Research on the Methods of Listening Teaching1.doc

听力教学方法研究research on the methods of listening teachingcontentsabstract.1key words.1. introduction. 2. problems in listening teaching21. barriers in psychological quality.22. lack of language knowledge.33. different cultural background.4 4. chinese interference.5. strategies in listening teaching6 1. training students psychological quality.7 2. focus on the process of teaching and learning of language knowledge.83. comparing cultural differences.94. studentcentered teaching methodology.105. combination with listening and speaking11. conclusion.12references.12research on the methods of listening teachingresearch on the methods of listening teachingabstract: a lot of problems in the listening teaching process are discussed in this paper. they are analyzed respectively and also several effective methods are shown afterward. the problems of listening teaching are barriers in psychological quality, lack of language knowledge, interference of chinese, different cultural background and so on. some strategies to these problems are presented following: training psychological quality, focus on the process of teaching and learning of language knowledge, comparing cultural differences, changing teacher-centered teaching method into student-centered one and combining listening and speaking. key words: listening teaching; barriers; solutions 摘 要：本文讨论了听力教学中存在的诸多问题，同时也在经过对问题的逐个分析之后得出了相应的解决办法。这些问题分别是：听力中的心理障碍，语言知识的缺乏，汉语的干扰，不同文化背景的影响， 以老师为中心的传统的教学模式等等。而相应的解决办法是：训练学生的高心理素质，更多地关注语言教与学的整个过程，对比不同文化的差异，改变以教师为中心的教学模式到以学生为中心的模式，注重听与说的联合教学。关键词：听力教学；障碍；解决方法iintroductionwith the increasing of intercultural communication english is taking greater and greater effect on transmitting message and expressing it. but in comparison with the skills of speaking, reading, and writing, listening comprehension is a relatively late concern in english teaching in china. listening is the language modality that is used most frequently. it has been estimated that adults spend almost half their communication time on listening, and students may receive as much as 90% of their in-school information through listening to instructors and to one another. often, however, language learners do not recognize the level of effort that goes into developing listening ability. a common phenomenon is that some students who have learned english for at least six or ten years are still incompetent at communicating with native english speakers. the natural conversations, interviews in personal contact are almost incomprehensible to them. this phenomenon stems from various reasons. most of barriers are existing in english listening teaching: students have little sufficient exposure to english, and their english proficiency is very low. it is not difficult to find that in teaching practice there are still kinds of problems. so, how to solve the problems is really important now. problems in listening teaching 1. barriers in psychological quality generally speaking, listening from the real life is very native in whatever teaching or learning. however, formal and serious teaching is usually a barrier for learners to communicate freely. because they are always afraid of being questioned by teachers. such kind of state will lead to learners failure in listening. sometimes learners feel too nervous to concentrate on what they are listening.some students are from the village, and they seldom have chances to listen to the tapes. their lack of experience also makes them confused. before listening, knowing nothing about the information of the listening materials, they feel anxious and depressed. it seems that they are just like those who are facing customs officers not knowing how to express themselves. this state often makes students passive in listening.another problem with many listening exercises in traditional textbooks is that they test students memory, not their listening ability. it is important to design tasks that do not ask learners to remember details that they wouldnt even remember in their native language. in fact, psycholinguistic studies have shown that people do not remember the exact form of the message they hear; that is, they dont remember what they hear word for word, rather, they remember the meaning. the original message is transferred in the brain to a form where the meaning is preserved, but the original surface detail is forgotten.2. lack of language knowledgelanguage knowledge is necessary for listening. the level of english listening always bases on the level of language knowledge. little language knowledge will lead to students failure in listening. listening involves a sender (a person, radio, and television), a message, and a receiver (the listener). listeners often must process messages as they come, even if they are still processing what they have just heard, without backtracking or looking ahead. in addition, listeners must cope with the senders choice of vocabulary, structure, and rate of delivery. the complexity of the listening process is magnified in second language contexts where the receiver also has incomplete control of the language. according to some researches in resent years many students think that the most bothering and most difficult part is listening comprehension, and even some of them have difficult in understanding their teacher who gives lessons in english. undoubtly, it is difficult for an english learner to understand the listening material, if he hasnt enough vocabulary and the ability to master the grammar construction. in these researches showing, about 35% of the students with low listening comprehension ability, this is because they dont understand or know the linguistic knowledge, so that they are not able to tell the meaning of what they have heard. it is not difficult to find that learners who