英語口語教學(xué)中的流利度研究

1、英語口語教學(xué)中的流利度研究摘要隨著社會(huì)和經(jīng)濟(jì)的發(fā)展，英語口語在我國的對(duì)外交際中起到了越來越重要的 作用。但是，經(jīng)過多年的學(xué)習(xí)，我國許多學(xué)生還是不能開口用英語交談，更談 不上達(dá)到流利的程度。因此，如何使學(xué)生經(jīng)過兒年的英語學(xué)習(xí)能夠流利地與 外國人進(jìn)行交際就成為了十分有意義的課題。本文從流利度的角度出發(fā)，分析 了流利度的定義及流利度產(chǎn)生的內(nèi)在因素，提出了對(duì)提高英語口語流利度行z有 效的三種方法,并指出三種方法是有機(jī)結(jié)合密不可分的。最后通過實(shí)驗(yàn)來證明這 種教學(xué)方法的有效性,并分析了學(xué)牛話語的特點(diǎn)。全文包括引言，正文，結(jié)論三部分。引言分析了英語口語教學(xué)的目的并介紹了論文的主要結(jié)構(gòu)。止文分為四個(gè)部分。第一

2、部分主要討論了流利度的三個(gè) 不同概念。這三種對(duì)流利度的不同理解對(duì)英語口語教學(xué)和測試都有著十分重要的義。第二部分主要從認(rèn)知語言學(xué)的角度闡述了兩種解釋流利度產(chǎn)生的理論模 式。第三部分慕于上述兩種理論模式上提出了三種提高英語口語流利度的方法。第四部分是本文的重點(diǎn)，通過兩種教學(xué)方法的對(duì)比，對(duì)學(xué)生話語的特點(diǎn)進(jìn)行了分 析，得出的結(jié)論是，無論是在短語的使用還是停頓等各方面實(shí)驗(yàn)組都優(yōu)于控制 組。結(jié)論部分對(duì)全文加以總結(jié)，并指出了實(shí)驗(yàn)的不足。作者希望論文所討論的問題對(duì)英語口語教學(xué)起到一定的參考作用。3abstractwith the social and economical development the ab

3、ility to speak fluent englishis playing an increasingly important role in the communication with foreign countries,but quite a number of university students in china, after many years' study of english,still have clifficulty in opening their mouths to speak english, let alone communicatefluently

4、 with the foreigners. therefore it is extremely valuable to explore the officiontmeans of promoting the students， spoken english ability within the shortest timepossible. from the fluency point of view, the thesis discusses the concepts of fluencyas well as the theory explaining the fluent productio

5、n of speech, and proposes threeways to improve fluency. finally an experiment is made and the speech samples areanalyzed to support the viewthis thesis is divided into six cheipters, including introduction and conelusionlntroduction briefly discusses the aim of engli sh language learning and teachi

6、ng andpresents the scope of the thcsischaptcr two discusses the concepts of fluency froma historical point of view. the different concepts of fluency have great influence onour language learning and teaching and the assessment of oral production. chapterthree covers the theoretical basis for the exp

7、lanation of how the fluent production ismade. two models are fully explained in this chapter. based on the two models,chapter four puts forward three ways used to improve the fluent production of speechchapter five is an experimentai study on fluency. after a year" s learning with thethree ways

8、 suggested in chapter four, subjects are tested and the evaluation is madeto indicate that learners become more fluent after the trainingthe author hopes that the views introduced in this thesis could be of certain helpto spoken english teaching in china 4contentschapterone:introduction 1chaptertwo:

9、conceptsoffluency 41.1introduction 41.2 fluency as proficiency or as a component ofproficiency41.3 fluencyas“smoothnessofspeech” 71.4 fluencyasopposedtoaccuracy10chapter three: explanation of the fluent production of speech132. 1introduction 132.2acceleratingmodel 132.2. 1amodelofproduction 132.2.2a

10、modelofdevelopment 142. 3instancetheory162.3. 1exemplartheory2.3.2strengththeory 172. 3.3hierarchicalchunkingtheorychapterfour:thewaysusedtoimprovefluency3. 1formukiic 19chunks3.2reci tat ionandretelling 223.2task-basedapproach 25chapterfive:anexperimenton4. 1descriptionofthestudy 284. 1. 1purpose28

11、4. 1.2subjects294. 1.3method294.2 evaluationofthespeechsamples304.3results 334. 3. 1subjcctivcanalysis 334. 3. 2objectiveanalysis364. 3. 2. 1temporalvariables 364. 3. 2. 2formulaicchunks 424.4conclusion 46chaptersix:conclusion 47bibiliography 49 5fluency in oral english teachingchapter one: introduc

12、tionthe last two decades have witnessed a great change in the english language learning and teaching in chinawith the rise in the cross-cuitural communication,oral english teaching has gained greater importance in china recently, and at the sametime, with the advent of communicative language teachin

