分类号
密级
编号
玮科或早地沦夂
题 目非英语专业学生在英语听力考试中的误区及对策
学 院
外国语学院
专 业
英 语
姓
名
冯晶萍
班
级
06级十班
学
号
264011004
指导教师
龚金该
Misunderstandings and Strategies of Non-English Majors in
Listening Examination
Feng Jingping
A thesis
submitted to the School of Foreign Languages and Literature Tianshui
Normal University in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree
of
BACHELOR OF ARTS
in
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Tianshui, Gansu
May, 2010
Misunderstandings and Strategies of Non-English Majors in
Listening Examination
Feng Jingping
Abstract: With the rapid economic development and the deepening opening up of our country to the outside world, friendly contacts between countries and people are more and more frequent, foreign venture or joint venture enterprises shoot up in China. English communication becomes a necessity in daily life. Social demand for the students is not just restricted to reading, writing and translating in written English, listening and speaking, especially listening become more important- But it is known to all that listening is one of the most difficult skills to acquire among English learning and examination. How to improve English listening ability becomes students5 issues of common concern? In this paper, Grade One and Grade Two Non-English majors in Tianshui Normal University are subjects. They are taken an investigation about listening difficulties existing in English listening examination. Through a questionnaire survey, we find they encounter all kinds of obstacles, such as phonetic barriers, cultural barriers, psychological barriers, negative emotional factors, and the barriers of listening habits and skills. At the same time, the essay provides possible solutions to them.
Key words: listening comprehension; obstacles; strategies
非英语专业学生在英语听力考试中的误区及对策
冯晶萍
【摘要】随着我国经济的快速发展和对外开放的进一步加深，国与国0间 以及人们Z间的联系逐渐频繁化，外资企业或合资企业在屮国也迅速发展起来。
英语交流成为口常生活的一个必需詁。社会对学生能力的要求不再仅限于读、写、 译这些书面化形式。听和说，尤其是听变得越来越重要。而听力在英语学习和考 试屮被认为是最难把握的技巧之一。如何提高英语听力技能成为广大学生普遍关 注的问题。本文以天水师范学院大一、大二非英语专业学生为调查对象，就英语 听力考试屮遇到的听力难这一问题展开调查，通过问卷调查发现他们在英语听力 考试过程屮遇到了各种障碍，如语音障碍、文化障碍、心理障碍、消极情感因素 以及听力习惯和听力技巧方面的障碍，并详细地给出了解决这些障碍的对策。
【关键词】听力理解；障碍；对策
CONTENTS
TOC \o "1-5" \h \z HYPERLINK listening test; the third section is obstacles influencing non-English majors9 listening ability; the fourth section is strategies to solve non-English majors1 listening obstacles; and the last section we will draw a conclusion.
II ? Literature Review
Analysis about the percentage of listening in daily conversation and listening examination
Listening, speaking, reading and writing are indispensable activities in our study, work and daily life. Among these four activities, listening is at the forefront. At the same time, listening ability is an important part of the four skills of English learning, and it is an obstacle of mastering English for Chinese students. Numerous studies have demonstrated: In modern language life, listening is 45%, at the top, speaking is 30%, reading is 16%, and writing is 9%. From practice we can find, the ability of listening and the efficiency of study and work become a direct ratio. Listening is one of crucial channel to acquire new knowledge and plays an important part in communication. It is well known to all that the main content of the examination will focus on listening and comprehension tests after the reform of CET4 and CET6. According to the requirement of new teaching program, listening and speaking ability need to be greatly enhanced. We can find specific situation in the test paper, listening test has been improved 35% compared to 30% in former. So we can see the status of listening in human communication activities and examinations. Unfortunately, for most students, their listening is poor. Then how to effectively improve their English listening ability becomes a serious problem for modern English teaching in college. The teaching of listening needs to be reformed urgently to improve students' English learning, especially for listening aspect. Thus students9 English communication skills can be improved. As the famous British linguist D.Jomes said (in the "My View on the Teaching Reform of College English Listening^), only possessed the good listening, can we master the language well.
