InvestigationandResearchonthecollegestudents’EnglishListeningAbility大学生英语听力水平的.pdf

大学生英语听力水平的调查与研究Investigation and Research on the college students English Listening Ability Abstract: Language is the basic tool for human beings to communicate with each other, and the fundamental reasons for human beings to learn language is to exchange information. English learning is a kind of synthetically ability improvement; generally it includes listening; speaking; reading and writingAmong the four basic skills, listening is always regarded as the most important skill; its the foundation for us to communicate. According to the research that River & and Temperly had done, listening skills occupy about 45% when we do social activities. Through investigation the author finds that non-English majors in Ankang University have many problems in learning English listening. In order to find the reasons and to put forward the suggestions, 15 teachers and 500 non-English majors have been investigated through questionnaires and face-to-face interview. The data shows that these problems are caused by teachers and students themselves. They are mainly reflected on listening materials, teachers teaching methods and students learning methods. This paper provides suggestions to improve non-English majors listening ability from the perspective of “the Audio-lingual Method” and “the Task-based English Listening Teaching ”.Key words: Ankang University; non-English majors; the studying of English listening; problems; suggestions 大学生英语听力水平的调查与研究-以安康学院为例摘要:语言是人类参与交际活动的工具,人类学习语言的目的是能跟别人交换信息。英语学习是一门综合技能的学习,它大体包括了听、说、读、写这四种基本技能。其中 ,听力是最基本的语言技能,是进行交流的基础。根据里弗斯和坦铂利 River, W.M & and Temperly, M.S. 的统计 , “听” 在交际活动中所占比重45%。但是通过笔者的调查 ,发现安康学院非英语专业学生在英语听力学习中存在很多问题。为了找到造成这些问题的原因及解决建议,笔者通过问卷与访谈的形式对安康学院的 15 名老师与 500 名非英语专业学生进行了调查。通过对调查得出的数据进行的深入分析 ,发现这些问题是老师和学生共同作用的结果。这些问题主要表现在听力材料、老师的教学方法与学生的学习方法上,本文以 “ 听说法 ” 与“ 任务型教学法 ” 的理论为指导 ,提出了提高非英语专业大学生的英语听力水平的建议。关键词 :安康学院 ; 非英语专业学生 ; 英语听力学习 ; 问题; 建议Contents Abstract in English i Abstract in Chinese ii Contentsiii 1. Introduction 1 2. Literature review 1 2.1 The Importance of English listening 1 2.2 Some theories concerning English listening 2 2.2.1 The definition of listening 2 2.2.2 The Audio-Lingual Method 3 3.2.3 Tasked-based Listening Teaching 3 3. Research design and result discussion 4 3.1 Research design 4 3.2 The survey background 5 3.3 Data collection and analysis 5 4. Problems caused the non- English majors poor listening7 4.1 Problems in listening materials 7 4.1.1 Monotonous listening materials 7 4.1.2 Old and unauthentic materials 8 4.1.3 Unrealistic listening materials 8 4.2 Problems in teaching methods 9 4.2.1 Traditional listening teaching method 94.2.2 Less interactive activities in the class 9 4.3 Problems concerning students in listening learning 10 4.3.1 No English environment 10 4.3.2 Lack of autonomy of practicing listening 11 4.3.3 Inappropriate listening materials 11 5. Suggestions to improve non- English majors poor listening 11 5.1 Suggestions to listening materials 12 5.2 Suggestions to listening teaching 13 5.3 Suggestions to st udents learning13 5.3.1 Suggestions to the “English environment”13 5.3.2 Suggestions to the autonomy of listening 14 5.3.3 Suggestions to the inappropriate listening materials 15 6. Conclusion 15 References 17 Acknowledgements 19 1. Introduction There are mainly four skills in English learning, they are listening, speaking, reading and writing. Through the surveys done by both native and foreign educators, listening is proved to be the most important one among the four. “ The total time an individual is engaged in communication, approximately 9% is devoted to writing, 16% to reading, 30% to speaking and 45% to listening” Rivers and Temperley, 1978. But through the research the author has done in Ankang University, the author found that non-English majors in Ankang University have many problems in their process of listening learning and trainingThrough investigation the author finds these problems are caused by teachers and the students themselves, the problems are mainly reflected on the listening materials, teaching methods and students learning methods. In order to improve non-English majors listening ability, this paper will first discuss the importance of listening and the current situation of listening learning; then introduce some theories concerning listening learning; later point out the problems caused non-English majors poor listening; finally give suggestions to solve these problems in terms of educational theory. 