A Comparison Of Oral Speech Development By Chinese Learners Of English In Intensive And Regular Settings

Many studies have found that intensive programs are more beneficial for second language development in comparison with the regular courses.However,few research compared the longitudinal development of complexity,accuracy,and fluency(CAF)of Chinese learners' English oral performance in intensive and regular At Home(AH)settings.The current study attempts to explore the differential influence of the two AH settings on learners' oral speech development over four years' learning and meanwhile to investigate the relationship between and within CAF across time and learning settings.In addition,a short-term Study Abroad(SA)setting is chosen as a complement to explore learners' second language development in intensive settings in a short time.The research questions to be addressed in the study are as follows.RQ1: How do L2 complexity,accuracy,and fluency develop in oral production over four years' learning for both the intensive At Home(AHI)group and the regular At Home(AHR)group?RQ2: What are the relationship among L2 complexity,accuracy,and fluency development and that within their sub-dimensions in oral production over four years' learning for both the AHI group and the AHR group?RQ3: How do L2 complexity,accuracy,and fluency develop in oral production in a short-term SA setting,an intensive learning context similar to the long-term AHI setting?To answer these questions,the study made use of oral data from two programs in one key teacher education university: an English curriculum reform program and a three-week study abroad program.In the first program,16 students in the AHI context(i.e.,under the new curriculum)and 19 students in the AHR setting(i.e.,under the old curriculum)finished all of the four oral tests over four years and were included in the study.As for the second program(the SA context),the research employed corpus from 16 students at pre-test and post-test.This group was chosen to explore the oral performance development in the intensive learning context in a short term,with reference to learners' CAF development in the long-term AHI setting.Robust statistics using R were performed to analyze the data.Findings of the study are summarized as follows.Firstly,learners in the AHI context outperformed those in the AHR context in the long term.In the first three years,the AHI group and the AHR group were not significantly different from each other in all of the measures.In the fourth year,however,while the AHI group kept improving in most of the measures,the AHR group saw significant regression in lexical complexity,specific accuracy,speed fluency,and breakdown fluency.This might suggest that it was the AHI context,where extensive reading and adequate practice were available,that benefited second language development in the long run.Secondly,relationships among CAF varied both across group and across time.As for the relationships within complexity,neither AHI learners nor AHR learners witnessed the disappearance of competitive relationships with time going by.However,the AHI group did see more non-competitive correlations than the AHR group.As regards to the relationships within fluency,the AHI group displayed simultaneous improvement of speed fluency,breakdown fluency,and repair fluency from T2 to T3,while the three sub-dimensions deteriorated together for the AHR group from T3 to T4.In terms of inter-relationship between CAF,for AHI learners,complexity and accuracy were in a competitive relationship over time,while fluency was in support of both complexity and accuracy as learners' language proficiency developed.AHR learners,on the other hand,found no obvious correlations between CAF.Thirdly,learners in the short-term SA setting improved obviously in breakdown fluency but regressed significantly in specific accuracy.With reference to CAF development in the long-term AHI setting,the results seem to suggest that in intensive settings,learners can achieve significantly higher fluency within a short time,but it takes a long time for complexity and accuracy to make a great progress.Implications and limitations of the study as well as directions of future studies are also discussed in the paper.