Some solutions in improving English oral skill for college students.doc

装订线some solutions in improving english oral skill for college studentsintroduction as the development of society and the changes of the age, the “global village ”is becoming smaller and smaller and oral english is becoming more and more important and enjoys great popularity . oral english communicative competence has become a hot topic in educational reform. furthermore, mastering oral english skill develops into a compulsory course for contemporary people. it is largely due to the demand of the society. since the implement of the opening and up policy, the exchange increases not only between races and regions but also between the people from all walks, and colors, and different cultures in the five continents. thus, it is the requirement of modern communicative notion to learn communication and cross-cultural communication, meanwhile, the supreme importance in cross-cultural communication is oral english communication. to some extent, good mastering of oral english communicative competence is a necessity for college students in job hunting. no matter in the employment of the english teachers, office stuffs or company managers, oral english communicative competence goes priority. for this reason, the improvement of college students oral english skills is extremely urgent, while concerning the improvement of college students oral english skill, we often hear the stock sentences, like “dont be shy, open your mouth,” “dont be afraid of making mistakes.” ect. except that ,is there any effective route ? the answer is yes. if english learners want to improve their oral english skill, they should pay attention to the following aspects. first, knowing the existing problem. besides paying attention to the standard pronunciation and intonation, the invoking of motivation is also very important. second, enlarging vocabulary and putting yourself in the context of situation. third, using communicative strategies. we should not ignore the direct and effective role of body language in the communication. in connection with the fact that oral english is the weak point for most chinese english learners, cultural background should be given special emphasis. although oral english communication seems to be an independent skill, it is concerned with every aspect of language ability. therefore, in order to have a good grasp of a brilliant spoken english, you should not only have correct and effective channels of practicing oral language but also pay out plenty of energy and sweat. this thesis has elaborated the methods of raising the ability of the college students oral english skill from six points and hopes to exert some influence on the improvement of college students oral english skill . i. present situations of college students oral skillcollege students in our country have experienced their english learning from elementary school to middle school. practice has proved that they have known 2000 words at least and generally, they have had a firm english basis, therefore, they would not have any great difficulties in communicating with others in english. however, through a lot of researches, it reveals that in our country there are still many college students of colleges and universities who cannot express themselves very well. (li, 2004:107) some conspicuous problems as follows.1.1 inexact pronunciation and intonation there exists a phenomenon that some college students cannot pronounce english exactly and most of them cannot use the standard intonation to express themselves. take the word “houses” for example, many practices have proved that most college students wrongly pronounce hauziz into hausiz, obviously the latter is wrong. with inexact pronunciation, unexpected embarrassment can be caused. an oversea student who cant tell n from l and wanted to borrow a knife from the landlady and said “i want your life”. its not difficult to imagine the pale face of the old lady and how astonished she was! apart from inexact pronunciation, inexact intonation also exists. intonation exerts great impact on expressing the speakers feeling and is mainly reflected in the stress of sentences and tone. thus, the difference of intonation invokes extremely distinctive meaning. the rising tone at the end of an utterance is often used for asking yes-no questions and politeness or surprise, whereas the falling tone sometimes leads to rudeness and abruptness. for example, “she is a baby doctor”. in this sentence, if “baby” is stressed, it just expresses the literary meaning. if both “baby” and “doctor” are stressed, it indicates that she is an inexperiencent doctor. the common expressions such as “good morning” “good afernoon” “goodbye” in daily life is in falling tone for greeting and rising tone for farewells. 1.2 narrow knowledge scope it is easy to understand that if one has a narrow english knowledge scope, then he or she maybe has a limited knowledge horizon in expressing their ideas, which would indirectly affect the communication content, the fluency and accuracy of expression. on the one hand, if one wants to express his or her opinions but he or she maybe does not know how to use the proper english expression, this may hamper the mutual understanding; on the other hand, if ones knowledge scope is so limited, then what he or she expressed in communication is monotonous and uninteresting to some extent. therefore, it is important to broaden ones horizon, especially in english knowledge. 