英语专业毕业论文-On_Strategies_of_Improving_the_English_Listening_Abilities_of_junior_middle_school_students.doc

ContentsAbstractIIntroduction11. The current situation of the teaching of English listening in middle school11.1 The importance of listening21.2 The problem of the teaching of listening22. The analysis of the reasons for students poor listening ability22.1 Teachers factor22.2 Students factor32.2.1 Phonetics and phonology factor32.2.2 Vocabulary factor and Grammar factor42.2.3 Listening habits42.2.4 Background knowledge52.2.5 Psychological factors52.3 Environment factor53. How to improve students listening ability73.1 About the teaching aspect73.1.1 Improve the teacher own general quality73.1.2 Development of students interest in English listening73.1.3 Design the pre-listening, while-listening, and post-listening classroom activities.83.2 About the student aspect123.2.1 Improvement of students pronunciation123.2.2 Enhancement of students vocabularies and grammar knowledge123.2.3 Extension of students cultural background knowledge123.2.4 Taking notes and developing good habits133.2.5 Develop a good state of mind143.3 About the environment aspect144. Conclusion15Bibliography16Acknowledgements17IIAbstractWith the development of the society, our country constantly carries out the educational reform to meet the demand of the 21st century the era of knowledge economy. More and more emphasis is being put on “the program of balanced development”. Meanwhile, English teaching and learning should be regarded as a course of all-round development of the four skills, which refer to listening, speaking, reading and writing. However, listening is a relatively difficult skill for the students. The new English curriculum standard issued by the Education Ministry stresses the importance of improving the junior middle school students listening ability, because at the beginning of the 2000s, the problem of the students poor English listening ability is becoming more and more serious in China. In order to solve this problem, the English teaching reformers begin to put priority on the training of listening skills. Key words: listening; teacher; student; environment摘要随着社会的发展，为满足21世纪-知识经济时代的要求，我国不断进行教育改革。 人们越来越多的重视并倡导“均衡发展计划”。与此同时，人们还认为英语的学习和教学应该被视为是英语学习的四项技能（听，说，读，写）全面发展的过程。不过，听力学习这一技能对于英语学习者是相对困难的一项技能。在21世纪，学生听力差这一问题变的越来越严重，所以由教育部发布的新英语课程标准明确表明了提高初中学生的听力的重要性。为了解决这一问题，英语教学改革家开始把训练学生的听力能力放在优先发展的地位。关键词：听力；教师；学生；环境。On Strategies of Improving the English Listening Abilities of Junior Middle School StudentsIntroductionAs technology advances and trade and exchanges between countries increase, it is becoming more and more important to understand English in many situations, such as face-to -face, on the telephone, in business meeting lectures, speeches, television, and so on. So, at present, English education becomes more and more important and lots of significant achievements have also been made in it. English, a tool for communication, has a profound influence on the students future development. It is true that listening, speaking, reading, and writing are four basic skills in English teaching and learning. In the four skills of English, listening is the basic, and the most important skill. However, foreign language learners often complain that listening is one of the most difficult skills to acquire. At the same time, Listening is an important step in the learning of English but it is often neglected. As teachers, they should pay more attention to listening teaching, so they can perfect their teaching skills, find out their students weakness and imperfection and improve their abilities.1. The current situation of the teaching of English listening in middle schoolImagine what will happen if we cant follow what others say while we must make some response to it during a conversation? It is the most important that we must make ourselves understand what people say before we give any proper response. Listening comes first.1.1 The importance of listeningAs we know, listening is an essential part of the communication process. Listening is the first language mode that children acquire. It provides a foundation for all aspects of language and cognitive development, and it plays a life-long role in the processes of learning and communication essential to productive participation in life. “It is one of the important ways in English language communication. According to Rivers study indications, listening occupies 45% of the whole social interactions. From this, we can see that good listening can help to improve students ability of language understanding. And some statistics show that nearly 50% of the students regard listening comprehension as the most difficult part among all kinds of examinations.”1(P1-2) .1.2 The problem of the teaching of listeningAlthough most students begin to keep in touch with English as long as they enter their primary school, even when they are still in kindergarten, they really start to master comprehensive English abilities when they become junior middle school students. To them, listening is one of the most difficult skills to acquire. Whether those listening problems can be solved properly plays a very important role to the learners future language study. Thus, the emphasis of this thesis is on strategies of English teachers of improving the English listening ability of junior middle school students.2. The analysis of the reasons for students poor listening abilityIn English teaching, the weakness of students listening mainly depends on three aspects, one is from the teachers, and one is from the students themselves and the third is from the environment.2.1 Teachers factorThe most important and most difficult part of the making of a good language teacher is the development of professional competence, which is the state or quality of being adequately qualified for the profession and armed with a specific range of