Ways to improve English listening comprehension ability

张淑丽/宁夏中卫市第五小学

Ways to improve English listening comprehension ability

张淑丽/宁夏中卫市第五小学

As we know, in English learning and communication activities of human beings,listening is the most basic form and the best skill in understanding and absorbing verbal information communication. Famous linguist Krashen also states that listening comprehensionis very important in Language learning , so listening comprehension should be put in the first place . Listening is one of the important links in English teaching, and is directly related to the knowledge of English language learning ability to master and apply .However, there are many reasons that affect English listening .The Chinese students’communicative competence in English is not strong enough .Listening teaching in Englishhas hardly born fruit. Thus , it is necessary to reform the teaching of English listening, create a good language environment for students, and change the situation of English teaching in China , Which is “mute-English”.

listening comprehension ability ; factors; methods

I. Introduction

As we all know that English is the most popularly learned foreign language in China . Most students can use daily English to communicate with each other. However , listening comprehension has long been a headache of Chinese students in their English study and English teaching in all levels of Chinese schoolsis still test-centered . The only aim for most students to learn English is to pass any kinds of examination, so they do quite a lot of writing exercises in their daily life . They ignored the listening and speaking abilities. Some teachers and students think that an excellent student is one that canget a high score in the test.

If English learners want to improve their language skills, they’d better liaten more .Listening is a useful source of language input, and it serves as a foundation for other skills. The purpose of the course is to prepare students for effective listening outside the classroom , which will enable them to comprehend satisfactorily in different situations. Teachers and students have worked hard and tried to make obvious progress in this area. However , it is very problematic for many of Chinese students to make progress.

II. Literature review of English teaching in our country and analysis of current situation in English learning

With the frequent international communication, more and more people began to learn English , but few of them can use it as a native speaker . At the same time , Li Lanqing have mentioned several times about reforming the foreign language teaching that promoted many scholars and researchers to make a great contribution to English teaching . Since then , some success has been achieved in English teaching ,but it still can not keep up with the pace of the economic development in our country.

Listening,speaking , reading and writing are considered as the four basic skills in language learning .For various reasons, reasons , most of our Chinese learners are very poor at listening. Listening is the foundation of English learning . The important role of listening is displayed in our daily life.

2.1 Changes in teaching method

Traditional teaching methods are PPP, Which are “ presentation”,“practice”and “production”.It has been proved that traditional teaching methods do not correspond with English learners’ discipline at all. And in traditional English language teaching in China, the teacher is always the center of class. Students are not given many chances to practice listening and speaking .In class ,students pay most attention to teachers’However, with the changes of society ,the traditional listening teaching concept has gradually changed .

III. Factors that affect listening comprehension ability

3.1 Imperfection of basic knowledge of Language

3.1.1Factors in sound.

Beginners of English learning in China need an adequate mastery of English phonological knowledge and pronunciation skills .

The teaching of pronunciation should enable the students to identify and produce English sounds themselves . Stress and intonation are very important and should be taught from the very beginning .

When listening ,teachers should help students distinguish differences between sounds . Do more practices so that they are sensitive to the openness of the mouth, the shape of the lips, as well as the tension of tongue and larynx,and able to distinguish some vowels and consonants. Practice in identifying each word in minimal pair set in context will help to develop the students’ listening capacity for phonological features .

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3.1.2 Lack of vocabulary is often more important.

It is frustrating for intermediate learners when they are aware that they can not communicate effectively because they do not know many of the words they need”.

( Paul Davies & Eric Pearse, 2002: 59) Therefore, vocabulary learning in English plays a crucial role. Before English learners learn a language ,they must know a certain amount of words . Without a necessary vocabulary, there is not the foundation of language. If a language learner has not a rich vocabulary, he will not understand the words which someone expressed or can’t understand them correctly.

3.2 Psychological factors

Listeners’ listening ability is also influenced by psychological factors . Sometimes, listeners’ over-concentration on listening material leads to nervousness. Anxiety has a negative effect on listening comprehension. Anxiety is a kind of fear, and it has been proved that anxiety has a negative effect on language learning.

Psychological barriers are mainly reflected in two aspects: the state of being too nervous or the state of being unable to focus one’s attention during listening .In regular listening practice, some students can’t concentrate on the listening content . Instead ,they are absent-minded, wandering away . Although they still wear their ear-phones , which , of course, will affect comprehension result, some students are easily distracted because of being fatigued after listening for a long period .