1.3 ineffective expressing ability a survey carried out in a college reveals that college students language output is slow when they express themselves in conversation and a lot of words used in a wrong way and utterances expressed in an inappropriate situation. (li, 2004:107) thus, from the above accounts, it is necessary to think that what the real reason is for college students oral skill under the current situation.ii. factors influencing college students oral english skill certainly, there are many reasons influencing college students oral ability, the following two are the main factors worth discussing.2.1 internal factorsfrom philosophical perspective, the internal factor is things foundation, which is the source and dynamic when things are in the process of development, which regulates the main trend of things development. so the internal factor is the main one in doing things, by the same token, this would be the main reason in learning english.2.1.1 lack of motivation psychologists argue that lacking motivation or not having a clear goal is the main factor baffling students oral skill. most students do not take english oral skill seriously and just believe that it is good enough to pass the exam. under this decadent perspective, students cannot have the aspiration to exert themselves in oral expression and communication. just as some psychologists see that if one lacks the learning motivation, any academic research cannot occur. then lacking the motivation of improving oral skill, the competence of oral expression also cannot be improved. (ai, 2002:93)2.1.2 psychological barriers in oral communicationit is inevitable that when students speaking english some of them may feel nervous at the beginning. however, it is pessimistic that because students are afraid of making mistakes and thus speaking less and less english, even dare not speak one word in class, obviously, this way is not good enough to improve oral skill. “practice makes perfect”. 2.1.3 the impact of ones mother tongueto chinese college students, english is the second language, there is great difference between english and chinese, such as in pronunciation, sentence pattern, culture background, taboo and so on. certainly, those differences cannot be eliminated easily. thus, in expressing english, college students have to notice these problems and try to avoid making mistakes as hard as possible.2.2 external factorsthere exists many external factors which influence students oral skill, the following two are typical in english oral teaching. 2.2.1 exam-oriented education modelat present, many foreign language educators, experts and scholars have imposed a lot of practical comments and suggestions about reforming college englishs education model. however, the exam-oriented education modal is still existing which has a strong influence in academic degree and scores. and a few universities and colleges take the pass rate of cet as the unique measurement, mistaking students taking the cet exam as the weight-bearing point. its self-evident that some universities and colleges dont take the enthusiasm of practicing english oral skill seriously. on the contrary, some universities and colleges force students to do many exercises in “paper” materials, attach importance to the writing ability and hardly encourage students to improve their english oral skill. this behavior is a typical reflection of the exam-oriented education, which runs counter to nowadays english teaching. (li, 2003:100) 2.2.2 limited communication environment for chinese college students, the acquisition of english is formed in the environment of taking the chinese as their mother tongue, they have little chance using english to communicate in their daily life in general. it seems that the english oral class is the only place where students can open their mouths to speak english and in most cases, the english conversation is organized in a nominal form between teachers and students or students and students. obviously the communication environment is limited and rigid, so it is inevitable some students may be lacking of courage: afraid of making a mistake or afraid of being laugh at. it is thus clear that, the communication environment is limited and rigid for college students to develop their oral skill. “there is at least 30-40 students in an english class due to the college expansion, so it is difficult to improve students oral skill in this circumstance”. (ai, 2002:94) nevertheless, it is emergent to change the situation and improve students english oral skill, practically this is a hot question worth discussing.iii. methods of improving college students english oral skill in english teaching, many methods have been carried out to improve college students oral skill, while the effective ways maybe the following six ones, certainly with the teaching development, some better methods will be applied in the future.3.1 cultivating students interests in expressionsmany practices show that students interests are the main element in learning knowledge. so the same as speaking english, only let students discover their interests in speaking english, english teaching and oral training would have a new look. in details, teachers can use classroom activities, such as group conversation, story-telling, performance-playing, to create chances for students to practice their english oral skill and let them have a feeling of success and gradually students would form the habit of speaking english.so, it needs the joint effort of the teacher and the student in improving students oral skill.3.1.1 raising their self-confidence “in the period of traditional english teaching, teachers usually pay attention to the main points of the texts and the form of english knowledge, however, neglecting students listening and speaking. as a result, this leads students shadow in their psychology”. (li, 2004:107)therefore, what teachers should do is to apply various teaching resources, stimulating students interests of speaking english, creating conditions to let them take part in different oral activities. meanwhile, teachers should make positive comments as many as possible when students speaking english, this may attain the effort of indirect criticism and suggestion so as to safeguard students pride. besides, students should adjust their motion and learning strategy to form a positive attitude in improving their english oral skill, finally erecting the self-confidence of speaking english. 