王燕

1 Introduction

English language teaching began in China in the 19th century when foreign missionaries came to China. Teachers of English then were mainly British or American missionaries， who had trained the first generation of Chinese teachers of English. The techniques used were recitation， questions and answers， sentence making etc.

In the early 20th century， some people advocated the Direct Method， which was used only in some schools where foreign teachers taught English. In most schools， however， many teachers used Grammar Translation.

Russian gradually replaced English in the curriculum since the 1960s， when a mass movement was held to criticize the mentality of favoring the U.S. It was not until the 1970s that English began to appear in the curriculum. The methods used were partly similar to the Audiolingual Method and the Cognitive Method.

The past two decades witnessed the widespread application of the Communicative Approach or Communicative Language Teaching（CLT） in China. The best known textbook is Communicative English for Chinese Learners by Li Xiaojun. Although CLT has been practiced for many years by the English language teachers in China， some surveys show that the traditional ways of teaching listening in classrooms in China are not difficult to find. Therefore， the current paper is intended to find whether there are still traditional ways of teaching listening in classrooms or the problems existing in listening classrooms.

2 Literature Review

Among the four macro skills （listening， speaking， reading and writing） of a language， listening is usually regarded as the most essential one for its important role played in communication （Wilson， 2003）. Many schools have listening class for both English and Non-English majors. However， the teaching effect is not as good as expected. Many English teachers and educators have explored this issue from different angles. Some have pointed out the problems students have， such as too much anxiety， dependence on transcription， poor pronunciation， too much new words， poor memory， lack of background knowledge and so on. Some emphasize the quality of the listening materials and the equipment of the language lab. Still others have criticized teachers in listening classrooms for failing to introduce to students the appropriate use of language and for lacking a sound teaching method. However， as to teaching method， few people has put forward a systemic and practicable method， so more work has be to done in the field to enhance teaching effect of teaching listening. Therefore， this study has tried to reveal the problems with teaching methods and give some suggestions， in the hope that more research could be done in this field and thus establish a systematic theory for teaching listening.

3 Research Methodology

3.1 Subjects

Two classes of non-English majors， freshmen， and five teachers participated in the study， which lasted 4 weeks （two hours per week for each class）.

3.2 Procure

Step one：

During the four weeks of the two classes listening course， the author observed their listening classes carefully and took some notes about the procedure of each class. In doing this， the author did not let the students know that someone else was observing the class， for fear that they wouldnt perform normally.

Step two：

After the four weeks observation， the author conducted an interview with the teachers given the classes and other English teachers who also teach listening.

4 Results and Discussion

Results from Step One：

Generally speaking， a common fixed procedure could be found very easily. It went like this. First， new words， phrases and some background information were explained before listening. Then the teacher played the tape and students were required to finish the exercises in the meantime or immediately after the listening. Finally， the answers were checked. If some students failed to get the correct answers， the teacher would play the tape again and again until they got the answers and give some explanation or hints if necessary. Actually， this is not teaching listening but testing listening.

In such kind of class， the teacher organizes the class and controls the language input while students listen to the teacher and do what the teacher asks them to do passively. The techniques employed are mainly question and answer， dialogue， and role play. Some students even slept during the class. The teaching effect is really far from satisfactory， because the teachers cannot rouse students interest in listening and some who seemingly showed a great interest are those who are afraid to lose face if they fail to answer the teachers questions or who really love studying English.

Results from Step Two：

The answers to the first five questions are listed in Table 1.

As to question 6， most of the teachers said the principle was that they should make sure most of the students understand the listening material and could get the correct answers to the questions in the exercises.

The methods and techniques they thought were more effective in listening class were quite few. Some of them even had no idea about that question， giving reason that they had never made a comparison before.

As for students role， most of them didnt give a direct answer but replied with the requirements they assumed students should meet in their listening class.

For question 9， they gave the answers that teachers should before class， plan and prepare the content of the class， and during the class， organize the class and maintain the discipline and students attention. Almost all of them thought that teachers role was help students understand the listening material and choose the correct answers to the questions in the exercise book.

Most teachers were not satisfied with their teaching effect. Some pointed out the problems that some students were not motivated strongly enough to learn English and those students were just learning passively， for they had to pass CET 4. Some thought that the textbook was not interesting enough and it could bore students easily， so they hoped that more interesting materials could come out to meet students needs and hold students interest. Only one teacher admitted that the teaching method she used was not effective and even admitted that the method itself sometimes may bore the teacher herself. She tried to improve teaching， but found it hard to find a suitable method and even if she found one， she met a lot of difficulties in carrying it out and had to give it up. To most of them， listening was very hard to teach.

