How to Improve English Listening.doc

How to Improve English Listening Abstract: English is now well established as a world language. A growing number of people are studying English as a second language, whether in their own country or in English speaking countries as overseas students. It is generally believed that language learning is a difficult job, particularly listening comprehension. Of studying the four different types of verbal communication, listening, speaking, reading and writing, many investigations conducted recently indicate that: listening is used more frequently than other forms of verbal communication. Most of our Chinese students regard listening comprehension as the most part among all kinds of examinations. So listening should be paid more attention to in English learning. This essay deals with some listening barriers that prevent the students form understanding and discusses the listening problems that the students face, and provides some effective listening skills to improve their listening ability. Key Words: listening barriers; listening comprehension; listening problems; improve 摘要:英语作为一种世界语言源远流长，现在把学习英语作为第二种语言的人数日益增多，无论是在他们自己的国家里还是作为外国学生在其他讲英语的国家里。众所周知，学习语言是一份很难的工作，特别是听力理解，在四项口头交际类型中，听,说,读,和写,听力比其他四种口头交际都应用得更为频繁。大多数中国学生认为在各种各样的考试中听力是最为困难的。因此我们应该把更多的注意力放在听力学习上。本文讨论的是影响学生理解的听力障碍，在听力学习中所面对的困难，并论述该怎样提高听力水平。 关键词：听力障碍，听力理解，听力问题，改进ContentsAbstract 摘要 Contents Introduction 1. Listening Barriers 1.1 Comprehension Barriers 1.2 Listening Habits Barriers 1.3 Cultural Background Barriers 1.4 Psychological Factors and External Links 2. Problems and Suggestions 2.1 Phonological Problems 2.2 Background Problems 2.3 Vocabulary Barriers 2.4 Redundancy 2.5 Other Problems 3. Ways to Improve the Students Listening 3.1 Building your vocabulary as much as possible 3.2 Speaking English as much as possible 3.3 Playing English tapes to start a new lesson 3.4 Listening for main points Conclusion Bibliography Acknowledgment Introduction As we know, listening, speaking reading and writing are four basics skills in language teaching and learning, developmentally, these skills are acquired in a certain sequence. For example, a child first listens for a long time before it is able to speak. It is the same for an adult who learns English as a foreign language. So listening plays the first and the most important role in learning a foreign language. But there are many kinds of barriers exist, and listening comprehension can be affected positively or negatively by various factors. In the practice of English teaching in China, there are various problems in English study, and the problems are more serious in areas that not well developed. It fails to receive as much attention as speaking, reading and writing in China. What most teachers do in class is merely to play the recorder and check answers to listening exercises. So most students can hardly learn anything in class, and listening comprehension gives them much headache. Hence, in teaching listening comprehension, it is very important for teachers to find the problems students have and suitable ways to solve them.1. Many barriers exists in the English listening 1.1 Comprehension Barriers1.1.1 Lack of a wide range of knowledge Aural comprehension is the summation of hearing and understanding. Linguistic knowledge is the essential requisite. It is very difficult for one to know what they heard without any definite elementary information. If you have a better level about English knowledge, you may be capable of understanding very well in listening to the materials on it, and may have an excellent response to any question asked by the speakers on the tape. 1.1.2 Problems on Phonetics and Phonology Everybody knows that phonetics studies human speech sounds and the ways they are articulated, and phonology deals with the sound system of a particular language. English, as a second language for Chinese students, usually appears some problems exactly on phonetics and phonology, such as the mistakes on pronunciation, intonation, and all kinds of reading skills like word stress, sentence stress, omition of sound, assimilation, sound-linking and uncomplete explosion, etc. Therefore some basic knowledge about English phonetics and phonology will directly influence students listening comprehension.1.1.3 Tempo Barriers Tempo means the speed of speaking. It can be demonstrated by an actor who is good at tongue twisters. Some people employ more variation in tempo than others, but everyone has a norm which is characteristics of his usual conversational style. One who tends to use a rapid tempo in everyday speech in English, the average rate of syllablesuccession is 300 syllables a minute, i. e. 5 syllables a second. But Chinese students usually dont have such a tempo in listening, though sometimes they can speak very fast, so they cant catch up with the materials on normal tempo while theyre listening to a tape, especially to a longer conversation or a passage, thats their barriers. Because they only used to listening to teachers who always read under the average speed in daily life, or used to slow conversations with their patterns while practicing oral English, thats why Chinese students can not suit the need of normal speed listening materials or native speekers.1.1.4 Lexicology and Grammar Barriers During the process of listening comprehension, listeners should not only do the exercises of sound recognition, but also grasp the language continuity. If a new word appeared while theyre listening, theyll find it difficult for then to understand the whole meaning, even some students stop to listen and think about over and over the new word they met before while the materials are going on. So does the grammar. Grammar can hlp us to catch the implication of the vocal sounds, and understand them well, and it also the essential condition of a whole passage comprehension. It