3.1.2 correcting errors in specific situations “english teachers should know that making mistakes in the process of learning foreign language is a natural phenomenon, so teachers most important task is to help and encourage students opening their mouths to speak english to achieve the greatest amount of practical exercises ”.(li, 2001:91)in practice, teachers do introduce amount of english information in class so as to increase the listening and speaking activities for students. and in the process of activities, teachers often pay much attention to what students said, even every word and sentence, this way is good for students to some extent. however, once finding any errors in pronunciation, intonation and grammar, they will correct the errors immediately, evidently this action is not good enough, it can break not only students logical thinking, but destroy the integrated degree of expression. if things like this occurred many times, students would be afraid of speaking english so much and gradually they would lose confidence in expressing their ideas in the future.errors should be dealt in its specific situation. when students express their ideas freely, the errors should not be listed one by one, especially in the process of speaking, because at that moment to exchange ideas is the most important purpose. in fact, the big error in speaking english is that students seldom speaking english and daring not to speak english. li gang argues that students can correct their errors with the development of their language competence. (li, 2001:91)3.1.3 creating student- centered classin teaching, teachers should recognize students personal discrepancy and carry out different teaching methods according to students personality, namely, “do with a definite purpose”. for example, the requirement to the extrovert student who is active and has a quick response should be strict and let them to speak rightly, exactly; on the contrary, the introvert student response slowly, teachers should encourage them and cultivate their good habits of speaking english. “whether the oral class is successful or not, the key point is that teachers should know who is the center in class”. (li, 2001:91)undoubtedly, students is the real center and the teaching departure in class, teachers can organize classroom activities, determining the teaching task, answering question and so on. like the director, the play can only be performed by actors, so the class only be performed by students. 3.2 learning “listening” before “speaking”since students have had interests in speaking english, then what is the efficient way for them to have a good oral skill? to listen english! many facts have proved that through listening students can contact much english language and after a periods listening, they would have a willing to speak and express their ideas in english. this is the effort of listening too much. in practice, the function of human brain determines first“understanding”, then “copying”, so children who learn to speaking must listen and understand firstly. by the same token, the language teaching also should obey this rule. (zhang, 2006:48)3.2.1 listening to standard englishit is clear that there are kinds of english language in the world, such as britain english, australian english, black english and so on, then which is the standard one? ipa (international phonetic alphabet) is the authentic one and most english learners in the world imitate it. some states radios and news broadcasts are useful for college students to training their oral skill, such as bbc, voa. besides, students can listen to the matched optical disc or tape of textbooks. anyhow, the final purpose is to make students speaking english very well. through listening these standard materials as many as possible, students will have an impulse to speak out, some experienced person have said that. whats more, students would have a good basic pronunciation from listening to the standard english.3.2.2 imitating authentic english expressionas foreign language learners, especially college students, if they can speak authentic real english, the others would regard them with respect, but most college students cannot reach that level in nowadays. with entering wto, chinas international image has been raised a lot in the world and china has made a friendly relationship with many countries. its self-evident that college students is the state pillar in the future, it is bad to see that they have the low ability to speak authentic real english. (zhang, 2006:48)some experts suggest that the best way of speaking real english is to go abroad, certainly, other methods are still useful, such as watching the original film, chatting with foreigners, reading the original book3.2.3 combining listening and speakingaccording to krashens second language theory, he argues that it is possible to acquire the language output only input amount of language information. therefore, it needs to input the target language first, and then the language output competence will be improved. (shu, 2000:120) from cognitive psychology perspective, speaking and writing are the second language competence formed on the basis of listening and reading, speaking is based on listening and speaking is the result of listening. thus the two parts are complementary and the improvement of oral competence depends on listening. furthermore, the ultimate goal of english teaching is to cultivating students communicative c