Some solutions in improving English oral skill for college students

┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊装┊┊┊┊┊订┊┊┊┊┊线┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊Some solutions in improving English oral skillfor college studentsIntroductionAs 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 “don‟t be shy, open your mouth,” “don‟t 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 th e ability of the college students ‟ oral English skill from six points and hopes to exert some influence on the improvement of college students‟ oral┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊装┊┊┊┊┊订┊┊┊┊┊线┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊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.1.1Inexact pronunciation and intonationThere 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 pronun ciation, unexpected embarrassment can be caused. An oversea student who can‟t tell [n] from [l] and wanted to borrow a knife from the landlady and said “I want your life”. It‟s 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.1.2Narrow knowledge scope┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊装┊┊┊┊┊订┊┊┊┊┊线┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊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 one‟s 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 one‟s horizon, especially in English knowledge.1.3 Ineffective expressing abilityA 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.┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊装┊┊┊┊┊订┊┊┊┊┊线┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊II.Factors influencing college students’ oral English skillCertainly, there are many reasons influencing college students‟oral ability, the following two are the main factors worth discussing.2.1Internal 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.2.1.1Lack of motivationPsychologists 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)2.1.2Psychological 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”.2.1.3The impact of one’s mother tongue┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊装┊┊┊┊┊订┊┊┊┊┊线┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊To 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.2.2External factorsThere exists many external factors which influence students‟ oral skill, the following two are typical in English oral teaching.2.2.1Exam-oriented education modelAt present, many foreign language educators, experts and scholars have imposed a lot of practical comments and suggestions about reforming college English‟s 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. It‟s self-evident that some universities and colleges don‟t 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)2.2.2Limited communication environmentFor 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.┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊装┊┊┊┊┊订┊┊┊┊┊线┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊“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 skillIn 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.3.1Cultivating 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 student s‟ 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┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊装┊┊┊┊┊订┊┊┊┊┊线┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊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 stu dents‟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┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊装┊┊┊┊┊订┊┊┊┊┊线┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊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.3.2Learning “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 period‟s 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)3.2.1Listening 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. What‟s more, students would have a good basic pronunciation from listening to the Standard English.3.2.2Imitating 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, China‟s international image has been raised a lot in the world and China has made a friendly relationship with many countries. It‟s 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,┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊装┊┊┊┊┊订┊┊┊┊┊线┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊certainly, other methods are still useful, such as watching the original film, chatting with foreigners, reading the original book…3.2.3Combining listening and speakingAccording to Krashen’s 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 competence of applying language, simultaneously, speaking can assist listening. The teaching practice also testifies that understanding in a correct way is the predication of improving communication competence. So in English teaching, teachers can choose some new listening materials for students and let them retell. Besides, some speech contest and English original film are helpful to students listening and speaking.3.3Enlarging vocabularyIn English teaching, many students usually cannot express themselves very well because of the limited vocabulary, so the vocabulary is important in training students‟ oral skill, which is the material basis for speaking English. Teachers should use different words explaining the context which cannot only improve students‟ English direct thinking ability but help students know more new words, try to figure out the differences and similarities between synonyms which are great beneficial to students facing different communication object and content.3.3.1Reading English materialsTo enlarge vocabulary, besides teachers‟ efforts, students should consider it carefully and find the most efficient way for them. It may be difficult to enlarge one‟s vocabulary in a short time but it is possible if one stick to do it. “Patience wears out stones”.Jiang Xiaohong suggests that for college students who want to broaden their┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊装┊┊┊┊┊订┊┊┊┊┊线┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊knowledge horizon and familiar many words, the efficient way is to read English materials, especially the original ones, the more the better. Firstly, through reading, students can understand the specific usage of words and phrases; secondly, through many time‟s stimulus, students will become more familiar with some new words and gradually accumulate their vocabulary. (Jiang, 2004:145). Through exclusively reading different types of materials, students can nourish good sense of English and develop the habits of thinking in English. In the process of reading, students may encounter many typical English expressions which can only be appreciated rather than be used appropriately. In order to changer the negative appreciation into active expression, we can first try to translate the sentence into Chinese, then translate the Chinese into English again. After comparing with the original text, we may find great distance because the interference of the mother tongue. We can translate the sentence again and again until we can grasp the typical expression in it. After accumulating large amount of typical expression, students‟oral English can be greatly improved, no matter in terms of quality or fluncy.3.3.2Remembering useful words and phrasesIt is clear that there are tens of thousands of English words, with the development of science and technology many new words appear continually. So it is not good to remember every English word with heart and soul and some words are seldom or never used in daily life. Some experts and educators suggests to remember the useful words and phases, while, what does mean “useful”here? For example, these words like “ableism, eccleasticism, gadolinite….”, they are seldom used in daily life or used in a specific field, so they are not “useful” for most college students.The scholar Zhang Wenzhong proposed four aspects in lexical competence: scope, depth, accuracy and automaton. Clearly, in English teaching, teachers should not only consider students‟vocabulary but the “depth”of it. It‟s easy to understand that if two students have different quality of vocabulary, they