gives us a basis for judging when the action happens, who is the operator or supporter? What is the factual evidence? Whether it is the subjunctive mood? Etc. If you dont have a solid foundiation on grammar, itll directly influence your achieving good results while you are listening.1.2 Listening Habits Barriers The main purpose of listening is to understand the general idea of the materials. During the listening process, we should try to catch the major content, thats the key point. But many Chinese students have some bad habits while listening. For example, they always try their best to get the meaning of every word, every sentence, once they meet a new word or a difficult sentence, they stop to think them over, it is doubtless they cant catch up with the speed any more. Still some students cant directly understand English materials in English way, but comprehense with the help of Chinese, experience the process of a heart translation. These bad habits, from some ways, are the main factors influencing their listening comprehension. It is, in fact, unnecessary to know every word, every sentence, you only should catch the main ideal, grasp the major points, thats enough. If you concentrate to a Heart Transtation while listening or listening to English, reflecting Chinese, invisibly adds to your mind a middle link, thats why your tempo is slow, you cant catch up with the speed, and also thats why you have no time to attend to the main content, let alone seize the implication of it.1.3 Cultural Background Barriers Language is a kind form of cultural expression. It is very necessary for students to know some background about the English contries, such as the history, culture, customs and habits, even life styles. Many students are lack of these kinds of knowledge, no wonder they are always making mistakes about them. For example, if we give two pieces of passage for students to listen, one is introducing Chinese Spring Festival, the other is English Christmas, Im sure it is very easy for them to understand the former, because Spring Festival is the traditional festival in China, everybody knows it very well, thats helpful for their understanding, while the latter if students know little about it, it is not easy for them to understand, even very difficult for them to answer some questions about it.1.4 Psychological Factors and External Links The process of aural comprehension is a very complicated psychological one. Linguists tell us that it is easy for one to produce frighteness. When he is at his nervousness. If students meet some words or sentences they dont understand by chance, theyll have the fridgets, even some students are afraid of listening at the very beginning. It have place all sorts of obstacles on the important information invisibily and make them less effective, this lowerd the degrees of listening comprehension. On the other hand, external links, such as the noise made by inside or outside factors, the quality of the recorders, the loudness and the articulation of the sounds, etc, may all become obstractions the students listening well. 2. Main problems making listening difficult for students and suggestions for solving them.2.1 Phonological problemsFew students are exposed to spoken English before they enter university. Though they can read and write at intermediate level, their listening is elementary. So when exposed to spoken English, they become flustered and they can not understand anything. What hampers their understanding? It is the foreign sounds, stress and intonation that obstruct their comprehension in the first place. Therefore, at the beginning of listening comprehension lessons, it is important to train students ability of discriminating sounds. This is a basic skill in improving listening comprehension“It is essential for students to achieve familiarity with the common phonemes of the target language as soon as possible if they are to be efficient listener.”(Ur:P12)1To improve the ability of discriminating sounds, student need to practice in hearing and saying the isolated words pronounced by a native speaker. This kind of practice should be provided in varied ways and in several minutes at a time. Monotonous practice at a long stretch of time may spoil students interest. For example, students can be asked to repeat the word pronounced by a native speaker, but too much repetition may kill students interest. To make the practice interesting, the activities should be varied: students can be given only one written word and asked to identify it out of three spoken ones: for example, pet-pot-pat, (pot); students can be asked to discriminate whether the two sounds pronounced are the sounds pronounced are the same: for example ,three-tree, sing-thing, low-no; students can also be asked to tick the sound which is pronounced: for example, safe-save; students can also be asked to circle the right word among four given ones which appears in a sentence after a sentence is read out. 2.2 Background problem “Language is the means used by a community to express facts, ideas, beliefs, rules, and so on in short, to express its culture. So gaps in our knowledge of second language culture, of the associations and references available to native users, can present obstacles to comprehension.” (Anderson and Lynch: P35)2 To 9help students understand listening passages, teachers can bridge the gap between students and the speakers. There are many ways to achieve this.Teachers can introduce the topic of the text by asking the students a few simple questions, by eliciting their own opinions etc. If necessary, teachers can pre-teach a few key words or phrases. Also, teachers can tell students what sort of passage they are going to hear whether a discussion, a dialogue or a monologue.2.3 Vocabulary problems New words appears in the listening passage seem daunting for students. Students usually