英语专业毕业论文

XX学院本科生毕业论文

Strategies to Achieve Effective English Listening for College Students Chapter One Introduction

It’s difficult to get out of the home, if you can speak your native dialect only; it’s

impossible to face the world, if you can only speak Chinese. English, known as the international language, is the most widely used language in the world. Recent estimates suggest that more than 400 million people speak it as their first language, with more than 1800 million people speaking it as second language. And the number is rising day by day.

Krashen once said: \"Whether children or adults, in language learning, the most important is listening comprehension, listening comprehension is in an extremely important position in foreign language teaching.\" It means that when we learn a foreign language, listening comes first and which is also the short cut of having a good mastery of a foreign language.

Linguists have pointed out that the process of listening is to feel the outer signals through the hearing organ and then store them in the brain in a short time and analyzed by it and understand the meaning. And

finally express what we want to say after thinking of what we hearted. According this theory, we can understand it very easily that listening is very important in second language acquisition. We can say that listening is the basis of learning a foreign language. AS a college student I understand that almost all of the college students want to improve their English, and think that is very good to speak a good English, therefore, we made a mistake which pay much attention on speaking but not listening. They think speaking is the most important thing in learning a foreign language, however, they ignore a truth that when we were young and learned to speak our native language Chinese, we spend almost 3 years to listen to our parents or other people, then gradually we can speak Chinese freely and fluently.

Acquiring listening skills is frustrating. This is because successful listening skills are acquired over time and with lots of practice. It's frustrating for students because there are no rules as in grammar teaching. Here is a discussion of the problem and some suggestions to

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XX学院本科生毕业论文 improving listening skills.

Listening comprehension is a complex process. It involves

pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, language knowledge and so on. So it is important to know about students’ listening barriers and adopt the right ways to solve these problems.

Chapter Two

Review of Literature

2.1 The review of the past listening research

According to past research of listening, researchers sum up two categories of English listening research. They are empirical research and theoretical research. (Cao Peisheng，2003)

The two tables give statistic analysis to the articles concerning college English listening in the past decade in eight of the major linguistic journals in China and shows the status quo and development of college English listening research in China by analyzing the linguistic and teaching background.(Table2.1.1,Table2.1.2)

Table 2.1.1 The categories of English listening research Categories Characters

Empirical Research Based on the systematical material collection and data analysis and

promote the hypothesis; design experiments or collect the information; variable disposal; data collection; statistical analysis so

that get the conclusions.

Theoretical Research A critical discussion of teaching theories and their implications for

teaching guide; and descript them; According to a certain problem, we sum up our own experience to show others. 2

XX学院本科生毕业论文

Table 2.1.2 the situation of English listening research of past decade

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 Total Years Categories

Empirical No. 1 1 0 1 2 2 2 5 3 2 19 Research

percent 12.5 12.5 0 16.7 18.2 22 18.2 29.4 33 25 19 Theoretical No. 7 7 13 5 9 7 9 12 6 6 81 Research

percent 87.5 87.5 133 83.3 81.8 78 81.8 70.6 67 75 81 Note: No. refers to number

According to the two tables, we can easily find that the theoretical research take up 81% of English research and empirical research only19%. Through the situation is changing, we are still not pay much attention on the empirical research. Therefore, in the past research of English listening, they ignore the importance of empirical research. Even the empirical researches are not good. Most of them have the problems. For example: most of their researches use the simple methods, they only use the advanced foreign Linguistic theories and can’t apply them into our

practice, even just copy them. We have to see that there are a lot of articles only the teaching conclusions, lack of accumulated experience, systems and reflection mechanism. In fact they are not the “research” in a strict way, but an “exploration”.

We all know that practice makes perfect. For listening research, we should pay much attention on practice and we have to find some effective strategies to improve students’ listening.

Therefore, I analyze the listening research problems from the barriers of listening; they are phonetic barrier, grammar barrier and mental barrier. I bring forward the strategies to improve students’ listening ability.

