How to Help Students to Acquire the English Listening Ability 英语专业毕业论文.doc

how to help students to acquire the english listening abilityabstract: listening is in the basic and important position in learning english. how to help students to get rid of the listening barriers and master the skill of it. improving the level of listening is one of the problems that our teacher put forth to discuss. the thesis analyzes some problems existing in the process of listening. in listening process, the failures to understand are usually caused by sound. in listening to a complicated passage or dialogue, students tend to treat each sentence in isolation and hence fail to make an inference which needs to be draw from the context. very often they fail to distinguish the topic sentence from the details and as a result they are uncertain about the main idea of the listening text they have heard. also, vocabulary presents obstacles for them in understanding the listening text. in order to solve these problems, this thesis put forward some ways such as dictation, predict, memorization.key words: listening problem, the sounds, the vocabulary, inference, solution摘 要：英语学习中“听”处于基础的、重要的地位，如何帮助学生派出听力障碍、掌握听力技巧、提高听力水平是我们老师着力探讨的问题之一。这篇文章分析了在听力过程中存在的一些问题。在听力过程中，听不懂往往是由语音造成的，在听一段复杂的文章和对话时，学生往往是一个句子一个句子孤立的听。因此，不能根据上下文做出推论。他们不能根据变化细节区分主题句；结果导致他们对所听材料的主要意思不能确定，词汇也是理解听力文章的障碍之一。为了解决这些问题，此论文提出了一些解决方案，如听写、预测和记忆等等。 关键词：听力问题；语音；词汇;推论;方法contentsabstracti摘要iicontentsiiiintroduction11. the problems existing in listening11.1 the problems of the sounds21.2 the problems of the vocabulary41.3 the problems of finding out the main idea or the topic41.4 the problems of making inference72. solutions to the problems existing in listening8 2.1 solutions to the problems concerning sounds9 2.2 solutions to the problems concerning vocabulary10 2.3 solutions to the problems concerning making inferences and the main idea of the listening text12conclusion13bibliography14acknowledgement15introductiontoday, more and more people learn english in society. in the process of listening english, listening, speaking, writing, reading is very important. however, the successful communications with others in english is based on being able to listen and understand. therefore, a very challenging task that falls on us teachers who teach english listening is how to help students to acquire the english listening ability. if we want to help students to acquire the english listening ability, we should know the problems in the process of listening and we should put forward some ways to solve the listening problems.1 the problems existing in listeningto help students to acquire the english listening ability, we need to know their level where their problems lie in listening. “if you are trying to teaching somebody something, you need to have a clear idea of what it is you are trying to teach. teaching listening comprehension in a foreign language is like teaching architectural students how to draw the plans and elevations of buildings. it follows that you need to have a clear model the desired outcome of your teaching, together with a clearly articulated strategy which specifies how you are going to bring about this desired outcome. this strategy will largely depend on your assessment of what your student already knows or can do. the reason why the student may not reach the point of desired outcome is be like of intervention from a teacher.”1 so to know the students level where their problems lie is the prerequisite that help students to acquire english listening ability. the problems are found in listening process. in listening process, the failures to understand are usually caused by sound (liaison, assimilation, elision). in listening to an extended passage or dialogue, students tend to treat each sentence in isolation and hence fail to make an inference which needs to be draw from the context. very often they fail to distinguish the topic sentence from the details and as a result they are uncertain about the main idea of the listening text they have heard. also vocabulary presents obstacles for them in understanding the listening text. if those students who have such problems are not encouraged to build up confidence and practice listening to overcome them, they may remain forever. some of their problems reflected in doing listening comprehension in class are related to the following aspects.1.1 the problems of soundswhen many students listen to native speakers the first time, they find that the english words they have heard from the foreigners sound strange and different from those clearly pronounced by their chinese teachers. they dont know that “consonants and vowels are combined to from words and utterances within a rhythmic structure. every consonant and every vowel will be affected by its neighboring consonant and every vowel will be affected by the rhythmic structure in which it occurs.” “they were taught to pronounce words clearly and slowly since the first day they began to learn english, and they were accustomed to this slow, clear model in which each sentence is uttered as a sequence of readily identifiable words.”1 little knowledge do they have about the fact that the pronunciation of words undergoes changes in the stream of speech. as a result, they tend to fail to understand spoken english. this is quite typical of foreign language learners. examples of failure to understand can be found in student listening class. the failures to understand are usually caused by liaison, which occurs in natural english language flow from time to time. they tend to block students comprehension and often completely confuse them. take the following as an example. listening text: hello, hello. my name is joan, and i am calling from indiana, can i speak to diana, please? am