Strategies to Achieve Effective English Listening for College Students.doc

strategies to achieve effective english listening for college studentschapter one introductionits difficult to get out of the home, if you can speak your native dialect only; its impossible to face the world, if you can only speak chinese.english, known as the international language, is the most widely used language in the world. recent estimates suggest that more than 400 million people speak it as their first language, with more than 1800 million people speaking it as second language. and the number is rising day by day.krashen once said: whether children or adults, in language learning, the most important is listening comprehension, listening comprehension is in an extremely important position in foreign language teaching. it means that when we learn a foreign language, listening comes first and which is also the short cut of having a good mastery of a foreign language. linguists have pointed out that the process of listening is to feel the outer signals through the hearing organ and then store them in the brain in a short time and analyzed by it and understand the meaning. and finally express what we want to say after thinking of what we hearted. according this theory, we can understand it very easily that listening is very important in second language acquisition. we can say that listening is the basis of learning a foreign language. as a college student i understand that almost all of the college students want to improve their english, and think that is very good to speak a good english, therefore, we made a mistake which pay much attention on speaking but not listening. they think speaking is the most important thing in learning a foreign language, however, they ignore a truth that when we were young and learned to speak our native language chinese, we spend almost 3 years to listen to our parents or other people, then gradually we can speak chinese freely and fluently.acquiring listening skills is frustrating. this is because successful listening skills are acquired over time and with lots of practice. its frustrating for students because there are no rules as in grammar teaching. here is a discussion of the problem and some suggestions to improving listening skills.listening comprehension is a complex process. it involves pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, language knowledge and so on. so it is important to know about students listening barriers and adopt the right ways to solve these problems.chapter tworeview of literature 2.1 the review of the past listening researchaccording to past research of listening, researchers sum up two categories of english listening research. they are empirical research and theoretical research. (cao peisheng，2003) the two tables give statistic analysis to the articles concerning college english listening in the past decade in eight of the major linguistic journals in china and shows the status quo and development of college english listening research in china by analyzing the linguistic and teaching background.（table2.1.1,table2.1.2） table 2.1.1 the categories of english listening researchcategoriescharactersempirical researchbased on the systematical material collection and data analysis and promote the hypothesis; design experiments or collect the information; variable disposal; data collection; statistical analysis so that get the conclusions. theoretical researcha critical discussion of teaching theories and their implications for teaching guide; and descript them; according to a certain problem, we sum up our own experience to show others. table 2.1.2 the situation of english listening research of past decadeyearscategories1995199619971998199920002001200220032004totalempirical researchno.110122253219percent12.512.5016.718.22218.229.4332519theoretical researchno.77135979126681percent87.587.513383.381.87881.870.6677581note: no. refers to numberaccording to the two tables, we can easily find that the theoretical research take up 81% of english research and empirical research only19%. through the situation is changing, we are still not pay much attention on the empirical research. therefore, in the past research of english listening, they ignore the importance of empirical research. even the empirical researches are not good. most of them have the problems. for example: most of their researches use the simple methods, they only use the advanced foreign linguistic theories and cant apply them into our practice, even just copy them. we have to see that there are a lot of articles only the teaching conclusions, lack of accumulated experience, systems and reflection mechanism. in fact they are not the “research” in a strict way, but an “exploration”. we all know that practice makes perfect. for listening research, we should pay much attention on practice and we have to find some effective strategies to improve students listening. therefore, i analyze the listening research problems from the barriers of listening; they are phonetic barrier, grammar barrier and mental barrier. i bring forward the strategies to improve students listening ability. 2.2 the importance of listening research2.2.1 the importance of listening existing in the language of human beingsin daily life, listening is an important means of communication when people meet each other; it is also an important way to learn english. according to a survey conducted by the united states, when the normal people awake, 70% of the time for the activities of various forms of communication, of which 11% will be used in writing, 15% for reading and 32% for speaking at least 42% of the time for listening.