Strategies in Reducing High Anxiety of Middle-school Students on English Listening Learning.doc

毕业论文(设计)Acknowledgements I wish to express my thanks and appreciation to my tutor, Ms. Deng Chunyan, whose careful reading and suggestions have been invaluable to me throughout my thesis writing. My thanks should also be given to all the teachers who have taught me my BA courses. Without their enthusiasm and support, I cannot have done it. I am also grateful to my classmates and roommates for their psychological support and encouragement. In particular, I own a special debt of thanks to Jiang Fangting, who has given me many suggestions to revise the paper. Abstract Listening is an essential component of communication in human life, but for most middle school students, listening is very difficult. In other words, it is their common weakness. Most Chinese students regard English listening comprehension as the most difficult part in all kinds of examinations. They think the listening materials are too difficult to understand. The speed of delivery is too fast and accordingly, anxiety easily takes place during listening comprehension. This paper mainly analyzes the concept of anxiety, the relationship between anxiety and language learning, and some symptoms of anxiety. It also discusses some factors affecting middle-school students anxiety while listening. Listening comprehension is a complex activity: it requires students to use their phonetics, vocabulary, grammar and background knowledge. The author suggests some ways to reduce anxiety and improve listening comprehension from two aspects. On the one hand, students must first have a good command of linguistic knowledge, and form a good habit of listening, taking notes while listening. On the other hand, teachers should help students to reduce high anxiety. Teachers can foster students good psychological state and interest in study. When students master enough linguistic knowledge, background knowledge, and listening skills, they can understand the listening materials well. In this way, they will not feel anxious while listening. And then they also can get the target to improve their listening comprehension effectively. Key words: anxiety listening comprehension strategies摘 要 对于中学生来说，听力理解是听说读写四项技能中最难的环节，是他们的共同弱点。大多数中国学生普遍认为听力理解是各种考试中最难的部分。他们认为听力材料难懂，语流太快以至经常有听力焦虑感。本文主要分析了焦虑的概念，焦虑与语言学习的关系和焦虑的一些症状，还讨论了一些影响中学生焦虑的因素。听力是一项复杂的活动，在听力的过程中需要综合地运用学生的语音、词汇、语法、文化背景等方面的知识去完成每道题目。作者从两方面提出一些减轻焦虑及改进听力理解的有效途径。一方面，学生必须扎实地掌握语言知识体系，包括对语音、语法、词汇等的掌握，养成良好的听力习惯，边听边做笔记等。另一方面，老师应该帮助学生减轻焦虑，培养学生良好的心理素质和浓厚的学习兴趣.当他们牢固地掌握语言知识，英美文化背景知识和听力技巧，他们能够容易听懂听力材料。这样他们在听力过程中就不容易产生高焦虑，从而达到有效提高听力水平的目的。关键词：焦虑 听力理解 策略Contents Acknowledgements.iAbstract(English).iiAbstract(Chinese).iiiContents.iv1. Introduction.12. Anxiety.2 2.1. Language anxiety . .3 2.2. The symptoms of anxiety . .43. Factors affecting students anxiety while listening .4 3.1. Self-confidence.5 3.2. Motivation .5 3.3. The speed of speaking.6 3.4. Lack of the basic knowledge of English .63.4.1. Lack of phonetic knowledge.73.4.2. Vocabulary.83.4.3. Grammar.93.4.4. Cultural background knowledge.93.5. Lack of listening skills.104. Strategies in reducing high anxiety.114.1. Teachers strategies in reducing students high anxiety.114.1.1. To protect students self-esteem and educate their confidence .114.1.2. To cultivate students interest in listening.12 4.2. Strategies of students in improving listening.144.2.1. To improve linguistic knowledge.144.2.2. To practice for the tempo of speaking.154.2.3. To enlarge vocabulary.164.2.4. Strengthen grammar.164.2.5. Enrich background knowledge.164.2.6. Master useful listening skills .175. Conclusion.18References.20Strategies in Reducing High Anxiety of Middle-school Students on English Listening Learning20 1. Introduction As we know, listening, reading, writing, speaking and translating are the five basic skills in language teaching and learning. Listening, one of the means of language communication is used most widely in our daily life. About three quarters of an adults time concerns listening. Listening plays the first and the most important role in learning a foreign language. In China, however, teaching listening has been neglected for a long time. What most teachers do in class is merely to play the recorder and check the answers. Some try to help students to understand the content by constant stopping and repeating and explaining word by word. However, English listening is a more complex activity in which the listener is expected to have the ability to follow the general trend of what is said, to understand special details, and to infer the speakers intention. The author has done an oral survey in a country middle school in March 2007. About 43.2% of the English language learning students think that the most bothering and most difficult course is listening comprehension, and even some of them have difficulties in understanding their teacher who gives lessons in English. Of course, it is difficult for a middle school student to understand the listening material if he has not enough vocabulary and the ability of telling the grammar construction. In the authors survey, about 35% of the students with low listening comprehension think this is because they do not understand the knowledge about linguistics and they are not able to tell the meanings of what they have heard. In another investigation in a middle school in Meizhou in March 2005, students were asked to listen to a dialogue of 244 words, in which the words and the related grammar have already been learned, but 80% of them thought it was too difficult. Then, using