| Among all the affective factors that have been discussed and studied,self-efficacy has been a hot issue and aroused great attention in the field of EFL.A great number of studies have shown that there are strong connections between language learning strategies and self-efficacy.However,most of the studies concentrate on the relationship between self-efficacy and general learning strategies with a smaller number of studies focusing on the relationship between self-efficacy and reading strategies,writing or listening strategies.Therefore,relatively there are even fewer studies concentrating on the relationship between self-efficacy and speaking strategies.Since spoken English is still a huge problem for college students,it will be of great significance to carry out a research probing into the connections between college students' self-efficacy and their speaking strategies.The current study aims at exploring the relationship among self-efficacy,speaking strategies and oral English proficiency,which may provide some pedagogical implications for English teachers to enhance students' English oral proficiency.The present study intends to answer the following questions:1.What's the general state of students' oral English self-efficacy and their speaking strategy use?What's the general state of students' oral English proficiency?2.What's the relationship among oral English self-efficacy,speaking strategy use and oral English proficiency?3.Are there any significant changes in students' oral English self-efficacy,speaking strategy use and oral proficiency after the instruction of speaking strategies?Are there any significant changes in students' oral English self-efficacy,speaking strategy use and oral proficiency after the instruction of speaking strategies and self-efficacy together?4.Is it more effective to conduct the instruction of speaking strategies and self-efficacy together to students than the training of speaking strategies alone?In order to answer the research questions above,the author takes three natural non-English-major classes in Hubei University as subjects,making two of which as experimental classes and one class as the control class,altogether 155 students.The pre-test aims to get the general tendency of students' oral English self-efficacy,speaking strategy use and oral proficiency.Then speaking strategies training is given to experimental class 1 and both speaking strategies training and self-efficacy instruction are carried out in experimental class 2.At last,a post-test is conducted to see whether there are significant changes in students' oral English self-efficacy,speaking strategy use and oral proficiency in experimental class 1 and 2.Two questionnaires are adopted in the study,namely,the Questionnaire of Oral English Self-efficacy and Questionnaire of the Speaking Strategies.The data is analyzed with the help of SPSS 13.0.The results are as follows:1)The general tendency of non-English majors' oral English self-efficacy is of medium level;the general state of speaking strategy use is of moderate level with meta-cognitive strategies used the most frequently and the social/affective strategies used the least;the general oral English proficiency is at a low level;2)There is significantly positive correlation between oral English self-efficacy and speaking strategy use;between students' oral English self-efficacy and their oral proficiency;between students' speaking strategy use and their oral proficiency;3)There is a significant regression effect of speaking strategy use(meta-cognitive and cognitive strategies)on students' oral English self-efficacy;oral English self-efficacy can directly influence students' oral proficiency;students' speaking strategy use indirectly influences oral proficiency;4)Speaking strategies training can enhance significantly students' cognitive strategies use and oral proficiency;speaking strategies training and self-efficacy instruction together can promote significantly students' oral English self-efficacy,students' cognitive strategies use and their oral proficiency;5)The two instructions together can improve students' self-efficacy,speaking strategy use and oral proficiency more effectively than the speaking strategies training alone.The above findings inspire the English teachers as follows:1)Teachers are supposed to pay more attention to students' affective experience of English learning,giving them encouragement to help them build higher sense of self-efficacy;2)Teachers can provide them with more opportunities to practice oral English both in and after class;3)Teachers can conduct self-efficacy instructions to students when giving them speaking strategies training,leading them to have more effective use of speaking strategies to reach better oral proficiency. |
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