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Abstract：Listening is crucial to English learning.Before we manage to find out practical solutions to improving the listening ability of high school students, we should first try to find out the problems inside.This paper is based on questionnaires,trying to display the deficiency in students’listening comprehension and reveal some major problems concerned.
聽力在英语学习中起着至关重要的作用。在提出具体解决方案之前，我们必须先认识高中生英语听力困难这一现状并找出其存在的问题。本文通过问卷调查的方式，对当代高中学生的英语听力水平进行了调查，找到了其听力学习中存在的主要问题。
Key Words: deficiency in English listening, major problems concerned
Listening plays a crucial role in English learning. The ability to listen to understand influences the command of the language. Among the four basic language skills, “Listening is the first of the language skills that most children develop and serves as the foundation for subsequent languages arts skills” (Linebarger, 2001).
As for high school students, listening is the first part of their test paper and usually covers 20% of the total score.However, many students cannot handle it very well.
In order to know high school students’ general attitudes towards listening and the problems lying in their learning courses, a survey was conducted in three different levels of high schools. The 108 targeted students are from three high schools in Shanghai: a nationally famous school A, a district key school B, and school C well-known for English teaching and learning. Of the 108 students, 33 (30.56%) are from school A and 37 (34.26%) from school B and they are all seniors. The rest of the 38 (35.18%) are juniors from school C. They will share with us their feelings about English listening improvement and their efforts to improve listening by doing a questionnaire.
The questionnaire reveals that up to 80 students (74.1%) are not satisfied with their listening ability, saying that they have got poor marks in listening examinations and have difficulty in communications due to poor listening ability (See table 1).
Table 1: Students’ View about Listening
Among the causes for their poor listening ability, inadequate vocabulary, fast speaking speed, lacking background information, and uninteresting materials are major ones. About 39.5% of the students attribute their poor listening ability to inadequate vocabularies, 14.5% to fast speed, 12.8% to lacking background information, and 10.5% to uninteresting materials. (See table 2)
Table 2: Main Causes for Poor Listening
1.Inadequate Vocabulary
Vocabulary is the base of language learning, but it is the first obstacle a learner comes across. Many students point out that they do not understand what is said because they do not know the words spoken. New words and phrases are the biggest obstacles to their listening comprehension. In listening, they usually stop at the new words and then miss the whole message. Even if they can identify the words they have learned, they cannot instantly relate them to the message he is listening to.
2.Fast Speaking Speed
Of the 108 students, more than 30 think the speaking speed is too fast to follow. They feel they cannot follow it and can not catch the information given. It is always the case that they miss a large part of the information. Moreover, they usually do not even have time to check what they have heard. As a result, they usually fail to get the whole message. Most of the time, they can only catch some single words and do not have enough time to combine these words together and figure out the exact message.
3.Lacking Related Background Information
Not all listening comprehensions come from linguistic information. Some are from the analysis of the related background information. Solid background information can greatly improve students’ listening abilities. The different ways of life, social customs and values between western countries and China cause barriers to students’ comprehensions. For example, students are puzzled when they listen to such a sentence: The path to November is uphill all the way. They do not know what “November” means here, so they can not get an exact meaning of this sentence. Actually, here “November” means the time for the U.S presidential election. In other words, the election is usually held in November. Therefore, lack of background information will hinder students’listening comprehension.
4.Uninteresting Materials
Interest is the best teacher and love is the most powerful driving force.If students are interested in and love listening,they will put their heart in it and will find it enjoyable to listen to what they are interested in. At this point, listening materials play a part. Interesting materials will definitely attract students to listen to them with their heart. On the contrary, dull and boring materials only lead to repulsion and antipathy on the part of the students. In my research, 10.5% of the students clearly show no interest in what their teachers ask them to listen to. Others indicate that they listen to it because they have to. Most of them explain that they cannot listen to interesting materials in class, so they do not have any passion for listening as a whole.
Besides what are mentioned above, other problems include: psychological factor, lack of patience, lacking practical listening skills, not knowing the differences between American English and British English etc.
Knowing the causes for the students’deficiency in English listening, we can focus on the practical strategies to improve it, which we will further explore then. In brief, as English teachers, we should try to create a sound language-learning environment, provide students with more authentic and interesting materials, and introduce more culture and practical skills. As for students, they can enlarge their vocabulary, enrich their background information, and always keep in mind that practice makes perfect! With their joint efforts, students can improve their listening ability effectively and then listening is no longer the most difficult part.
References:
[1]Linebarger,L.Beginning literacy with language:Young children learning at home and school. Topics in Early Child Special Education 21,2001.
[2]Hunsaker,R.Understanding and Developing the Skills of Oral Communication:Speaking and Listening(2nd ed.).Englewood,CO: Morton Press,1990.
[3]Petress,K.“Listening:A Vital Skill”.Journal of Instructional Psychology.1999.
[4]胡月華，中学英语听能力的培养，池州师专学报第18卷第3期，2004.