Foreign research on the teaching of listening
Foreign research on the teaching of listening mainly raised from 1990s. Listening which was considered to be a passive activity in the past is turned into an active process now. The focus of listening research changed from result-orientation to process-orientation (Vandergrift 2004). This change in listening teaching reflects in three aspects. First is the gradual maturity of strategy-based approach; second is the popularity of computer-aided multimedia instruction; third is the emergence of other listening pedagogy, including narrow listening teaching, academic listening teaching and interactive listening teaching (Cheng Jingyan).
Some studies in the 21st century have shown (Goh 2002; Mareschal 2002; Vandergrift 2003; etc): in the process of listening teaching, teachers teach the usage of listening strategies to students so that students' listening ability will be indeed improved after their knowing how to use these strategies to practice listening. Goh (2002) and Mareschal (2002) have also found that excellent students combined metacognitive with cognitive strategies effectively. On our countrypresent conditions of listening teaching, professor Cheng Jingyan (2009) points out: in our English teaching, listening teaching has always been a problem which troubles both teachers and students, but it has not gotten sufficient attention? So far our country^ listening teaching has not have a systematic and mature listening teaching mode to use for reference.
Domestic research on the teaching of listening
Scholar Li Xiaoqin (2007) points out that there are many problems in our traditional universities' listening teaching, such as the neglect of the real purpose of the teaching of listening, excessive use of mother tongue; students^ weary mood due to the single form of classes; a serious shortage of English listening training class. Aiming at these issues she has raised the corresponding effective strategies: First, give enough room for teachers to play their guiding role. And specific measures include: lead students to break the language barriers correctly, train students to master the correct listening skills. Second, cultivate studentsself-confidence and improve their interest in learning. Third, she also stresses extra-curricular should be done in order to improve our listening level.
Professor He Ling and professor Wang Yan (2009) draw conclusions on the growing requirements in the reform of college English listening examination and the current low level of students9 listening comprehension, and they also give some suggestions about how to improve students9 listening ability in the teaching of college English listening. They think the reasons that non-English majors5 listening mark is relatively unsatisfactory compared to other parts (such as comprehension, translation and writing) in College English Test are: insufficient knowledge of students^ phonetic sound, grammar, vocabulary, cultural background. And they emphasize that the relevant methods are: enhance students9 phonetic basis; lay a solid foundation of language; increase the cultural input during the teaching of listening; pay more attention to students9 emotional problems; introduce the multimedia-aided teaching; cultivate students9 correct listening habits; focus on the promoting function of other skills (speaking, reading and writing) towards listening.
Domestic and foreign scholars have done a lot of useful research on the influential factors of listening teaching and strategies, which is helpful in teaching college English. But on the aspect of the factors analysis of English listening test and countermeasures exploration about non-English majors in Normal College, former scholars，systematic researches are relatively few: they only analyze the factors which affect students' listening ability, or discuss the strategies, or make some exploration on individual factors and countermeasures. This paper is to make systematic and overall exploration on the negative factors that influence listening test mark of non-English majors in Tianshui Normal University and countermeasure through questionnaire.
DI. Investigation to the current situation of non-English majors9 listening test
Objectives
The main purposes of the current research are: (1) in order to know the non-English majors9 listening ability and level; (2) to study how students use listening strategies in the process of listening comprehension; (3) according to the research results, give some suggestions about improving listening ability-
Subjects
This survey contains 15 statements, which are considered likely to reflect students9 performance. The participants are required to decide how well these statements describe them and make correspondent choices. There are 100 participants who are chosen randomly from Tianshui Normal University, and they come from 8 departments (half liberal arts students and half science students) from both Grade 1 and Grade 2, well proportioned as 50% to 50%. Grade I participants are in their second semester and have experienced English listening classes and tests for over one semester Participants from Grade 2 are in the forth semester, which are also the last semester for English classes, and they have experienced English classes and tests for more than 3 semesters. All the participants^ experience of college English listening classes and tests is understood as an advantage to justify them as good samples of non-English majors. Data is collected from their responses to the 15 statements in the survey.
Data analysis and discussion
As is shown in the following tables, there are several obstacles existing in the listening process of non-English majors.