assume that if they do not know all the words, they cannot understand the passage. So when they hear unfamiliar words, they become panicked and ponder over the word. As a result, they fail to follow the coming sentences. Actually none of us listening to every word spoken to us, yet we can understand what is said. Littlewood (P67)3 states that the nature of listening comprehension means that the learners should be encouraged to engrage in an active process of listening for meanings, using not only the linguistic cues but also their non-linguistic knowledge. Therefore, even when they miss a piece of language, they need not panic: there is a good chance that other clues will enable them to understand the passage. To help the students overcome the difficulties in terms of vocabulary, teachers can on one hand pre-teach a few words which may really block students understanding, and on the other hand, convince them that even if they do not know certain words, they still can understand the passage. Teachers then can purposefully train students to listen to information carried by the passage instead of individual words. Students themselves can also guess the meaning of certain words from context to understand the information more specifically.2.4 Redundancy In ordinary conversation or extempore speech or lecture, more words are often said than necessary. There are called redundant utterances and usually take the form of repetitions, fale starts, re-phrasings, self-corrections, tautologies, fillers etc. In listening classes, when students are asked to listen to spoken English of this type, they are easily misled by the redundancy and neglect the main points unfortunately. Many students always try to understand every single word. They concentrate so hard on understanding individual words that they fail to grasp the main information. When the speaker suddenly switches off a topic and changes to another one without finishing the first, they are taken aback because they cannot follow the speaker. According to Ur (P15), the ability to make do with only a part of what is heard and understand the main message is a vitally important one for effective listening in a communicative situation. Therefore, it is very important to train students to sort out significant from insignificant content, discard redundant parts of what is said and only listen to the main message, take “The Pop Singer”(Harmer Elsworth,P75)4 as an example: Extracts: Interview: So, Julit, you you have a very powerful voice, with a wonderful range from high to low.does it take a lot of looking after? Juliet Roberts: Umnot more so than anybody else. I dont thinkum, but, Im very lazy, Im sure Im doing a lot of things wrong, um, but, so far so good. I, I, I do look after it in the fact that I try to get very tired, or wear myself out, because not just, you know talking does as much damage, and laughing the wrong way, as singing does In this extract, only the underlined sentences carry important information. Students need only catch these sentences to understand their speech, extracting specific information when listening is vital especially when so much said is redundant and unnecessary(Harmer,P184)52.5 Other problems Apart from the problems mentioned above, time allocation and tasks set by the teachers may also cause difficulties for students. If students are asked to listen for long stretch of time, say, 30 minutes, they may easily get fatigued and their thoughts may wander away. So we should try to avoid asking students listen at a long continuous time. Tasks set by teachers may also cause difficulties for students to understand. For example, if students are asked to listen to a fast speech for only one time and answer the questions, students may feel desperate. The task is too demanding. To reduce the difficulty, students could be first asked to number the order of some given words which appear in the message (which words are mentioned first and which last?). Then they could listen for the second time to answer a few general questions. For the third time, students might be asked to answer some specific questions or do some T/F exercises or fill in gaps, etc It must be kept in mind that tasks are designed to help students to understand the passage and improve their listening ability. Thus. Tasks should be varied to satisfy different listening purpose. They should be designed to teach listening, not to test listening.3 Ways to improve the students listening 3.1 Building your vocabulary as much as possible This ways has been stressed by educators for several years. Comprehension is directly related to a listeners command vocabulary. In other words, listeners must have a sufficient command of vocabulary to catch most of what the speaker is saying. On some special occasions, it may be even necessary to learn “new” vocabulary before you attempt to listen. For example, before attending an academic lecture in a field you are not familiar with, you need to learn some key words, that will be used during the speech, in order to understand the lecture better. A foreign language course provide another good example of the need to have sufficient vocabulary in order to understand what is happening in class. That is why most language courses begin by having students memorizes certain words; new words are then gradually added as they are used in the daily lessons. Therefore, to build vocabulary as much as possible is an initial stage of listening improvement, along which accuracy of pronunciation should also be paid close attention too.3.2 Speaking English should be spoken as much as possible Phrases like “Good morning, class!” “Sit down, please” etc. can be heard very often. But that is not enough. Definitely, there is much more that can be said in class. Simple ones like “Open your books and turn to page” “Please come to the blackboard and write” “Now, close you