Discuss how to improve the students listening ability

谢娟

（廣州珠江职业技术学院）

1. Introduction

Teachers often emphasize the four skills： listening， speaking， reading and writing. That means each of them is important. When people communicate with others， firstly， they should know what others are talking about. If their listening ability is too poor to understand others， how can they continue the conversation？ So listening is the most basic element among these skills. However， some students often complain that it is hard to learn it well. It is hard to distinguish homonyms. When they meet some unknown words， sometimes they will waste lots of time on thinking about them. They don't know how to choose the materials. So learners ought to learn some skills to improve it in an easy way.

2.Environment affects listening a lot， how Chinese teachers help students to make it up.

It is known that language environment influence the learners a lot. That is why Chinese immigrant students in US can learn English better and quickly than those in Chinese. And now most of the Chinese students do not have the chance to go abroad and live in the native environment. And most of our English teachers are Chinese not foreigner. But I am sure that we native people know more about our students and their pronunciation， the way of Chinese expression and the distinction of the cultures. So they can easily find the suitable way to help the students. That is the advantage of Chinese teachers which foreigners do not have.

2.1 Guess the meaning

Most of students often complain that they cant understand the meaning of a whole passage because they want to know every word in the whole passage. It is useless. When students practice listening in their spare time they can check all the unknown word. It is good and benefit for them to absorb new words. But if they are doing the exam， they spend the limited time on some uncertain words that is nonsense. At the beginning of the exam， probably they can get the main idea of the whole passage or dialogue and then when they are questioning themselves that several words， they probably fail in the exam. At this time， Guessing is the best way to help learners to understand the unknown words and they can guess the meaning according the context.

2.2 Background

Strengthening students' background knowledge equals to improving their listening ability because background information is important resources. Before a lesson， teachers usually require students to preview the lesson. And teachers not only should preview the lesson but also find some background information. On the one hand， teachers should try to attract students interest then the students can concentrate on the class； on the other hand， this way can broaden students horizon. The students assignment is not only to learn the knowledge on the books， but also to broaden their horizon in all kinds of the aspects. However， teachers are talking about the background information which is about the western festival. Like Thanksgiving Day， Halloween. Then it is hard to understand it if they know nothing or little about it. So teachers should encourage the students to read something about geography， history， culture， stories and so on in their spare time. If students want to conquest the difficulty， they should know more about it.

3. Skills

Students should know some skills to speed up their listening comprehension.

3.1 Pre-listening skills

Looking over the material is to make sure students can predict what they should focus on.“Research points out that listening activity in general should consist of a pre—listening phase，which should make the context for listening explicit， clarify the purposes for listening， and establish goals， procedures and roles for listening. So a pre—listening activity can involve listeners in the following ways：

3.2 Underline the key word

Underline the key word， especially the name， the time， the address， and some detail information.

3.3 Guess

When listening， you can guess the relationship of the speakers from the place and the relative things around them.

3.4 Make some notes

Human brain can not remember so many things in a short and limited time but students can write it down， it is more convinced than their dim memory.

3.5 Using acronym to save time

It is difficult for people to remember so many things in a limited time and they also can not write every word down. So students can use acronym to replace the long words so that they can write down the important information quickly.

4. Conclusion

After changing the method of teaching students， teachers got the insights of the students potential. Teachers should change the teaching style for designing some activities for students and teaching them some useful skills. In addition， students should strengthen their speaking， reading， writing at the same time. In conversation， listening can not live without speaking. If students want to master English well， they can not lack of any one of the skills.