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Snapshot, Bold Show - Application of Student’s Micro-video in Spoken English Teaching in Chinese Higher Vocational Colleges

Li Xi-ping

School of Foreign Language and International Communication, Guangdong Industry Polytechnic, Guangzhou, China

Abstract: The importance of spoken English has been intensified by the economic globalization and internet revolution due to the special role of English as a universal language. However, it is a consensus among researchers and teachers that its teaching effect in China is unsatisfied: many learners are in “dump English” state; furthermore, Chinese students are in high anxiety to learn spoken English, they are reluctant or even afraid to speak in public not to mention its quality in aspects such as fluency, accuracy and appropriateness. Therefore, it is a heated discussion among researchers of foreign-language teaching on how to enhance the interest of study and teaching effect through the application of teaching strategy in classroom teaching of EFL, which is responsible for the enhancement of the student’s spoken competence. This study is devoted to explore the teaching design and application of the strategy “snapshot, bold show”. Result of contrastive analysis and survey shows that it can stimulate the learner`s motivation, arouse their learning desire and simultaneously improve their performance in English speaking.

Keywords: snapshot, bold show, teaching strategy, spoken English teaching

Citation: Li Xi-ping, Snapshot, Bold Show - Application of Student’s Micro-video in Spoken English Teaching in Chinese Higher Vocational Colleges. Journal of Linguistics and Literature, 1 (1). 21-28. January 2017. doi:10.12691/jll-1-1-5

1. Introduction

1.1. Introduction of Present Dilemma in Spoken English Teaching in China

The importance of spoken English has been intensified by the economic globalization and internet revolution due to the special role of English as a universal language [1]. Hence it has been raised to an unprecedented position by Chinese Ministry of Education, marked by the issuing of College English Curriculum Requirements in 2004 and 2007, which stresses the cultivation of the leaner`s spoken English proficiency. Numerous researchers and teachers are constantly on the move to apply or explore various ways and methods to enhance the learner`s spoken English performance, however, it is a consensus among researchers and teachers that its teaching effect is unsatisfied, and speaking still remains the most difficult skill for the majority of college students, who remain poor in oral communication in English after years of study , which is reflected in the speaking scores of international scale test such as IELTS and TOEFL: 1) in terms of spoken proficiency, a large number of students are found to be spoon-fed and hardly speak correct and fluent English upon graduation [2], many still stay in “dump English” state. Some college students can understand what others say in English but cannot express themselves effectively, and some even cannot catch others` meaning conveyed by spoken English. 2) In terms of spoken quality, they are many defects in language aspects such as fluency, accuracy and appropriateness, thus many scholars state that the language they use in oral English can be described as impure or inappropriate. Besides, the lack of variation of strategy, intonation, and body language is a common phenomenon. 3) In terms of spoken willingness, the Chinese students are in high anxiety to learn spoken English; they are reluctant or even afraid to speak in public. It is well-known that they try their best to avoid speaking English in public.

A combination of potent inhibitors is responsible for this situation: 1) from the viewpoint of the students, they have little chances to practice in class due to large class size (usually a typical average class size is about 40-50 students in Chinese colleges). 2) As for the teaching content, the present teaching material is selected in a very narrow range, mainly from textbooks, focusing on the text content of spoken English, which is simple in context, lacking vivid authentic communication atmosphere, phonetic and communicative strategic knowledge and skill. Furthermore, nearly all topic exercises to every student are identical the same, lack of customized variation. 3) From the viewpoint of teaching mode, the implementation of student- centered principle is inadequate. In fact, most of them are based on teacher-oriented mode, which means the teacher is the absolute center in the class, who dominate the whole classroom teaching actitvities. Hence the teaching design does not start from careful analysis of the learning needs, content and learner`s initiative state, but based on the analysis of present teaching materials and facilities, or even teachers' teaching preferences and ability. Therefore, a series of instructional design such as teaching task, activities, procedure etc. deploys from the student-centered track. In such class, the students have little chance to speak freely.