skills, strategies, knowledge and abilities. For a long time in China, the grammar-oriented perspective has led to the emphasis on language learners grammatical competence instead of their communicative competence. Although students have studied English at school for several years and even get high marks in examinations, they are poor in actually using and listening to the language. In most English classes, the teacher is used to analyzing sentences, explaining grammatical rules and language points. Then the students begin to be involved in grammar exercise, sentence making and translation. It is the teacher that dominates the class and pours out his or her knowledge. While teaching, the teacher pays little attention to students response and students are given a few chances to practice what they have learned in class. After class, it is the same that most of the time and energy of students are still spent in grammar exercise and vocabulary building. Although some teachers have tried applying the communicative approach to language listening teaching, this is only a minority. That is one of the important reasons why many foreign language learners feel it difficult to communicate in English.2.2 Students factorUnderstanding learners listening problems is perhaps the first step for developing effective teaching strategies. In China，many Chinese students also have some problems while listening. Such as:2.2.1 Phonetics and phonology factor“Everybody knows that phonetics studies human speech sounds and the way they are articulated, and phonology deals with the sound system of a particular language.” 2(p39) “According to an American scholar, Rita Wong, phonetics is crucial in listening comprehension. This is because sound is the direct medium of listening and speaking. Only by using correct sound, can we express our views and ideas accurately. Similarly, it is inevitably that poor pronunciation will cause aural difficulties in smooth acceptance of others ideas expressed in correct pronunciation.” 3 (p96) Unfortunately, we found that many Chinese students lack basic knowledge of sound discrimination and phonetic changes, which severely hinders their improvement in listening ability.2.2.2 Vocabulary factor and Grammar factor“Vocabulary is the major component of language; people always compare vocabulary to building material. For every English learner, study English without a certain amount of vocabulary is just like builders building houses without bricks” 4 (p56).Vocabulary is the building materials of languages, so students must master enough vocabularies if they want to improve their listening ability. However, in china, many middle school students do not have abundant vocabulary. So, when they hear unfamiliar words in listening, they become nervous and ponder the word.Grammar plays an important part in the analysis of written sentence structure and sentence pattern. Systematic grammar knowledge is like a strong frame of a building, it can help students to catch the implication of vocal sounds, and understand them well, and it can also tell students the tense, voice and mood. However, in china many middle school students also lack of systematic grammar knowledge.2.2.3 Listening habitsFor example, they always try their best to get the meaning of each words, each sentences. Once they meet a new word or a difficulty sentence, they will stop to think. It is doubtless they cant catch up with the speed any more. Still some students cant directly understand materials in English, but with the help of Chinese, experienced the process of a heart translation. These bad habits are the main factors influencing their listening comprehension. In fact, it is unnecessary to know every word, every sentence; they should only catch the main idea and grasp the major point. If you concentrate to think, you cant catch up with the materials, and also thats why you have no time to attend to the main content, let alone seize the implication of it.2.2.4 Background knowledge “Language is a kind of cultural expression. It is very necessary for students to know some background about English countries, such as the history, culture, customs and habits, even life styles” 5 (p13). Language is a kind of cultural expression. It is necessary for students to know some background knowledge about the English countries, such as the history, culture, customs, life styles and habits. If students lack these kinds of knowledge, they cannot understand the listening materials correctly. For example, there are two passages of the same difficulty. One explains something about Chinas Spring Festival; the other is about Christmas Day of the west countries. The former is easy to understand but the latter is more difficult, why? It is clear that the students know little about the latter. 2.2.5 Psychological factorListeners listening ability is also influenced by psychological factors. During listening, the listener may meet some words or sentences they do not know, it will make them feel very nervous. “Anxiety has a negative effect on listening comprehension” 6 (p69). “Many students have experienced the anxiety during listening. They tend to miss much part of a taped material when they fail to recognize a word or a phrase and stop to think about it.” 7 (p69). Some students say that as soon as the listening material is played, they become worried and afraid, even feel that they have nothing in minds. Some students are too eager to get high marks, but they are afraid that they cant follow the exam content and listening speed, so they are over worried. As a result, they seem to have nothing in mind, and then they fail to catch the information which they need.2.3 Environment factorAs we know, the English environment in China is different from other countries e.g. Canada. In China, English is a foreign language, not a second language. For example, Chinese immigrant students in Canada can learn