two can be viewed having different amount of vocabulary.So, choosing proper words is the first step in efficient words-remembering. After knowing of choosing practical words to remember, grsasping efficient ways to remember words is virtually important! In fact, the rememering of words can be done from two aspects,namely, voice and character. For example, “flower”, can be remembered from the verbal representation[flauə], and also from the literal symbol “flower”. In the two ways, verbal remembering is more efficient angd useful. A main reason why a person can not┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊装┊┊┊┊┊订┊┊┊┊┊线┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊forget his mother tongue easily is that he studied the language from the verbal aspect originally. In remembering words, most students ignore the verbal form of the words. They write down every letter of the word in the paper repeatedly and focus on the symbolic form of the word. As the things remembered in literal symbols can‟t root in the mind easily, the response to the verbal form of it is more difficult. As a result, the listening and speaking ability is poor. The common “reading---spelling” model is beneficial to reading and writing, but not useful in listening and speaking. In order to improve the oral English ability, students should remember words from the verbal aspect and form the “listening---pronouning”model. As we stored the words in the verbal form, it is easily for us to reoccur them and ues them at ease. In this way, we can make instant response to others‟ speaking and organize speech immediately, then give a quick answer.3.3.3Noticing new words in communicationTo remember more vocabulary, a direct way is to learn each other in conversation. Practice has been proved it is a direct and efficient way. Namely, through making conversation, students would search English words immediately which stored in their brain, moreover, through this exercise students may face new words which they are not familiar, evidently, new words are attained through making conversation. In oral teaching, teachers often encourage students to make conversation and group discussion, indeed, these are good methods for college students learning English to some extent.3.4Implementing communicative usages and communicative strategiesSince college students have had a certain level in grammar and vocabulary, why they cannot speak out fluently Practice has testified that most students do not know how to use communicative strategy, so they cannot carry out conversation when meeting some small barriers.Gao Haihong thought that the training of communication strategy competence should be carried out in class which can enrich students‟strategy knowledge, offering students more chances of training and gradually improving communication strategy competence. (Gao, 2000:57)3.4.1Knowing communicative usage’s notion and it’s application┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊装┊┊┊┊┊订┊┊┊┊┊线┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊Communicative usage refers to these conventional usage. Their communicative function is more important than their litral meaning. For example, when a person wants to express his view or idea, he can use the following communicative usage:----As for as I‟m concerned...---In my opinion...---I believed/think...---If you asked me...while, when a person have to interrupt other‟s words, other communicative usage is used:----Excuse me,but…----May/could I say something here?----I‟m sorry,but…----Can I interrupt you for a minute? Other communicative usage like “greetings”, “self-introduction”, “farewells”, “thanks”, “praises and congratulations”, “offering help”, “likes and dislikes”ect.are also needed to master. Therefore, we can choose proper communicative usage according to different communicative circummstances.3.4.2Knowing communicative stategies and it’s applicationBailystock points that “communication strategy is the learner who doesn’t master the second or foreign language completely, applying some solutions in order to communicate with other people fluently because of lacking adequate grammar and vocabulary”.The communication strategy competence is a main part in communication competence. In fact, most college students don‟t really know what “communication strategy”is. A questionnaire made by Zhang Yanlian reveals that a class 59 students, 75.7% of them want to improve their communication competence, 86.4% students don‟t know what communication strategy is at all and although some students employ the communication strategy in conversation, 63.7% of them have failed.(Zhang, 2006:189)Therefore, the most important thing in English teaching is strengthening student‟s communication strategy notion, cultivating their communication strategy competence and improving their communication competence.Tarone(1980), an educator and linguist, who argues that the function of communication strategy can maintain and enrich communication activities, if the speaker has limited vocabulary, he can use other words instead of the words he does not know well. All of communication strategies has the function of enlarging communication method.(Shu, 2000:76)Andrew D.Cohen expouds“the impact of strategies-based instruction on speaking a foreign language”through an empirical research in the book Strategies in Learning and Using a Second Language. The study reveals that some trained students have a higher score in oral exam than those does not trained. Some communication strategies, such as┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊装┊┊┊┊┊订┊┊┊┊┊线┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊┊indirect explaining, sliding over and replacing topic, paraphrasing sentence and so on, which can improve the fluency of oral expression and make the conversation going on smoothly. Undoubtedly, communicative strategy is helpful to improve students‟ oral skill. But how to apply it properly needs both college students and English learners fathoming out in the future learning. (D.Cohen, 2000:201). When you didn‟t hear the other person clearly or didn‟t totally understand th other‟s intention, you ought not to be embarrased right now but to deal with this situatiation by using the communicative expressions such as “I beg you pardon”“would you mind repeating that again”“can you say it again”ect. If you‟re going to answer the other‟s question but can‟t find proper words in time ,you‟d better not keep silent, orelse, the conversation is interrupted. In such situation,the expressions as “it‟s a good question” “I must say I‟ve never thought seriously about this, let me see,err…”can indicate that you understand the other‟s question and you are thinking seriously for answering. In addition, we can also use definition, body language, synonyms, antonyms to help us in fulfilling a successful conversation.3.5Improving the integrated ability of learning EnglishTo have a good English oral skill, college students, especially the English majors, should grasp some basic skills such as the correct pronunciation, standard intonation, enough vocabulary, fluent skills…because these elements are related closely to each other. Certainly, the four skills listening, speaking, reading and writing are the main ones.3.5.1Strengthening the four skillsEnglish linguist Jeremy Harmer points that“it is ridiculous to improve one skill single when students learning language in real life”. Obviously, the oral skill can be influenced by listening, reading and writing. (Xi, 2006:135)In the four skills, reading and listening belong to the understanding skill while the other two belong to the expressing skill, they interact to make up an entire system in learning English. So no one language skill is in solitude.3.5.2Focusing the oral skillIt‟s a tendency for college students who should improve their English oral skill to some extent. On the one hand, with the reform and opening-up to the outside world and the enlarging in foreign exchanges, China demands more modern English talents than before. Meanwhile, the communication ability of English talents is an important aspect. On the。