1.2. Introduction of the Learners’ Individual Characteristics

According to surveys and analysis of college students' English learning characteristics and Strategies [3,4], which involve “ students' learning initiative, overall strategies in English learning, English Learning method, ways of English learning , acceptable English teaching method etc.”, the Chinese college students share the following features: 1) in terms of learning initiative, they do not have enough learning initiative for studying English under the examination-oriented education influence, most of them are passive learners because they are used to be required to do so by the teacher or parents. Furthermore, a majority of them are unwilling to speak English even in class because of fear and feeling of inferiority unless be pushed by the teacher. 2) In terms of overall strategies in English learning, according to the survey, there are only 15% students recognizing the importance of development of overall competence, the rest 85% think they learn English in order to cope with exams and teachers. This shows the students' overall learning strategies lack of subjectivity and attention. 3) as for the English learning methods, a large number of students are still taught by teachers, a small amount of them combine self-study or teacher explanation with self-study, and a certain proportion (about 10%) of students apply the method randomly. This shows most of the students do not find out the suitable and effective learning method, they are relying greatly on their teachers, lacking of self - learning consciousness in subjective. Their method is single and lack of innovation, which will greatly affect the learning efficiency. 4) In terms of ways of English learning, most of the students learn English through class by means of the teacher's explanation and guided practice or exercise. Only a small part of the students can think of reading extracurricular books, watching movies and listening to English songs etc as an important way to learn the language.

In short, the Chinese college students are in low motivation, confident and efficiency in learning English as EFL, and it is worse when it comes to the spoken English.

1.3. Introduction of “Snapshot, bold show”

“Snapshot, bold show” means the students tape their performance in English speaking into micro videos and then share it with others such as group members, classmates and teachers, friends to invite corresponding commentaries. This strategy consists four steps: “taping one`s or one group`s English speaking performance → edition and revision → sharing publicly → assessment and summary.” Firstly, the learners are required to form study groups of 4-6 and then required to use their smart phone, computer or iPod, etc to tape their performance in English-speaking into micro videos as homework. They can tape their works with whoever they favor, either in group or individually. Consequently, they edit and revise their videos with the help of group members. Thirdly, they share or publish it on a certain range of public group such as Wechat, QQ zone in order to invite relative comments. The best one or ones in each group will be chosen by the teacher to be presented in classroom teaching and serve as a sample to be analyzed and challenged then. In the end, based on received feedbacks and self-analysis, the learners evaluate and summarize their works.

This strategy has changed the traditional spoken English teaching in the following aspects: 1) since the topic or the forms of the video is open to students (see Table 2), the learning content is then in wide diversity and authentic, which greatly enlarge the student`s horizon. 2) In order to show off or avoid losing face in public by their video-works, which is a common psychological phenomenon among young people, the students have to practice many times and well –plan the content before taping, which demand massive in-put and out-put exercises and hence will enhance their spoken competence. 3) The students are encouraged to cooperate with each other in order to accomplish the homework, so cooperative study is embodied rather than individual study. 4) the learner`s assignment (homework) is to tape English speaking into micro-videos instead of reading or recitation task, the former is much more complex, interesting and convenient to be watched and analyzed for many times and people, and it can serve as an representative of a specific learner` spoken English competence; While the latter is very common in practice of recitation or reading or role playing of the dialogues, passages or patterns, which is mainly knowledge of language points. 5) As for the classroom teaching activities, the students will be the center and the teacher will become a counselor or guider, the student-oriented mode is really fulfilled.

This strategy is very practical and convenient to be implemented in China owing to the following reasons: 1) China now is in We-Media era, almost every civilian people has a digital device and can exchange information through internet with the help of some social software such as Wechat and QQ. 2) Many young Chinese students enjoy showing off their daily life or important matters to attract concerns or thumb-up through social software. 3) The young people are used to communicate through digital devices such as smart phone, iPod, computer etc. rather than a face to face conversation.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Constructivism

Known as the outstanding representative of current leading cognitive psychological achievement, constructivism posits that learning is an active, constructive process in which the learner constructs knowledge and meaning based upon their experiences and current/past knowledge [5]. It emphasizes on the creation of a conducive learning environment where encourage the learners to construct their own perception of reality based on their experience and beliefs as well as dialogues with others [6]. And it advocates that the learning activities should encompass the real world, worthwhile results and authentic experiences (Mynard, 2003, cited by [7]).

As to the teaching of spoken English in EFL context, constructivism assumes that the role of teachers is a facilitator, whose duty is to aid the student to draw the conclusions on their own instead of attempting to receive it passively when it comes to language acquisition [8]. Furthermore, the learners’ spoken proficiency can be enhanced through a series of cognitive and interactive activities in the process of speaking, and values the importance of the exertion of author’s subjective initiative and iterative revision. Consequently it advocates “learning to speak through speaking”, “student-centered” teaching activity and promotes the learner’s self-exploration and practice of EFL speaking as well as the utilization of learning elements such as situation, cooperation and meaning negotiation.

