The Effects Of Flexible Learner Self-determinative Activities On Non-English Majors Oral English Learning

As the reform of college English teaching has been deepened,how to improve students' oral English proficiency and their autonomous learning ability have become two of the most important teaching objectives for college English teaching.An empirical study is conducted from a new perspective of learners'self-determinative activities.The purposes of the study are to discuss the relationship among self-determinative activities,students' oral English autonomous learning and their oral English performance,and to prove the applicability of the oral English teaching mode of English majors to that of non-English majors as well as its influence on improving students' classroom participation and cultivating students' autonomous learning ability so as to improve their oral English level.This study was carried out in a university in Changsha,Hunan province,which lasted for one semester.The experiment subjects are two parallel classes of freshmen in the same major,which are divided into experimental class(Class 1)and control class(Class 2).The number of students in the two classes is the same,and they share the same teacher and the same teaching programs and the same textbook.Before the experiment,their grades of Freshman Oral English Entrance Examination were taken as pretest performance and then questionnaires were distributed at the beginning of the first term.The results show that there is no significance difference in students'oral English level and their oral English autonomous learning.During the experiment,the control class uses the traditional teaching model,while the teaching in the experimental class is led by the self-determinative theory and autonomous learning theory with the flexible learner self-determinative activities.The students in the experimental class are given the right to decide which unit or which topic they are going to discuss listed in the textbook,and various topic-relevant oral activities are conducted during the experiment session.And the students are guided to fill out the Classroom Performance Self-evaluation Form,Mutual Evaluation Form between Groups.Besides,the researcher attended four classes to conduct non-participatory observation during the experiment.At the end of the experimental semester,the same autonomous oral English learning ability questionnaire is re-administered to all students in the control and experimental classes and the final oral English test scores of the experimental semester are adopted to taken as the posttest.The collected quantitative pretest and posttest data were processed by SPSS21.0 and Excel 2007,and the qualitative data of learning evaluation forms and non-participatory observation tables were summarized,so as to make a supplementation for the results of quantitative analysis and to make the conclusion more convincible.The research results show that:(1)The applying of flexible learner self-determinative activities can promote students' oral English study and grades.After one semester's experiment,the posttest total means and the males' and females' mean of the experimental class are much higher than that of the control class(2)The adopting of flexible learner self-determinative activities develops students' oral English autonomous learning consciousness,and promotes their oral English autonomous learning ability.After the semester,the oral English autonomous learning ability of students in experimental class is much superior to that of students in control class,especially the dimensions of "Objective Setting" and "Learning Process Monitoring and Evaluating".(3)The applying of flexible learner self-determinative activities can stimulate students' enthusiasm and initiative in oral English learning,enhance students' thirst for knowledge,strengthen their learning motivation,increase their time input in learning and develop students' cooperation consciousness and ability,as well as leading to higher degree of students engagement in college oral English classroom.The findings above demonstrate the importance of flexible learner self-determinative activities in oral English class,which have profound enlightenment to oral English teaching and students' oral English learning.