Building Students’ Communicative Competence in English Listening Teaching

1、英语听力教学中学生交际能力的培养building students communicative competence in english listening teachingcontentsabstract.1key words.1i . introduction.1ii. significance and current situation of listening teaching in china.2iii. main factors in the inefficient traditional listening class.33.1 the inefficiency of trad

2、itional listening class.33.2 main factors in the inefficiency .33.2.1 language factors.33.2.1.1 english idioms .33.2.1.2 abbreviations and acronyms.43.2.1.3 new words.43.2.2 non-language factors.53.2.2.1 teacher-dominated class .53.2.2.2 too much anxiety generated in students.5 iv. ways to build stu

3、dents communicative competence.64.1 classroom atmosphere .64.2 the relationship between teacher and students.64.2.1 teachers role .74.2.2 students role .84.3 incorporating pre-listening and post-listening activities.84.3.1 pre-listening activities .94.3.2 post-listening activities .104.4 the selecti

4、on and use of communicative teaching materials.114.4.1 using the course listening materials.11 4.4.2 using authentic materials .114.4.2.1 the use of audio materials.13 4.4.2.2 the use of visual materials 14v. conclusion.15references.15building students communicative competencein english listening te

5、aching 摘要: 本文通过讨论英语学习中的听力理解方面的问题和掌握听力的必要性, 探讨了传统听力模式中存在的问题及这些问题所存在的主要因素。着重阐述了如何从创建和谐的课堂气氛和良好的师生关系以及选择和使用生动有趣的交际性材料方面入手，建立以学生为中心的交际性的课堂环境，从而培养学生的交际能力和听力水平。 关键词: 听力理解；交际能力；学生中心 abstract: based on presents arguments for an emphasis on listening comprehension in english language teaching, the significan

6、ce of listening is presented first, and then, the inefficiency in the traditional structure of listening will be discussed. the major parts of this paper presents and discusses listening comprehension in a communicative student-centered class with warm classroom atmosphere and good teacher-student r

7、elationship, and an emphasis on sound teaching procedure and authentic material using. key words: listening comprehension; communicative competence; student-centered classi . introductionthe world is now in the 21st century. english as a global language plays an increasingly important role in the co

8、mmunicating world. in our country, the demand for people who can successfully communicate in english is becoming more and more important, as china faces ever increasing international investment opportunities and the entering of wto. enhancing the listening and speaking competence is thus strongly ad

9、vocated. students are required to learn english even in nearly all the primary schools. yet, some students still find many difficulties in the process of learning english. they often “tend to panic when they hear native speakers in conversations, radio broadcasts, films, or other natural context”. (

10、hadley1997: 175) even chinese university graduates often find themselves in embarrassing situations when they are required to speak in english or listen to native speakers, they often could not manage one fluent sentence or understand what is being said, such situation even exist in some english maj

11、or students. listening is an important skill “listening comprehension can enhance the process of language learning acquisition.” (vandergrift1998: 168) listening is also an active process. copper (1995:44) points out that “it (listening) requires practice and concentration”. it also requires the tea

12、cher and students are active enough in class. building studentscommunicative competence in listening teaching class might be a good way to achieve better listening comprehension in school education, especially at college level. the aim of this approach is to promote interactive listening.ii. signifi

13、cance and current situation of listening teaching in china listening, as hunt (1995:47) points out, means “getting and understanding the message”. it suggests that listening is more than just perception of sound; it also requires comprehension of meaning in that message. listening quite possibly is

14、the most important of language skills. experts estimate that about 45% of an adults time concerns listening to other people, listening to the radio and listening to the music, half of peoples communication time is spent in listening.it is also the medium through which much significant foreign cultur

15、al information is conveyed. listening will also give an opportunity to get a “feel” for the language and will help students to improve their overall ability in it, for “listening comprehension is a highly integrative skill”, and “it plays an important role in the process of language learning/acquisi

16、tion, facilitating the emergence of other language skills.” (vandergrift1999: 170) however, according to the survey by the college english directive committee, “the work units have grown dissatisfied with the comprehensive english skills of the college graduates of recent years, with their oral and

17、written abilities in particular.” (3rd issue, 1998 college english teaching correspondence) though, there are a large number of people learning english in china, the fact is that most of them are learning “dumb english” or “deaf english”. listening is usually regarded as the most essential one and p

18、lays a very important role in communication. though clt (communicative language teaching) has been practiced for many years in china, some survey shows that very traditional ways of teaching listening in classrooms in china are not difficult to find. in listening classes, the fixed procedures usuall

