How to improve the students’ listening ability.doc

How to improve the students listening abilityAbstract：It presents a detailed report of the project implemented to solve the problem that some of my students are limited in listening, which hinders their further English leaning. It is hypothesized that learners interest in listening will be aroused and their listening ability will be improved by better-designed listening habits, study approaches and listening skills. This hypothesis is verified by a four-week classroom teaching of the newly designed word study approach exercises. Key Words：listening; approach; training; classroom如何提高学生的听力能力摘 要：本论文以学生听力差从而影响他们进一步学习英语为中心，在解决实际问题和具体贯彻教学方案等方面做出了详细的研究。论文中假设良好的听力习惯，训练方法和技巧定会激发学生的听力学习兴趣，并且定会提高他们的听力水平。并以这个假设为前提，采用全新的教学计划，经过四周的课堂实践，从而证实这个假设的正确性。关键词： 听力； 方法； 训练; 课堂Contents1 Introduction.12 Problem.13 Problem Analysis.14 Project Objectives.25 Project Hypothesis.26 Project Rationale27 Project Design.58 Project Implementation.69 Date Analysis.1110Project Evaluation.1111Conclusion.1112Bibliography.12How to improve the students listening abilityIntroductionI teach English in Honghua middle school, and teach grade nine. I love English. I am proud of being an English teacher and have been teaching English for seven years. My students are energetic and full of sunlight. I love them. Im so glad if each of them makes a little progress. Now they can remember almost the words of the textbook. They can also make their own conversations according to the subjects. The problem in English teaching The purpose of middle school English teaching is to improve the students'' four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, with the base of necessary phonetics, large vocabulary and good grammar, But this is not the final purpose. The final purpose is to lot let students be able to use the language.Listening is a basic component in our communication, but for most middle school students, among listening, speaking, reading and writing skills, listening is the most difficult one, that is to say, it is their common weakness. After the exams, they often complained about listening comprehensions. They told me they couldnt understand the listing text clearly. I know this is the problem that I should solve.Problem analysisI have done an investigation. About 71.2% of the students think that the most bothering and most difficult is listening comprehension, and even some of them have difficulty in understanding their teacher who gives lessons in English.Listening comprehension is a complex activity. It requires students to use their phonetics, vocabulary, grammar and background knowledge, so most students have many difficulties in listening comprehension. Many learners are afraid of listening, looking on it as more difficult than any other skills and pay more attention to training their ability to speak, read and write. At the same time, listening is often ignored by both teachers and students.What cause the students poor listening? In my opinion, these are the following factors:Objective cause：in rural middle school, we often use chalks, a blackboard and a tape to teach. We hardly have any modern teaching tools such as multi-medium. And there are different cultures between Chinese and westerners. The students know little about it.Subjective cause: the students are not interested in English .They think listening is unimportant. They pay less attention to it.Project objectives To arouse the students interest in listening learning.To correct the students bad habits in listening learning.To improve the students listening skills. Make they catch the key words and understand the main idea of the listening material.Project hypothesisI think students must be interested in them by playing the English songs and movies. They will like English, even like listening learning.The students always try their best to get the meaning of each word, each sentence .So tell the students the best way to listen to the tape and practice several times .The students will be easier to understand the main idea than before. The students not only remember the words of the textbook but also remember some words in other articles. If they do this, they will get over the difficult words they meet while they are listening.After class, they read English magazines and newspaper in order to enhance their knowledge about English cultural background.Project RationaleListening comprehension can be affected by various factors which include students basic ability, Chinese interference, listening strategies, background knowledge, and psychosocial factors. There are also other obstacles such as some new words, new sentence patterns, new grammar, or connecting and weak reading, lost tone and stress shifting in the listening material. All those will make the listener fell difficult to not understand the meaning of the material. Basic abilityPhonetics and phonology factor“According to an American scholar, Rita Wong, phonetics is crucial in listening comprehension. This is because sound is the direct medium of listening and speaking. Only by using correct sound, can we express our views and ideas accurately. Similarly, it is inevitably that poor pronunciation will cause aural difficulties in smooth acceptance of others ideas expressed in correct pronunciation.”(马占祥, 2002:96) For example: the pronunciation is not accurate, especially for similar words. Such as: jeep-sheep; beatbit; countcant; herehair; muchMarch; quitequiet; kitchenchicken; mouthmouse.Vocabulary factorDuring the process of listening comprehension, listeners should not only do the exercises of sound recognition, but also learn more vocabulary. Vocabulary is the building materials of languages, so students must master enough vocabularies if they want to improve their listening ability. Grammar factorGrammar plays an important part in the analysis of written sentence structure and sentence pattern. The purpose of the analysis is to comprehend the whole passage. The same is true of listening comprehension of sentence. Systematic grammar knowledge is like a strong frame of a building, it can help students to catch the implication of vocal sounds, and understand them well, and it also can tell students the tense, voice and mood. Lets take an example: I should have studied last semester. If a learner well knows the function of the subjunctive mood, he or she can easily decode the implication of the speaker: he or she should study last semester, but he or she did not.Chinese interference“Still some students cannot directly understand English materials; they are used to translating English into Chinese while listening”(池涌,2004:44). The students can not use English to think. When they hear the information which is transferred by English, most students would translate the information into Chinese, and then understand the information, but during listening time is limited, they will miss a lot of information.Listening habitsDuring the listening process, the students should understand the general idea of the materials, and try to catch the major content, which is the key point. But many Chinese students have some bad habits while listening. The students always try their best to get the