An Action Research On The Flipped Classroom Of College Spoken English

The goal of college English teaching is to cultivate students' comprehensive English ability,especially the ability of English listening and speaking,so that students can effectively communicate with others in English in their future study,work and social interactions;the design of college English courses should take full account of developing listening and speaking ability,extensively use advanced information technology,develop and construct various computer-and network-based courses,thus providing good language learning environment and conditions for students.During the past years,college spoken English teaching has made remarkable achievements,but spoken English teaching is still the weak link in college English teaching in China,there are very few opportunities for students to communicate with others in English.With the continuous progress of China's education informatization,traditional teaching methods cannot meet the needs of modern classroom teaching.Under such circumstances,a new classroom teaching model “flipped classroom” emerges as required.Flipped classroom means reversed stages of teaching and learning processes.Flipped classroom places more emphasis on stimulating students' interest,cultivating self-learning ability and collaborative innovation ability,these characteristics of the flipped classroom agree with the requirements of the new curriculum reform.However,most of the researches on flipped classroom are based on science and engineering teaching,there are few applications of flipped classroom in college spoken English teaching.Therefore,this research is going to carry out an action research on flipped classroom of college spoken English,in hope of exploring a brand new teaching model,stimulating students' interest in spoken English learning,improving students' English speaking ability,and making students speak with what they learn.This thesis adopts the research method combining quantitative and qualitative studies,with the analysis of tests being dominant,interviews and teacher's teaching log being supplementary.Under the guidance of action research,this paper carries out action research on the flipped classroom of college spoken English,the research subjects are 45 freshmen who are majored in Public Administration Management in Hubei Polytechnic University,the research instruments include tests,questionnaires,interviews and the teacher's teaching logs,this research tries to answer three research questions: Is the flipped classroom teaching model able to help students attain oral knowledge and improve grades? Is the flipped classroom teaching model able to increase students' learning interest,lessen their anxiety and strengthen their confidence? What are the problems existed during the implementation of the action research on the flipped classroom of college spoken English? And what are the effective improvements to improve classroom efficiency? This research consists of three rounds of action research,lasts for three months.According to the steps of action research proposed by Kemmis and McTaggart,each round of the action research is divided into four steps: planning,implementation,observation and reflection.Through analyzing tests,interviews,the teacher's teaching logs and students' peer evaluation,the results show that the flipped classroom teaching model is able to help students attain oral knowledge and improve grades and it is able to increase students' learning interest,lessen their anxiety and strengthen their confidence.The author makes correlation coefficient analysis of the students' pretest scores and posttest scores.The average score of students' pretest is 70.3 points,while the average score of their posttest is 88.8 points.From the paired-sample T test,we can see that the Sig.(2-tailed)is less than 0.05,which indicates that there is a significant difference between the students' pretest scores and the posttest scores,students' oral grades are remarkably improved.By analyzing the interviews and the teacher's teaching logs,we can know that students' learning interest is increased,their anxiety is lessened and their confidence is strengthened.Although the current studies on the flipped classroom teaching have been pretty mature,there is still no consolidated teaching design.The flipped classroom teaching model of this study is based on the previous researches,but it still needs more practical tests.In addition,because of the limited time and energy,the author can not choose a larger sample to test the reliability and validity of the scale,therefore,the research tool is not accurate enough.For further study,researchers should explore this teaching method by applying it to more subjects and classes.