19、y go in this way: first, new words and some background information are explained, then recording is played and students required to finish the exercises in the meantime and immediately after the listening. finally, answers are checked. strictly to say this is not teaching listening but test listenin

20、g. a great deal needs should be further explored in the classroom teaching of listening. iii. main factors in the inefficient traditional listening class listening is a crucial skill in english language learning. teachers and students have spent more time and energies in improving students listening

21、 ability and skills. even with much practice, college students often find that they are good at doing listening tests, but unable to understand what is spoken in the tape as a whole. who should take the blame? 3.1 the inefficiency of traditional listening class it is not uncommon to find a listening

22、 class or a language-lab where, for example: the students are busy taking notes or doing various kinds of listening exercises such as multiple choice, gap filling, etc. the teacher, on the other hand, controls the tape and checks answers afterwards. the social structure of the classroom is powerfull

23、y teacher-centered. it is not a favorable condition for the development of listening ability and skills. students work alone with tapes. the listening topic is also teacher or program-controlled. listening is just treated as an isolated skill. 3.2 main factors in the inefficiency in current situatio

24、n, the factors which lead to this kind of inefficiency included language factors and non-language factors. the following gives a brief analysis about these two aspects.3.2.1 language factorslanguage factors conclude the scale the students have been mastered on grammar, vocabulary, phonetics and so o

25、n. among them, the vocabulary matters most. while english idioms, abbreviations and acronyms, and new words, three components of vocabulary, which affect most when we do the listening.3.2.1.1 english idioms english idioms, as they are lively, impressive and near to life, are popularly used not only

26、in dialogues but also in some english lectures and stories. however, foreign language students are always weak in this area. as a result of that once the idioms appear in the listening process the students become blind to them. for instances:1) w: how did rosa do on her english exam?m: she passed wi

27、th flying colors.q: what does the man say about rosa？2) mr. jones has been under the weather for quite a few days. a. mr. jones has been sick because of the weather.b. mr. jones has been sick.c. the bad weather has lasted for quite a few days.d. mr. jones has been enjoying the weather.in thus two ex

28、amples, “with flying colors” and “under the weather” are two idioms. “with flying colors” means successfully, while “under the weather” means uncomfortable, have a little sick. if students dont know these two idioms they cant understand what the dialogues mean!3.2.1.2 abbreviations and acronymsin th

29、e listening materials, especially about politic and economic materials, which always appear some abbreviations and acronyms, such as ,cppcc(chinese peoples political consultative conference), nato(north atlantic treaty organization),dink family(double income no kids family), wto(world trade organiza

30、tion) and so on. mastering this kind of abbreviations and acronyms not only can help students get rid of the setbacks of listening but also fasten studentsnote-taking speed. 3.2.1.3 new wordsin the classroom situation, there are many ready-made materials. some ready-made listening materials are not

31、always suitable for particular subjects or disciplines. some are found to be too elementary or advanced for students, or take an approach that may not suit the mode of teaching and learning, so as a teacher, when we take the listening class we should choose suitable materials, the same time, student

32、s themselves should learn to guess the general idea from the whole listening material context. here is an example in the text “my husbands wonderful”, lesson one, book , college english.what are jane and sally doing?a. taking a walk together in the street.b. boasting about their husbands.c. talking

33、about their families.d. eating at a restaurant.if the students not know the word “boast” they of course will meet difficult when they choose the right answer, but if they master the word-guessing way, it be easier, according to the dialogue which jane and sally made:sally: he (her husband) can speak

34、 french, spanish, italian, german, arabic and japanese. jane: my husband can swim, ski, play football, cricket and rugby-.the main idea of the dialogue is absolutely speak highly of their husbands, answer (a), (c), and (d) do nothing about it, so we choose answer (b), the same time we can guess out

35、what does the word “boast” mean. 3.2.2 non-language factorsin traditional listening class, language-factors, such as english idioms、abbreviations and acronyms、new words, can lead to the inefficiency, but also the non-language factors can. generally to say, teacher-dominated class and too much anxiet

36、y generated in students are two of them, which matter most. 3.2.2.1 teacher-dominated class one barrier lying in the inefficiency of listening class is teachers inadequate understanding the harm of exams and the concept, “practice makes it perfect”. they require students do various kinds of exercise

37、s in each class. students are in a passive situation and often feel tired and bored, and too often, teachers only use listening activities to “test listening skills, rather than developing good listening skills” (miller2000:25), which leads to anxiety and apprehension. in the teacher-dominated liste