i speaking to diana? oh, no, no, no. i am not diana. i think that you have got the wrong number, my friend. you have dialed a hotel in joan. directions: listen to the song “wrong number” carefully. fill in the blanks with the words in the song. it is usually difficult for students to work out the word “hotel” in the blank. the reason is that the last sound /i/ in the word “hotel” and the first sound /i/ in the word “in” undergo a case of liaison. what students actually heard is /h otelin/, which perplexes them so much that they fail to figure out the exact word. when it is pronounced in isolation, it is immediately understood with no difficulty at all. assimilation and elision are the other two features that students tend to fail to notice in their listening and often cause problems in understanding.1.2 the problems of the vocabularyit can not be doubted that lack of the necessary amount of vocabulary will lead listening comprehension to failure. inability to process the sounds into meaningful words at the same time they are being perceived will have the same result. one student said, “once i heard a word rocket in a passage. i thought i had come across it before, but i just could not remember its meaning right away. what i did next was kept on working out the meaning of the word and could no longer concentrate on the incoming information. as a result, nothing of the result of the passage was comprehended.” this is true of many other students if they are confronted with the same situation. as a matter of fact, this is a bad habit, which needs to be eliminated. “students need to develop the skill of keeping up with the speaker even this means letting go parts which they failed to sort out”21.3 the problems of finding out the main idea or the topicthe task of finding out the main idea of the listening text is a difficult one for most students. after listening, facing such a task, they either fell uncertain about the answer or just make the wrong choice. the following is an example. listening text: woman: did you have a good weekend? man: yes, i did i visited some friends in pennsylvania. they lived in a small town called canonsburg. woman: that must have been interesting. i have never been in a small town-just a big city. man: neither have i. woman: what did you do? man: there is not as much to do as there is here. no plays or concerts that are. people make their own entertainment, though. woman: what do you mean? man: well, saturday we went to a part. everybody brings something. it is all put on the table and you can eat whatever you like. that is a potluck supper. woman: it is something like a picnic, isnt it? man: well, yes. the weather was warm, so we had this one outdoors. but in winter they have them indoors too. woman: what else did you do? man: sunday we went for a drive. we had lunch at the drive-in. woman: is the countryside interesting? man: beautiful farmland. youd like it. woman: im sure i would. man: sunday evening some people came to dinner. it was very informal-we just sat around and talked. just a nice sunday night supper. woman: thats the kind of evening i like. i dont care for formal dinners so much.man: neither does me.directions: listen to the dialogue and choose the best answer.question: what does the dialogue mainly tell us?a. the man had a good time last weekend.b. the farmland is beautiful in pennsylvania.c. people prefer informal parties to formal ones.d. people do not like life in big cities.in class, some students would choose c. as an answer to the above questions. actually, the whole dialogue is about what the man did last weekend and form his diction in his speech, “beautiful farmland” and “a nice sunday night supper,” it can be known that he enjoyed the weekend very much. therefore, the answer should be a. the man had a good time last weekend.this kind of task is difficult because students have to evaluate which items of information are important and which are less essential. on the basis of a general understanding of the dialogue or the passage, students have to judge what message the speaker wants to convey through the listening text. so sometimes it is not because they do not understand the language the speaker has produced, but because their ability to make generalization fails them, which is also likely to be the case when they listen to their native language.1.4 the problems of making inferencestudents especially those who have just begun to learn to listen, tend to interpret each sentence in isolation in listening to dialogues or passages without referring to the context. as a result, misunderstanding arises.for example：listening context:dear linda;the letter you write to me on november 13 arrived just a few days ago. mail service between new york and chicago should be better than that.i am lad you like your new job, but i am sorry you dont like new york very much. you will probably like it better when you have more friends there. thank you very much for your invitation. im really sorry i cant accept it. my aunt will be here during the christmas holidays, so i cant go away. im sure you understand. i hope you can come to chicago some time. sincerely loisdirections; listen to the passage carefully and write “t” (true) or “f” (false) for each statement you hear.statements: 1) mail service between new york and chicago is not very good. 2) linda doesnt have many friends in new york. for the above two statements, students usually wrote “false”. however, according to the letter they heard, these two statements should be true. the problem is that the meanings of these two sentences are not actually specified in the message but implied in it. in the sentence “the letter you wrote on november 13 arrived just a few days ago.” the word “just” indicates that the