13、g, oreil english teaching hasturned a new page. but lan guage lear ning and teachi ng is a complex phcnomcnonwithout the consideration of the subjects and the contexts, any method would turn outto be a failure. the goal of the paper is to discuss the con cep t of fluency and provideguidance in impro

14、ving the fluent production of oral english in lhechinese context,especially among the college studentsfor centuries before world wartwo, language learning and teaching had beenfocused on the study of the written language. it is well known that written language isquite different from oral language. w

15、ritten language is the language of literature andof scholarship brown and yule, 1983: 1, while the spoken language is primarily forinteraction and transaction of infonuation. it is different from written language in thatthe information is less denseiy packed, which has implications both for syntacti

16、cstructure and for vocabulary selection brown and yule, 1983:11. they state that orallanguage has two functions. one is the maintenance of social re1 ationships, and theother is the transaction of informationthe past century has seen a change of language learning theory and the ultimategoal that the

17、 language learners are asked to achieve. it is popularly believed thatchomsky" s 1965 notion of comp etc ncc is too limited to account for the actuallanguage use. the shift has been made to communicative competence in which fourdifferent componcnts arc included, namely the grammatical compctcnc

18、c， discoursecompete nee, social in guis tic compe tence and st reitegic compete nee. in the pcclagogic6context in oral language tcaching, they can be roughly defined as the fluent, accurateand appropriate use of the language. the success of the class is measured in terms ofwhether the students can c

19、ommunicate accurately and appropriately with reasonablefluency. the purpose of the paper is mainly about discussing the fluent production ofthe language. native-like fluency is the ultimate goal for the foreign1anguage learnersto achieve, yet fluency in spontancous connected speech may take the adul

20、t learnersof a foreign language years to achieve. for the native speakers, however, it is not adifficult task to produce fluent conversation or speech unless the topic to be discussedis unfamiliar to them. how do they achieve this? what kind of changes are involvedin the operation of the underlying

21、cognitive processes. those are the questions wehave to answerfluency in speech often refers to the speed, continuity and accuracy of the actionof speaking. a fluent speaker of a foreign language is someone who can speak at thetempo of his first lemguage, without unnecessary hesitations and pauses, a

22、nd free ofnormative-1ike errors. fluency in the foreign language has been conceptualized alongtwo dimensions, pawley and synder, 1983 which are native-like selection andnative-like deliverynativelike selection refers to using frequently used andfamiliar phrases, appropriatc for a particular situatio

23、n, to put across one" s messagenativelike delivery has the following five central characteristics: jansma 1987 1 arate of delivery of between 150 and 200 words per minute de bot 1992. arevant andnation 1991, 2 short pauses lasting less than 0. 5 seconds between short stretches ofspeech st ern 1

24、992, 3 short stre tches of speech consisting of bet ween four and tenwords ellis 1996, 4 a u jump-up" , “ step-down” intonation pattern， and 5stress-timed delivery, where important words are spoken at a slower rate and at a highpitch or louder volumestern 1992in no way are we arguing that accur

25、acy and appropriacy have no position inlanguage learning and teaching. our goal is to find a balance among fluency, accuracyand appropriacy. but hammerly 1991, 55 states “ balance will not be achieved byfocusing cilmost exclusively on one type of competence, one skill, or one languagecomponent. neit

26、her is balanee attained by mindlessly trying to do everything at thc7samc time ” he thinks that early emphasis on accuracy is necessary, and then learningand teeiching should be gradually transferred to the fluency part and appropriacy canbe imparted as needed throughout the programthe body of the t

27、hesis consists of four parts, each serving to explain how toproduce fluent oral english as a foreign language. chapter two discusses the conceptsof fluency from a historical point of view. the different concepts of fluency havegreat influence on our language learning and teaching and the assessment

28、of oralproduction. chapter three covers the theorctical basis for the explanation of how theflue nt production is meide. like most psycho lin guis tic research, t hese studies provideinsight into the underlying cognilive processes that are operating when speech isformulated, and three models are put

29、 forward. chapter four suggests the ways that areused to promote the fluent production of the speech in the chinese context of foreignlanguage learning and teaching, namely the formulaic chunks, recitation and retellingand task-based approach- chapter five is ein experimental study on fluency. after

30、 ayears tearning with the three ways suggested in chapter three, subjects are tcstedand the evaluation is made to indicate that learnets become more fluent after thetraining 8chapter two: concepts of fluency1.1introductionfrom the historical point of view， fluency is considered very important both b

31、ylanguage learners and teachers, but has not been well understood for example, whatfactors contribute to fluent performance and perception of fluency? we often hearpeople say, “tom can speak english fluently" what do we have in our mind when weare making the judgment? at the same time, the pion

32、eers in the field leave us rich anddiverse 1iterature on the notion of fluency. tt has been conceptualized by languageteaching professionals, linguists and applied linguists, and these distinctive anddifferent understandings of what fluency is exert great influence on our decisionconcerning language