2. A literature review 2.1 The importance of English listening As we all know, China has entered into the WTO and has held the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. successfully. China is in urgent need of many different kinds of professionals with a super ability of English language proficiency, and English has become a craze nowadays. “The four skills listening, speaking, reading and writing have been greatly improved on the part of Chinese students. However, in China, the four skills have not developed at the same rate. For most students listening and speaking remain the most difficult skills to master. After over ten years of learning English, most students couldn t understand what foreigners say let alone talk with them. Therefore, to cultivate students ability of listening is the first and foremost requirement of English teaching in college in our country ” 文秋芳 ,1995:131. Most teachers think they can improve students listening ability by saying English as much as possible during the class, letting students do daily report at the beginning of the class, using CAI(Computer Assisted Instruction)and so on. As the ability to communicate effectively in English is now a well-established goal in English language teaching, the importance of listening comprehension in communication has been widely accepted. The point has been frequently made that when one is engaged in communication, he devotes approximately 9% of his attention to writing, 16% to reading, and 30% to speaking, but he devotes 45% to listening. Besides, listening plays a key role in second language acquisition. The Input Hypothesis put forward by Krashen 1981 claims that a considerable amount of comprehensible input is indispensable for successful second language acquisition to take place. And he goes further to indicate that the major channel for meaningful input is the “auditory channel Krashen, 1982: 103” The point has been frequently made that when one is engaged in communication, he devotes approximately 9% of his attention to writing, 16% to reading, and 30% to speaking, but he devotes 45% to listening Rivers & Temperley, 1978. But in the past English learners do not pay much attention to listening and speaking, the result is that they learned English for a life time but still “deaf ” and “dumb ”.Listening is one of the most important communication skills, many researchers both native and international have did numerous research on it, and have submit many theories2.2 Some theories concerning English listening 2.2.1 The definition of listening As an invisible mental process, different people give different definitions about listening. In the opinion of Michael Rost 2002 in Teaching Listening Comprehension, every definition of listening has some unique aspect. The definition of listening can be understood in four orientations, the receptive, the constructive, the collaborative and the transformative. In Underwoods 1989, cited in Dunkel, 1991:24 understanding, listening is “the activity of paying attention to and trying to get meaning from something we hear ”. In simple way to students, listening means catching what the speaker says. Michael s definition of listening is that listening is experiencing contextual effect. Different experts also offer other listening definitions. Thomlison s 1984 definition of listening includes “active listening,” which goes beyond comprehending literally to an empathetic understanding of the speaker. Hirsch 1986 groups definitions as attempts to define the process; explanations of sequential phases in listening; how sound is received, comprehended, and acted upon. Ronald and Roskelly 1985 define listening as an active process requiring the same skills of prediction, hypothesizing, checking, and revising. As an English teacher, the author believes that listening is the language skill that students acquire. Listening, which plays a life-long role in the process of communication, provides a foundation for all language development. Some recent studies describes listening as an active process in which listeners select and interpret information that comes from auditory and visual clues in order to define what is going on and what the speakers are trying to express Clark 1977; Mendelsohn 1995; Richards 1983, cited from Thompson and Rubin, 1996. 2.2.2 The Audio-Lingual Method The Audio-lingual Method based on structuralism became popular in the 1950s. It argues that listening itself was nothing but a process of passive “decoding ”, in which the listener finds “equivalence” in his own language system for the words, phrases and sentences he heard. Listening was defined as the listeners ability to recognize the language structure when he hears something “a satisfactory listening ability is the foundation of speak” Anderson & Lynch, 1988:2Compared with the past pedagogy, this approach further exposed the relationship between listening and pronunciation so that it created many new ways of practice on phonemes and single sentences to improve the listeners listening and at the same time emphasized that oral English practice must be supported with plenty of listening materials. However, the Audio-lingual Method had a very limited understanding of listening. Jack & Theodore 2000 points out that “Students were often found to be unable transfer skills acquired through Audiolingualisim to real communication outside the classroom, and man found the experience of studying through audio-lingual procedures to be