2.2. Communicative Language Acquisition

Communicative Language acquisition is widely recognized and accepted among applied linguistics researchers and teachers in current second language acquisition (SLA) research and language pedagogy. It holds the belief that the aim of the teaching of EFL is to cultivate the learner’s communicative competence- the ability to use language (oral or written form) and sub-language (body language) to achieve some communicative purpose, including both comprehension and expression [9]. It focuses on communicative and contextual factors and pursues authentic communication in life and content-oriented meaning negotiation. According to Stephen Krashen [10], “Acquisition requires meaningful interactions in the target language― natural communication―in which speakers are concerned not with the form of their utterances but with the messages they are conveying and understanding.” Furthermore, it advocates learner-centered and experience-based teaching activity and promotes the fulfillment of communicative tasks in real or simulated real-life situations, encouraging the students to learn actively and independently.

As to the teaching of spoken English in EFL context, Communicative Language Acquisition assumes that the learner`s spoken proficiency can be enhanced through the process of implementing specific communicative tasks in real or simulated real-life situation with full feedback with peers other than speaking without authentic communicative context and material in this field. Its teaching principle lies as the following: 1) the learning material should be meaningful and authentic; 2) the teaching task should be equal or similar to real communicative one; 3) the learning process is also the process of fulfillment of communicative task. In other words, it advocates that the learner should speak a certain content to accomplish communicative tasks

2.3. Task-based Approach

According to Richards and Rodgers ([11], p. 223), task-based approach must base on the use of tasks as the core unit of planning and instruction in language teaching. The soul of this approach lies in the belief that “language is primarily a means of making meaning” and language acquisition can only achieved through language practice. Therefore, it promotes that the learners should fulfill task activities for a communicative purpose by using the target language in order to achieve an outcome [12] while teachers must guarantee that the teaching task is effectively arranged, implemented and assessed grounded upon.

As to the teaching of spoken English in EFL context, Task-based Approach promotes that the learner`s spoken proficiency can be enhanced through the fulfillment of task activities for a communicative purpose by using the target language. And it also advocates the teacher should design, supervise, and guarantee the implement of the teaching tasks.

3. The Framework of “snapshot, bold show”

3.1. Background

Both of the cognitive psychology and communicative language acquisition hold the belief that language acquisition only happen in language practice. Therefore, the best teaching design of spoken English must focus on speaking practice in the paradigm of the communicative context, which can accelerate the students’ process of accomplishing internalization of the tacit knowledge to explicit one and self-construction of English speaking knowledge and skills by experiencing the series process of speaking such as planning, organization, drafting, revision, polishing, speaking and etc..Hence the author applies both the task and situational communication approach in teaching practice.

3.2. The Teaching Content

The teaching aim of spoken English is to cultivate students' comprehensive communicative competence and strategy in oral English. Therefore, the total objective of the teaching of spoken English is to train the students' comprehensive speaking ability of various topics and communicative ability, enrich their relevant discourse knowledge of content and form (the former including such core elements as lexical, syntactic, discourse, etc; the latter including knowledge of styles of discourse such as narrative, informative, persuasive and special genre) and phonetic knowledge (including such core elements as “pronunciation, intonation, rhythm, stress, pitch, loudness, tempo, voice quality and etc). Therefore the students can foster basic skills, be familiar with main types of oral English discourse and form good speaking habits, strategies and mechanics.

According to these objectives of the spoken English, the author proposes that the teaching content of spoken English as EFL should consist of three dimension items: the product, process and communicative strategy (see Table 1).

Table 1. “Three Dimensional” teaching content of spoken English

3.3. The Teaching Design

Previous research [13,14,15] (Jacknic, 2008; Kinginger, 2004; Thorne, 2006) proves that language acquisition only happens during the practice. So the core of the design of teaching activity in spoken English is to create and implement communicative task based on real or simulated real situation. Therefore, the teaching activity should involve either four stages (in line with the process of verbal communication) or three stages (based on the task-based approach) according to different criteria: pre-taping → while taping → edition and revision → communicating and sharing/ pre-task → during task → post task (see Figure 1).

