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Enlightenment to the listening classes from the study of listening comprehension process
Helen Wang
‡T. The current situation of listening comprehension classes
In listening comprehension classes, a large number of students often complain that the speed of the material is so fast that they cannot catch the meaning, if the material is slowed down; students will understand it quite well. But, in daily life who would speak so slowly? Therefore, it's necessary to train the students to listen to the material spoken in a normal speed. Why do our students usually feel it difficult to follow the ordinary speed material? In my point of view, one of the main reasons is the inner-translation process while listening, some of the students usually translate the listening material into Chinese and only by that way can they understand it. Of course, translation costs them much time in understanding. Speed is sacrificed as a result of that. That's why the building of a direct connection between information input and understanding is very important. In order to probe the listening comprehension process and learning strategies in listening comprehension classes, I designed a questionnaire and did a small-scale investigation.
‡U. A small-scale questionnaire investigation
The subjects of the small-scale investigation are 8 students of grade 000 in Military Economy Academy. We distributed 8 papers and collected 8 effective ones.
The following is the content of the questionnaire
1. The function of Chinese in listening comprehension
A. I must rely on word for word translation in my mind or I cannot understand the listening material.
B. I must rely on translation at the sentence level in my mind.
C. I must rely on translation at the paragraph level in order to understand the listening material.
D. Direct understanding can be achieved without inner translation if the sentences are comparatively simple; but complexed sentences cannot be understood without the process of inner translation.
E. The listening material can be understood without the process of inner translation at all.
. What are the main problems in listening comprehension classes?
A. The textbook is not fit for me because it is ›1 too difficult. › Too easy.
B. The teaching methods are outdated and simplistic ›1 I'm not accustomed to the teacher's teaching method. › I haven't grasped the methods of listening comprehension yet.
C. The influence of Chinese is so great that my speed of comprehension must be slowed down.
D. After class, I don't actively do any listening comprehension exercises at all.
E. Other problems.
Analysis on the results of the questionnaire investigation
The students' ideas on the influence of Chinese and the problems in listening comprehension classes are listed in the following two tables.
Table
Influence of Chinese Number Percentage
A 6.8
B 0 4.4
C 8 .8
D 40 47.8
E .4
Table
Influence of Chinese Number Percentage
A 6.8
B 0 4.4
C 8 .8
D 40 47.8
E .4
Problems in listening comprehension classes Number Percentage
A ›17 45.1
› 11
B 5 6.1
5 4.7
C 8 46.
D 55 67.1
E
In table 1, about 47.8% students choose D. It shows that nearly half of the students can understand the material directly if the sentences are comparatively simple. But they cannot understand the complex sentences directly. As compensation, they have to rely on the process of inner translation. But it's just the translation strategy slows down the speed of comprehension. Students who choose B and C take up 4.%. The data shows that most of the students can understand the listening material at the sentence or the paragraph level. But, they still have to rely on inner translation process. Only students, who take up .4% of the subjects, can understand the material without the help of translation. That is to say, 7.6% students cannot reach the step of direct understanding of the material. The result also shows that it's unpractical and unfair to ask all the students to give up the translation process, which gives them great help in listening comprehension. In the students' mind, English and Chinese usually work together in order to catch the meaning of the material.
In table , the most outstanding feature is that 67.1% students don't actively do listening comprehension exercises after class. To them, the training of listening comprehension is the task in listening classes, in language learning, one will not make much progress if he/she doesn't do any exercises after class. In addition, 46.% students hold the opinion that the influence of Chinese is very great. The attitude toward Chinese influence and the method of adopting the translation process are of great importance in listening classes. 56.1% students think that the textbook is too difficult while 11%students think it too easy. We may ask ourselves which kind of textbook should we choose for our students? 4.7%students hold that they haven't grasped the methods of listening comprehension. We doubt whether our teaching of listening comprehension is successful? When answering the question of other problems, the students express many different ideas such as the psychological element, the motivation and interest, the pronunciation and etc.