2.2 The importance of listening research

2.2.1 The importance of listening existing in the language of human beings

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In daily life, listening is an important means of communication when people meet each other; it is also an important way to learn English. According to a survey conducted by the United States, when the normal people awake, 70% of the time for the activities of various forms of communication, of which 11% will be used in writing, 15% for reading and 32% for speaking at least 42% of the time for listening.(Cooper, 1998). In English learning as well as the activities of human activities, listening is the most basic form of all skills, is the ability of understanding and absorption of oral communicative information.

We all know that before we speak we have to listen if we want a good effective communication. So speech is very important in the development

of human beings. 2.2.2 The position of listening in the four language skills

Listening is an important aspect of communication, is the most important way to get the feelings of language, is the basis to improve speaking, reading and writing ability, is the prerequisite of speaking good English. Listening is on the basis position of the four elements which are listening, speaking, reading and writing. Listening is a kind of input, is the most important way to learn and absorb a foreign language. No input, no output. Therefore, listening play a important role both in second language acquisition and in the promotion of learning motivation and arouse of emotional factors. English Listening Teaching Is an important part of English teaching, it is directly related to student mastery of English language and application of it. Everything has its rules in this world, so does the English learning. We have to follow the rules to learn English. English is just a kind of language which is used to communicate with people. It can be used by every normal people. In another word, language is only a tool for people to do their basic things. So there is no reasons we can’t learn it well. In the four elements

of learning language, listening, speaking, reading and writing, listening comes first. Then we can have the possibility to speak, read and write. But, it’s not a individual process. It must involve

the other three skills, especially speaking. Because of the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, &writing), listening

takes the first step. However, communication is a two-way activity. When you can understand what is said to you, because of some reasons, you can't speak out what you mean, and then the communication can’t be continued. . So this

communication will become a fall. . During the learning of a language, listening and reading are a process of understanding and absorption, speaking and writing are a process of expression and

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XX学院本科生毕业论文

use. Understanding and absorption are foundation while expression and use are improvement. That is, the former is a process of input; the latter is a process of output. Without the former, the development of expression and use will be meaningless. While the language input is increased, the favorable practical activities of output will also be done constantly on the basis of understanding. And the final aim of language teaching is to develop the students’ ability to communicate. And often the listening is more than the writing in language using. Although in the modern Internet world, E-mail also give people more convenient, when they write and read the E-mail, they will spend more time than speaking directly. What’s more, writing can't express the writer’s feelings, quickly and directly, and the reader can't understand the writer's feeling .But we should know that we are human beings and we have the requirement to communicate with each other directly. So our listening can not be ignored. It is still in the basic

position in the four skills. 2.2.3The importance of listening existing in the teaching syllabus

The aims of teaching syllabus stipulates that “ English teaching in middle schools are

mainly to train students to have a definite foundation of listening and speaking so as to attain the aim to communicate comprehensively with others in English.” (Teaching syllabus for Middle

School, P2) It requires the teachers of English to organize their 45-minute class in English to create a living and lively English

environment of English learning. It includes the listening class. Almost in all the English tests, listening comprehension takes one third of the test. And this presentation is increasing. It means that the Importance of listening.

2.2.4 New tests’ focus on speaking

At present, the teaching syllabus stipulates. “Examination and test should include written

part, listening test and oral test as well.” (Teaching syllabus for Middle School, P9)And now you

can find listening test in our all kinds of tests. And many areas take it as an important part to estimate the students’ comprehensive level.

What's more, now you often can find that there are many English-speaking competitions on TV and many areas also hold all kinds of speaking competitions. During the competitions there are some questions

asked by experts. If the contestants don’t have a good listening they can’t win the competition. At the same time, there are more and more super English speakers

presenting in the non-English countries. 5

XX学院本科生毕业论文 Chapter Three

Some Barriers in the Process of Listening 3.1 Phonetic barrier

The articulator apparatus of a human being are contained in three important areas or cavities: the pharyngeal cavity-the throat, the oral cavity-the mouth, and the nasal cavity-the nose. The air stream coming from the lungs may be modified in these cavities in a variety of ways. It may also be modified in the larynx before it reaches any of the cavities. (Modern Linguistics, P17)

So, if we want to have a good mastery of English, we have to know how to pronounce every English word. This point is more important for us college students.

