A Feasibility Study Of After-class Assignment Portfolio In Non-english Majors’ EFL Oral Teaching

In traditional College English teaching and testing, speaking is less stressed than the other three basic language skills, namely, listening, reading and writing. Many college students could not use complete English sentences to express themselves after at least 6 years of learning the language; their oral ability is poor and worrying. To change this situation, the reform of College English instruction advocates developing learners’ability to use English in a well-rounded way, especially in listening and speaking. Yet recent years, despite the various theories applied into college English teaching, there was hardly any major breakthrough in the reform. The features of Non-English Majors’EFL Oral Teaching has lead to many problems, such as large multilevel classes with very few class hours, students’poor communicating ability, the lack of English learning environment and effective out-of-class monitoring and feedback, and so forth. These problems always made it difficult for the effective reform plans to be carried out, eventually making them ineffective.As a tool of formative assessment, portfolio assessment has gradually gained its position in many western countries since the 1980s. It is a multi-dimensional assessment tool and is considered as an ideal alternative to conduct qualitative evaluation. The students are assessed based on the achievement they obtained by using the learned knowledge, and more significantly, portfolio assessment provide the students an opportunity to learn to judge their own progresses. Portfolio assessment has being playing an important role in many western countries for decades, and existing researches on it have involved different aspects of language learning and teaching. However, the study in China remains far behind the western world. Most studies on the application of portfolio assessment have mainly been limited to the primary or high schools and the teaching of EFL writing; empirical studies are far from satisfactory in terms of its application into college English instruction, especially in the field of EFL oral teaching of non-English majors. In this context, the feasibility and effectiveness of establishing after-class oral assignment portfolio is worth investigating in order to solve the problems in non-English majors’EFL oral teaching.In this research, the author proposed the approach of establishing after-class oral assignment portfolio and applied it into Non-English Majors’ oral class. To examine the implementation and effect of this new approach, the research employs both quantitative and qualitative method to analyze the data collected extensively from the results of students’oral English tests and questionnaires as well as the scripts of audio materials in students’ portfolios. Based on the analyses, some discussions are made so as to find out the students’ attitude toward the new approach and its influence on students’oral English proficiency and learning strategy.The research found that (1) the experiment approach can effectively improve the students’ oral English proficiency --- in comparison with CC students, EC students made significant progress in their oral proficiency after the experiment; (2) students have a positive attitude toward the experiment approach, believing it could benefit their oral English learning in aspects including cultivating self-reflective ability, improving self-knowledge and self-assessment, and boosting learning interest, motivation and confidence; (3) the experiment approach has positive effects in improving students learning strategy --- students in EC show an advantage in their learning interest, motivation, confidence and the implementation of metacognitive skills.The research is of great significance both theoretically and practically. First of all, it enlarges the application of the portfolio to EFL oral teaching of non-English majors which hasn’t received enough attention from previous researchers, and thus enriching the few existing empirical studies on effects of portfolio assessment on EFL oral teaching. Secondly, with the employment of both quantitative and qualitative methodology, the findings can provide evidence to support the claim that the application of portfolio assessment can foster the development of students’ oral ability. Finally, it provides a new approach of EFL oral teaching suitable for current situation, and the proposed teaching approach may benefit both college English learners and instructors.