The present study explored the progress and inadequacy of corpus-based research on oral English teaching in China based on all the relevant key journal papers issued on CNKI from 2002 to 2021. The results of data analysis are as follows: (1) In terms of the overall tendency, this type of research started in 2003, developed rapidly into its heyday from 2007 to 2011 before it declined gradually. (2) In terms of its subjects, college students were the overwhelming majority, while high school students were sporadically involved, and primary and vocational school students were largely missed out. (3) In terms of research methods, empirical quantitative research was dominant, lacking the introduction to English Lingua Franca Corpus and the integration of cognitive processing technology. (4) In terms of research content, the non-empirical studies focused on the introduction, construction, application, review, and reflections of the oral corpus home and abroad, while the empirical studies largely focused on the vocabulary, collocation, and grammar of the transcriptions of oral speech, but hugely neglected the essential features of spoken speech, such as pronunciation, intonation and continuous speech, as well as the processing mechanism of spoken English produced or perceived by Chinese EFL learners.