劉中楷

1. Background Introduction

In a word， listening teaching is a very important step in learning English. Only after students have mastered necessary listening skills can they lay a strong foundation for their English study. A Chinese old saying can show it more clearly--even the cleverest housewife can not cook a meal without rice.

2.The requirements of New Curriculum Standard

The Senior High English New Curriculum Standard requires students to read a certain level of listening， speaking， reading and writing and finally forms the core quality of Senior High School students. That is how to use the language and how to improve students comprehensive and overall abilities. As we know listening is the first step in language study ， so we need to take advantage of such function and make the input play an important part in language learning.

3.Extensive and intensive listening

Students can improve their listening skills and gain valuable language input through a combination of extensive and intensive listening materials and procedures. Listening of both kinds is especially important since it provides the perfect opportunity to hear voices other than the teachers， enables students to acquire good speaking habits as a result of the spoken English they absorb， and helps to improve their own pronunciation.

For extensive listening， teachers can choose or recommend tapes or listening materials online. With IT developing fast， its very convenient for both teachers and students to get latest and lively materials from home and abroad. With the materials， students can use them anywhere and anytime as they please.

For intensive listening， many teachers use taped materials and increasingly use materials on disk， when they want their students to practise listening skills.（4）

This has some limits. However， it is an usual way for teachers to use in English class. Most students appreciate this way when they are fully engaged every day and they hope to make progress in listening and speaking with teachers to guide them step by step.

4.Typical features of the materials in the textbook

I will take Senior English for China， students book 1 for example. In total， therere 12 listening materials， half in the 6 modules， half in the workbook. The listening styles cover dialogues， interview ， description， story-telling， experimental reports and so on. The exercises forms include the following：

1） Listen and answer questions；

2） Listen and fill in the blanks；

3） Listen and choose the right answers；

4） Listen and watch；

5） Listen and fill in the chart；

6） Listen and complete the description；

7） Listen and judge T or F ；

8） Listen and put the pictures in the correct order；

In order to add more listening materials to the listening practice， we can use some listening books such as Listening and Practice by Bai Lang， which is useful for students to improve their scores in the exam. In my opinion， this is an effective way to improve students listening ability， but it is not enough . if our students only focus on this way， their vision and individualism will be limited and listening content will be very boring. In this case， our English group uses some other adapted papers. For example， we ask students to listen to the computer and fill in the blanks with the words the students hear or listen and write down the numbers or the data in the blanks.

In modern society， its very convenient for both teachers and students to get some listening materials online， the stories， the latest news， the weather report， world travelling and world economical development. Listening to BBC， VOA and Chinese Radio International will widen both teachers and students horizon.

5.The Organization of the Listening Teaching

No matter what content teachers will give to their students， generally speaking， there are three steps in such a course， that is pre-listening， while-listening and post-listening.

6.A Summary

In listening course， English teachers should never treat the exercises as the only goal to do the listening practice； nor should they frame students mind only by the exercise forms. Listening materials are colorful and lively and the test forms should be more diverse and flexible.

In a word， practice makes perfect. If teachers stick to listening teaching in class and out of class， students listening ability will be definitely improved greatly with time going on.