2018 Annual Conference of China English Language Education Association (CELEA2018)

261 / 2018-06-20 19:14:37

Learning Trajectory of Chinese University Students in an off-class Spoken-English-oriented programme

autonomous learning; peer mentoring; Supplemental Instruction; spoken EAP

Plenary track > 中国特色英语教学研究

Supplemental instruction (hereafter SI) has been widely implemented in higher education institutions in foreign countries since its first implementation in 1973 by Dr. Deanna Martin at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. The benefit of learning has been widely acknowledged by teaching professionals and researchers. SI programmes to boost spoken English proficiency on the part of L2 learners in an off-class learning environment are, however, under-researched. Particularly lacking is research on how to implement SI in Chinese universities in order to engage and empower student learners without adding too much on either faculty workload or on financial budget. Looking into this culture of learners embodied by “English Hub”, an English-mediated, Spoken-English-oriented and non-credit-bearing programme offered by a Chinese university language centre, the study examined three aspects of the programme, namely, topic selection, teaching delivery and learning effect. Drawing upon a myriad of data resources including online questionnaires, interviews as well as textual analyses of supplementary materials posted online every week, the study concluded that the topics as taught in the programme were appropriately selected in terms of settings and difficulty levels, teaching delivery was reasonably designed and some learning effects were revealed. A win-win situation was achieved for multiple parties including student learners, peer mentors, the language learning centre as well as the university administrators.