theoretical support and practical guidance for English teaching and learning. Constructivism, like social constructivism and Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development, also contributes to successful English teaching and learning greatly.Inspired by these theories, the author took her own students as the research object, and organized the students from the experimental class to learn cooperatively by taking actively part in pairwork activities, aiming at reforming the traditional English classroom teaching of listening and speaking and improving their scores in Computerized Oral Test. The author focused on the effect of pairwork on students’ performance in Computerized Oral Test. Meanwhile, the author conducted twice questionnaire investigations, before and after the experiment respectively. By analyzing the data, the author also aimed to find out whether the pairwork affect students’affective factors in learning of English listening and speaking.Therefore, the research questions are:1) Can pairwork improve students’ performance in Computerized Oral Test?2) Can pairwork affect students’ affective factors in the learning of English listening and speaking?The participants in two classes are all from two parallel classes of Huizhou Hua Luogeng Middle School. One is selected as the control group and the other is the experimental group. The experiment lasted twelve weeks. Before the experiment, independent sample T-test of the scores of Computerized Oral Test in the first research test of Huizhou for2012was conducted. The result shows that there is no significant difference between two classes, showing that the two classes are suitable for the experiment. At the same time, the author conducted questionnaire investigations before and after the experiment, concerning students’affective factors in English listening and speaking, attitude, confidence and interest included.The results of the research are as follows:1) The results of independent sample T-test show that there is significant difference in the post-test between the two classes;2) The results of paired samples T-tests show that the two classes have much better performance in the post-test than that in the pre-test;3) The results of questionnaire investigations show that before the experiment, there is no significant difference in the students’ attitude, confidence and interest in English listening and speaking in the two classes. However, after the experiment, students’confidence and interest in the experimental class have been improved a lot.In a word, the results show that pairwork can significantly improve students’ performance in the Computerized Oral Test; at the same time, pairwork activities affect the students’ affective factors in learning, developing their confidence and interest.