The Effects Of Output-driven Hypothesis On The Oral English Competence Cultivation Of Vocational College Students:An Empirical Study

Spoken English occupies a very important status in the foreign language teaching.We usually divide listening,speaking,reading,writing and translating skills into input competence and output competence.Listening and reading belong to input competence while speaking,writing and translating belong to output competence.With the continuous development of society,and with increasing communication and cooperation between countries,there are more and more opportunities to communicate with foreigners.Therefore,spoken English,as a communication tool,definitely attracts much more attentions than ever before.In the vocational English teaching,the improvement in students' output abilities to satisfy their career demands is the focus of both the teachers and students.In 2008,the Output-driven hypothesis which is based on Swain's output hypothesis was put forward by Wen Qiufang to connect with our teaching situations.In the hypothesis,Professor Wen Qiufang makes further analysis of the main patterns of the communicative activities and emphasizes the importance of input to language learning.She also suggests that English majors should adopt clausal teaching and integrated teaching approaches.In the thesis,the author puts forward the hypothesis that the output-driven hypothesis could take positive effects on students' spoken English by practicing it often.The author,who adopts the quasi-experimental study and qualitative approach,tries to answer the following two questions.(1)What are the obvious problems in cultivating oral English competence of vocational school students?(2)In what aspects,if it does work,can Output-driven Hypothesis affect the vocational oral English competence of vocational school students?In the experiment,the subjects are the college students of a vocational school in Shaoyang,who major in Elementary Education.The experiment was carried out by two questionnaires and two tests during the third college year.Before the experiment,with the help of questionnaires and pre-tests,the author makes a comparison between the experimental group and control group to make sure there is no significant difference among students in English level,speaking strategies and attitudes.The traditional teaching method was adopted to the students in the control group,while the Output-driven Hypothesis was introduced in the experimental group by the author.In the experimental group,the students were given more chances to discuss,presuppose,make dialogues,perform,retell etc.After the experiment,we collected the data from the post-test of these students;compared it with the former test and discussed the results.The experiment shows that Output-driven Hypothesis is effective in the reform of the oral English course in Vocational College.Through the experiment,we know that it is urgent for teachers to change their teaching ideas and improve their teaching abilities.To satisfy students' future career requirements,we should cultivate their integrated abilities and their motivation of speaking.