1、A Study and Practice of Spoken English Teaching for NonEnglish Majors 大学英语口语教学的初步研究A Study and Practice of Spoken English Teaching for Non-English MajorsAbstract: Currently, there appears the phenomenon that many institutions of higher learning are blindly going after the passing rates of Band 4 and
2、 Band 6 College English tests, thus resulting in the outcome that most non-English majors with ten years or more of English education fail to speak and comprehend spoken English. From the angles of physiology and psychology, the author has conducted an analysis of and a research on spoken English. O
3、n the basis of which a spoken English teaching practice has been performed. The paper aims at how one can adopt effective teaching techniques to improve students verbal communicative competence in limited time. This practice is a beneficial attempt to train students verbal communicative competence,
4、which is a good beginning and has laid a foundation for the authors further explorations in FLI.Key Words: college English teaching, foundational-notional approach, verbal communicative competence, spoken English teaching practice大学英语口语教学的初步研究 摘要：目前，在中国许多高等院校，存在着盲目追求英语四、六级考试通过率的现象，大多数非英语专业大学生忙于应付四、六
5、级考试，从而使得大多数学过十年左右英语的非英语专业的大学生们虽能熟练地做各种英语书面练习题，却很难用英语口语表达自己的思想或听懂别人讲的英语。本文作者从生理、心理的角度对英语口语的特点进行了分析和研究，并在此基础上进行了口语教学实践，旨在研究如何采取有效教学方法在有限的时间内提高学生的口头交际能力。这次教学实践是培养学生口头交际能力的一次有益尝试，是一个良好的开端，并为作者今后在英语教学中进行进一步的探索打下了基础。关键词：大学英语教学；口头交际能力；功能意念法；口语教学实践1. Introduction:According to College English Syllabus in Chi
6、na, college English teaching aims at Training students to acquire skillful reading ability and a certain listening, speaking, writing and translating ability to enable them to communicate information in English. College English teaching should help students master good language learning methods, lay
7、 solid language foundations and heighten their responsiveness to civic duties so as to adapt themselves to the needs of social development and economic construction.At present, most colleges and universities set four to five periods weekly of an integrated English course for non-English majors, whos
8、e content contains listening, speaking,reading and writing. Nevertheless teachers still tend to attach importance to reading and writing rather than listening and speaking on account of the contradiction between much teaching content and limited time. Taking Xian Seience and Technology Institute as
9、an example, there are four periods weekly of the intensive English course and merely one period of listening course, but there is no oral course. Furthermore, importance is attached to gramma, vocabulary, reading, writing and listening in final examinations.Of the textbooks generally used by non-Eng
10、lish majors, materials for reading, writing，grammar and listening are available, while those for speaking are surprisingly few.The Band 4 and Band 6 College English Tests (CET) are a large-scale national standardized examination, whose object is to examine if students at the junior level have attain
11、ed the requirements stipulated in the syllabus currently in effect. It mainly verifies this from the aspects of reading, writing, listening, translation, voeabulary and grammar. It has been revised and perfected since1987, which gives an enormous impetus to the development of college English educati
12、on in China. But so far, it also has its drawbacks. Many academic leaders blindly go after the passing rates of the CET, deciding to link the test result with their students academic degree and diploma and with the English teachers academic title promotion. Such a phenomenon causes freshmen to confr
13、ont the CET with apprehensions and compels English teachers to be busy with selecting exereises, solving problems and studying techniques for coping with the CET with the neglect of training students communicative competence. The result leads to the fact that the objective of college English teachin
14、g has switched to the target of passing the CET, which contradicts the requirements of the syllabus.In order to explore the capacities of students to comprehend and speak Enslish, the author conducted a random questionnaire among 70 students from two classes in Xian Science and Technology Institute.
