The Mediation Of Social Factors In Chinese EFL Majors' Oral English Development: A Sociocultural Perspective

The study investigates the factors relating to Chinese EFL majors' oral Englishdevelopment as well as the extent of these factors being applicable to Chinese EFLlearners in general from a sociocultural perspective. Particularly the study draws onmediation and activity theory. Research methods employed include interview, guidedjournal and questionnaire. The data collection was conducted in two stages. In thefirst stage, four junior English majors who were proficient in speaking participatedin the interview and journal writing. The interview was used to elicit detailed andspecific information about the participants' past English learning experiences andfactors affecting their oral English development as they reported. Guided journalwriting lasted for about two and a half months to explore the influencing factors onoral English development perceived by learners themselves in university. In thesecond stage,80first-year English majors, who were peers of the four participantsbut came from four different classes, answered the questionnaire, which serves toexamine the extent of the factors identified being applicable to Chinese EFL learnersin general.The interviews and journals were analyzed qualitatively, while the completedquestionnaires were analyzed quantitatively. Results of data analysis revealed thefollowing research findings:?Four types of factors were identified to be significant in the four participants'oral English development, namely, artifact-mediated factors, rule-mediatedfactors, community-mediated factors and role-mediated factors. Under eachcategory, altogether17sub-factors were found to be facilitative to the fourgood English majors' oral proficiency. The17sub-factors were textbook,Internet, examination, contest, rule of pronunciation and intonation, rule of communication, parents, relatives, teachers, peers, school learningenvironment, people in society, social practice, social environment, roles asspeakers and roles as English majors.?Rule-and role-mediated factors were the top two influential factors on oralEnglish learning for the Chinese EFL learners in general, succeeded byartifact-mediated factors and community-mediated factors. Besides, of the17sub-factors, except for parents-and relatives-, social practice-andcontest-mediated factors, the other13factors were all attached significanceto in spoken English learning, of which pronunciation andintonation-mediated factors were the most important ones.Pooled together, this study, adopting a sociocultural perspective, revealed acomprehensive picture of the social and cultural factors that may have affectedChinese EFL learners' oral English development. The study has importantimplications for EFL speaking teaching and learning.