The Effects Of First Language Thinking On College Students' Spoken English And Its Enlightenment

Along with the increasing globalization of politics and economy, English, especially spoken English becomes more and more prominent in daily life. However, students'L2 speaking ability is rather low at present. Among the reasons affecting spoken English, mother tongue plays an important role. Previous studies either place more weight on the result of L2 output, or simply tend to regard the influence of mother tongue on L2 acquisition as being"either negative or positive". In the past 20 years, some researchers have begun to shift their focus to the process of L2 output, but present researches still concentrate on the study of L2 writing and translations; less emphasis is laid upon the process of L2 speaking. In this regard, the thesis aims to explore the following questions:1) what is the amount of L1 in the process of L2 speaking? 2) During the L2 speaking process, is there any correlation between the amount of L1 thinking, L2 proficiency, and L2 speaking ability? 3) What is the function of L1 in L2 speaking process?The experiment, conducted in Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, required 12 freshmen from Department of Chinese Pharmacy taking part in the test and then selected six of them as the final subjects after two-week training of think-aloud methods. The subjects are required to accomplish a picture talking task while the researcher recorded the thought process of all subjects by employing the think-aloud method.The researcher counted the English and Chinese used in each recorder for the purpose of measuring the amount of L1 used in the L2 speaking process. Then, two experienced English teachers were invited to assess the subjects'L2 speaking abilities. By comparing the subjects'L1 use with different L2 proficiency and with different L2 speaking ability, the thesis discussed the effects exerted by different L2 level on L1 thinking. Then, the subjects'speaking processes are divided into five categories. And the L1 proportion in each activity is apply to explore how L1 influence L2 speaking process.The study has several findings. First of all, the students have two language systems at their disposal while speaking in L2. The average amount of Ll thinking contributed about 32% to the L2 speaking process. Then, the relation between L1 thinking and L2 proficiency is rather complex. Generally speaking, the amount of L1 use in the L2 speaking process decreased with the improvement of the speaker's L2 proficiency and L2 speaking ability. Finally, L1 has five functions in the process of L2 speaking: responding to tasks, generating ideas, organizing ideas, generating text and controlling process. The subjects tend to revert to L1 in the activities of task response, ideas generation, ideas organization, and process control, while L1 thinking accounted relatively little to text generation.The study enriches the knowledge of the role of L1 in the L2 speaking process and the L2 learning process, and at the same time it proves the inevitability of L1 use in the L2 learning process. The study also has some enlightenment on spoken English teaching and L2 classroom teaching.Due to the relatively small size of the subjects, the results obtained from this study can only serve as an assumption for future studies. More effort is needed to explore the effects of L1 use on different L2 speaking tasks, learners'attitudes towards L1 use, etc. from the respects of a larger sample size and multiple research methods.