meaning of each words, each sentences. Sometimes when they meet a new word or a difficulty sentence, they will stop to think, then they can not catch up with the speed any more. Actually, it is unnecessary to know every word, every sentence, only should catch the main idea and grasp the major point, which is enough. Background knowledge The background knowledge is indispensable in listening comprehension. “Language is a kind of cultural expression. It is very necessary for students to know some background about English countries, such as the history, culture, customs and habits, even life styles” (戴炜栋 何兆熊,2002:28). Language is a kind of cultural expression. The relationship between language and culture is very close, and different countries have different cultures. It is necessary for students to know some background knowledge about the English countries.Psychological factorsListeners listening ability is also influenced by psychological factors. During listening, the listener may meet some words or sentences they do not know, it will make them feel very nervous. “Anxiety has a negative effect on listening comprehension”(闫美英, 2001: 69). Some students say that as soon as the listening is played, they become worried and afraid, even feel that they have nothing in minds. Some students are too eager to get high marks, but they are afraid that they cant follow the exam content and listening speed, so they are over worried. As a result, they seem to have nothing in mind, and then they fail to catch the information which they need.Project DesignPeriod1-2Activity: development of interest and Triumph of psychology barriers.Objective: arouse the students interest and get over the psychology barriers.Procedure: teacher plays some English songs, games and movies.Materials: a tape recorder multi-medium.Time: 40min.Period3-4Activity: pronunciation training.Objective: to improve the students pronunciation.Procedure: training the students pronunciation and correct their wrong pronunciation.Materials: a tape recorder a blackboard.Time: 40min.Period: 5-6 Activity: enhancement of vocabularies and grammar knowledgeObjective: in order to improve their listening abilityProcedure: teacher explores new ways to teach students and explain the grammar that students often make mistakes.Materials: textbook Time: 50minPeriod7-8Activity: extension of cultural background knowledgeProcedure: reading some English newspapers, magazines and original novels, which contain a lot of information of English-speaking countriesMaterials: some English newspapers, magazines and so on.Time: 80minPeriod9-12Activity: listening practiceObjective: practice listening and find problemsProcedure: do four sets of listening practiceMaterials: a tape recorder listening papers Time: 80minProject implementation“Interest is the best teacher.” (Chinese saying) Cultivating students interest is a basic way for students to learn English better. Only in this way, students can be interested in listening. At first, I played an easy English song and write the lyrics on the blackboard. I asked my students to hum the song along the music. I found most of them clapped their hands and hummed. But still several students such as Wen Zhichao and Hu Chuanshuo kept silent and didnt give any sign of understanding. So I asked them to work in pairs and one student teach the other how to sing in English ，and then take the turn. In this way Wen Zhichao and Hushuo began to sing in English. Thats great, they began to open their mouths and show a little interest in English because they were laughing after they had had their turn. Then I played an English movie in spare time. Student took an great interest in it. Some of them tried repeating the words the person said in the movie. So that was the ready for the listening learning. The teacher should help their students to realize that although listening is very difficult, but it is the first step of any language learning. It is very important for students to have a good psychological state while listening. So teachers should help their students to build up confidence to overcome the difficult, and never give up. In traditional English class, teachers and students pay much attention to grammar, and many students are unwilling to open their mouths to speak English. They feel nervous and are afraid of making mistakes. All these factors hinder students listening comprehension. The teacher should combine speaking and listening together, encourage the students to speak out. Students will get good marks if they listen to the listening materials in a relaxed and pleasant mood. To arouse students interest in English, the teacher can choose some interesting materials for students to listen to, and the materials cannot be too difficult, or they will easily frustrate students confidence. So according to the material, we can complement some questions and use the forms of” ask and answer”, retelling, reviewing to give more chances for students o state their own opinions. In this way, not only can we encourage students to listen enthusiastically, but also can improve their spoken English. To make the teaching contents colorful and authentic. Teachers can use English songs or movies as an auxiliary method to arouse students interest in listening. The teacher can also set some brainstorm questions which students are interested to discuss before listening, which will arouse their great interest in the topic. Students will try their best to state their own opinions. It is a good method to draw students attention to the listening text and also a good way to activate the atmosphere of the classroom. Pronunciation trainingIn order to improve the students pronunciation, the teacher should ask students to do more exercise. At the beginning of the listening training, teachers must introduce something about connecting reading, weak reading, lost tone and stress shifting, and pay more attention to the pronunciation and intonation, so that students can overcome the barriers in the English listening. For example, let them distinguish the difference between two minimal pairs, or to identify whether the two sounds are the same. Such as sixteen - sixty, cool cold, nice knife and so on. When I played the tape for the first time, many students confused when they heard them. They hardly wrote down correctly. I tried to play it again and again; finally, more than90% of them could write down all the words that they heard correctly. They looked glad because of successful.Enhancement of students vocabularies and grammar knowledgeVocabularyVocabulary is the foundation of a language. Listeners must have enough vocabulary for their improvement in listening because vocabulary affects listening directly. If students do not have enough vocabulary, when they come across some unfamiliar words or phrases they will feel nervous and miss some information, which will affect students global understanding of the listening text. Therefore, students must try every method to increase their vocabulary. To acquire a large vocabulary the students should accumulate every word they have learnt. Even if some students vocabulary is large enough, they can still come across new words. They must continue listen