英语听力理解障碍及其应对策略论文

1、contentsacknowledgements iabstract in chinese iiabstract in english ivpart i introduction 1part ii a brief review of listening comprehension researches 32.1 the emergence of listening comprehension researches 32.1.1 the nature of listening 32.1.2 researches on the teaching of listening 32.2 the mode

2、ls of listening comprehension 42.3 researches on listening strategies 4part iii an investigation of listening obstacles in the intermediate institutes 63.1 a questionnaire 63.2 an analysis of the status quo of the students 83.2.1 obstacles in listening 83.2.2 consideration about the obstacles in tea

3、ching listening 10part iv strategies of eliminating the obstacles in listening comprehension 124.1 students role 124.1.1 being an active listener 124.1.2 understanding the nature of listening 134.2 teachers role 134.2.1 improving the teaching of pronunciation 134.2.2 selecting suitable listening mat

4、erials 154.2.3 developing the students listening strategies 164.2.3.1 guessing new words from the context 164.2.3.2 finding the main idea 184.2.3.3 making inference 194.2.3.4 predicting 214.2.3.5 taking notes 234.2.3.6 building background knowledge 24part v conclusion 26bibliography 28acknowledgemen

5、tsi am greatly indebted to my supervisor, professor zhang shuning, whoprovided me with different sources of information to help me form and developthe idea of this thesis. i owe much gratitude to his kindness and patience inchecking my work in great detail.my indebtedness goes to all the professors

6、who taught me in the last two years.they are professor liu shaozhong, professor tang gaoyuan, professor li xiao,professor liao fengrong, professor chen jitang, professor liang zhengyu, professorralph samuelson, professor qin shiyi, and professor chen derong. my appreciationalso goes to my classmates

7、 and my friends for their great help and encouragement.i英语听力理解障碍及应对策略外国语学院 2002 级教育硕士研究生: 张维益导师：张叔宁中文摘要在英语学习中，听力是最难掌握的语言技能之一。听力理解作为一项输入性技能，是学习者发展其他语言技能的基础。长期以来，中国的英语教学过于强调读和写的技能训练，忽略听和说的能力的培养，尤其是在初级学习阶段。所以，许多英语教师会碰到这样的现象，不少学生英语考试得高分，但听说能力却跟不上。教师们从反省自己的教学过程出发，试图找到解决问题的方案。结果发现，许多学生之所以听说能力差，是因为在学习过程中，没

8、有进行足够的听说训练，而且缺乏科学的策略指导。本文即以英语听力理解为论题，在前人研究的基础上，结合教学中的实际情况，找出影响学生听力理解的障碍，讨论如何对学生进行策略训练，提高听力技巧技能。首先，教师应该帮助学生正确认识听力理解的实质和过程。当前许多研究者从心理语言学、认知学、语用学等领域展开对听力理解的研究。综合众多学者的观点，笔者认为听力理解的实质是：听力理解是一个复杂的主动的心理活动，是听者运用已有语言知识、生活经验和文化背景知识对口头语篇或音响信息相互作用的结果。听力理解的过程有“自下而上”和“自上而下”两种模式。在“自下而上”模式中，听者更多地注重语音、语调、词汇和语法的分析；而在“

9、自上而下”模式中，听者更多地利用已有的知识经验和文化背景知识去重构所听语篇的含义。在实际的听力理解活动中，听者同时采取两种模式进行。为了找出影响学生听力理解的障碍，笔者设计了一份问卷，调查学生的听力学习情况。从问卷的调查数据来看，学生普遍存在的听力障碍有两大类：一、语言因素。语言知识主要指语音、词汇、语法方面的知识。语言知识是听力理解的物质基础。语音语调不正确，词汇量少，语法结构复杂是语言因素中的主要障碍。二、非语言因素。主要包括心理因素，听力技巧与策略，背景知识等。心理方面的因素体现在不少学生对听力学习抱有畏难心理、厌倦心理，失去克服听力困难的信心。由于很多学生缺乏对听力理解的正确认识，他们

10、认为成功的听力理解就是 100%地听懂材料中的每一个单词。这无疑给学习带来了不必要的压力。听力技巧与策略是听力教学的重要内容之一。但不少学生没有很好掌握诸如根据上下文猜测新词、抓主题大意、推理、预测等听力理解过程中常用的技巧。听力策略可定义为：学生为了提高听力学习的效果，在学习过程中所采取的学习技巧、方法或者有意识的行动。如：为了熟悉地道的英语语音语调，观看原声英文影片；为了使自己在听音的过程中能集中精神，有选择地记录关键词和重要信息。在听力理解过程中，背景知识是不可或缺的重要因素。但很多学生都坦然承认，他们对英美文化背景知识了解不多。有时，学生在听一篇没有新词的短文或一则对话，由于缺乏相应的