the same dialogue as a reading comprehension material, the author found that only 5% of them thought it was a little difficult. On the other hand the response ability is also another reason. It is clear that the reading speed of a material also affects. About 43% of the students thought that the material was read too fast and they just could not follow. A lot of students have their own listening habits. Some students often try to understand each word or each sentence. They are afraid of missing any words. They will think hard when they meet some difficult words or sentences. And the words they failed to catch will lead to their failure to catch another sentence so that they miss more words. They often translate the English into Chinese in their mind, which hinders their listening speed. All of above factors will affect them to misunderstand the reading material, which also will cause them to feel anxious. Anxiety is one of important emotional factors affecting Middle-school students English listening learning.2. Anxiety Anxiety is often regarded as kind of aberrant emotions, which is also termed as mental abnormality (Wang & Wan 2001: 29). Anxiety is the “ tense anticipation of a threatening but vague event; a feeling of uneasy suspense. It is a negative affect so closely related to fear that in many circumstances the two terms are used interchangeably.” (Rachman 1998: 30).2.1. Language anxiety Language anxiety can be defined as the fear or apprehension occurring when a learner is expected to perform in the second or foreign language (Gardner and Maclntyre, 1993:126) or the worry and negative emotional reaction when learning or using a second language (Maclntyre,1999: 32). Generally speaking, language anxiety has been viewed as a particularly negative psychological factor in the language learning process by many of the researchers and academics who have considered its impact on learners. In some cases, language anxiety has actually been cited as “possibly the affective factor that most pervasively obstructs the learning process”（Arnold and Brown, 1999: 128）, a negative energy that affects the brain, more specifically, our short-term memory, and hence our ability to hold words and ideas long enough on this creative table so to speak in order to mould them into suitably communicative sentences or utterances. In some cases we may freeze, unable to find the words. One of its effects is to lesson our ability to produce and, therefore, create linguistically. Perhaps the most well-known metaphor used to represent learners negative emotional reactions to language learning is Stephen Krashens “affective filter”, an imaginary emotional barrier which is erected when learners feel threatened by, disinclined to engage with or emotionally unreceptive to the language input available to them. On the other hand, if learners are relaxed and motived, then this wall-like barrier will be lowered and the language input surrounding them will more likely be attended to and acquired. 2.2. The symptoms of anxietylanguage anxiety results in 1) failure or confusion and 2) avoidance or excessive effort. Examples: 1) Students lose concentration. They tend to forget what they have learned; they repeat careless mistakes and choose wrong answers even though they knew the correct ones on tests. They become nervous in role-playing. And they produce less interpretive messages and pronounce English less fluently. They also tend to show physiological symptoms such as feeling tense, palpitations, sweating, trembling, and/or even sleepiness. 2)Anxious experiences learners have had the follow behavioral responses. The students who have language anxiety often skip classes, come to class late and without preparation, and postpone their homework. They also try to avoid studying and spontaneous speech, and pretend to be indifferent, or, conversely, study too much.3. Factors affecting millde-school students anxiety while listening Listeners listening ability is influenced by psychological factors. Sometimes, listeners over-concentration on listening material leads to nervousness. “Anxiety has a negative effect on listening comprehension.” (Bai Yaorong, 2003: 24) Anxiety is a kind of fear; esp. as caused by uncertainty about something. It has been proved that anxiety has a negative effect on language learning. Psychological barriers mainly reflect in two aspects: the state of being too nervous or the state of being unable to focus ones attention during listening. In regular listening practice, some students can not concentrate on the listening content. Instead, they are absent-minded, wandering away, though they still wear their earphones. Such a state of listening, even lasting for only a few seconds, will result in broken listening, which, of course, will affect comprehension result. Some students are easy to be distracted because of being fatigued after listening for a long period. Anxiety often occurs in examination. Some students are too eager to get high marks but they are also afraid that they can not adjust themselves to the listening material and the delivery rate. So they become too nervous and blank-minded. Continuity and accuracy of listening can not be assured in such kind of state.3.1. Self-confidenceSelf-confidence is the psychological foundation on the way to success. It is more necessary to have it in learning a foreign language. We find the confident and aspiring students usually can get good results, especially in speaking and listening. Once Ms. Zeng had a student who came from the countryside. First, she was always laughed at for her poor