A Research into the Teaching of Listening in Middle schools1.doc

中学生英语听力教学研究A Research into the Teaching of Listening in Middle schoolsAbstract: Thousands and millions of people in our country are foreign language learners. However, quite a lot of them can not master this language well though they spend an amount of time on it. For many years, listening skills did not receive priority in language teaching. It used to be assumed that listening skills could be acquired through exposure but not really taught. Until recently some applied linguistics realize that listening comprehension is at the core of second language acquisition and therefore demands a much greater prominence in language teaching. A common phenomenon is that some students in Middle school, who have learned English for five to six years and pass the exam of English, are still incompetent in communicating with native English speakers. Quantitative studies concerned with learning Listening comprehension are very rare in China. Listening comprehension has long been a problem for foreign Translation method has been the traditional English teaching method. Therefore there is a need to study how to improve students listening comprehension with the help of language learning strategies. Successful listening comprehension relies on the availability of adequate linguistic knowledge and world knowledge on the part of the learner. Listening comprehension difficulty is closely related to learners inability to activate the knowledge needed. Although a great many media have been used in teaching listening and speaking, there are few which can be compared with films. Films provide both audio and visual material which help the learners understand the language more easily. Films show real-life situations in which characters speak the English of the real world.Key words: listening; skill; phenomenon; learning strategies 摘要：很久以来，英语教学中的听力教学都没有得到很好的认识，也没有得到很好的重视。而对于现在的教学，需要对听力教学有很好的认识。在中学教育中，这是比较普通的现象，无论是学习了5年还是6年的英语，由于受自身母语的影响他们的英语水平还是不高。英语听力需要对英语翻译有很好的理解，所以要找到提高英语听力的方法和学习策略，以提高学习者的英语听力能力。成功的听力需要有适当的语言知识和世界知识储备。听力有困难是因为没有激活学习者的储备知识，没有语言环境并且缺乏真正的听力策略培训。虽然许多媒体已应用于教学听力和口语,但是有几个可比较的影片就可以帮助学生更好的理解。电影提供音频和视频资料,帮助学生理解语言更容易。影片展现真实的情况下,在字符所不能展现的英语的真实世界。 关键词：听力；技巧；现象；听力策略ContentsI. Introduction.1II. The Problems of Listening Teaching in Middle Schools.2A. The problems in listening.2B. The ways of solving the problems.4III. The Skills of Improving the Ability about Listening.6A. Theoretical Foundation.6B. Adoption of materials.8C. Choice of strategy.8D. The Film and Media.9VI. The Data Analysis Teaching of Listening.10A. The Data collected from questionnaires.10B. Data Analysis and Findings.11IV. Conclusion.12Questionnaires.13Work Cited.15I. IntroductionFor many years, listening skills did not receive priority in language teaching. It used to be assumed that listening skills could be acquired through exposure but not really taught. Until recently some applied linguistics realize that listening comprehension is at the core of second language acquisition and therefore demands a much greater prominence in language teaching. Two views of listening have dominated language pedagogy since early 1980s. Some years ago, Anderson and Lynch point out, “listening is an essential skill foe communication,” Listening in language teaching and learners have to understand the language before any communication happens. However, teachers and learners have never paid enough attention to effective listening skill training, which greatly affects the communication with others. Listening and speaking; analyzes the major factors hindering the development of the students listening and speaking skills according to a survey; and discusses some possible ways to inspire students interests in English based on some of the attempts reform in listening classes. In comparison with the skills of speaking, reading and writing, listening comprehension is a relatively late concern in EFL teaching in China. Research in language leaning strategies shows great potential in the field of second language acquisition. However, the educational context, learning goals, and task requirements of Chinese students previously studied. Can the findings of western research apply to Chinese students? To answer this question, there is a need to investigate the learning strategies of Middle school students in China so that we will have a better understanding of what strategy training they may need to achieve their learning goals. A common phenomenon is that some students in Middle school, who have learned English for five to six years and pass the exam of English, are still incompetent in communicating with native English speakers. Quantitative studies concerned with learning Listening comprehension are very rare in China. Listening comprehension has long been a problem for foreign Translation method has been the traditional English teaching method. Therefore there is a need to study how to improve students listening comprehension with the help of language learning strategies. The natural conversations, interviews in personal contact are almost incomprehensible to then. This phenomenon stems form various reasons: students insufficient exposure to English, low English proficiency, inadequate listening materials input, in particular, inappropriateness of the methodology adopted in the teaching of listening comprehension of the traditional teaching method. Another one lies in the prevailing though that reading and writing is more important than listening and speaking, which result in a simple, changeless, dull arrangement of their skills. In addition, classroom-hours allocated to listening are rather limited, usually an hour a week. Then, how to improve students listening skill in the limited time is left up to the English teachers. Form the above analysis of the reason of listening; we can say it is difficult for listeners to interpret appropriately about what they heat even for the native speaking is a complicated process, the successful listener has to be thought of as an active one. The listener has a crucial part to play in the process, by activating various types of knowledge, and trying to understand what the speaker means. Research in language learning strategies shows great potential in the field of second language acquisition. However the educational context, leaning gals, and task requirements of Chinese students learning English are different form the educational settings of the students previously studied. Can the findings of western research apply to Chinese? Listening in the classroom context is different form real-life listening. “Teachers often consider listening in language learning and teaching in two ways: For some teachers, listening is a complete timetabled session by using published materials designed to practice learners aural comprehension skills. In this paper, I will analyze the process of listening the nature of listening comprehension and factors, which cause difficulties of understanding and point out different views about teaching English listening. Films are a very effective medium for language teaching, especially in teaching listening and soaking. This paper discusses the advantages of using films in teaching that course to Middle