Table 1
(Survey in phonetic aspect)
\ Item Ratio
\
Quesdon^^^^ \
Usually
Sometimes
Usually not
Unable to judge
Statement No.l
12%
28%
51%
9%
Statement No.2
16%
37%
45%
2%
Statement No.3
64%
20%
9%
7%
Statement No.4
73%
16%
11%
0
(Statements No.l-No.4 can be seen in Appendix)
From the above analysis we can see clearly that more than half of the students choose “usually true of me" to the item 1 in the questionnaire, and as to the item 2, only 16% of the subjects choose "usually true of me： This result reflects that non-English majors' ability to recognize stressed words and tones is relatively weak. As for the item 3 and 4, the percentages of participants who choose "usually true of me" are much higher. This indicates that students are not familiar with the rhythm of English speech and linking. All these percentages reflect that one of the biggest obstacles for non-English majors9 listening comprehension is their deficiency in phonetic knowledge.
\ Item Ratio
\
Question\
Usually
Sometimes
Usually not
Unable to judge
Statement No.5
23%
27%
46%
4%
Statement No.6
10%
25%
59%
6%
Table 2
(Survey in cultural background knowledge)
(Statements No.5-No.6 can be seen in Appendix)
Obviously, we can easily draw a conclusion that students are lacking of cultural background knowledge from above statistical form—only about 27% and 25% of the participants choose "sometimes true of me^ to the item 5 and 6. This is a serious problem which needs students to solve on time.
Table 3
(Survey in basic knowledge)
\ Item Ratio
\
Question
\
Usually
Sometimes
Usually not
Unable to judge
Statement No.7
22%
38%
40%
0
Statement No.8
24%
31%
42%
3%
Statement No.9
58%
21%
14%
7%
(Statements No.7-No.9 can be seen in Appendix)
In the survey, the percentages of participants who choose "usually true of me" to the item 7 and 8 are merely 22% and 24%. And as for the item 9, only 14% of the subjects choose "usually not true of me. The above statistical forms in this paragraph reveal that students haven^t grasped the basic knowledge, including vocabulary and grammar, etc.
Table 4
(Survey h anotional iate)
\ Item Ratio \
Question
Usually
Sometimes
Usually not
Unable to judge
Statement No. 10
65%
24%
11%
0
Statement No.l 1
16%
28%
52%
4%
(Statements No.lO-No.l lean be seen in Appendix)
In the investigation, items 10-11 in the questionnaire are two typical emotional factors. According to the subjects^ feedback, many students are easily frustrated when confronted with listening difficulties, and they have no great interest in listening, because the percentage of them who choose “usually true of to the item 11 is merely 16%. This indicates that students9 emotional state is rather negative.
Table 5
(Survey h psychological late)
\ Item
Ratio
\
Queslioi
\
Usually
Sometimes
Usually not
Unable to judge
Statement No」2
15%
26%
53%
6%
(Statements No.l 2 can be seen in Appendix)
As to the item 12, only 15% of the subjects choose "usually true of me" and more than half of the subjects choose “usually not true of me'\ this shows that many students' psychological state is not good during listening tests, and they need to study adjusting their mood.
Table 6
(Survey h Istening habits aid Wills)
\ Ttetn
Ratio
\
Question^^^^ \
Usually
Sometimes
Usually not
Unable to judge
Statement No.l3
18%
22%
58%
2%
Statement No. 14
26%
30%
44%
0
Statement No.15
57%
29%
11%
3%
(Statements No. 13-No. 15 can be seen in Appendix)
In the survey, statements 13-15 in the questionnaire are designed to investigate the studentshabits and skills in listening, and the results show that only 18% and 26% of them usually have the habit of predicting information according to the context and taking notes while listening. As to the item 15, 57% of the participants choose "usually true of me". All these percentages show that students in general are unable to form good listening habits and can not use listening skills in the listening process.
From the data analysis, it can be seen clearly that only small parts of the participants grasp some of the strategies. This explains that most of the students are weak in listening due to lacking of training in class and after the class, and the low percentages of participants in most of the strategies indicate that students are generally weak at the use of listening strategies. This calls for more awareness of the importance of strategy-training in class.
