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1、A Study on How to Improve High School Students Listening Skills摘 要听力是英语学习中的一项基本技能。然而，在“听说读写”四项基本技能中，听力技巧通常被认为是最难获得的。本文主要分析了影响我国高中生听力能力的各方面因素，并分别从学生和教师的角度给出相应的解决方法，以帮助高中生消除听力理解障碍,提高听力水平。关键词：听力理解；影响因素；改进策略ABSTRACTListening is one of the essential skills in the learning of English. However, among the f
2、our skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), it is often considered to be the most difficult one to acquire. This paper mainly analyzes the comprehensive factors that affect Chinese high school students English listening ability, and provides relevant solutions to help the students to remo
3、ve the listening comprehension obstacles and raise listening level respectively from the students perspective and the teachers perspective.Key words: listening comprehension, influencial factors, improving strategiesCONTENTS0. Introduction11. The current situation of high school students English lis
4、tening21.1 Analysis of the statistics of the questionnaire21.1.1 The current problems in English listening21.1.2 The students ideal tactics of improving their listening ability31.2 Reasons of such a situation32. Factors affecting high school students English listening comprehension42.1 Linguistic ob
5、stacles42.1.1 Obstacles on phonetics and phonology42.1.2 Obstacles on lexicology62.1.3 Obstacles on grammar72.1.4 Obstacles on context82.2. Non-linguistic obstacles92.2.1 Obstacles on cultural background knowledge92.2.2 Obstacles on psychology102.2.3 Obstacles on bad listening habits112.2.4 Obstacle
6、s on tempo122.2.5 Obstacles on teachers aspect133. Corresponding strategies of improving high school students English listening skills133.1 From the students perspective143.1.1 Raise interest in listening143.1.2 Consolidate proficiency in English linguistic knowledge143.1.3 Make good learning habits
7、163.2 From the teachers perspective183.2.1 Pay enough attention on the importance of listening teaching183.2.2 Build the students confidence183.2.3 Correct students bad listening habits193.2.4 Improve teaching methods193.2.5 Some useful tips for teaching listening214. Conclusion22Works Cited23Append
8、ix: 关于高中生英语听力水平现状的调查问卷240. IntroductionAs is known to us all, English is the most widely used language in the world. Todays world science, economy and culture centers still exist in the United States and Europe. So English is getting more and more important. This is also true in open China today. Pe
9、ople are enthusiastic about learning English. For most Chinese, they have spend at least six years on English learning. However, it seems that their effort has not acquired notable results. Therefore, English teaching in high-school years has been getting more and more attention.As Communicative Lan
10、guage Teaching grew out of new theories of language learning in 1960s in Britain, “the main test for real success in English learning should be whether or not the learners can communicate at all in English” (Paul Davies and Eric Pearse 214). It is probably the approach most accepted by language expe
11、rts today. As a result, English teaching and reform are coming to a turning point, which predicts a bright future of English education in China. A Standard English course is being used to replace the old style of teaching, which only attaches importance to grammar and vocabulary. The new method will
12、 place more stress on “listening” and “speaking”. It is true that listening, speaking, reading, and writing are four basic skills in language teaching and learning. Among them, listening is the most important one. All the communications are established on the basis of listening. It is not only the e
13、ssential way of receiving language information, but the basis of cultivating other skills and language learning. According to the Britain linguist L.G. Alexanders teaching principle: “Nothing should be spoken before it has been heard.” It is necessary for the language learners to develop their abili
14、ty of listening. As a result, modern language teaching theory highly emphasizes the effect of listening on the learning and the use of language. By coincidence, when being asked which is the most difficult to acquire among the four skills of English, the high school students in China often complain
15、that it is listening. There were many scholars who had done researches about this phenomenon and had given some valuable advice in the past, but most high school students still regard the listening test as the most difficult part of a whole test without knowing effective skills about listening. On a
16、ccount of this, the paper will analyze the main obstacles that affect English listening comprehension, and present a range of practical teaching and learning ideas respectively from the students perspective and the teachers perspective. The author has performed the suggested teaching method to teach
17、 a real high school class, including fifty-six students. Through a month-long training, the students have made an obvious progress from the English listening. 1. The current situation of high school students English listeningA questionnaire is designed to find out what the current situation of high
18、school students listening is. It includes 10 questions and was handed out to 200 students from different 4 classes in Qufu NO.1 Middle School. The questionnaire is shown in the appendix.1.1 Analysis of the statistics of the questionnaire1.1.1 The current problems in English listeningThrough their an
19、swers, we can find out the major listening obstacles the high school students have. About 70% of subjects have no interest in English Listening; 63% think listening is very difficult; 55% make 4-8 errors in usual exams, 40% make more than 8; 67% practice listening only for exams, 21% have no clear p
20、urpose; 51% do not know any listening skills, 44% know a little; 13% think listening the tape about the text is useless; 48% feel bothered by the difference between British English and American English. 54% consider that limited vocabulary affects their listening comprehension to a great extent. Mor
21、eover, 80% of subjects are confused by the words in liaison, weak form and elision, etc. Once meeting with long sentences in a discourse, 64% of subjects are unable to catch up with the pace; cross-cultural barrier has become a road-blocking tiger affecting their listening; 72% think their teachers
22、do not pay enough attention on listening practice, even had never given them a real listening class. 93% do not want to have “English Only” classes, because they cannot catch up with the teachers speech.Taking into account of all the above figures, we may draw the conclusion about the current situat
23、ion of high school students English listening. They still cannot cross over the block of phonetic barrier, and small size of vocabulary as well as psychological factors have become the major obstacles. Their unfamiliarity of background knowledge has become a big trouble.1.1.2 The students ideal tact