15、 Through statistic analysis, the author has found many problems that deserve attention and demand improvement in our daily teaching activities.The result of the questionnaire indicates that students are generally weak in listening and speaking. Though the result was obtained from two particular clas
16、ses, it reflects a common phenomenon in classrooms in China.This results from the irrational course arrangements and a long-term blind pursuit of the passing rates of Band 4 and Band 6 tests. It more or less mirrors the tendency to emphasize reading and writing but neglect the training of listening
17、and speaking, and to emphasize language knowledge but neglect the training of competence.Currently, many institutions of higher learning have actively studied the features of college English teaching with emphasis on the improvement of students competence in English. Considerable achievements in inn
18、ovative exploration have been made and beneficial experience has been accumulated in the aspects of course arrangement, teaching objective, examination standard, teaching methodology, teaching materials and “second classroom”.With the combination of students physiological and psychological character
19、istics of learning a foreign language, how one can adopt effective teaching techniques to improve students verbal communicative competence in limited time is worth further research.2. A Study of Spoken English 2.1 The psychological process of speech activityThe process that language is used for comm
20、unication is speeeh. The study of the application of language focuses mainly on the study of speech activity, which includes listening, speaking, reading and writing. Listening and reading are receptive skills, while speaking and writing are productive. They are the two main aspects of speech activi
21、ty : the comprehension of speech and the production of speech.2.1.1 The comprehension of speechThe comprehension of speech is a decoding process by which its surface structure is converted into deep structure and again into the deepest semantic idea of the initial speech thinking.2.1.2 The productio
22、n of speechThe production of speech, to outward seeming, is no more than the reverse process of the comprehension of speech: The comprehension is the conversion of sound into meaning, while the production is that of meaning into sound. Actually, the two processes are parallel, but they bear great di
23、fferences. From the angle of voice, speech requires the musele movement of speech organs, whereas listening involves the auditory analysis of language speech signals. They are different from organs to psychological functions. From the angle of meaning, the reason why speakers speak is that they firs
24、t have an idea to influence listeners and a plan to change the idea into speech, and then listeners distinguish the plan of speech and deduce the idea of speakers. The two activities are quite different. Although both speaking and listening are aided by the same medium-language structure, their proc
25、esses of using language structure are different after all.Speakers work out the plan of what they intend to say on the basis of needs to change the psychology of listeners, which is the first step, and then they use various syllables, words, phrases and sentences to execute the formulated plans. The
26、 two links are not often completely separated. When speaking, people tend to have plans, and then execute plans while formulating them.2.2 Spoken language and written languageThousands of years ago, language was created by our ancestors in the form of verbal expression, which means people could rely
27、 on mouth and ears to communicate with each other. Later, characters were invented, with which spoken language could be put down in writing, thus forming written language. Briefly speaking, written language is a form of language put down in writing for “reading”, which has been formed on the basis o
28、f spoken language and has transformed the language symbolic system of 1istening and speaking into that of reading, and is consistent with spoken languageon the whole. Spoken language involves two language skills, listening and speaking, whereas written language involves the other two skills, reading
29、 and writing.Spoken language is for listening, while written language is for reading. Because 1istening is linked to speaking, speakers may speak while thinking, and they can even blurt out with out thinking. Reading is linked to writing, writers can leisurely weigh and carefully polish their words.
30、 Therefore, spoken language cant be completely consistent with written language. When speaking, apart from language knowledge, speakers can also depend on favorable conditions such as pronunciation and intonation, paralinguistic features and situation at the time. Since verbal communication strives
31、for efficieney, wording is limited in seope, and sentences are generally short and brief with repetition, division, reversal, supplement and superfluous words like “hem”, “I mean.” and “You know.” The case of writing is different, because the various features playing roles in spoken language cant wo
32、rk. Only punctuation can perform a limited function. As a result, means that written language can only depend on are: enlarging wording seope, using complicated syntactic structures, removing superfluous words and striving for structure, coherence and organization of an article. The differences betw
33、een spoken language and written language are decided by the conditions in which they are used. They are different style variations of the same language.2.3 Characteristics of spoken languageSpoken language doesnt only indicate “speaking”. If one fails to understand the opposite, what can he“say” ? Spoken language contains