3.3 Difficulty in understanding

The ultimate goal of listening is to obtain a comprehensive understanding among sentences, paragraphs and chapters. But some students are not good at catching key words or general meaning . They often try to understand the material word by word or sentence by sentence . This is a mistake for listeners . To develop a good habit when listening is necessary . Generally in connected speech ,however , non-stressed syllables are uttered too quickly or too weakly to hear clearly and pauses are so short that it is impossible to catch every word . As a result ,some learners fail to understand the listening material as a whole.

IV. Ways to improve listening comprehension ability

In order to solve these listening problems , we should find some proper ways to overcome them. Here are several methods.

4.1 Stimulating students’interest in listening

Interest is the foundation of all mental activity .Its very nature is to lead to thought and action . One will learn and work more effectively if they are interested in what they are doing . Suhomlinski said that the cultivation of study interest is an important driving force to promote students’ complex recognition . Activities refer to offering an opportunity to students to use English or practice English in classroom . It can not only practice the students’ ability of oral speaking or the listening of English, but also improve their psychological qualities,and enhance their confidence to master English .

4.2 To be a fully attentive listener,students should practice speaking and reading .

No matter what they are doing , Where they are ,they should always remember that things around them offer a good opportunity to practice speaking . In their daily life, they can talk about something in English with their friends . Now , almost everyone has a MP3 which is convenient to carry and is a useful device to practice listening ability no matter where they are . English corner is a good place where they may exchange English study experience, widen their sight and improve interest in English . The other way is to communicate with their foreign teachers .Quite a lot of successful English scholars consider that the key to the language learning is to imitate. If they spend much time with foreign teachers ,they can imitate their foreign teacher’s pronunciation and intonation unconsciously.

4.3Overcoming the psychological problem

Students are tense because they do not have confidence , and they do not have enough exercise . They all tend to hear every word and translate it into Chinese to understand When they meet with new words , they spend much time on them , and as the listening time is limited ,all of those cause great loss. It is very important for students to have a good psychological state while listening .It is necessary to help them realize that listening is the first step of any language learning .Meanwhile, they should be aware of the difficulty . So students should have a strong determination and build up confidence to overcome difficulties, and never be afraid of it .

4.4Enlarging the vocabulary

For English learners ,it is essential to master a certain amount of words of and usages. When learning a new language, leaners is to adopt effective approaches to study new words . Learners should not try to learn too many words at time and they had better review the words they have learned again and again . Thus it will be easier for them to remember when they are searching for words that they want to know , to put them into sentences, to fix them in their minds and come back to them later . Vocabulary learning in these ways is usually very effective.

5. Conclusion

It is well known that human beings come into contact with or learn language first through listening. The teaching of English listening isn’t only a teaching of language, but also a training of ability . In the four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing, listening is the basic, and the most important skill. It isn’t only the main way of acquiring language information , but the base of improving other skills. Then how to improve listening skills? This article has summed up several methods---stimulating student’s interests, the combination of listening and class activities, overcoming psychological problem etc.

However, the most important thing is that we have to take all of those methods into practice. Hardworking is the only way that leads to great success. As the saying goes “ Practice makes perfect.”Accordingly, to improve listening comprehension ability is to listen and practice over and over again. It is a long-term process, but during the process, teachers must be observant. Teachers should pay special attention to certain details, for instance, which approach is suitable for students, and what kin of materials can be easily understood . In addition, students should also notice those aspects in their process of language learning .

Of all the activities of communication , the most basic ability is the ability that one can understand what others say . So paying more attention to listening training is an important link which is indispensable for grasping and using the language. The main part of this paper is about the approaches of improving students’ listening comprehension ability .

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[2]顾雪梁， 何建东.当代外语新探索， 浙江大学出版社，2009.

[3]刘润清， 戴曼纯. 中国高校外语教学改革现状与发展策略研究[M], 外语教学与研究出版社，2003.

[4]张春， 罗钰. 西部外语教学与研究论丛 ， 西南交通大学出版社，2009.

Form it , we can see the significance of listening in language learning. How to improve the listening skill effectively is concerned by teachers and students. This paper, based on the literature review of English teaching and analysis of current situation, will find out the factors that affect listening comprehension ability and discuss some feasible methods to improve students’ listening comprehension ability.