IV? Obstacles influencing non-English majors9 listening ability
From this investigation, we know the reasons that cause non-English majors9 listening difficulties are many aspects. From the perspective of students, because there are many obstacles in listening comprehension, their listening ability is always stagnant. These barriers are mainly in the following aspects:
Phonetic obstacles
Phonetic obstacle means that between students^ pronunciation and the pronunciation of English and American people exist an obvious gap due to the impact of native language or dialect. It can be found from these aspects: students5 pronunciation is not pure; their ability to discriminate sound is not strong; they often make mistakes about the word^s stress; they do not understand the difference between British and American pronunciation. As such, how can students catch the accurate pronunciation and tone in listening material?
Non-English major students' ability to identify phonetics is relatively weak. When they learn English after entering the university, most of them feel it hard to understand the listening material, even can not understand it completely. This phenomenon is largely related to their methods and purpose of English learning in high school. Many students learn English in high school in order to pass the exam, that is to say, they have laid emphasis on doing papers regardless of listening ability, not to mention speaking ability. But when they enter college, they find listening is a very important and indispensable part. So when the students do listening exercises in the class, they would find their pronunciation is not standard or completely different from that of the listening material. Besides, a lot of students would understand what they have heard only if the teacher write down the listening content on the blackboard. Because many students haven't learned the phonetic transcriptions of English vocabulary systematically and accurately since they started to learn English and they ignored the phonetic knowledge within a long period in high school, they didn't master certain phonetic skills and principles, which affected their listening ability a lot, let alone their identification about the differences of linking, stress, weak form, voiceless consonants, voiced consonants, the difference of British and American English pronunciation. Tf the pronunciation is inaccurate, the language memories stored in the brain will be different from the phonemes you heard, so there will be gaps in understanding.
Most of students generally place stress on catching words or sentences in the listening part and on figuring out their meanings, but overlook to a certain degree the sound. However, the utterance actually helps listeners no less to determine what the speaker conveys.
Listeners should be able to distinguish all the differences in sound, and they should also learn the art to catch the message conveyed through the tone, stress and intonation in the recordings.
e. g. M: You were seen hanging about the store on the night when it was robbed, weren^t you?
W: Me? You must have made a mistake. I was at home that night.
Q: What are they talking about?
(from CET-4 in Jun., 2000)
In this short conversation, the man speaker raised a question about whether the woman was on the spot of a robbery. If the woman replies in a falling tone, it's a positive reply, whereas if in a rising tone, it?s a negative one. The woman speaker starts her reply with "Me" in a rising tone, and followed by a question mark in the script, and she delivers the sentence in a relatively high pitch, so it shows that the woman speaker feels quite surprised and that she is anxious not to be involved in the crime. Besides, according to the duration of the sound, the man speaker raised the question in a quite casual way, so he shouldn't be a policeman whot searching for a reliable witness. In this way, it can be determined they are talking about “an unsolved case of robbery^.
To some degree, phonological judgments in terms of tone, stress, and intonation, etc. are less misleading than that solely dependent on separated words and bits of information, especially when listeners fail to catch the general idea.
e. g. M: Sherry, how are you doing with your thesis?
W: Oh, my thesis! That^s something I deafly dorTt want to talk about right now. I finished my fist draft some time ago, but my supervisor said T should do more research if I want to achieve the quality he expects of
Q: What do we learn from the conversation about the womans thesis?
(from CET-6 in Jan., 2005)
In this short conversation, a lot of students were misled to choose the wrong answers based on some separate words like "finished^ and "research", they thought that the second speaker has already gone through the thesis writing. However, if these students had paid more attention to the intonation of the second speaker, they would have heard the womans frustration and irritation, so she cannot possibly get along well with her thesis.
Therefore, teachers should ask students to master the basic knowledge of phonetics, learn and imitate the authentic pronunciation, tone and so on.
Cultural obstacles
Listening material involves many fields, such as astronomy, geography, figures, history, science, arts, literature, education, medicine, sports and so on. As students9 knowledge is relatively narrow and lacking of the understanding of customs, historical background, cultural differences, religious beliefs of western countries, they know little about the listening content and even none of it after listening to the material for the first time. As