The Effectiveness of the Production-Oriented Approach to Enhance Adult Chinese EFL Learners’ Language Proficiency: A Comparative Study of Three Language Teaching Approaches

The production-oriented approach (POA) is a nascent language-teaching approach that considers the aptitudes of Chinese learners. This study compared POA with task-based language teaching (TBLT) and presentation-practice-production (PPP) theoretically and empirically. A four-quadrant model and a theoretical comparison table are proposed to clarify the commonalities and differences among the three teaching approaches. In the experimental design, a mixed-method approach was employed to compare the effects of POA with the other pedagogical methods on adult Chinese learners’ English-as-a-foreign language (EFL) learning. A total of 343 Chinese college freshmen and six English teachers were invited to participate in an 18-week pre- and post-test quasi-experiment. The ANCOVA results indicated that the students’ English proficiency test scores (excluding speaking) in the POA group were significantly higher than those in the PPP group (moderate effect size: 0.27) and the TBLT group (small effect size: 0.17), albeit non-significant. MANOVA step-down analysis showed that the POA group significantly outperformed the TBLT and PPP groups in terms of vocabulary acquisition and writing. The implications and suggestions for better dissemination and implementation of POA for adult EFL learners in China and other Asian contexts are discussed.