| Summary: | 碩士 === 雲林科技大學 === 應用外語系碩士班 === 98 === To this day, the instruction of English speaking in Taiwan still focuses on stilted dialogues and conversations that are mostly designed under controlled contexts. However, when we consider the application of classroom conversations to real-life communications, which cannot be pre-designed or controlled, the effectiveness of the current approaches to improve speaking performance can be challenged. Moreover, higher levels of speaking activity such as extended speaking may be hard to achieve through practices of brief conversations. To challenge the conventional approach of teaching English speaking, I proposed in this study a new angle to reflect on what is required in order to achieve satisfactory speaking proficiency and a new approach to fulfill the requirements. This research investigated the effects of the story grammar approach on EFL college students'' speaking performance. It was hypothesized that with the intervention of story grammar approach, the students’ story schema would be activated and utilized to improve the length and complexity of their speaking performance. To test this hypothesis, 18 EFL English major freshmen in central Taiwan were divided into two groups: the story grammar approach (experimental group) and the conventional instruction (control group). Speaking tests, semi-structured interviews and classroom observations were administered to observe and test for changes in speaking performance. The results of the speaking tests indicated no significant positive effect to the story grammar approach on students’ speaking performance. The possible reasons for the failure of the story grammar approach were that the story grammar did not prepare the students for more interactive modes used in speaking tests, and the students were not ready to transfer what they had learned to the testing context. However, through semi-interviews and classroom observations, certain merits to the story grammar approach were observed. The qualitative data revealed that the story grammar approach had positive effects on students’ comprehension, retention, speaking performance and engagement.
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