On Difficulties in College English Listening Learning and Improvement Strategies

【Abstract】A lot of college students still make poor performance in English listening. This paper attempts to make a study on the difficulties in college English listening learning and improvement strategies. It analyzes the difficulties in college English listening learning and present some strategies to improve college students English listening learning. It is hoped that this paper is of great help to college students English listening learning.

【Key words】college English listening learning； difficulties； improvement strategies

1. The Problems and Difficulties in English Listening

Listening is an essential component of communication. Why students have spent so much time improving their listening comprehension ability， but still in vain？What affects students development of listening comprehension ability？The main problems often lie in language knowledge and skills， cultural gap and psychological factors.

1.1 Linguistic Incompetence

Linguistic incompetence is the one of the most common factors causing poor listening.

1.1.1 Pronunciation and Intonation

Pronunciation changes of English words contain：the voiced and voiceless consonants changes， weakening of vowels， word stress， contraction， linking and swallowing sound phenomena in fast reading and so on. These cause great difficulties to Chinese students in listening.

1.1.2 Special Words

Another problem is vocabulary. An unknown word can be a suddenly dropped barrier causing students to stop and think about the meaning of the word， thus making them miss the next part of the speech.

1.1.3 Abbreviation

Abbreviation is very popular in English speaking， especially in news， speeches and now even in a conversation on line. The listening materials cant be understood without knowing these common abbreviations.

1.2 Deficiency in Language Skills

Students are used to listening to every word to understand sentence. They seldom analyze and speculate on problems based on the existing knowledge， information and context. They dont make necessary notes. They forget the information after it has passed. They lack induction ability and skills. They cant make a macro analysis to grasp full text. They will encounter all sorts of linguistic or non-linguistic knowledge obstacles in listening training.

1.3 Lack of Knowledge of Cultural Background

Lack of background knowledge， students will be thrown into confusion. A broad knowledge of politics， economy， modem science and technology or another aspect of social life in the English-speaking countries is a very important factor in understanding listening message.endprint

1.4 Psychological Problems

Internal influence reasons of the listening comprehension should not be ignored. Internal factors include motivation， attention， and emotion， etc.

1.4.1 Absent-mindedness

Attention is the premise condition of learning activities. Even the shortest break in attention calls seriously impaired comprehension.

1.4.2 Anxiety

Krashen（1982：16—32） pointed out that “Understanding on language input is a necessary condition of language acquisition， but this is far from enough”. He thought that students would have a kind of language absorption obstacle that hindered them from using comprehensible language ingredients in language communication. He called this obstacle as affective filter.

2. Strategies for Listening Learning

Strategies for listening learning are various. The best strategies for a student are those which are aimed at their problems and make an effort to solve them.

2.1 Improvement of Pronunciation and Intonation

Pronunciation and intonation run through the whole process of English learning from the beginning to the end. It is the most basic in English learning.

2.1.1 Phonetic Training

（1） Spend more time practicing phonetic alphabet accurately. Pay attention to every single phonetic symbol.

（2） Practice more on discerning pronunciation and intonation. Especially strengthen students mastery of stress， weak stress， liaison in language streams and continuously enhance students language sense.

2.1.2 Listening and Imitating

Encourage students to listen to BBC， VOA and such normal speed broadcasts. As for intonation， students should first imitate and master the basic tone， and then imitate some more complex intonations.

2.2 Necessary Language Skills

There are three main strategies：metacognitive strategy， cognitive strategy and social/emotional strategy （Chamot， 1987）. Listen carefully and catch the main idea. Grasp the key words of main content in speech.

2.2.1 Applying Memory Strategy

In the listening process， the short-term memory is important. Its capacity is very limited. However， it can be increased through a process called chunking （Miller， 1956）. As an assisting tool， taking notes will help students understand the listening material. It can help students reduce the burden of the brain and grasp the main content of the material. Good notes should be a concise outline.

2.2.2 Learning Grammar Wellendprint

Students should understand basic sentence patterns， pay more attention to noun clauses， attributive clauses， transferred negation， inversion and so on. They also should master a lot of English sentence patterns.

2.3 Knowledge of Culture and History about English-speaking Countries

Language is the carrier of culture， also an essential part of culture. So students should be helped to complement consciously some cultural background vocabularies， idioms， select some extracurricular courses about western culture and history， and read more English magazines and introductory articles in usual and learn humanities， geography and society of English states.

2.3.1 Reading More

By such ways as a great deal of after-class reading in masterpieces， recitation of some English proses， brilliant part in novels， classic dialogue in films and celebrities speech， students can enlarge their vocabulary， enrich their culture knowledge， meanwhile enhance their language sense.

2.3.2 Understanding the Oral Habits in English-speaking Countries

Students must learn and accumulate special cultural vocabulary and their particular cultural connotation， focus on the western social popular words or popular culture， and know about western living habits.

2.3.3 Reducing Influence of Chinese

Students should avoid translating each word or sentence into Chinese. This translation process is a waste of time and it influences understanding. Students should stick to listening to English broadcasts， consulting English-English dictionaries， doing more retelling exercises， thus gradually to cultivate the habit of English thinking.

2.4 Mood Adjustment

Positive and confident mood will arouse students potential and facilitate them to focus on listening activities.

2.4.1 Focusing Attention

Attention can be divided into intentional and unintentional attention. Changing the present methods of media generally causes unintentional attention while students accidental encounter with interesting questions will cause intentional attention.

2.4.2 Reducing Interference of Anxiety

Confidence comes from meaningful success. Meaningful fulfillment is from psychological feeling after overcoming difficulties. Try to build confidence and relax before listening.

2.5 Various Practice

Many students just practice listening ability by taking the listening lessons. Improve the listening ability is a long-term and complicated task. It is necessary to practice variously.endprint

2.5.1 Listening Intensively and Extensively

Intensive listening pays attention to “quality”， while extensive listening pursues “quantity”. Intensive and extensive listening should be combined.

2.5.2 Helping with Multimedia—Movie， Tape， TV， etc

There are some funny ways of improving English listening skills， such as playing games， reciting English poems and so on.

3. Conclusion

Unless he has adequate listening ability， a student wont be able to receive the message from others. During the learning of English listening， the key of improving listening is that students should understand all the listening factors and their interactive relationships in the listening comprehension process.

References：

[1]Chamot，A.U.1987.The Learning Strategies of ESL Students in A.Wenden & Rubin.Learner Strategies in Language Learning.Englewood Cliffs，NJ：Prentice Hall.

[2]Cowan，N.2001.“The magical number 4 in short-term memory：A reconsideration of mental storage capacity”.Behavioral and Brain Sciences（24）.

[3]Krashen，S.1982.Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition.Oxford：Pergamon Press.

[4]Lotman，Juri.&.Uspensky B A.1978.On the Semiotic Mechanism of Culture.New York History，IX（2）.

[5]Miller，G.A.1956.The Magical Number Seven，Plus or Minus Two：Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information.Psychological Review（2）.

[6]Michael Rost.2005.Teaching and Researching：Listening.Shanghai：Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.

[7]Weiner，B.2000.Interpersonal and intrapersonal theories of motivation from an attributional perspective.Educational Psychology Review，12.

作者簡介：张路（1979-），男，汉族，湖北武汉人，硕士，讲师，研究方向：外国语言学及应用语言学。endprint