In the pre-taping (pre-task) stage, there are three main teaching activities: first of all, the teacher pre-determines the requirement of communicative tasks or micro-videos (see Table 2) and models. These developed requirements are reasonable and practical, allowing the students a diversity choice space in teaching practice; Consequently, the teacher and students discuss and analyze the communicative tasks (including communicative environment and aim, interpersonal relationship, role of author, etc.) and characteristics of model together to sum up the language characteristic of a certain topic, helping students establish the speaking purpose of such topics and consider the language feature such as voice, tune, intonation, sentence stress, sense groups, liaison, pause, and etc.; Thirdly, the teacher divide the whole class into several study groups, which usually consist of 4-6 in each one according to the size of class members. Group members are required to help each other to tape, comment and revise every one’s performance after class. Furthermore, a study group can either tape video as a whole (such as dubbing various characters) or individually or in other formation.

Figure 1. Teaching Procedures of “snapshot, bold show”

Table 2. Requirements of average student`s micro-video per term

In the while taping (during task) stage, the utmost task is to tape, which mainly involves the students` activity after class under teacher’s supervision, guidance and assistance. In this stage, the study groups are required to carry out the desired task (concrete speaking performance) combining all kinds of skills from planning (the form, type, topic etc. of the video), organization (relevant materials, procedures, and structure), trial (imitation or rehearsal), to taping step by step: developing the speaking plan→ organizing related materials → imitating or trial → taping the first draft.

Just like as the above, the edition and revision (post task) stage mainly involves the students` activity after class. And the students are required to carry out the following steps: editing their videos → self evaluation and revising → inviting peers feedbacks → further revising and polishing. Firstly, the author should edit their videos in such aspects as adding in personal information, role, title, ending, background music etc. Secondly, after self evaluation, the author revises his or her product. Thirdly, the author shares the product among group members to invite feedbacks in the aspect of “strength” and “defect”. Subsequently, the author further revises and polishes their products in accordance with the feedback they receive in line with the task requirements.

The final stage “communication and sharing (also belong to the post task stage)” is of vital importance, which is mainly implemented in classroom teaching and aims to implement the comprehensive assessments on its effect from both the teacher and students. It covers the following procedures: sharing → communicating → assessing → bold show. First, the author or representative of authors replaces the teacher and works as a host or hostess to present the product in class for once to invite comments from the teacher and other students. Then he or she should present self comments and some background information. Thirdly, the students and teacher should work together to find out specific strengths and defects while watching the products again. Finally, the host or hostess student chooses three sample sentences which represent his or her top spoken English level to ask the others to challenge after explanation of some necessary background information such as the speaker`s mood state, characteristic, intention, surrounding environment and etc.. At last, the author is encouraged to share it in social zone to invite further comments or thumb-ups from other audiences.

Table 3. Analytic scoring scale of product (in reference to IELTS SPEAKING: Band Descriptors)

3.4. Assessment

The assessment of teaching effect usually involves product and learner evaluation. The author adopts similar assessment conventional tools such as classroom performance, communicative effect and a speaking scoring scale from IELTS to evaluate the speaking performance, of which the four criteria of “Pronunciation, Fluency and Coherence, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy” are weighted equally and the speaking band score is the average (See Table 3). Besides the teacher and peers, the open assessment on students` products is adopted as well, which varies to different person or environment owing to their intuitive nature. Since this research focuses on the introduction of the strategy, so the details of evaluation system of the teaching effect doesn`t present here.

4. Sample Case of Classroom Teaching Activities for One Product

Topic: various ways to express one`s emotion in emotional films or plays

Activities in classroom teaching

4.1. Step 1. Presentation and watching

Teacher: Boys and girls, it is our show time again now. Who is in turn today? Let `s welcome!

The student hostess (He jia-li from Biology Technology Class 171 of Guangdong Industry Polytechnic) comes to the teacher`s desk and work as a student hostess. She presents/plays her video for once in class. Her product is dubbing clips of Once Upon a Time in American in the role of both Deborah Gelly and David Noodles Aaronson.

4.2. Step 2. Comment

After peers and self comments in the aspect of “voice, tune, intonation, sentence stress, sense groups, liaison, pause, and etc”, the hostess invites the teacher`s comments on the product. And it is required that every comments should consist of strength and weakness of the product and must not be repeated again.

4.2.1. Peer Comment

The hostess: Any volunteer to comment my video?

Student a stands up and points out that the product is well done, and its strength is the hostess dubbed the boy`s role very well except in one sentence it suddenly sounds much elderly.

Student b states that its strength is the hostess`s pronunciation, intonation, emotion, and pause etc in this clip is very good, sounds as if it is the original one. But sometimes the shape of lip cannot match your voice, and the background music is too loud to interfere the audience`s attraction.