From the above discussion， it could be concluded that Communicative principles are not fully incorporated into the process of teaching English. The whole listening teaching process can be divided into three phases： pre-listening， while-listening and post-listening （Zhang， 2002）. During these phases， different relevant interaction activities can be employed to engage students in an active process of learning.

During the pre-listening phase， there are different ways to engage students in active listening. For example， schemata theory could be applied （Zhou， 2002）. Schemata simply refers to “background information relevant to the particular context and subject matter： A lifetime of experiences and knowledge is used to perform cognitive associations in order to bring a plausible interpretation to the message. （Brown， 2001）” While listening， students consciously or subconsciously use the schemata to help them to take in new message. So besides explaining new words and background knowledge to the students， teachers can pick up some important words from the listening material or design some topics to have students make “free talks” to activate their schemata. In his paper Liu cites the teaching of the passage “A City of the World”（from College English） as an example. Since the city refers to New York， before playing the recording， the teacher shows some pictures of some typical buildings of New York to the students and asks the students to have a free talk， telling each other anything they know about this world-famous city. These talks help students a great deal in understanding the text they have to learn in class since their schema are activated through this cooperative work.

During the while-listening phase， teachers should keep in mind that the goal was to improve students listening skills for use in real-life communication in the future. There are different ways of oral communication， such as face to face， listening to a lecture or a speech， telephone call， listening to radio， watching TV programs. The message communicated is also various， such as weather， food， clothes， sports， books. Therefore， the whole picture of real-life communication is rather complicated. Teachers should select proper listening materials according to students English proficiency and their needs. So teachers shouldnt be confined by the textbooks. Some teachers the author interviewed had used a few materials they found interesting and helpful. Moreover， during this phase， teachers should teach students how to listen. Some strategies could be used such as phonetics and pronunciation （such as sound cluster， lexical segmantation， different accents， etc.）， detecting key words or parts， shot-term memory training， prediction， overcoming psychological obstacles， identifying the tone of the speaker， listening for the general idea， etc. Activities should be designed according to the principle of “communicative competence”. For example， after listening to the material for one or two times， students are required to form small groups and use their notes taken during the listening to attempt to reconstruct the original text. If the text is a dialogue， students can take different roles. Each group can give a performance in front of the class after group reconstruction and then best group of performers could be selected and given oral or other awards to reinforce their excellent work and also motivate other students.

Most classes end up with checking answers. As a matter of fact， a lot work can be done in post-listening phase. College English Listening and Speaking Course 1（Students Book） arranges discussion as pre-listening task， which is effective as mentioned in the above， and role play， repetition etc. as post-listening task. This is a good try to improve learning effect. However， the post-listening task is the same throughout the textbook. That is pair work， “Listen to the dialogues and repeat after the recording. Practice the dialogues with your partner， playing the role of A or B. then work with your partner to create your own dialogues by replacing the underlined parts with your own words.” Therefore， teachers should try to devise other post-listening activities to reinforce what the students have learned during the class. For example， teachers should ask students to retell the passage heard in their own words， summarize the useful expressions they have learned， discuss with other students on the topic related to the material they have listened， etc.

5 Conclusion

Listening is a very important course for college or university students in China， however the teaching effect is reported to be far from satisfactory. Therefore， the current study was made to find out the problems and give some possible solutions. The solutions given are mainly from the perspective of communicative principles. The teaching of listening can be enhanced by various means， so more research needs to be done in the future. The goal of such research is to enhance the learners listening competence and ultimately enhance their general communicative competence of the English language.

References

[1]Brown， D.， 2001， Teaching by Principles： An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy， Second Edition. New York： A Pearson Education Company.

[2]Wilson， M.， 2003， Discovery Listening ─ Improving Perceptual Processing， ELT Journal， 57（4）， 335-343.

[3]Yu S. M. et Li H. Q.， College English Listening and Speaking Course 1（Students Book）， Shanghai： Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

[4]Zhang， M. J.， 2002， Interactive Listening Teaching and its Three Phases. Journal of Xian International Studies University， 10（3）， 57-60.

[5]Zhou， X. L.， 2002， Application of Schemata in the Teaching of Listening. Foreign Languages and Their Teaching， 163， 24-26.