‡V. Enlightenment and learning-strategy training in listening comprehension classes
Take the greatest advantage of the positive transfer of the native language and minimize the negative transfer. The students' attitude toward native language is quite contradictory. Without the help of native language, they cannot catch the meaning of the listening material. Because of the interference of Chinese, their speed of comprehension is slowed down. At present stage, most students have to rely on the help of Chinese. Therefore, it's unrealistic to ask them to cast aside the process of translation; the positive transfer and negative transfer of Chinese co-exist during the process of comprehension. In order to catch the normal speed of the listening material, the negative transfer of the native language should be avoided; the problem is how to quicken the students' speed of comprehension. The first thing is to shorten the process of translation. The teacher should lead the students to get rid of the habit of word for word translation. Students must be told that it's unnecessary to translate every word in their mind, only the key words needs translation. One doesn't have to translate the words which he/she can understand directly. The Chinese version of the key words is unnecessarily to be put into complete sentences in one's mind. While listening to the material students should be asked to translate fewer and fewer key words in their mind. By this way, they will catch the normal speed of the listening material without sacrificing the meaning.
Supplementary listening materials are indispensable in order to meet the different needs of different students. From table , we know that 56.1% students don't think the textbook fit for them. According to the theory of language transfer and Krashen's input hypothesis, the first thing teachers have to do is to enrich the content of listening material. It's unfair and not scientific for all the students from different English education background to use the same listening comprehension textbook. Therefore, supplementary textbooks should be introduced to meet the different needs of different students. Furthermore, strategy training is necessary since 4.7%students hold that they haven't grasp the learning strategies. But, in listening comprehension classes, it's impossible for the teacher to choose different textbooks for different students. Supplementary textbooks will solve the problem. Although the students have the ability to judge whether the textbook is fit for them, they still need the teacher's help to select appropriate supplementary textbooks. Under the direction of the teacher, students will choose textbooks of different levels to meet their needs. According to Krashen's I+1 input hypothesis, the best input for acquisition must be meaningful and slightly beyond (+1) the learner's current level of language development, but made comprehensible through contextual supports (Krashen,185). So, the choice of supplementary textbooks is quite important. A successful student of English usually tries to digest all that is taught in class and learn extracurricular materials by himself/herself after class (Teaching English in China, ,000).
Strategy training in class and after class As table shows that 4.7% students think that they haven't grasped the methods of listening comprehension yet. As the case study explains that the successful student of English has a set of his own listening strategies. In listening comprehension classes, most students don't know which strategy to adopt while listening to the material. According to the students' process of listening comprehension, the characteristics of the textbook, the National College English Syllabus ( Beijing High Education Press, 18), I summarized a few learning-strategy training methods in the teaching of listening comprehension preview and prediction, imagination and inference, compress translation in the mind and direct comprehension.
Preview and prediction In listening comprehension classes, the students are asked to read the directions, the choices of the questions. Then, they must predict what the listening material is generally talking about, after reading the four choices of each question, they should predict what the question is such as when, where, why, what and etc. Then, the teacher leads the students pay special attention to those questions after this procedure, most of the students think that they can even know something about the listening material though they haven't listened to it yet. They won't feel the material too difficult to understand any more. While listening, they know which place to pay attention to.
Imagination and inference This strategy is quite useful when listening to dialogues and stories, when listening to a story or a dialogue, the teacher leads the students to imagine the scene of the story and dialogue and infer what will hap0en or what is going to be talked about. Using this strategy, students don't have to rely so much on translation and their speed of comprehension will become much higher than before.
Compress translation in the mind As to some abstract ideas and notions, students can't understand without translation. If they spend too much time on translation, they won't catch the pace of the listening material. Therefore, it's quite necessary for the teacher to leadhis/her students to compress the translation process in the mind. The most useful method is keyword translation. The students don't have to translate the whole sentence into Chinese. In order to achieve comprehension, they just have translate the least words into Chinese in their mind.
Direct comprehension Direct comprehension is a strategy and a target in the teaching of listening comprehension. By the way of preview and prediction, imagination and inference, compress translation in the mind direct comprehension is to be achieved by the students. The purpose of the teaching of listening comprehension is also realized. Students won't sacrifice the speed while catching the meaning of the material.
‡W. Summary
There still exist some deficiencies since the investigation is on a small scale, and students from our university are of specific characteristics. Further investigation and study are still needed in order to uncover the secrets of listening comprehension process. Listening-strategy training is an effective method directing to improve students' ability of understanding the listening material spoken in normal speed.
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