33、 teaching and language assessment. therefore it is important toexplore different concepts of fluencyl. 2fluency as proficiency or as a component of proficiencyproficiency, the ability to use language knowledge in specific contexts, is thegoal that all the foreign/second language leeirners are trying

34、 to achieve. many linguistsand practitioners in the language teaching field regard this concept of fluency assomething parallel to proficiency. though it is commonly agreed that it is an idealizedability and impossible to achieve, it provides us with an ultimatc goal to make forlesson 1975,142 views

35、 the term fluency as referring to the speaking ability ofthe whole native-speaking population of normal adults. even though quali tativeevaluation of their speech may differ from person to person because of their differenteducational atteiinment, levels of intelligence etc, all of them can be classi

36、fied as" fluent speakersv lesson explores the meaning of fluency from the generativist pointof view, which, he thinks, is ability parallel to the “ competence" provided by noamchomsky. he argues that being capable of generating “ novel” sequcncc of speech,using a combination of innate gene

37、rative capacity and learned sequences to fulfill9their communicative needs, is a very important critcrion whon judging whethersomebody is fluent or not. he defines fluency as the ability “ to produce indefinitelynidny sentences conforming to the phonological, syntactical and semantic exigenciesof a

38、given natural language on the basis of a finite exposure to a finite corpus of thatlanguage” . this argument is similar to fillmore s 1979 view of fluency with theformer emphasizing the competenee end on the competence-performanee continuumhis description of fluency goes beyond associations with “ s

39、moothness”, automaticityor ease of speech, to include semantic density, sociolinguistic appropriateness andcreativity in language use. he provides us with criteria of fluent speakers. in order tobe flue nt in the language, the speakers mus t possess four kinds of ability the firstkind is the ability

40、 to talk at length with few pauses and the ability to fill time with talkhc cites disc jockeys or sports announcers as good examples of the personspossessi ng t his kind of eibi lity. the seco nd kind is the ability to produce coherent,reasoned, and semantically dense sentences. the main ingredient

41、of this kind ofability appears to be mastery of the semantic and syntactic resources of the languagenoam chomsky, he says, is a good example. the third kind is the ability to haveappropriate things to say in a wide range of con texts. the person who becomestongue-tied in the presence of strangers or

42、 whenever confronted with an unexpectedcrisis of human interaction can not be classified as a fluent speaker. the fourth kind isthe ability some people have in order to be creeitive and imeiginative in their languageuse, to express their ideas in novel ways, to pun, to make up jokes, to attend to th

43、esound independently of the sense, to vary styles, to create and build on metaphors,and so on. it is self-evident that this idealized oral production offluency is applied tothe native adult speakers and quite a difficuit goal for them to achieve, let aloneforeign language lcarncrs> the imally gif

44、ted wicldcr of language, then, issomebody who has all of these abilitiesaccording to lennon 1990, the term fluency can be distinguished into twosenses in common language-tcaching parlance: the highcr-orclcr fluency andlower-order fluency. higher-order fluency， in a broad sense, corresponds roughly t

45、oal 1-round oral profici ency. other linguists, sajavaara and lehtoncnl978, forloexamplc, view the tenn fluency as referring to beingcommunicativelyfit in usingbngucige tocommuniccite. they thinkfluency is the high-queilityperformanceachieved byforeign ianguage1 earners.it is the ability to produces

46、entenccs whicharcfree of hesitations andpauses,absent of grammatical andpronunciation errors and atthe same time characterized by features such as the length of the sentences and thespeed of delivery. lehtonenl977 also points out that the register of the talk producedby the speakers plays an importa

47、nt role in judging whethcr the speech is or is notflue nt in the context. to be fluent in the right weiy one has to know how to hesitate,how to be silent, how to seif-correct, how to interrupt, and how to complete one， sexpression and how to do all these fluently in a way that is expected by the lin

48、guisticcommunity and that represents normal, acceptable and relaxed 1inguistic behavior. heargues that a speaker with weaknesses in any of the linguistic, psychological andsociolinguistic areas can not be regarded as a fluent speaker, eind lack of which willresul t in the disrupt!on in communication

49、. tn his opinion, even though the nativespeakers are proficient in their oral production of their language and therefore can beregarded as fluent speakers, their speech is often marked with what we regarded asdisfluency. lehtonen. 1977: 20 this again manifests the complexity of the termfluencyfaerch

50、, haastrup, and phillipson 1984 also agree that the notion of fluencyshould be regarded as the global proficiency of the speaker. they define the termfluency as “ the speakers ability to make use of whatever linguistic and pragmaticcompetence they have to achieve their communication needs” . in the longmandictionary of language teaching & applied linguistics, fluent speech contains the“ quality of being natural and normal, including nativc?like use of pausing, rhythm,intonation, stress, rate of sp