11、背景知识，听完之后还是没能说出大意是什么。本文的重点是针对学生存在的听力学习障碍，探讨有效的听力理解策略，扫ii除障碍，提高听力水平。从学生方面来说，要正确认识听力理解的实质，以积极主动的学习态度对待听力学习，配合教师进行各项听力理解策略的培训，以扫除听力学习中的障碍；从教师方面来说，改进教学手段和技巧，提高课堂教学质量是取得听力教学成功的关键。教师要鼓励学生树立攻克听力难关的信心；运用现代多媒体电教手段进行听力教学，激起学生学习的兴趣；在听力教学中，要进行较为系统的语音教学，因为听力理解主要是靠语音信号传递信息；教师要选择各种类型的听力材料，内容包括短文、对话、故事、新闻等，有针对性地训练学

12、生的各种听力技巧和策略，如：根据上下文猜测新词；归纳主题大意；根据已知的事实进行推理、预测；利用缩写和符号等速记手段节约记笔记的时间；通过阅读英文报刊杂志，观看英文影片，利用因特网等学习资源，扩大视野，丰富背景知识。关键词： 听力理解 ; 障碍 ; 听力技能 ; 听力策略; 背景知识iiiobstacles and corresponding strategiesin english listening comprehensionpostgraduate: zhang weiyi, grade: 2002, college of foreign studies supervisor: zhan

13、g shuningabstractlistening is considered to be one of the most difficult skills in english learning.as one of the receptive skills, listening is the foundation to develop other languageskills. for a long period of time, the teaching of english in china has mainly focusedon the teaching of reading an

14、d writing in the early stage of learning and neglected theteaching of listening and speaking. many teachers are puzzled at the situation in theenglish class: though many students can get a good mark in english test, not all ofthem can perform well in listening and speaking. they reflect on what was

15、wrongwith the teaching and try to find out the solutions to these problems. and it is obviousthat the learners do not have enough and effective listening and speaking practice in ascientific way. this thesis will focus on listening. the author mainly analyzes thecommon obstacles in the learning of l

16、istening and discusses how to develop thelistening strategies to improve the ability of listening comprehension.first of all, teachers should help the students understand the nature and theprocess of listening comprehension. a number of experts in the field of cognitivepsychology, psycholinguistics

17、and pragmatics offer their views to describe the natureand the procedure of listening comprehension. according to the views of the experts,listening comprehension is an active process and an interaction between the listenerslinguistic competence, background knowledge and the aural discourse and the

18、soundmessage. and the procedure of the listening comprehension is divided into threemodels: bottom-up processing, top-down processing, and the integration of bothbottom-up and top-down processing. in bottom-up processing, listeners focus on thesounds, words, intonation, and grammatical structures; i

19、n top-down processing, thelisteners make good use of their prior knowledge and background knowledge tointerpret the spoken discourse. in actual listening practice, students usually use bothbottom-up and top-down processing models.in order to find out the obstacles in listening, the author designed a

20、 questionnaireto collect data. seen from the data, the obstacles mainly lie in two aspects:1. linguistic factors: including the knowledge of english pronunciation,vocabulary and grammar. language knowledge is the basic foundation of listeningcomprehension. poor pronunciation and limited vocabulary a

21、re the principal obstaclesin the aspect of language knowledge.2. nonlinguistic factors: including psychological factors, listening skills andstrategies, background knowledge.some students are tired of listening. they have lost their confidence to overcomethe difficulties because they dont have a cor

22、rect idea of listening comprehension.they take it for granted that the successful listening is 100% understanding of thelistening materials. so they have given themselves unnecessary anxiety.ivlistening skills and strategies are both important teaching contents. however,some students dont know much

23、about how to guess the unknown words from thecontext; how to find the main idea of a passage; how to make inference and predict.listening strategies can be defined as the conscious activities of adopting the listeningtechniques and skills and other methods to facilitate the successful listeningcompr

24、ehension. for example, students can watch english films to get familiar withthe pronunciations of the native speakers; or force themselves to follow the pace withthe speakers thinking process by taking notes of key words and importantinformation.background knowledge plays a key role in listening com

25、prehension. somestudents confess that they know little about the background of english speakingcountries. as a result, they fail in understanding a passage or a conversation thoughthere are no new words at all, just because of the lack of relevant backgroundknowledge.the core of this thesis is to di

26、scuss the corresponding strategies of eliminating theobstacles in listening. for the part of students, their job is to build confidence to meetthe challenge, to get a correct idea of the nature of listening comprehension, to mastersome effective listening strategies to smooth away the obstacles in l

27、istening. for thepart of teachers, improving the teaching methods and skills, enhancing the quality ofthe listening classes are the crucial factors to achieve success in the teaching oflistening.teachers should encourage students to build confidence to overcome thedifficulties in listening; they sho

28、uld make good use of the multi-media to present thelistening materials and arouse the students interest. the teaching of pronunciationshould be given enough consideration because the information is delivered throughthe aural signals.teachers should select different types of listening materials to tr

29、ain specificlistening skills, such as guessing the new words from the context, finding the mainidea, making inference and prediction, taking notes in the form of abbreviations andsymbols and etc. as for the building of background knowledge, the students shouldmake good use of the authentic materials

