A Study on English listening status of students in vocational school

定理

【Abstract】With the purpose of increasing the understanding of listening comprehension and improving the teaching of listening， this paper first examines important theoretical aspects of listening comprehension， namely， the nature of listening comprehension， the process of listening comprehension and the factors that affect listening comprehension. It then present a discussion of how listening should be taught to Chinese students-- - Attach importance to developing students listening strategies.

【Key words】English listening; English teaching; listening comprehension

1. Introduction

In listening classes， we usually find that teachers begin with the listening of some passages by introducing some new and difficult words， and give a brief introduction about the background concerned with the materials. After that they play the recorder one or two times， and students are required to do the exercises prepared beforehand. The last procedure is to check the answer and explain the question briefly. In fact， such a kind of approach to teach listening is very much like listening test， for listeners are simply exposed to a succession of listening text. They are tested how much they are able to understand the material in terms of lots of comprehension exercises.

2. Theoretical views about listening strategies in EF

In the field of foreign language teaching， Audio-lingual method was overwhelming in40s and 50s in 20 century. With the development of cognitive psychology， many researchers attach importance to the process of listening comprehension and they believed the listening comprehension should be combined with the whole structure， cognitive inference and contents.

In a word， they consider the listening to be a course of thinking， combined with inference. Through the skillful practice it could be improved. These advanced views give me great guide.

3. Case study

There are 500 students in Hubei broadcast and TV school engaged in my research. They majored Art of broadcasting，programme designing， accounting and so on in grade 1， who have 6 years experience of English learning.

The instrument of the survey is questionnaire which was designed by the researcher and includes 8 items. Following is the questionnaire：

（1） What do you think of the listening sills obtained from Listening class？

A. Abundant  40%  B. Enough  10%   C. A little  60%

（2） Whats your attitude towards the present listening teaching mode？

A. Support  1%   B. needs to improve  70%  C. Oppose  20%

（3） Generally speaking， can you keep concentration with the listening materials all the time especially when you meet with something hard for you？

A. Yes  20%  B. No， its difficult  50%   C. It depends 20%

（4） Can you identify with a long meaning according tointonation and pause， which confirms with the speaker？

A. Yes  20%   B. No， its difficult  40%   C. It depends    30%

（5） While listening， do you have enough time to take necessary notes？

A. Yes  30%   B. No， its difficult 50%    C. It depends  20%

（6） Are you good at forecast the following part on the basis of clues？

A. Yes  10%   B. No， its difficult 40%   C. It depends    50%

（7） Can you select the valued information such as the theme sentences？

A. Yes  20%B. No， its difficult    30%C. It depends    50%

（8） Do you have enough background knowledge for association and inference？

A. Yes  20%  B. No， its difficult60%    C. It depends  20%

4. Research result

The results of the questionnaire give our direction of listening strategy train. Based onthe pilot study we can see that most of the students hope improve the listeningteaching mode， and gain more effective listening skills in limited class.

Recently， many researchers devote themselves into listening strategy， which is a part of language learning strategy. Listening strategy could be undertaken by three means： in blind-way， in informed way and in controlled way. So teachers should carry out different strategies training sessions to cultivate their listening ability according to students condition.

References：

[1]Underwood[J]. Teaching Listening London： Longman，1989：178- 208.