(cooper, 1998). in english learning as well as the activities of human activities, listening is the most basic form of all skills, is the ability of understanding and absorption of oral communicative information.we all know that before we speak we have to listen if we want a good effective communication. so speech is very important in the development of human beings.2.2.2 the position of listening in the four language skillslistening is an important aspect of communication, is the most important way to get the feelings of language, is the basis to improve speaking, reading and writing ability, is the prerequisite of speaking good english. listening is on the basis position of the four elements which are listening, speaking, reading and writing. listening is a kind of input, is the most important way to learn and absorb a foreign language. no input, no output. therefore, listening play a important role both in second language acquisition and in the promotion of learning motivation and arouse of emotional factors. english listening teaching is an important part of english teaching, it is directly related to student mastery of english language and application of it. everything has its rules in this world, so does the english learning. we have to follow the rules to learn english. english is just a kind of language which is used to communicate with people. it can be used by every normal people. in another word, language is only a tool for people to do their basic things. so there is no reasons we cant learn it well. in the four elements of learning language, listening, speaking, reading and writing, listening comes first. then we can have the possibility to speak, read and write. but, its not a individual process. it must involve the other three skills, especially speaking. because of the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, &writing), listening takes the first step. however, communication is a two-way activity. when you can understand what is said to you, because of some reasons, you cant speak out what you mean, and then the communication cant be continued. . so this communication will become a fall. . during the learning of a language, listening and reading are a process of understanding and absorption, speaking and writing are a process of expression and use. understanding and absorption are foundation while expression and use are improvement. that is, the former is a process of input; the latter is a process of output. without the former, the development of expression and use will be meaningless. while the language input is increased, the favorable practical activities of output will also be done constantly on the basis of understanding. and the final aim of language teaching is to develop the students ability to communicate. and often the listening is more than the writing in language using. although in the modern internet world, e-mail also give people more convenient, when they write and read the e-mail, they will spend more time than speaking directly. whats more, writing cant express the writers feelings, quickly and directly, and the reader cant understand the writers feeling .but we should know that we are human beings and we have the requirement to communicate with each other directly. so our listening can not be ignored. it is still in the basic position in the four skills.2.2.3the importance of listening existing in the teaching syllabusthe aims of teaching syllabus stipulates that “ english teaching in middle schools are mainly to train students to have a definite foundation of listening and speaking so as to attain the aim to communicate comprehensively with others in english.” (teaching syllabus for middle school, p2) it requires the teachers of english to organize their 45-minute class in english to create a living and lively english environment of english learning. it includes the listening class. almost in all the english tests, listening comprehension takes one third of the test. and this presentation is increasing. it means that the importance of listening.2.2.4 new tests focus on speakingat present, the teaching syllabus stipulates. “examination and test should include written part, listening test and oral test as well.” (teaching syllabus for middle school, p9)and now you can find listening test in our all kinds of tests. and many areas take it as an important part to estimate the students comprehensive level. whats more, now you often can find that there are many english-speaking competitions on tv and many areas also hold all kinds of speaking competitions. during the competitions there are some questions asked by experts. if the contestants dont have a good listening they cant win the competition. at the same time, there are more and more super english speakers presenting in the non-english countries. chapter threesome barriers in the process of listening 3.1 phonetic barrierthe articulator apparatus of a human being are contained in three important areas or cavities: the pharyngeal cavity-the throat, the oral cavity-the mouth, and the nasal cavity-the nose. the air stream coming from the lungs may be modified in these cavities in a variety of ways. it may also be modified in the larynx before it reaches any of the cavities. (modern linguistics, p17)so, if we want to have a good mastery of english, we have to know how to pronounce every english word. this point is more important for us college students.usually, phonetic barrier comes from the impact of students mother tongue or dialects, which is different from the native english-speech people; even we can say that there is a gap between them.