Current English Language Teaching Using Production-Oriented Approach: A Systematic Review

Abstract

In recent years, the production-oriented approach (POA) has grown to be a popular research topic in China. Despite that, it is noticeable that a systematic literature review of the international journals written in English (2019-2023) on POA is not available, which has raised a need to promote POA to other parts of the world, especially to benefit more English learners. This review is focused on three questions: What is the present state of implementation of POA? What are its influences on students’ acquisition of the English language? What are the obstacles encountered in promoting broader adoption of POA? Based on a search via three databases (Scopus, WoS, and ERIC), 35 journal articles between 2019 and 2023 were analysed finally. The findings indicate that: (1) POA research is now mainly empirical research, related to theory development, teacher development, and textbook development. (2) The effects of POA on English learners are as long as they are manifested in terms of their effects on students' writing ability, speaking ability, translation ability,  positive affective experiences and learning awareness. (3) At present, the main problems encountered by POA lie in the limited classroom teaching time, the relatively small sample size, and the remaining gap between the selection of teaching materials and the teaching design to keep students’ continuous motivation. In addition, this article also discusses the future direction of research, which needs to work on linguistics, literature, western culture, ESP programs and other languages, as well as the integration and development of teaching materials and teacher development.