38、ning class, the teacher serves as a monitor and answer giver. the selection of listening materials depends entirely on the teacher if there are no prescribed ones. the lesson is easy to conduct and requires minimal preparation. the disadvantage of this kind of listening class is the lack of the expl

39、icit teaching of listening strategies and absence of communicative listening tasks. students may feel uncertain about themselves, their place in the group, and their learning abilities. 3.2.2.2 too much anxiety generated in students anxiety researches show that in language classroom, two kinds of an

40、xiety: facilitating and debilitating anxiety, affect the process of language learning. facilitating anxiety can be useful in keeping student alert while listening; debilitating anxiety can generate student escape from the listening task. research on the relationship between anxiety and listening com

41、prehension shows that facilitating anxiety and listening comprehension is positively related, while debilitating anxiety is negatively related. (yangji2000: 54) the anxiety discussed below is actually debilitating anxiety. the listening class is easy to cause anxiety in students. “serious anxiety oc

42、curs when students feel they can not handle a listening task.”(scarcella & oxford1992: 149) the teacher-controlled structure often extends the state of anxiety with the feeling of a vague fear and apprehension. while listening, students always tend to stop when they hear an unfamiliar word or phrase

43、s and try to understand every word they hear. when they fail, they might also become frightened, discouraged, tired, and develop a sense of failure. iv. ways to build students communicative competencelanguage must be spoken to be heard, heard to be learned. students are the essential part of the lis

44、tening process and need to interact with the class input (listening materials) and the teacher. teaching which focused on the effectiveness of listening comprehension requires a warm, relaxed classroom atmosphere, the roles as teacher and students are significant considerations. the communicative li

45、stening material and sound procedures as two key features of listening class are also discussed. 4.1 classroom atmosphere “the classroom provides the context for the enactment of the teacher and students.”(widdowson1991: 182). a successful english class is one that does not simply pass on knowledge,

46、 but arouse students enthusiasm for knowledge. a warm atmosphere is thus needed to keep students active and motivated. listening class provides students to have a feel of the language and requires active responses, for “the process of listening is not completed until the participants made some activ

47、e response verbal and/or nonverbal”. (cooper1995: 44) real communication is a shared activity which requires the active involvement of its participates, who must all exercise communicating initiative in guiding that communication. teachers responses, as well as students, therefore, can have an impor

48、tant impact on the communicative climate. a warm, positive classroom atmosphere can “have a beneficial effect on the morale, motivation, and self-image of its members”, and thus significantly affect their learning, by developing in them “a positive attitude to language being learned, to learning pro

49、cess and to themselves as language learner”. (hadfield1998: 14) by creating a warm, supportive, and co-operative atmosphere in the listening class, students can execute a more active role and be kept motivated, interested and confident. 4.2 the relationship between teacher and students “teaching is

50、nothing if it is not relationships”.(spoulding1992: 65) the first goal teachers should be is to build a positive, friendly, supportive relationship with students. in the listening class, a communicative student-centered approach is suggested to adopt, while there appears to be an assumed incompatibi

51、lity between learner-centered teaching and the teachers control to direct class. stevick (1998:32-33) addresses this point directly by making a decision between teacher “control” and student “initiative” and proposes that there is a way to allow the teacher to keep nearly 100 percent of “control” wh

52、ile at the same time the teacher is exercising nearly 100 percent of the “initiative”. control, he suggests, consists of two elements: the structuring of classroom activity and the making of the constructive feedback for the learners, srevick also contrasts control with initiative, which, he says (1

53、998:33) “refers to decisions about who says what to whom and when”. he argues that control and initiative could be adjusted independently of each other. (stevick1998: 33-34) in the communicative listening class, student-centered class does not require that the teacher abdicate authority, but increas

54、e students initiative.4.2.1 teachers role as with all activities, for listening the teacher needs to be active in increasing student engagement through the way he/she sets up tasks. he/she needs to build up students confidence by helping them listening better rather than by testing their listening a

55、bilities. in particular the teacher needs to focus on the following roles:organizer: the teacher needs to tell students exactly what their listening purpose is, and gives them clear instructions about how to achieve it. one of his/her chief responsibilities will be to build their confidence through

56、offering tasks that are achievable and texts that are comprehensible.machine operator: when the teacher use tapes or disk material he/she needs to be efficient as possible in the way he/she uses the tape player. this means knowing where the segment he/she wishes to use is on the tape or disk, and kn

57、owing, through the use of playback machine counter, how to get back there. above all it means trying the material out before take it into class so that he/she does not waste time making things work when he/she gets there. he/she should takes decision about where he/she can stop the extract for particular questions and exercises, but, once in class, he/she should be prepared to respo