letter has been delayed on its way and the following sentence “mail service between new york and chicago should be better than that.” is actually a complaint, which really means that mail service between new york and chicago is not as good as lois has expected. and the sentence “you will probably like it better when you have more friends there.” is a prediction for the future but at the same time it implies that linda doesnt have many friends in new york, which is the reason she does not like it.for students whose level of foreign language proficiency is not very high, it is difficult to understand something which is indirectly stated. this is because “simply coping with the foreign language takes up so much of their processing capacity that they do not perform normal inference on the discourse.”12. solution to the problems existing in listeningto help students to acquire the english listening ability, we should find some ways that solve to this problem.2.1 solutions to the problems concerning soundsmost students had never been exposed to spoken english therefore they tend to be insensitive to features of spoken english such as liaison, assimilation, etc. these features of spoken english lead students to feel that they have never heard english spoken like this, especially if their former teachers pronunciation was not so standard. if this problem is not solved, in listening class they will probably flounder in a stream of the acoustic blur that hits their ears and their experience is bound to be quite sterile and disheartening. to solve this problem, measures must be taken. in class, teachers should explain the correct pronunciation of certain vowels and consonants when necessary. when students are asked to recognize cases of liaison, weak forms, assimilation, etc. they should be also asked to practice reading in order to be sensitive to these phonetic phenomena. whenever the teacher finds that students inability to understand may be caused by them, he or she had better offer scripts to show where the problem lies.in addition, dictation is a way to have students sensitized to these phenomena. the dictation can be done after class and finished within the allotted time. it is natural that students will unavoidably fail to work out some of the segments even if they have struggled very hard. after the fixed period of time, written scripts can be distributed to them so that they can compare with their own dictated sentences and find out their problems. the importance of distributing scripts can not be underestimated. written scripts can boost students to a point where they can practice listening at a higher level with a more advanced function or greater accuracy. to a certain degree, dictation in this way can also improve students pronunciation (it is often the case that whether you can recognize the acoustic signals or not depends whether you yourself can articulate the sounds in a proper way.)in listening to dialogues or passages, whenever necessary, teachers had better write out on a blackboard the sentences or phrases which may cause difficulty for students to recognize because some sounds have been changed in the continuous speech. this is especially indispensable at the early stage of their learning to listen.various phenomena of sound alterations need to be illustrated, especially those that students often come across in their listening materials like assimilation, elision and weak forms.2.2 solutions to the problems concerning vocabularystudents, feel that vocabulary is a salient problem that impedes their listening comprehension. apart from the fact that “an unknown word can be like a suddenly dropped barrier causing them to stop and think about the meaning of the word and thus making them miss the next part of the speech.”2, it is often the case that many words that are incomprehensible in listening are understandable when they are seen in print or written out. in the article “the relationship between the listening vocabulary and reading vocabulary”, liu si (1995) summarized from the result of a experiment with students vocabulary that students listening vocabulary is less than their reading vocabulary, though these two kinds of vocabulary are interrelated. he analyzes that this is because students usually spend more time reading than listening; another reason is that while listening, they only employ the phonetic and semantic storing systems but while reading, besides those two systems, they have to employ the spelling storing system in order to remember the word. thus they are usually more impressed with the word they have read than with the one they have heard. liu si suggests that attention be given to the correct pronunciation of the sounds with their forms. in addition, liu si adds that in learning new words they should follow procedure: listenhave a lookread aloud.3 in listening class, before students begin to listen, the teacher should be able to predict which words and phrase in the listening text may sound familiar to students but their meanings can not be sorts out at the time of being perceived, in other words, which words may fall into their reading vocabulary, not listening vocabulary. the teachers job is to try to activate these words and facilitate the listening. for instance, in teaching students to listen to the dialogue, “mr. harris in egypt”, the teacher may first ask “speaking of egypt, what do you know about it? students will probably answer: the great pyramid, the sphinx, the suez canal, cairo, etc. they may answer in chinese, which is allowable. the teacher can tell them how to say these things in english. what is important is that by asking questions and talking with students, the teacher elicits what students have already known and tells them what they do not know