boring and unsatisfying.”2.2.3 Tasked-based Listening Teaching Tasked-based Listening is an activity which requires learners to arrive at an outcome from given information through some process of thought, and which allows teachers to control and regulate that process Prabhu, 1987:47. Or it is an activity or action which is carried out as the result of processing or understanding language. For example, drawing a map while listening to an instruction and performing a command, may be referred to as tasks. Tasks may or may not involve the production of language. A task usually requires the teacher to specify what will be regarded as successful completion of the task. The use of different kinds of tasks in language teaching is said to make language teaching snore communicative since it provides a purpose for a classroom activity which goes beyond the practice of language for its own sake Richards et a1., 1985. Any classroom work which involves learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing or interacting in the target language while their attention is principally focused on meaning rather than form. The task should also have a sense of completeness, being able to stand alone as a communicative act in its own right Nunan, 1993 To sum up, task could be defined basically as follow: a task is an activity that requires learners to use the target language, with meaning at the core, to achieve an objective, and the current situation in Ankang University goes against it. Because of these reasons, some problems are caused. 3. Research design and result discussion 3.1 Research design This section is to investigate the teachers understanding of listening and listening teaching, and the non- English majors problems in and out of class. So as to provide useful date on how to conduct the class teaching for the teachers, and how to learn in and out of class for the non-English majors. In this investigation, the author would like to use questionnaires. The popularity of questionnaire is due to two characteristics of it: it is easy to construct; and it is capable of gathering a large amount of information quickly on a form that is readily processible Dornyei, 2003. McDonough 1997 also summarizes the advantages of questionnaire research as follows: -The information needed is controlled by the questionnaire; therefore it affords a good deal of precision and clarity. -Questionnaires can be used on a small scale, in-house, and on a large scale, requiring little more extra effort than photocopying and postage though for large-scale survey work this can consume a significant budget, especially when using stamped self-addressed envelopes for returns. -Data can be gathered in several different time slots: all at once in a class, in the respondents own time as long as it is easy to return, at convenience when a suitable respondent happens to come along, and in different locations at different times; but in all of these the data is comparable, the questions are the same and the format is identical. -Self-completion questionnaires allow access to outside contexts so information can be gathered from students in other departments. Since this study is aiming at gathering information about non- English majors understanding on listening and listening learning, a questionnaire is the best and easiest way to get the data on a wide scale. 3.2 The survey background The study was carried out in Ankang University. The participants were English teachers and non-English majors. Of the 15 teachers, 7 were male and 8 were female. Of the 500 students, 267 were male and 243 were female Guided by some established questionnaires used in previous relevant studies as well as the author s research aim and main research questions, the author designed the questionnaire on its own. When designing the questions, the author have some principles to take into consideration: not to raise too simple or too complicate questions for participants; to use clear definition when the question contains concepts; to raise topic-related questions to get efficient and valid data Before the distribution of the questionnaire, it was stressed that this questionnaire was designed for collection of information helpful to improve the non-English majors listening ability, thus the data will be treated carefully, and the participants cooperation would be highly appreciated. 3.3 Data collection and analysis The questionnaire includes two parts. Part one Table 1 is about the teachers understanding of listening and what do they do in the class. Part two Table 2 is about students problems in/out of English listening class. Table 1 1. Do you think listening is very important Very important Important 9 people 6 people 2. Do you think you have achieved your goals in listening class? YesNo 4 people 11 people 3. What kind of exercises do you usually do in listening class Multiple-choices-question and answering question interactive activities 9 people 6 people Table 2 1. How often do you usually read English aft