havent enough language knowledge are in trouble. especially, the following several aspects can show that learners are poor in language knowledge.1) phoneticsas we know, poor pronunciation is always a big barrier in language listening, because language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for communication. sound or speech is primary medium for all human language. in listening, there will be several easily confused words such as light/night/fight; short/sought/thought. and learners also find it hard to understand the real meaning due to different tones and intonations. the following sentence is a case in point:jerry has passed his english examination. (positive) (carroll 1969: 126)jerry has passed his english examination? (doubtful) (carroll 1969: 126)different stresses and rhythms also lead to different meaning of the sentences. it proves that pronunciation is a key to listening lesson, so we should give it enough attention. 2) vocabularyvocabulary is important for language, because it is necessary to make a sentence and a passage. if a language learner has no enough vocabulary, he or she has not the ability to understand materials and other speakers. on this extent listening has loss its evaluation for learners.learners have limited vocabulary, since the listening materials including everyday life, science, society, culture, economy and so on. usually when listener in learning process meets with a new word, they feel very uncomfortable. because these new words make them confused. even the new vocabulary always leads learners to give up if learners cant process them well. in addition, if learners have not enough vocabulary, not understand some special and useful expressions and idioms, then it is also a large barrier to them in listening teaching process. for example: the phrase “black sheep and the sentence “it is a piece of cake.” during the process of learning the english learners will often meet such as this kind of expression. if learners know nothing about this or a little, they will make a mistake and even will fail to understand what they are listening. 3) linguistic knowledgein a kind of language some rules take important effect. an english learner must master correct linguistic rules to rebuild information from listening. only a learner dose learner studies english in a scientific way, he or she can get correct knowledge and improve his or her listening level at most speed.3. different cultural backgrounddifferent countries have different cultural background. if listeners know little about the environment, cultural background, custom or even living mode, they cant have a good understanding of the speakers even though they are familiar with the words heard.during the process of learning language, culture differences are very common. if an english learner hasnt read the bible, he or she will never understand this: “being a teacher is being present at the creation, when the clay begins to breathe.”(nunan 2001:49) and sometimes you feel strange about america religion. however, after learning that there are over 88% christians in american residents and 95% american people declare to believe in god, you will further understand american culture. it is worse that still there are such cases as some students have no idea of christmas. every time they listen to something related to christmas, they will be curious, surprised or even puzzled. christmas day is a common festival in foreign countries, but if learners havent enough knowledge about this festival they will not understand the happiness of people on that day. sometimes conflicts or cultural shock will appear in communication if they do not know much about cultural background. in western countries, it is usual to call their relatives, friends or even parents their last names to show intimate relations. however, it is impolite to do so in china. whats more, background knowledge can provide evidence for learners to guess and understand the unknown information of the listening materials.while communication with people from the other culture, students are easily hesitating to speak. they often ask themselves questions like these, “i wonder whether they will like me? suppose they disagree with my arguments? if they misunderstand what i say? if i say something inappropriate? ”when a westerner greets to chinese people, some to them pretend that they have not heard of it, or bow their head keeping silent. some of them smile shyly and quickly go away. all these would make the westerner embarrassed. so chinese must try to talk to westerners and take advantage of every opportunity to talk with foreign teachers and students available in a relaxed atmosphere. they will benefit from such talks since they can not only practice language, but also observe native speakers behavior and exchange their feelings about cultural differences with native speakers. while they attend classes given by foreign teachers, observation and exchange of feelings are of the same importance. foreign language learners should not hesitate to ask foreigners questions concerning cultural differences, and foreigners may like to answer them since they are equally eager to know such differences, which have much to do with their life in china. so if learners can get more different culture knowledge they will get more help to improve their listening ability.4. chinese interferencewe know the largest difference between mother language learning and foreign language learning is the environment. everyone knows that a child can soon learn his mother language well. because he has heard a lot before he can say something and walk. then after he is able to walk and say, he has a chance to listen to more. before he goes to school, he has already been a good listener and speaker. but for a foreign language, you can meet