3。4 Instruments 7

3。5 Data Collection 8

4   Results and Discussion 8

4。1 Pronunciation Features 8

4。1。1   Vowels 8

4。1。2   Consonants 9

4。2   Intonation 10

4。3 Tempo 11

4。4 Word Choice 12

Conclusion 13

Acknowledgements 15

References 16

Appendix Reading Material 18

1 Introduction

Second language acquisition raises its popularity with increasingly frequent international exchange。 This chapter briefly introduces the research status and methods in SLA。 And then the study significance of influence of personality on spoken English in SLA is given。 From+优!尔.YouErw.com 加QQ75201`8766

1。1 Research Background

The extensive application of English arouses more and more attention of the SLA researchers and requires them to take efforts in studying the factors related to English learning and then giving some effective suggestions on how to go through the bottleneck and difficulties in the learning process。 Considering the fact that the English most of the students in China learned is “dumb English” while the key of communication is spoken English, researches on the ways to making improvements need to be involved in the tasks of top priority。

Second language acquisition comes into being around the end of the 1960s as an independent subject, which has a history of more than thirty-five years up to now ( Block, 2003 )。 With the urgent demand from frequent communications among countries, oral competence as a part also gradually comes into people’s sight。 There are many factors that have an influence on second language acquisition including external factors and internal factors such as the transfer of the language, Second Language Acquisition Cognition and inpidual differences in which personality takes a big part。 Case study in SLA field is far from enough。 According to a general view on the learning strategy studies conducted in the previous twenty years, only 6 of 38 employ case study and 3 mixed methods ( questionnaire & case study or questionnaire & interview ) ( Wen, 2014 )。 This paper endeavors to analyze the effects of personality on oral English with the aid of case study combined with an interview to specialize one of those factors, the introverted and extroverted personality。

1。2 Significance of the Study

Oral competence is the most important embodiment of English learning and is the most direct application of it。 In the learning process, inpidual differences play a key role in one’s oral development。 The introverted and extroverted personality, an element of inpidual differences that can not be ignored, is worth researchers’ time and effort。 However, recent studies mainly give care about external environment and comparably fewer studies about personality, so this paper will focus on the impact and function of extroversion and introversion。

China’s exam-oriented education causes a porce between grammatical ability and language application abilities such as speaking and listening ( Zheng, 2014 )。 And some of the students even never have any kinds of oral English classes, so most students get a systematic and professional oral learning from their university life。 Based on this, this paper chooses two English major seniors as its respondents and probes into the extroversion and introversion effect on their spoken English through previous observation and later interview。 Moreover, detailed analysis will be given on whether the extroverted and introverted personalities affect spoken English or not, in the aspect of five elements of oral characters, pronunciation, intonation, tempo and complexity as well as word choice, which may give some pedagogical implications concerning helping students develop oral competence。