English more quickly than those in China because in Canada, English is regarded as their second language. They enjoy a much better English environment. This is what is needed in China. Whats more, one major reason for students poor listening skill is that listening is often neglected in language teaching due to lack of teaching materials, both with print materials and audio or video tapes, lack of equipment (tape players, VCRs, VCDs, computers) in some schools and lack of real-life situations where language learners need to understand spoken English. At present, there are too many students in one classroom in China. Too many students studying in one room means that there is a little time for each student to speak and practice oral English. In order to finish teaching tasks, even though some teachers have realized the importance of listening and speaking, they cant provide each student with enough time to practice listening and speaking because of limited time in class and too many students attending class in one room. As a result, a small number of active students always have chances to put up their hands, answer the teachers questions and practice what they have learned in class. On the contrary, those less active students can only sit down and listen to the teacher. In this case, a large number of students who have learned English for several years still have great difficulty in expressing themselves in communication.Originally, the purpose of learning a foreign language is to use it in communication. Whereas, most Chinese- English learners do not learn English for this purpose. Instead, they learn English for the purpose of passing various exams and getting a well-paid job in the future. In China, students study achievement is mainly evaluated by exams, especially the Entrance Examination for College that is the final purpose of most high school students. In addition, English is considered as one of the three most important subjects in high school. To pass various exams, emphasis of high school English teaching is mainly put on grammar, reading and writing teaching, while listening teaching has been seriously ignored for a long time.3. How to improve students listening abilityIn the light of the problems existing in the teaching of the listing and, the features of the listening of junior middle school, we will take measures from the teachers, the students, the environments to help the students to develop their listening skills.3.1 About the teaching aspectUnderstanding teacher problems may be the first step for developing effective teaching strategies. Therefore, it is necessary for the teachers to improve themselves and point out the bad habits and then help the students form good habits. What should the teachers do?3.1.1 Improve the teacher own general quality In order to improve the students listening ability, teachers have to make themselves perfect in all aspects. They should maintain their ideological level, and try hard to improve their own professional competence. Only in this way, can the teachers develop more influence to impel the students comprehensive development. Thus, if the professional competence of English teachers is improved and the specific skills, strategies, knowledge and abilities are developed, I will be sure that it can do great help to improve the junior middle school students listening ability. Besides, in English class, teachers should try to organize their classes in English, which is the most effective way，students can concentrate their attention while listening to English. Teachers can also know from the expressions in students eyes if they understand. Second, using the first five minutes efficiently before the class, or the revision time, ask students to listen to the radios, television programmers in English. “By brainstorming what they know about the topic before listening, learners will be able to compare what they know with what they are going to hear, and listen selectively.” 8 (p10). 3.1.2 Development of students interest in English listening In the past, teachers and students paid more attention to grammar, and many students were unwilling to open their mouths to speak English. Some students felt nervous and were afraid of making mistakes. All these factors hinder students listening comprehension. So, the teacher can take some measures to eliminate these factors. Such as :(1) the teacher combines speaking and listening together, then encourages the students to speak out; (2) students will get good marks if they listen to the listening materials in a relaxed and pleasant mood; (3) the teacher chooses some interesting materials for students to listen to, and the materials cannot be too difficult, or they will easily frustrate students confidence; (4) teachers can use English songs or movies as an auxiliary method to arouse students interest in listening. In these ways, not only can we encourage students to listen enthusiastically, we can also improve their spoken English. To make the teaching contents colorful and authentic. All these are good methods to draw students attention to the listening text and also good ways to activate the atmosphere of the classroom. 3.1.3 Design the pre-listening, while-listening, and post-listening classroom activities. The classroom activities play a vital role in English listening teaching. There are at least three tasks or activities that teachers need to consider in order to help the students do listening practices effectively. That is pre-listening activities, while-listening activities, and post-listening activities. “It is important to remember when designing activities not to demand that students remember more details the native-speaker would in a real life, because we do not want our students to get into the habit of thinking that they need to understand and remember.” 9 (p117)The pre-listening stageDuring the pre-listening stage, the tea