it only in formal places, classes, for example, otherwise, you can hardly have a chance to meet it. so i think it is necessary to let the students be in a language environment. we also often find a phenomenon among english learners. whenever they come upon some native speakers, they keep silent or speak a kind of english, which sounds grammatically wonderful but not easy to understandboth for their incorrect pronunciation and for their bookish english. it is common among english learners. during listening process, after hearing the information, learners are constantly limiting themselves to the chinese thinking. they are used to transferring from english into chinese negatively. every time they meet with language barriers, students naturally turn to the mother tongue chinese for help. in such way translating will create a barrier between listener and the person who is speaking. while you are listening to another person speaking english, the temptation is to translate the listening materials immediately into your native language. this temptation becomes much stronger when you hear a word you dont understand. this is only natural as we want to understand everything that is said. however, when you translate the foreign language into your native language, you are taking the focus of your attention away from the speaker and concentrating on the translation process taking place in your brain. this would be fine if you could put the speaker on hold. in real life, however, the person continues talking while you are translating. this situation obviously leads to less understanding and a kind of block in listeners brain which sometimes doesnt allow them to understand anything at all.this will result inevitably in their failure both in listening and speaking. there is a great saying about learning a foreign language from marx: when learning a foreign language, one must forget all about his own. (gardner 1985:78) chinese interference is dangerous in listening teaching.and there are still some other barriers in listening teaching. accordingly, in english learning, reading and writing gain higher priority while listening is attached little importance in practice: limited language listening environment; our english class is always passive and dull. there is almost no communicative environment for english learners. students become just dumb and deaf, and materials and textbooks for learners are either literary and academic or artificially made and far from life events.all mentioned above are barriers in listening teaching process. then how to remove barriers? this is a key question. . strategies in listening teachingnowadays, the teaching of listening has been made more interesting with the widespread use of multimedia technology and fast development of language learning software. and when students compared with the past, they will take active attitudes toward listening. however, teachers are no longer machinecontrollers. they should first get familiar with all the functions of the multimedia technology and should also select the most appropriate language learning software to meet the needs of students and class; teachers should incorporate seeing, listening and speaking together. and there are still some other strategies that will be helpful in teaching listening. they are as follows:1. training students psychological quality according to the study of psychology, most of the psychologists believe in using a number of different teaching methods, with a great emphasis on interaction between students and teachers. so, some courses are advised to use in the training psychology quality process: lectures: a good way to train english for communicating factual information. to give the small number of students some free topics, in such way students are easily encouraged to ask questions. in the training process students can be divided into small group and large group. small groups are made of 4 - 6 students who discuss specific readings relevant to the lecture course and have the opportunity to ask questions about anything unclear from the lectures; in large groups, the training may include demonstrations, videos, and presentations to other students or other class activities. practical classes: psychology training involves designing experiments and collecting and interpreting experimental data, and these classes will help students learn the relevant skills. computer classes: the courses on research design and statistics in particular involve the use of computers and programs such as spss. the present success in english teaching mostly depends on the teacherstudent relationship, which is formed through unite and cooperation in teaching practice. first of all, there will be an intimate relationship between teachers and learners. the teacher should be a role like this sentence “becomes more like the skillful conductor of an orchestra, drawing the music out of the performers.” (byrne 1976:2) in this relationship learners do not worry about the teachers questions and commands; on the contrary, the teacher should not overcorrect the students pronunciation and intonation while they are speaking in order not to make a barrier to their psychology. practically, the teacher can be regarded as the medium of the teaching but not the director of the teaching process while students play a leading role in english teaching and also a reactive role by responding to the teacher. secondly, interest is the best teacher. when students take great interest in what they are listening, they feel free and enjoyable. so the teacher should choose some useful and wonderful listening materials for students to enjoy such as social custom, the bible, poems and novels and so on, which are the favorites of students. since interest can ease learners psychological pressure and make them rela