Student c states that the product is well organized, the beginning and ending part carries the relevant information of the film and the author except the lack of the role-play information, since the author imitates the voice of David Noodles Aaronson so well, the audiences may mistake it is the original one most of the time until they find one defect later. So he suggests the hostess add the role-play information in the beginning part.

…

4.2.2. Self Comment

The hostess comments her strength and shortcoming in this clip.

He jia-li: I think this product is not well done. The strength is that my dubbing is very similar to the original ones in emotion, voice, pronunciation, speed, liaison, etc. but, sometimes, my voice cannot match the shapes of lip in the film because of speed, liaison or rhythm. And I film and edit this video one sentence after one sentence, so the voice of the two characters don’t consistence because sometimes I forget the pitch of voice of them in the former scenario and make mistakes. And in one sentence I use the male voice to dub Deborah Gelly. But I have practiced it many times and tape it several times too. I learn a lot from this experience.

…

4.2.3. Teacher`s Comment

The teacher comments it in the aspect of phonetic knowledge and skills such as intonation, sentence tress, fluency, pronunciation etc and gives a positive evaluation.

The teacher: I think Miss He jia-li has done a very good job. The first reason is this film is very classical in art achievement even in the spoken English because of complex characteristic, context and mood. So it is hard to imitate. And Miss He jia-li does it well in mood, voice, pronunciation, intonation, liaison and pause etc. Secondly, she plays the two roles and does very well in the hero. That needs very high skills and talents. Thirdly there are few defects in this video. Of course, it is not perfect. The weak points are: a) mispronounces two suffixes and a word in accuracy. b) and makes several mistakes in the fluency. In all, this video is very good. And next it is our turn to point out its defects in the first 10 sentences.

4.3. Step 3. Challenging (the Most Important Procedure)

4.3.1. Competition of Finding out Defects

The teacher and students are required to check at least 10 sentences in this video to find out whether there is any defect in it and do corresponding remedy works if necessary. First, the hostess plays the first 10 sentences or selects 10 sentences at random one by one, after watching once, the audience are required to decide whether there is any defect in this sentence, if so, where? If not, where is the most successful part, why?

In this part, the students are attracted to watch it carefully and decide its accuracy, fluency and appropriateness. And then they are asked to point out the successful or unsuccessful components. At the same time, the hostess is allowed to argue in favor of herself or to further explain some specific background. (Omitted)

4.3.2. Challenge the Hostess

The hostess is required to choose three sentences that she thinks she has imitated very well or represents high skills and invites at least 4 students to challenge after playing , demonstration speaking it each for four times. Meanwhile the hostess or the teacher will explain some background information or speaking skills included in these sentences such as the speaker` emotional state, implication or cultural background, the pitch of the voice and its function in face to face communication. In this case, two sentences are spoken by young Deborah Gelly: “Somebody is there”; “Go on, run. Your mother is calling you.” And the last one is from David Noodles: “so what are you doing here?” Although these sentences are very simple and plain in language features, they need high phonetic skills in communicative context in the film because they convey complex emotions. They are in turn is in panic-stricken, furious and distain, rascal state. It is very interesting and hard for the students to copy with, but there are still many students competing to challenge them in various inversions and each brings amusement and peculiarity. The teacher and the hostess evaluate the students` performance by pointing out its strength and defects.

4.4. Step 4. Summarization of Language Points and Skills on the Teaching Topic (Details Omitted)

Ways to express one`s emotion: 1. Verbal …, 2. Non-verbal…

5. Feedbacks from Practice

After practice of a series of similar cases as above-mentioned for 6 years (from 2012-2017) in two Chinese vocational colleges (Hunan International Business Vocational College and Guangdong Industry Polytechnic) for about 700 students, the author builds a data of student`s products and collects a feedback data as well, which implies optimistic effects. There are some typical feedbacks towards it as stated below.

5.1. Positive Feedbacks

1) Student- centered principle is implemented adequately under this strategy and the students have to carry out abundant in-put and out-put oral practice in and after class. Since the students are required to film and present their videos, first of all, they must watch or search a lot of relevant videos or materials in order to choose a suitable topic. Secondly, they have to find out and mark the pronunciation, intonation, voice etc. verbal information in the selected materials and practice it for many times in order to realize ideal effect. Thirdly, in the step of comments and challenge, the students are encouraged to express their opinions freely or display/show their imitation talents; these are another type of spoken practice. Last but least, every student has the chance to be host or hostess of the classroom teaching activities while the teacher has turned into the role very similar to the film director. Students have become the main character of the class rather than the teacher dominates it.