pronunciation. But she did not give up. She spent much of her time in practising English, listening and imitating. And whenever she met the foreign teacher, she was always active to chat with them. At last, she went to Beijing Foreign Language Studies University with 142 scores in listening. From this, we can see how important it is to have confidence as an English learner.3.2. Motivation Practice proves that motivation has a direct relation with the purpose of studying. We find a few students have no definite learning target and motivation, and the purpose of learning for them is to pass time and walk through their parents. So whenever they meet difficulties, they feel afraid, and emotional barriers appear. On the contrary, some students with clear target can be active to accept “input”, overcoming the handicaps, and get good results. So “attitude , as a factor of emotion, is of great importance to carry out a program successfully.” (Dai Weidong, 1994: 30)3.3. The speed of speakingMany students complain that in listening what hits their ears disappears so quickly that they do not have enough time to decode the message. Virtually every language learner initially thinks that native speakers speak too fast. “Listening comprehension is demanding. Students can not control the speed of speakers, and students can not interrupt or stop the speakers for clarification.” (Wang Yinglan, 2004: 85) Unlike reading, where a person can stop and go back to read again, in listening the hearer may not always have the opportunity to stop the speaker and listen again. Instead the stream of speech will continue to flow. Students are only used to listening to teachers who always read the average speed in daily life, or used to slow conversation with their partner while practicing oral English, so they cannot suit the speed of normal speed listening materials.3.4. Lack of the basic knowledge of English Listening comprehension and reaction speed are decided by the students degree of mastering the basic language knowledge. They also need to master the basic knowledge of pronunciation like tress, weakening, linking, intonation, etc. Even at the beginning of language learning some students are not sure of the proper pronunciation of each word. If things go on like this, especially of those words which have similar pronunciation, the students would find it is very difficult to distinguish. The improvement of listening requires students to grasp vocabulary, grammar, and culture background knowledge. For lacking such knowledge, some students have difficulties in listening.3.4.1. Lack of phonetic knowledge “Phonetics is defined as the study of the phonic medium of language; it is concerned with all the sounds that occur in the worlds languages.” (Zhang Guihua, 2004: 96) Phonetics is crucial in listening comprehension; relationship between ones phonetic knowledge and his listening is very close. In other words, if there is no phonetics, there is no listening comprehension; if there is no listening comprehension, phonetics will lose its existing value. That is because sound is the direct medium of listening and speaking. Only by using correct sound, can students express their views and ideas accurately. English pronunciation is the first obstacle students must overcome. The purpose we learn English is to communicate with others, what more, communication is a mutual activity. So this requires us to express ourselves as clearly as possible when we communicate with others. On the other hand, we should understand others expression. Unfortunately, we found that many middle school students lack of basic phonetic knowledge of distinguishing sounds, liaison, incomplete plosive, words stress and intonation. These linguistic obstacles affect listening comprehension deeply and severely hinder their improvement in listening ability.3.4.2. Vocabulary Nowadays, many students feel that vocabulary is a salient problem that hinders their listening comprehension. 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. Vocabulary plays an important role in the English learning. Every dialogue and passage in listening comprehension is made up of sentences, while the basic unit of sentence is word or phrase. During the process of listening, listeners should not only do the exercises of sound recognition, but also grasp the language continuity. Definitely they will meet some difficult words while listening, especially when the topic is not so familiar with them. If a new word appeared while listening, they will find it difficult for them to understand the whole meaning. Even some students stop to think about the new word they met and can no longer concentrate their attention on the incoming information, in this case, they will miss the next step of speech and can not understand the whole passage well. For example: M: You were seen hanging about the store on the night when it was robbed, were not you?W: Me? You must have made a mistake. I was at home that night.Q: What are they talking about? If students are unfamiliar with “hanging about” and “robbed”, they will be at a loss and can not know what the dialogue is about, which will lead to select a wrong answer. Thus, mastering a certain amount of vocabulary is an important basis for listening, for vocabulary is the basis of language and it influences listening directly. It cannot be doubted that lack of the necessary amount of vocabulary will lead listening comprehension to failure.3.4.3. GrammarGrammar is another important factor influences listening comprehension. 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 also can tell