Curriculum Reform Of "Menu-based" College English Oral English Courses:An Empirical Study

In order to adapt to the new situation of the development of higher education in China,in 2007,the Ministry of Education issued Course Requirements for College English Teaching,which emphasized that colleges and universities should pay special attention to the training of students' listening and speaking ability.Based on the experience of College English curriculum construction and teaching reform,the Ministry of Education in 2015 released a draft of the Guidelines on College English Teaching.It pointed out that how to cultivate a large number of talents with high English application ability,especially oral ability to adapt to the trend of international communication has become an urgent issue in College English teaching reform.Therefore,the Hunan University was taken as an example in the thesis and an empirical study of the curriculum reform of "menu-based" oral English courses was conducted among non-English majors in the whole university.The research subjects in the thesis are 303 students who selected oral English courses and 9 teachers who were in charge of oral English courses.The research instruments include students' questionnaires on needs and satisfaction,teachers' questionnaire on satisfaction,teachers' semi-interviews and classroom observation.Three research questions are put forward:1.What is the profile of the implementation of the curriculum reform of "menu-based"College English oral English courses?2.Which aspects of the non-English majors' needs for oral English courses have been met?3.What are teachers'attitudes towards the curriculum reform in terms of oral English courses?The results show that:1.During the implementation of the curriculum reform of"menu-based" College oral English courses,the current courses design,students' English proficiency,teachers and facilities to some extent satisfied students' needs for teaching objectives of the curriculum reform.But more excellent oral English teachers and different types of oral English courses should be added properly in courses design in the future.2.The oral English courses design has met the needs of students in terms of teaching materials,teachers,teaching process and evaluation mode.However,the flexibility of teachers' teaching methods,the diversification of classroom activities,the rationality of assessment methods and so on are supposed to be improved.3.The teachers showed positive attitudes towards their role positioning,curriculum objectives and the teaching process of the oral English courses in the curriculum reform of oral English courses.However,teachers also hold that they should strengthen their spirit of teamwork and at the same time schools should provide them with more training opportunities and financial support in the subsequent courses design.Meanwhile,suggestions are made on the curriculum reform of oral English courses to offer theoretical instruction and practical basis for furthering College oral English learning and teaching.However,the study also has limitations in following aspects.First,a few questions in questionnaire on students' needs were not so reasonable and affected the accuracy of results;Second,the research was only conducted among students with a relatively high English proficiency in Hunan university,but the feasibility of its implementation in other universities among students with different English proficiency remains to be further studied.