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This study adopted Xiang-Sheng as teaching material to teach oral expression of new residents’ children, including pronunciation, sentences, statements and discourse guided practice among fifteen lessons. Xiang-Sheng content teaching by Questions & Answers was included. And there were three tests during the different periods of this study, namely pre-test, mid-test, and post-test. The amount of improvement obtained by learner's pronunciation accuracy, sentence length and spoken fluency was compared and analyzed. Teacher reflections in each lesson helped with the instructional improvement for the next lesson. Hopefully the results can contribute in the field of Chinese spoken language teaching.
The results found great improvement in pronunciation and sentence length, but not in oral fluency as anticipated. The drills of minimal sound pairs really helped standard pronunciation. Divergent thinking of words and the convergent arrangement of sentence making could help to create a discourse targeting (addressing) the core words as well as to lengthen the sentences. The failure to develop oral fluency might be due to the incompleteness of the pre-teaching preparation and the neglect of learner-centered instruction in selecting suitable Xiang-Sheng contents. Subsequent action researchers who are interested in this field may take these into consideration for further improvement.
Suggestions of this study are as follows: Oral expression should be guided step by step from pronunciation, statements, to discourse. The selection of Xiang-Sheng contents should be based on learners factors such as age, interests, and background knowledge. In addition, one person' or two persons' or group Xiang-Sheng would all be appropriate but the content should be short and rich in sementic resources. Reinforcing background knowledge before teaching is necessary. Providing brief content for rapid absorption or assigning related books in advance for self-reading are both very helpful.
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