The Implementation of the Output-driven Hypothesis in College English Teaching

International Journal of Modern Education Forum (IJMEF) Volume 3 Issue 4, November 2014 DOI: 10.14355/ijmef.2014.0304.01

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The Implementation of the Output-driven Hypothesis in College English Teaching Jia Suo Department of Foreign Languages, North China Electric Power University Baoding, Hebei, China suojiasj@163.com Abstract The output-driven hypothesis advocates that language learning can be motivated by fulfilling practical tasks. Its effective implementation needs a platform to exhibit each student’s work and diverse evaluation forms. These requirements can be satisfied by WebQuest.

Keywords The Output-driven Hypothesis; Platform; Evaluation; WebQuest

Introduction The reason why students are not interested in English Learning can partly be attributed to the fact that they feel what they have learned are useless, in other words, they cannot be put into practice. Therefore what realistic task students can fulfill by applying what they have learned should be one of the standards in measuring the teaching quality. Accordingly, Qiufang Wen, the director in the foreign language research center of China, put forwards the output- driven hypothesis.

The Output-driven Hypothesis Introduction The theory advocates that language learning can be motivated by fulfilling practical tasks, because students will value the input only when it is needed .

It argues that output should be the the starting point and the ultimate goal of teaching, because output can give learners a greater driving power than input, and it can also make the “inactive knowledge” students have learned in middle school active, firing students’ desire for new knowledge. It helps the application of the receptive knowledge.

Teaching Process and Teaching Methods The following flowchart presents the teaching process and teaching methods of the output- driven teaching.

1) The Teacher’s Tasks a. The teacher designs realistic task that is within the student’s language ability. The task must be the one that are likely to be faced with in the real life.

And the final product is presented both orally and in written form, so that students are tested for oral and written proficiency while they practice reading, writing, and speaking. b.The teacher provides appropriate learning resources, which the students lack when implementing the output task. c. The teacher offers help. The teacher may discuss with the students about the difficulties they encountered in the output activities, get to know the students’ preparation and progress, or review their PPT. The teacher brings his scaffolding function into full play during the process, namely, providing the specific steps and content in building up the scaffold while planning the lecture, so that he can ensure the effectiveness of his evaluation and the enhancement of students’ abilities. d. The teacher gives feedback. Usually, the teacher’s comments on the student’s oral presentation are too general and neglect the audience’s reaction. Or the teacher pays too much attention to students’ linguistic mistakes in their writing, neglecting the accuracy in its semantic expression and the logicality in its content arrangement. These can be attributed to many

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International Journal of Modern Education Forum (IJMEF) Volume 3 Issue 4, November 2014

reasons, one of which is that the teacher does not know the content of the student’s presentation or writing beforehand. Accordingly, they are not likely to give specific feedback, nor can he have a control over the audience’s reaction. To avoid the phenomenon, the teacher must acquaint himself with the student’s presentation or writing in advance to get prepared in giving proper feedback, and design activities to ensure the audience’s participation.

2) The Student’s Tasks a. The student attempts to implement the task. In this phase, students are required to make an attemptation in fulfilling the task instead of finishing it successfully. If they can come up with the difficulties they may meet or list their language deficiencies, they make a successful attemptation.

The Effective Evaluation is Both Time-consuming and Labor-consuming The effective implementation of the output-driven hypothesis requires diverse evaluation forms.

Students should be asked to grade each work in order to let them see the advantages and disadvantages of their own work. To guarantee the precision of the assessment, the teacher must set grade for each component. The rubric can reduce the arbitrariness of evaluation. Questionnaire is another means of evaluation, which enables the teacher to know the student’s leaning effect, contribution to the teamwork, etc. However, the collection of the grade given by every student to every work and the result of the questionnaire will take the teacher’s too much time and energy.

b. The student learns the resources. They must find the solution from the resources offered by the teacher as quickly as possible. If the resources are not sufficient in helping them solve some problems, they can either turn to the teacher or classmates for help, or surf the internet for the necessary information.

Fortunately, all these barriers to the implementation of the output- driven hypothesis can be removed by WebQuest.

c. The student prepares the task. If the task involves more than two students, an coordinator must be assigned, who is responsible for the division of work and monitoring to guarantee the equal division and the smooth development of the task.

WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all of the information that learners work with comes from the web. It has three characteristics: firstly, its theme is a problem to be solved or a project to be fulfilled; secondly, it provides fix-structured template and easy-to-follow guidelines for teachers and students, which makes it easy to be used; thirdly, it consists of diagnostic evaluation, formative assessment and summative assessment.

d. The student displays and appreciates the work.

The student displays their own work and appreciate his classmates’ works. If a full preparation are made both by the teacher and the student, then the exhibitor, the teacher and the audience can make respective contributions to the display, enhancing its effect with joint efforts.

The Difficulties in Implementing the Outputdriven Hypothesis A Platform is Needed to Exhibit the Student’s Works.

The student must desire for a chance to display his work that he has committed himself to, and expect to appreciate others’ fruits to learn from them. If the expectation can be satisfied, the student’s initiative can be greatly stimulated and the teaching effect can be enhanced enormously. But the display of each work will definitely take up much class time, which means only a small number of activities can be carried out in 104

a semester.

WebQuest Introduction

Six Critical Components in a WebQuest 1)

Introduction

The goal of the introduction is to provide the learning goals of a project to students and to fire students’ interest by offering a project related to students' interests, ideas, past experiences, or future goals and making the activity desirable and fun for students. It provides background information and motivational scenarios like giving students roles to play: "You are an underwater research scientist," or "You are an astronaut planning a trip to the moon."

2)

Task

The task is a formal description of what students will have accomplished by the end of the project. In

International Journal of Modern Education Forum (IJMEF) Volume 3 Issue 4, November 2014

this section, the teacher offers related resources on the Web and devises an activity for the students that incorporates the information from the various sites.

3)

Process

This is a description of the steps learners should go through in accomplishing the task, with links embedded in each step. It offers a scaffold, leading students to experience the intellectual process of a scientist.

4)

Resources

This section consists of a list of the resources that your students will need to complete the task. Both Web resources and non-Web resources are available here. In older WebQuests, you'll find the resources listed in a section of their own. More recent WebQuests have the resources embedded within the Process section to be accessed at the appropriate time. These selected resources can prevent students from surfing the internet for information aimlessly.

5)

Evaluation

This section evaluates students' work by the means of rubric. The commonly used evaluation forms include electronic portfolio assessment, questionnaire survey, works analysis and classroom observation. The standards should be fair, clear, consistent, and specific to the tasks set.

Not only the teacher gives the evaluation, but also the student. Students will evaluate both their classmates’ learning process and their own.

6)

Conclusion

This step allows for reflection by the students and summation by the teacher. Based on the constructivist principle: "We learn by doing -- but we learn even better by talking about what we did.", Students are encouraged to reflect over their experiences, to suggest ways of doing things differently to improve the lesson, and to discuss the possible extensions and the applications of the lesson.

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Both of them take fulfilling a realistic task as their theme; both of them aim at not only students’ learning knowledge by self-inquiry and teamwork but also the application of the knowledge to practice; both of their procedure include “task”,“resources”, “process” and evaluation, and both of their evaluation emphasize diagnostic evaluation, formative assessment and summative assessment. Therefore the output-driven hypothesis can be implemented on the platform offered by WebQuest, which can overcome the difficulties the teacher encounters when implementing the output-driven hypothesis in that the electronic portfolio in WebQuest can offer a platform to exhibit the student’s works, and the questionnaire survey and works analysis in WebQuest can collect the grade given by every student to every work and the result of the questionnaire with high efficiency. What’s more, WebQuest is easy to be used because it provides a fixstructured template and easy-to-follow guidelines. In conclusion, WebQuest is really a great aid to the implementation of the output- driven hypothesis.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The research is supported by“The Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities” and “The reform project of undergraduate education“ in North China Electric Power University (Granting Number: 2014 MS180) REFERENCES

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The Implementation of the Output-driven Hypothesis Through WebQuest

misconceptions

There are great similarities between WebQuest and the output-driven hypothesis in the following aspects: the theme, the objective, the procedure and the evaluation.

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