Effect Of Input Modes On EFL Learners’ Oral Production

Among all the fundamental English abilities of Chinese students, speaking is the weakest one. Since speaking plays an essential role and have a practical value in this increasingly globalized world, it is important for researchers to explore the effective factors influencing learners’ English oral competence. However, when reviewing the literature of past three decades on oral part, it is easy to find that input, especially the quality of the input or whether it is comprehensible, take a leading role. Research is seldom conducted on input modes which are the forms that students’ receiving materials, especially the impacts of input modes to oral creative output. It is highly possible that studying input modes is meaningful for improving English pedagogy in the field of speaking.This thesis employs a micro-genetic method and sets for trying to answer two questions through empirical researches with video input and audio input as variables: 1) What is the influence of input modes on students’ oral output from the perspective of form, namely fluency, complexity and accuracy? 2) What is the influence of input modes on students’ oral output from the perspective of content, namely information richness?To answer the above questions, 20 subjects studying in a TOEFL training institute participate in the experiment. All the students who are at the same level of speaking proficiency are randomly divided into two groups to receive two different modes of input. A pretest and a posttest are held to investigate the differences occurred to subjects’ oral output quality. Finally, all the subjects are invited to receive an interview about their mental activity and how they organize their answers.Data analysis yields the following findings:1) Audio input has a very obvious and positive effect on oral production fluency improvement while visual input has little influence on enhancing output fluency. 2) Even though visual input can enhance oral output complexity, and there is no significant change occurred to oral output complexity after audio input, the total progress in complexity after two types of input is so small that the improvement discrepancy between two final output complexity is relativelytiny, showing that no certain and evident impact has happened in terms of oral output complexity owing to different input modes. 3) Even though audio input can improve oral output accuracy, and there is no significant change occurred to oral output accuracy after visual input, the total progress in accuracy after two types of input is so small that the improvement discrepancy between two final output accuracy is relatively tiny, showing that no certain and evident impact has happened in terms of oral output accuracy owing to different input modes. 4) Visual input is more effective when dealing with enrich one’s content while audio input has a relative small progress in enlarging one’s oral production arrange. 5) No matter if there is any apparent enhancement, different modes of input does boost oral production in terms of form, namely fluency, complexity and accuracy, and content richness. Some are too tiny to be admitted, while some are obvious, which means the increases are in diverse degrees.The findings of the research prove the reasonable significance of input modes to oral output, as well as providing implications to teachers’ speaking teaching pedagogy. Besides showing that positive attitude should be held towards input materials, this thesis also appeals to teachers that emphasis should be concentrated on the proportion of audio input and visual input according to the individual diversity instead of only pay attention to the condition and quality of the input. Only by taking the fullest use of various input modes, can the acquisition and speaking output boosted.