24、ics of improving their listening ability58% of the subjects think that practising every day and listening to radio programs, cassette, etc. would be very helpful; but it is hard to perseverence in. 12% choose to select 1 or 2 tapes and listen over and over again until can recite the contents. 74% th
25、ink they should combine listening with speaking and do more communicative activities. 38% require the teachers adopt directed methods to enhance their listening skills. 66% give the suggestion of to do more reading in order to enlarge vocabulary. 44% think they need to understand the nature of liste
26、ning, and build confidence to face up to English listening. 78% think that English songs and movies are very helpful.The above figures indicate that what learning methods for improving listening ability that students would like to take. However, they have no idea whether they suit them or not.1.2 Re
27、asons of such a situationFrom the investigative result, we can infer that having no interest and no clear purpose, lacking of basic language knowledge and teachers attention on listening practice, knowing quite a few listening skills are the main reasons for this situation.2. Factors affecting high
28、school students English listening comprehensionIt is impossible to master the ability to use English comprehensively without listeningthe most important way of language input. But so many high school students regard listening test as the most difficult one among all kinds of examinations. Where are
29、their barriers? According to Canadian educator H.H. Sterns book Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching in 1983, social context, learner characteristics, learning conditions, learning progress are the main factors. With the figues of the questionare, the author would like to identify them as lingu
30、istic obstacles and non-linguistic obstacles. Linguistic obstacles involve phonetic barrier, vocabulary barrier, grammar barrier, the context in which listening occurs, etc. And non-linguistic obstacles mainly include psychological barrier, cross-cultural barrier, bad listening habits, fast tempo as
31、 well as less effective teaching methods.2.1 Linguistic obstaclesListeners linguistic knowledge is the most effective factor in the studies of listening comprehension. If you have a high level of proficiency in English knowledge, you may be capable of understanding very well in listening to the mate
32、rials, and may have an excellent response to any questions asked by the speakers on the tapes. Listeners linguistic knowledge, such as phonetics, grammar and lexicology, affects their listening ability significantly.2.1.1 Obstacles on phonetics and phonologySound is the most direct medium of listeni
33、ng. It is clear that “phonetics studies human speech sounds and the way they are articulated” (Ren Xiaoping 39), and phonology deals with how speech sounds system in a language form pattern. The two major activities we do in listening comprehension are: first, distinguishing sounds; second, making s
34、ense. Only by using correct sound, can we accept others ideas expressed in correct pronunciation. Unfortunately, a lot of students express that they have troubles in understanding natural native speeches well. For instance, most of them find the discrimination of some vowels is a problem in listenin
35、g comprehension, such as they can hardly distinguish the words like “live-leave”. In a sentence like “He saw a thief steal into the palace”, “steal sti:l” is very important in understanding the sentence, but some students just recognize it as “still stil”. It suggests that problems on phonetics and
36、phonology commonly exist in the high school students listening comprehension, which severely hampers their progress in listening ability.The basic phonetic and phonological knowledge of English has formed its own particular rules or habits, which include assimilation, liaison, elison, word stress an
37、d incomplete explosion, etc. For instance, according to assimilation the vowel i: in words like “mean, keen, team and stream” is nasalized because of the influence of the following nasal consonant n or m. Liaison is a phenomenon of sound changes, which exists between two adjacent words in a phrase w
38、hen the first word ends with a consonant, such as letter “n, l, r, t, d”, and the second word begins with a vowel. For example, “after all a:ft r:l,come in k min ,work out w: kaut, think of it i k fit”. “They havent paid me.” is usually read as ei hvn pei mi: because of elison. For reasons of incomp
39、lete explosion the k, p, tr in the words like scholar skl, spread spred, strange streind cannot be completely exploded and should be pronounced as g, b, dr. Word stress is also an important factor that interferes with listeners understanding of the words. Because “stress is sometimes placed on a dif
40、ferent syllable for the different gramatical and semantic functions a word plays” (Hu Zhuanglin 51). For example, because of its two kinds of stress, words like “conflict, insult, produce and rebel” all have two meanings. Moreover, weak form is a common phenomenon in native speeches, like “He has go
41、t into difficulties” is often read as hiz gt int difikltiz. And as we know, English has many branches, like American English, Australia English, Indian English and so on. Unavoidably, their differences in accent become a listening obstacle for Chinese students. Among these branches, American English
42、 has been used most commomly now. However, there are plenty of differences between the AmE and the BrE. For instance, Americans like pronouncing a: as , for example, they read “pass” as ps; and they prefer to nasalizing words like “cant”; the British pronunciation of the word “neither” is nai, while
43、 the American one is ni: , etc. In addition to the above, sentence stress, intonation and rhythm will make understanding confusion as well. 2.1.2 Obstacles on lexicologyVocabulary is of enormous importance in communication. New words appearing in the listening passage seem bothersome for listeners.
44、During the process of improving listening skills, students should not only do the exercises of sound recognition, but also learn more vocabulary. It is evident that even if a learner has a solid foundation of English pronunciation but still cannot understand what a speaker says if he or she does not
45、 know what most words mean. As the core of language abilities in communication, vocabulary is considered as the most important element. Limited vocabulary must affect successful interpersonal communication. About 65% of subjects regard poor vocabulary as the largest obstacle during the process of listening comprehension.Learning words and how to use them correctly is quite a challenging matter, because vocabulary is virtually infinite. Of course, we could not be as intelligent as Shakespeare who can use 20000 English words as easily as ABCs. But the vocabulary used most frequently by the nat