school students. II. The Problems of Listening Teaching in Middle SchoolsA. The problems in listeningSuccessful listening comprehension relies on the availability of adequate linguistic knowledge and world knowledge on the part of the learner. Listening comprehension difficulty is closely related to learners inability to activate the knowledge needed. In an input-poor environment: lack of authentic listening input; absence of listener strategy training; low learner motivation. In middle schools, teachers think that teaching English is just to teach vocabulary and grammar. So, English teaching only lays stress on analyzing grammar structures and explaining lots of language knowledge, which give students many difficulties in learning English. Teachers and learners have never paid enough attention to effective listening skill training, which greatly affects the communication with other. First, listeners mother tongue has to be taken into consideration. For us, Chinese language is different form English. Since almost all the subjects in the research mentioned above are English majors. However, most of the current listening comprehensions research has been based on the relevant native language research. Only a small amount of research has been done on L2 listening comprehension. Listening to L1 is different from listening to L2. Apart from the inherent features found in L1contexts, there are other characteristics which are special to L2 listening. First, listeners mother tongue has to be taken into consideration. For us, Chinese language is different from English. Chinese belongs to the Sino-Ti-beta family, while English belongs to the Sino-European family. The grammar rules are different between the two languages. In Chinese, there is no change of word forms to denote tenses, or subject is not common in Chinese pronunciation. Secondly, China has a different culture and customs from other English-speaking countries. The Chinese learners may have different background knowledge towards certain discourse situations. Thirdly, the way or process of listening is quite different between L1 listener and L2 listener. L1 listener can relate the meaning of the word immediately to the referent without necessarily to its from. For most L2 listeners, they have to first know the form of the word and its meaning, and then they can recognize the word during listening. Even some L2 listeners have to relate the sound of the word they hear to the form, and then translate if into their mother tongue, and finally get the meaning of the word. So for L2 listeners, the process of listening normally needs longer time than L1 in processing the message. Quantitative studies concerned with learning strategies and listening comprehension has long been a problem for foreign language learners, especially in China, where the Grammar-translation method has been the traditional English teaching method. Therefore there is a need to study how to improve students listening comprehension with the help of language learning strategies. Chinese belongs to the Sino-Tibetan family, while English belongs to the Sino-European family. The grammar tulles are different between the two languages. In Chinese, there is no change of word forms to denote tenses, or subject is not common in Chinese pronunciation. Secondly, China has a different culture and customs form other English-speaking countries. The Chinese learners may have different background knowledge towards certain discourse situations.Language we used should be fluent and precise, the format should be correct, suiting the requirements of the thesis, the structure should be complete, and the arguments should be sufficient and reasonable, the points should be very clear.1) Quantitative studies concerned with learning Listening comprehension are very rare in China. Listening comprehension has long been a problem for foreign Translation method has been the traditional English teaching method. The area of learning strategy research has grown dramatically in importance over the last twenty years. The first mayor development was the publication of the “Good Language Learner” study, which reported that successful language learners tended to use certain strategies. The underlying premise was that if one could identify the strategies adopted by good language learners and the teach poor language learners to use such strategies, these less effective learners would become more able to handle language learning demands. It was this inference which lay behind research studies which tried to assess the worth of strategy training.2) This phenomenon stems form various reasons: students insufficient exposure to English, low English proficiency, inadequate listening materials input, in particular, inappropriateness of the methodology adopted in the teaching of listening comprehension of the traditional teaching method. This study was undertaken to see whether strategy training should have a role in the foreign language listening classroom. It would seem that the results speak in favor of such a role. So what could and should be done is, above all, concerned with two things: reflection and flexibility. “Reflection reprints the learner developing some degree of self-awareness in learning, and shows how a given learner may appreciate his or her strengths and weaknesses. Flexibility arising form met cognitive strategy use organizes and gives purpose to the way cognitive and social-affective strategies are used, and increases the likelihood of appropriateness of strategy choice.3) Another one lies in the prevailing though that reading and writing is more important than listening and speaking, which result in a simple, changeless, dull arrangement of their skills. In my opinion, all listeners make mental associations with prior knowledge, but the way in which they use associations may depend on whether they are an effective or an ineffective listener. Effective listeners frequently related the new information to their personal experiences and made critical judgment about the value of information. In contrast, the ineffective listeners not only had fewer associations but also did not make connections between the new information and their own lives.B. The ways of solving the problems About the analysis of the reason of listening; we can say it is difficult for listeners to interpret appropriately about what they heat even for the native speaking is a complicated process, the successful listener has to be thought of as an active one. According to bottom-up approach of listening, listeners segment the stream of speech into its constituent sounds, link these together to form words, chain the words together to form words, chain the words together to form clauses and so on. By bottom-up listening, the listener uses his phonological, lexical and grammatical knowledge to process the language input, by identifying familiar lexical items, segmenting the stream of speech into constituents and connecting the lexis into sentences and encoding meaning from them. But meaning does not reside exclusively within the words on the tape recorder or on the page. It also exists in the head of the listener. Successful listeners are those who can utilize both inside the headkonwledge