The Effectiveness Of WebQuest On Developing High School Students’ Oral English Communicative Competence

It has been a consensus in the field of English education at home and abroad that one of the purposes of English teaching is to cultivate students’ ability to communicate.China’s high school English curriculum standards(2017 edition)also clearly put forward the need to expand English learning channels and improve students’ ability to use language.However,in the current English education,many teachers ignore the cultivation of students’ oral communication skills,resulting in students’ inability to communicate in English in real life,which causes the phenomenon of "dumb English" among a large number of secondary school students.This also shows that the current English teaching methods need to be reformed so that language learning can play its communicative function.The introduction and current research status of WebQuest.As a web-based education,WebQuest aims to engage students in self-driven,inquiry-based learning.In recent years,there have been a large number of applied studies on the combination of WebQuest and English subjects,which have proved the effectiveness of WebQuest in improving students’ test-taking performance.However,no systematic research has been conducted on whether WebQuest can improve students’ oral English communicative competence.Therefore,this paper aims to find an effective way to improve students’ oral English communicative competence.In this experiment,86 senior high school students from two classes of the Chongqing University Town No.1 Middle School were selected as subjects.In the 6-week experiment,class 1 was taught using WebQuest,while class 2 continued to be taught in the currentEnglish teaching style.This study investigated the following three questions:(1)Can WebQuest improve students’ oral English communicative competence?(2)In what ways can WebQuest affect students’ oral English competence?(3)What are the students’ attitudes toward Webquest in oral English learning?Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used in this study,and the research process consisted of a teaching experiment guided by WebQuest,a pre-experiment and a post-experiment questionnaire,a pre-test and post-test,and a semi-structured interview at the end of the experiment.The experimental data were statistically analyzed using SPSS26.0 software.The analysis of the data revealed that WebQuest could improve high school students’ English oral communicative competence,especially in terms of vocabulary,communication strategies and communication proficiency,but it did not have a significant effect on phonetics.In addition,most students were happy to be taught in WebQuest mode,believing that it could cultivate their independent learning ability,oral communication skills and,self-confidence.Finally,this study gives suggestions on the application of the WebQuest into practice.Firstly,teachers should choose teaching topics that are moderately difficult,interesting to students,and not clearly defined;secondly,the teacher’s role should be changed from knowledge impactor to learning guide;again,the teacher should pay attention to students’ language output in the whole classroom and set objective and scientific classroom evaluation criteria;finally,teachers should give students positive feedback to develop students’ self-confidence and courage to engage in oral communication.