The Effect Of College Students’ Risk-taking On The Oral English Communicative Competence

It has been a hot issue for a long time about the researches on the relationship betweenstudents’ characters and their English communicative competence. There are abundantachievements in this field. Ely C.M.(1986)&Beebe L.M.(1983) have conducted someinvestigations concerning these respects, and pointed out that risk-taking has a greatfacilitation in language learning and use. As regard to the study of English communicativecompetence, Chomsky (1965) puts forward his linguistic theory in his book Aspects of theTheory of Syntax, which takes a lead in communicative competence study at home and abroad.However, the researches on the relationship between students’ risk-taking and their oralEnglish communicative competence have not been done thoroughly. On the basis of theprevious research achievements and the Constructivism Model, Informatics Process Modeland Attribution Model, the current study made an investigation to sophomore college Englishmajors, with a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. To begin with, the authorused questionnaires and interviews to obtain the risk-taking degrees; then the author tested theoral English communicative competence and analyzed the test results; eventually the authordiscussed the interrelationship between risk-taking and oral English fluency and accuracy, andalso analyzed the reasons influencing the development of the oral English communicativecompetence.The research findings show that risk-taking is generally in a positive correlation with thefluency of oral English communicative competence, but in a negative correlation with theaccuracy of oral English communicative competence. Nevertheless, the showing forms of oralEnglish communicative competence are various, and the factors influencing the oral Englishcommunicative competence are also diversified and affect one another. The result of the studyprovides some insights and powerful evidences for communicative teaching approach.