30、 for reading and listening. they can also surfthe internet and learn more about the english speaking countries.key words:listening comprehension ; obstacles; listening skillslistening strategies ; background knowledgevpart i introductionthe final goal of mastering a language is to communicate with o

31、thers, using theskills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. according to the data investigatedby rivers and temperly (1978), among the time an individual is engaged incommunication, approximately 9% is devoted to writing, 16% to reading, 30% tospeaking and 45% to listening (see hedge, 2002:

32、228). the data indicates thateffective listening comprehension is one of the guarantees to carry out successfulcommunication and it should be considered as the most important in english teaching.during the process of learning english, the listening skill is the only one overwhich the learner has lit

33、tle or no control. one can read, speak, and write at ones ownpace, level of vocabulary and syntax, using a dictionary if necessary. but whenlistening, the listeners have to listen at someone elses pace, level of vocabulary andsyntax. for example, the speed and clarity of spoken texts are often compl

34、etely out ofthe listeners control when listening to the announcement in the airport, listening toradio and watching films and so on. if the listener does not understand the wordswhile they are still “in the air”, it is usually too late (davies, pearse, 2002: 75).both teachers and students realize th

35、e importance of listening ability in englishlearning. but it is really not an easy job to acquire listening ability. teachers complainthere are not enough suitable materials needed in the schools. students are tired ofattending listening classes because they dont understand much of the material andm

36、ost of them dont know much about the skills and strategies while practicinglistening comprehension; and they dont have enough background knowledge relevantto the topics of the passages. when listening to the text, if they cannot understandsome new words or phrases, most of them will feel upset and l

37、ose patience andconfidence in the rest of the content. they hope to understand each word of the texteven at the early stage of learning. these wrong ideas towards listeningcomprehension prove that students dont grasp the nature of listening comprehension.they dont realize that even in native languag

38、e listening, comprehension is alwaysselective and partial.as for some teachers, the model of listening teaching still remains the traditionalone: explain the new words-play the tape-do the exercises-check the answers.usually, they test the students listening ability before they instruct the skills a

39、ndstrategies to the students. they only focus on the right answer to the question whileneglecting the process of learning. some teachers dont know how to deal with thematerials, to design the suitable exercises to train specific listening skills. when theyfind that the students cannot follow, they j

40、ust replay the tape several times. its nottotally the teachers fault because listening course has just been set up for no morethan 30 years in china. it was set up to meet the demand of tofel in 1970s. and itdidnt arouse the attention until the college entrance examination covered 30 points in1999 a

41、nd the college students were required to pass band-4 when they finished theundergraduate program. from then on, articles focusing on the teaching of englishlistening frequently appear in the magazines and journals.with the globalization of the economy and the entry of wto as well as the “great1explo

42、it” in the western part of china, the talents who have high proficiency level inenglish are in great demand. the new syllabus for the college english curriculumstresses not only the comprehensive skills, but also the competence of oral andlistening english. though it is not necessary for the student

43、s in the intermediateschools to pass college english test, they do show great enthusiasm in the test,because they regard it as a good way to check the level of their english proficiency.of course, the learning of listening is not just to meet the test-oriented goals. as themost world-widely spoken l

44、anguage, english is the most important media language totransfer all kinds of information from all over the world. so information input gainedfrom english listening/reading helps a person to get a better understanding of theworld. and it is also an important tool to develop ones career in the 21st c

45、entury.the author of this thesis tries to probe how to help learners to master englishlistening skills, on the ground of the combination of the studies of many linguisticsworks and years of experience in the teaching of listening. firstly, the authorintroduces some researches on listening comprehens

46、ion. secondly, a questionnaireaiming at finding out the obstacles in listening comprehension will be presented. thenthe author focuses on how to develop effective listening strategies to eliminate theobstacles. finally it arrives at a conclusion.2part ii a brief review of listening comprehension res

47、earches2.1 the emergence of listening comprehension researches2.1.1 the nature of listeningwhen we study how to conduct a successful listening class in the classroom, wemust know first the nature of listening and what happen in the listeners brain. currentunderstanding of the nature of listening com

48、prehension draws on research inpsycholinguistics, semantics, pragmatics, discourse analysis, and cognitive science(e.g., clark and clark 1997, leech 1997, schank and abelson 1997, marslen-wilsonand tyler 1980, clark and carson 1982, dore and mcdermott 1982, see richards,2001: 189).much of the lingui

49、stic and psycholinguistic literature on comprehension suggeststhat propositions are the basic units of meaning involved in comprehension and thatthe listeners ultimate goals is to determine the propositions that an utterance orspeech event expressed (clark and clark 1997, foss and haikes 1978, see r

50、ichards,2001: 190).some researchers turn to pragmatics to find out the nature of listeningcomprehension. pragmatics is the study of the way language is used in particularcontexts to achieve particular ends (nunan, 2001). and leech describes it as“pragmatics deals with that meaning as it is interpreted interactionally in a givensituation” (see richards, 2001: 191). the researchers who employ this point toillustrate the nature of listening comprehension argue