（johnson, 1992） it mainly shows on non-pure speech, the ability to differentiate the words is not strong, and often make mistake on the accent of words, and dont know how to pronounce the english words.because of the point ,the learners should be required to know every part of pronunciation of humans body and can pronounce the pure english .however, for most students in the process of their learning, they are greatly influenced by their teachers, especially teachers phonetics. but at present in many areas, especially in the rural areas, schools are short of specialized english teachers. some other teachers who are not familiar with the sound linking, plosive, stress, etc. are asked to teach english. though they are competent in teaching english grammar and language points, it is surely difficult for them to speak fluent and pure english. and also some schools cant afford modern machines, so the students cant imitate the pure english, so their listening ability cant be trained favorably, when they communicate with others, they often find their pronunciations are different from others . so they cant understand what is said to them. therefore, their listening ability will be influenced and the confidence of communication also be influenced.3.2 grammar barrierit is emphasizing that the aim of our language teaching is to communicate; we still should have some knowledge of english grammar (johnson, 1992). in english, there is a change of tense. and the order, which the action happens, can be presented by the change of verbs, which many students often ignore these points when they communicate with others. as a result, some unnecessary mistakes will happen. for example, a student wants to express this meaning “i have been to beijing.” not knowing the difference between “have been to”and “have gone to”, so he says, “i have gone to beijing.” if he knows their difference, he will not make this mistake. so when we communicate with people we may cant understand them if they dont know grammar very much. it have the influence on listening. we all know that the four skills are can not be isolated. the existence of the grammar barrier makes students hard to improve their listening skills. because the speakers poor grammar, the listener try his best to connect the meaning of the speaker. this process must need the listener to think about it. then its really difficult to catch the meaning of the speaker.3.3 mental barrierpsychologists tell us that when people in a state of tension; it will have a fear, so that we cant understand the contents which are easy for us to understand. some students lack self-confidence. in the classroom, especially in the listening classroom, teachers need students active participation. students lack of self-confidence in such circumstances is often feel nervous, and fear of answering questions. it is difficult to raise the students level of english listening, when they state in the high pressure for a long time.in 1990, the beijing foreign languages institute organized some english teachers as a group to conduct a large-scale investigation of chinese students ability of english. (外语教学与研究1993 年第l 期。) the result shows that: language ability, and learning motivation and other four factors influence the english level most. krashen believes that learners will have a psychological barrier to the absorption of language. this is what is called “affective filter”. this kind of “affective filter” is unconscious, it is the result of anxiety or lack of self-confidence（krashen，1985）.it is said that anxiety or lack of self-confidence stops the learners deep impression for language. the process of listening comprehension is a complex psychological intellectual activity. the listener must be in a very short period of time to finish a series of process of identifying, understanding and storing. and only in this way the voice can be turn into the significant signals. if the brains ability to receive information was severely disrupted, the effectiveness of information processing will be greatly reduced. even before the listening, the effectiveness of information has been reduced and at the same time affecting the degree of the listening level. listen to the same content, the students psychologically preparation is different when they listen to teachers and when they listen to records. emotional factors and the effectiveness of the listening comprehension have the direct relations when students listen to english. if their desire of listening to english is strong, the effect will be better. conversely, if students are not interested in listening activities, they will have tired of it. scholars at home and abroad continue to explore the theory and practice; the study shows that english learners in the learning efficiency and learning anxiety negatively correlated. it means that anxiety impedes the english learning. （chastain，1975；horvitz，1986 ）. so anxious learners often have the unpleasant emotional responses or psychological discomforts such as fear, tension, worries and so on. according to omalley and chamot survey in 1990, it also proposed the positive role of focus on the listening comprehension. 3.4 other barriersof course, the above mentioned is not the only factors to obstruct the improvement of listening ability. and there are some other factors to influence the listening ability. for example, the communicating people, (some good friends will be good communicating people), the communicating topics (some interesting topics will promote their communication well), the communicating surroundings (if it is possible, it will be the best surrounding to be put in the english-speaking countries) etc. because there are so many factors obstructing the students listening ability, some good ways to improve their listening ability should be found during the process of english teaching and to help them overcome these obstructs. then their listening ability will be trained and improved favorably during the process of english learning. chapter four strategies for improving students listening ability4.1 enhancement of the students interest for english learningthe train of listening is boring; it requires a long-time focus on it. so teachers should arrange the content properly and use some interesting method to arouse students interests.as we all know, “the aims for english teaching is to train the students how to u