Usually, phonetic barrier comes from the impact of students’ mother tongue or dialects,

which is different from the native English-speech people; even we can say that there is a gap between them.(Johnson, 1992) It mainly shows on non-pure speech, the ability to differentiate the words is not strong,

and often make mistake on the accent of words, and don't know how to pronounce the English words.

Because of the point ,the learners should be required to know every part of pronunciation of human’s body and can pronounce the pure English .However, for most students in the process

of their learning, they are greatly influenced by their teachers, especially teachers’ phonetics. But at present in many areas,

especially in the rural areas, schools are short of specialized English teachers. Some other teachers who are not familiar with the sound linking, plosive, stress, etc. are asked to teach English. Though they are competent in teaching English grammar and language points, it is surely difficult for them to speak fluent and pure English. And also some schools can’t afford modern machines, so the students can't imitate the pure English, So their listening ability can’t be trained favorably, when they communicate with others, they often find their pronunciations are different from others ’. So they can't understand what is said to them.

Therefore, their listening ability will be influenced and the confidence of communication also be

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XX学院本科生毕业论文 influenced.

3.2 Grammar barrier

It is emphasizing that the aim of our language teaching is to communicate; we still should have some knowledge of English grammar (Johnson, 1992). In English, there is a change of tense. And the order, which the action happens, can be presented by the change of verbs, which many students often ignore these points when they communicate with others. As a result, some unnecessary mistakes will happen. For example, a student wants to express this meaning “I have been to Beijing.” Not knowing the difference between “have been to”and “have gone to”, so he says, “I have gone to Beijing.” If he knows their difference, he will not make this mistake. So

when we communicate with people we may can’t understand them if they don’t know grammar very much. It have the influence on listening. We all know that the four skills are can not be isolated. The existence of the grammar barrier makes students hard to improve their listening skills. Because the speaker’s poor grammar, the listener try his best to connect the meaning of the speaker. This process must need the listener to think about it. Then it’s really difficult to catch

the meaning of the speaker. 3.3 Mental barrier

Psychologists tell us that when people in a state of tension; it will have a fear, so that we can’t understand the contents which are easy for us to understand. Some students lack self-confidence. In the classroom, especially in the listening classroom, teachers need student’s

active participation. Students lack of self-confidence in such circumstances is often feel nervous, and fear of answering questions. it is difficult to raise the students’ level of English

listening, when they state in the high pressure for a long time. In 1990, the Beijing Foreign Languages Institute organized some English teachers as a group to conduct a large-scale investigation of Chinese students’ ability of English. (《外语教学

与研究》1993 年第l 期。) the result shows that: Language ability, and learning motivation and other four factors influence the English level most. Krashen believes that learners will have a psychological barrier to the absorption of language. This is what is called “affective filter”. This

kind of “affective filter” is unconscious, it is the result of anxiety or lack of self-confidence(Krashen，1985).It is said that anxiety or lack of self-confidence stops the learners’ deep

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impression for language. The process of listening comprehension is a complex psychological intellectual activity. The listener must be in a very short period of time to finish a series of process of identifying, understanding and storing. And only in this way the voice can be turn into the significant signals. If the brain's ability to receive information was severely disrupted, the effectiveness of information processing will be greatly reduced. Even before the listening, the

effectiveness of information has been reduced and at the same time affecting the degree of the listening level. Listen to the same content, the students’ psychologically preparation is different

when they listen to teachers and when they listen to records. Emotional factors and the

effectiveness of the listening comprehension have the direct relations when students listen to English. If their desire of listening to English is strong, the effect will be better. Conversely, if students are not interested in listening activities, they will have tired of it. Scholars at home and abroad continue to explore the theory and practice; the study shows that English learners in the learning efficiency and learning anxiety negatively correlated. It means that anxiety impedes the

Chastain，1975;Horvitz，1986 ). So anxious learners often have the English learning. (

unpleasant emotional responses or psychological discomforts such as fear, tension, worries and so on. According to O'malley and Chamot survey in 1990, it also proposed the positive role of \"focus\" on the listening comprehension.