2) the learner`s motivation and interest is largely aroused owing to the following factor: firstly, the teaching material in his mode is very interesting, relaxed and intensive, and most importantly is that they are chosen by the students. As to the subject or content of videos, the dubbing of clips usually constitute of famous speeches (such as in TED), classical films, movies or TV plays (from cartoon, emotion to science fiction and record etc.), reading of poetry, passages or even songs. While the original piece usually consists of introduction or comment of something or somebody, reading of favorable passages or poetry, record of important moment in one`s life, or personal experience etc. These contents are very different from those in the textbook, which is very fixed, uniform, instructional and monotonous/dull. So these are very attractive to the students. Secondly, the task requirement and teaching mode is very similar to games and the student`s living environment, which is full of competition and challenge in showing off and comments. When the students are involved in it, they are experiencing challenge, competition, hardship, and at last a feeling of achievement when finished. This atmosphere is infectious, which encourages others to do better. So every student is eager to try his or her best to do it well in order to receive more thump-ups. Thirdly, this mode can provide the student a sensation or a feeling of achievement or even proud when they show off their products in social zone or in class.

3) the teaching effect is very obvious: a) the students are fond of having spoken English class instead of afraid of it, some are eager to have it. That is an amazing change. b) the students` spoken English competence enhance greatly, most of them are no longer afraid to open their mouth to speak it. Some of them can speak very fluently and accuracy. c) through massive authentic in-put, the students` spoken English knowledge is wildly enlarged other than in abstract rules. Many of them have formed a sense of spoken English. d) Many authentic in-put and out-put practice take place when the students involve in this mode during the whole process, this is very essential for language acquisition.

5.2. Negative Feedbacks

1) The quality of video varies greatly from student to student and not everyone is meaningful to display in classroom teaching. As we know that good products are fuels and nutrition for all students while low quality ones are dull and uncomfortable. So there are still parts of the inferior products, which are not recommended to share in class because of their low quality in some extreme cases. Therefore, there are a few students with poor spoken English or unconcernedly in each class may have no chance to display in classroom teaching but in group or private situation because of large class and limited time.

2) Some scrip of the video is not so authentic or standard because of the large diversity. Some students prefer certain specific subject such as sports competition live commentary, cartoon movies, DIY Video script, etc, which may not be standard or authentic in common life. They need extra explanation or remedy works when commenting in class.

3) It is a challenge task for the teacher to comment these videos in terms of time and energy consume as well as his or her comprehensive quality because there are no reference answer to them and she or he will answer or explain some very extreme phenomenon independently. Moreover, it costs a large amount of the teacher`s time and energy to review or check all the students` products from my own experience because they are not so attractive and interesting as films.

4) It is not so practical in terms of examination. This practice advocates to choose the learning content at student`s option, which is very unusual in Chinese context because Chinese students are still examine oriented and they are used to that educational means serve examinations. They are still required to attend a series of English examination, which includes oral part such as College English Test Band 4 and 6. The oral parts usually contain reading aloud and speaking or role-playing on chosen topic on a predetermined context. However, this mode focuses on the cultivation of comprehensive spoken competence rather than the examination ability, so it may be not practical in terms of the cultivation of examination ability.

6. Conclusion

This paper states the necessity, possibility and teaching design of the teaching strategy “snapshot, bold show” and demonstrates it with a sample case on the details of process in spoken English teaching in Chinese higher vocational colleges.

Compared the teaching effect before and after the application of this strategy, most of the participators agree that the latter is much more attractive, challenging and effective. Furthermore, its practice has been implemented with nearly 500 participants for one semester in each academic year from 2012-2017 for Grade one students majoring in Business English in the College of Business Foreign Languages in Hunan International Business Vocational College and 200 participants for one semester in 2017 for Grade one non-English major students in Guangdong Industry Polytechnic. Feedback receives from both the teacher and learner reveals that they think this strategy is very useful in stimulating the learner`s motivation, arousing their learning desire and enhancing their English speaking performance.

Acknowledgments

This paper is supported by Hunan Provincial Education Science Planning Office under the project of “the overall teaching design and practice of 'three-dimensional' college English writing in Higher Vocational College” (XJK16BYY20).

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