[5]陈淑平，英语听力困难的原因分析与对策，China Academic Journal Electronic Publishing House2005年第10期,2005.
（作者单位：上海师范大学第二附属中学）
聽力在英语学习中起着至关重要的作用。在提出具体解决方案之前，我们必须先认识高中生英语听力困难这一现状并找出其存在的问题。本文通过问卷调查的方式，对当代高中学生的英语听力水平进行了调查，找到了其听力学习中存在的主要问题。
Key Words: deficiency in English listening, major problems concerned
Listening plays a crucial role in English learning. The ability to listen to understand influences the command of the language. Among the four basic language skills, “Listening is the first of the language skills that most children develop and serves as the foundation for subsequent languages arts skills” (Linebarger, 2001).
As for high school students, listening is the first part of their test paper and usually covers 20% of the total score.However, many students cannot handle it very well.
In order to know high school students’ general attitudes towards listening and the problems lying in their learning courses, a survey was conducted in three different levels of high schools. The 108 targeted students are from three high schools in Shanghai: a nationally famous school A, a district key school B, and school C well-known for English teaching and learning. Of the 108 students, 33 (30.56%) are from school A and 37 (34.26%) from school B and they are all seniors. The rest of the 38 (35.18%) are juniors from school C. They will share with us their feelings about English listening improvement and their efforts to improve listening by doing a questionnaire.
The questionnaire reveals that up to 80 students (74.1%) are not satisfied with their listening ability, saying that they have got poor marks in listening examinations and have difficulty in communications due to poor listening ability (See table 1).
Table 1: Students’ View about Listening
Among the causes for their poor listening ability, inadequate vocabulary, fast speaking speed, lacking background information, and uninteresting materials are major ones. About 39.5% of the students attribute their poor listening ability to inadequate vocabularies, 14.5% to fast speed, 12.8% to lacking background information, and 10.5% to uninteresting materials. (See table 2)
Table 2: Main Causes for Poor Listening
1.Inadequate Vocabulary
Vocabulary is the base of language learning, but it is the first obstacle a learner comes across. Many students point out that they do not understand what is said because they do not know the words spoken. New words and phrases are the biggest obstacles to their listening comprehension. In listening, they usually stop at the new words and then miss the whole message. Even if they can identify the words they have learned, they cannot instantly relate them to the message he is listening to.
2.Fast Speaking Speed
Of the 108 students, more than 30 think the speaking speed is too fast to follow. They feel they cannot follow it and can not catch the information given. It is always the case that they miss a large part of the information. Moreover, they usually do not even have time to check what they have heard. As a result, they usually fail to get the whole message. Most of the time, they can only catch some single words and do not have enough time to combine these words together and figure out the exact message.
3.Lacking Related Background Information
Not all listening comprehensions come from linguistic information. Some are from the analysis of the related background information. Solid background information can greatly improve students’ listening abilities. The different ways of life, social customs and values between western countries and China cause barriers to students’ comprehensions. For example, students are puzzled when they listen to such a sentence: The path to November is uphill all the way. They do not know what “November” means here, so they can not get an exact meaning of this sentence. Actually, here “November” means the time for the U.S presidential election. In other words, the election is usually held in November. Therefore, lack of background information will hinder students’listening comprehension.
4.Uninteresting Materials
Interest is the best teacher and love is the most powerful driving force.If students are interested in and love listening,they will put their heart in it and will find it enjoyable to listen to what they are interested in. At this point, listening materials play a part. Interesting materials will definitely attract students to listen to them with their heart. On the contrary, dull and boring materials only lead to repulsion and antipathy on the part of the students. In my research, 10.5% of the students clearly show no interest in what their teachers ask them to listen to. Others indicate that they listen to it because they have to. Most of them explain that they cannot listen to interesting materials in class, so they do not have any passion for listening as a whole.
Besides what are mentioned above, other problems include: psychological factor, lack of patience, lacking practical listening skills, not knowing the differences between American English and British English etc.
Knowing the causes for the students’deficiency in English listening, we can focus on the practical strategies to improve it, which we will further explore then. In brief, as English teachers, we should try to create a sound language-learning environment, provide students with more authentic and interesting materials, and introduce more culture and practical skills. As for students, they can enlarge their vocabulary, enrich their background information, and always keep in mind that practice makes perfect! With their joint efforts, students can improve their listening ability effectively and then listening is no longer the most difficult part.
References:
[1]Linebarger,L.Beginning literacy with language:Young children learning at home and school. Topics in Early Child Special Education 21,2001.
[2]Hunsaker,R.Understanding and Developing the Skills of Oral Communication:Speaking and Listening(2nd ed.).Englewood,CO: Morton Press,1990.
[3]Petress,K.“Listening:A Vital Skill”.Journal of Instructional Psychology.1999.
[4]胡月華，中学英语听能力的培养，池州师专学报第18卷第3期，2004.
[5]陈淑平，英语听力困难的原因分析与对策，China Academic Journal Electronic Publishing House2005年第10期,2005.
（作者单位：上海师范大学第二附属中学）