3.4 Other barriers

Of course, the above mentioned is not the only factors to obstruct the improvement of listening ability. And there are some other factors to influence the listening ability. For example, the communicating people, (some good friends will be good communicating people), the

communicating topics (some interesting topics will promote their communication well), the communicating surroundings (if it is possible, it will be the best surrounding to be put in the English-speaking countries) etc. Because there are so many factors obstructing the students’

listening ability, some good ways to improve their listening ability should be found during the process of English teaching and to help them overcome these obstructs. Then their listening ability will be trained and improved favorably during the process of English learning.

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XX学院本科生毕业论文 Chapter Four

Strategies for Improving Students’ Listening Ability

4.1 Enhancement of the students’ interest for English learning The train of listening is boring; it requires a long-time focus on it. So teachers should arrange the content properly and use some interesting method to arouse students’ interests.

As we all know, “the aims for English teaching is to train the students how to use the language, yet this kind of ability will more quickly be developed on condition that the students are greatly engaged in the English language and immersed in an atmosphere of using the language ”according to this, an English teacher is required to make students feel listening is interesting. To some extent, the students’ attention and interest are aroused and in the meantime,

the students’ listening is effectively practiced. As a learner of English in the classroom, if he shows great interest in English learning, of course, he should listen to the teacher carefully, follow his teacher step by step, fix all his attention on what the teacher is saying and try his best to catch on. Then he is active to take part in activities.

Our teachers often give some materials which are not very interesting or far away from us. They can not the topics we like, so it’s hard for us to focus on them so that our listening is

improved slowly. We should choose some newly materials, for example: BBC, VOA news, and CCTV9 and so on. It can not only improve students’ interests but also let students connect with

some news. Make full use of audio-visual aids to create situations. Carry out some activities, such as: Listening competitions, English Corner. Or we can play some games. Pass the message; make more sentences as quickly as possible.

4.2 A Solid Base of English Phonetics

If there is something wrong with a student’s pronunciation, then, obviously, he can't

understand what's on in the communication. And increasingly it will influence the student's confidence of communication. So teacher of English should help students lay a solid base of English phonetics, which includes accurate pronunciation, good intonation, sound linking,

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XX学院本科生毕业论文

plosive and strong and weak forms .It is proved that students with good pronunciation and intonation have obvious advantages in speaking just as a writer's opinions can be obtained by reading between the lines, a listener’s intention can be revealed from the intonation and tunes he

uses. For example, the students of one of my classes aren’t often vigorous when I ask them to

read after me, they often read slowly. Then I read loudly, and then the students read louder, too. What’s more, it is also proved that good pronunciation and tunes not only help himself develop the confidence of English learning, but also help others surrounding him try to improve their speaking ability. As the youth have a strong presented expect and most of them hope that they can have fluent and pure English then become the focus and the admiring people to the public, which make them have a better confidence in their life.

4.3 Accumulation of the students' vocabulary

During the English listening, the communication often is interrupted by a word, which the students don't know. So the vocabulary is obviously important. So during the teaching English, besides letting the students remember the words they've learned. What more important is to teach the way which how to remember more words, After learning the rule of spelling and pronunciation, the students should be encouraged to read and remember the words in their own way and master the links between the words, and then improve the effect of remembering words. The teachers also should encourage the students that when they do some reading, they

should guess the words' meaning according to the context. At the same time, it is also important to improve the ability to look up the words in the dictionary. If a student is rich in his vocabulary, then it must be helpful for his listening ability. What’s more, a large vocabulary is quite good for

students to summarize a text. So after teaching a text, students are often asked to retell it in their own words. We can say that the words are the building materials of language. There will be no buildings if there are no materials. What’s more, the rich vocabulary also has an influence on the

reading, translation, the writing and the speaking. We can say that the rich vocabulary is the basis of English listening well.

