Investigating Chinese Students’ English Speaking Difficulties, Attitudes and Strategy Use in Online English Class

This study aims at investigating speaking and presentation performances of Chinese students with low competency in online English speaking and listening classes as well as observing which strategies students experiencing speaking difficulties use to survive in those classes. The research is also aimed to explore their attitudes toward English language learning. For the methods used to achieve results, the researchers focus on qualitative inquiry that includes observations and interviews. The findings of the study show that students had low speaking performance due to factors such as low self-confidence and low English proficiency. However, besides teacher’s advice, they dealt with such problems through various strategies such as the use of online and electronic tools, including electronic dictionary, online and mobile translating applications. In addition, one student relied on another person to help out as a learning assistant. Although students’ performances were rather poor, their attitudes toward learning English were positive for they realized the importance of being competent English language users. Moreover, they were willing to seek more opportunities to improve their English proficiency in future.