But as the examination questions are not communicative, structuralism oral test can’t test if accurate language form and proficient skill can successfully fulfill established communicative tasks. On the basis of structuralism oral test, communicative oral test is formed and developed. The typical features of communicative oral test are authenticity, functionality, interactivity, situationality and comprehensiveness. As its typical question forms are role play, interview and discussion, the fundamental communication modes are two-way interactive and multi-way interactive. And the grading of spoken English proficiency rests on the following ten aspects: length, complexity, range, speed, flexibility, accuracy, appropriacy, independence, repetition and hesitation (Wen, 1999). In this way, the coverage of communicative oral test is much broader than that of structuralism oral test.
Nowadays, TEM 4-Oral and TEM 8-Oral are generally carried out for vast English majors to evaluate their spoken English competence. For TEM 4-Oral, it has three tasks: retelling a story, talking on a given topic and role-playing. Since it is implemented, its validity has always been studied. With the evidence of content relevance and criterion-relatedness, it is demonstrated that TEM 4-Oral has a relatively high validity (Wen, Wang, 2009: 37-41). In terms of content relevance, the three tasks of TEM 4-Oral meet the requirements of syllabus and have communicative value.
2.3 Research on Psychology of Learning
As the oldest and most essential field of psychology, learning theory developed into four factions: behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism and humanistic psychology (Liu, 2010). These factions, with their different assertions about learning, are applied by people in different eras. The study on psychology of learning includes the following aspects: the research and study of brain, cognitive and non-cognitive factors of psychology of learning, learning strategy and its teaching, learning adaptability, test anxiety and autonomic learning (Sang, 2010).
This paper will analyze the current situation of spoken English learning of English majors from the perspectives of learning motivation, learning qualities, learning strategy, test anxiety and autonomic learning. Learning motivation is an internal drive that impels a student to learn. It plays a role in initiating, maintaining and guiding students’ learning activities. Learning qualities mainly include learning interest, learning character, learning emotion and learning will (Sang, 2010). These factors have a great influence on the spoken English learning of English majors. Besides, the situations of test anxiety and autonomic learning are also parts of status quo of spoken English learning.
2.4 Research on Current Situation of Spoken English Learning
The outcomes of TEM4-Oral in recent years indicate that the result of oral English teaching is not ideal. Thus enormous researches have been done on the status quo of spoken English learning of college students. The two main research objects are English majors and non-English majors. Qiao (2007), Peng (2006) and Wang (2011), through questionnaires, interviews or observations, apply the methods of quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis to point out the main problems students encountered in their spoken English learning process, to analyze the possible reasons and to put forward suggestions. Lu (2004), Tang (2005) and Zhang (2007) respectively study the factors such as teaching method, motivation and learning strategy, indicating their influences on students’ spoken English competence.
Through analyzing the results of TEM4-Oral, Wen (2001) gets to know the general situation of students’ spoken English proficiency and the problems of their spoken English. Ye (1997) and Yi (2000), through respectively analyzing the content and structure of G-Telp and IELTS oral tests, understand the detailed requirements for students’ spoken English and make some suggestions for spoken English teaching. Lu (1996) compares the spoken English of English learners with that of native speakers by using the method of spoken discourse analysis, which indicates the limitations of current spoken English learning. 英语专业大学生口语学习现状调查(3):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_7853.html