4.4 Enlargement of the students' background knowledge

Carrel pointed out: the background knowledge of the listeners as a map stored in long-term memory. The listener receive a new information and to compare it with this map to analyze

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whether they are agree with each other in order to correctly understand the contents of what he has heard. (Carrel, 1983) And Clark also pointed out that if you want to recall the content from long-term memory, you have to activate the information of long-term memory. (Clark, 1997)

If the listeners want to use the information received to activate the new information, they must pay attention to increase the amount of information in daily fife. Different culture will produce different language background. Social and cultural background knowledge and listening comprehension are closely linked. In order to improve students’ English listening, it’s necessary

to overcome the cultural barriers caused by difference of culture, consciously to learn about the culture of Britain and the Unite States, even the whole western culture. If students do not understand the social system, customs, folks, people's way of thinking and values of English speaking countries, it will give rise to certain difficulties in the English listening activities. Therefore, the students in order to improve the level of English listening must have sufficient cross-cultural back ground knowledge.

Language is an important carriage of culture. There are close links between them, when you learn language, you must know some knowledge about culture, and then you can understand and express some meaning correctly. So the new syllabus presents a new demand that know the world correctly and strengthen the understanding to English countries' culture. According to it, the teacher should both grasp the listening as usual and know the culture of English countries reflected in the teaching in carefully during their English teaching. When the students can do it after the teachers, they can get the basic knowledge and communicating ability by the training of listening, speaking, reading and writing. For

example, in our textbook, the sentence \"Can you help me?” can be answered with \"Yes, certainly, sure, surely and of course.”But these answers

have different meanings. The answer of yes is comparably impolite, while certainly is more polite. Sure or surely are often used in American English. And of course has the meaning of a little fool. So when you communicate with the elder people, you must pay more attention to use of course.

From the above, we know that it's more important to use the proper language on different occasion, besides teaching the students the words and sentences. So it's necessary to know the background knowledge about culture of English countries. If the students know it more, then obstruct their speaking ability less. And it will promote the listening then push the listening

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XX学院本科生毕业论文 ability further development.

Above all are only parts of the ways. Their own hard work and studying ways also can't be

ignored. 12

XX学院本科生毕业论文 Chapter Five Conclusion

5.1 Summary

From the above discussion, we can safely get the conclusion that college students’ English

listening is still having the space to improve. Some students don’t know how to improve it, can’t

find the effective methods which fit for them.

The research of strategies to improve college students’ English listening is still on its way.

We should try our best to study the theory of improvement of English listening and at the same we should pay much attention on students’ metal factors. When they listen to English, how do

they think about it? Do they fell nervous? Those problems shouldn’t be the reasons to block the

improvement of listening. 5.2 Findings and Discoveries

This paper put forward some ideas. The object of the thesis is the novel few people made studies on. The research of strategies to improve college students’ English listening can put

forward the research of the whole second foreign language learning. There is no doubt that listening plays a very important part in second foreign language research.

In conclusion, like building a house, learning English takes some time, so don't be impatient. Remember, Rome was not built in a day. With the help of the teachers, as long as students command a good knowledge

of English grammar, and do more oral and listening practice, the listening ability of students is surely to be greatly improved. 5.3 Limitations

Although great efforts have been made in this field, there is still something not fully discussed. This paper did not make research on all the barriers in listening improvement, only on the main barriers. This paper only promotes some strategies to improve students listening. Due to the scarcity of the materials and the immaturity of my views, there’s still a long way to go.

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XX学院本科生毕业论文 References

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