Some Thoughts on Improvement of English Listening Instruction

The teaching of English listening has long been limited to the textbooks and tapes,which has surely led to a lot of demerits in teaching listening up to now.So at present,it's very important to improve the following eight aspects of teaching listening:teachers,textbooks,relationship between teachers and students,equipments,application of schematic theory,combination of listening and speaking,listening tests and teaching English listening through movies for the purpose of maximizing the efficiency of listening teaching.Among them,the last aspect,namely,teaching English listening through movies is emphasized.     

A Study on the Correlations Between Chinese EFL Learners’ Autonomous Learning and Their Cooperative Learning

Cooperative learning and learner autonomy have become heated topics in English teaching.Many researchers both at home and abroad have carried out the study on this field,and they proved that learner autonomy and cooperative learning are rel evant,cooperative learning can promote English majors’learning autonomy in terms of listening,reading,speaking,however,no obvious findings in vocabulary and writing.This study is conducted to prove the feasibilities and effectiveness of cooperative learning applied to foster first-year non-English majors’learning autonomy from the aspect of vocabulary and structure.The re sults of this study showed that cooperative learning was much more effective than traditional teaching approaches in fostering some positive affective factors.According to this research,cooperative learning can also improve learners’vocabulary and struc ture significantly.     

On Development of Students’Listening in Class

Listening is considered to be one of the most difficult skills in English learning.And it is obvious that the learners do not have enough and effective listening practice in a scientific way.This thesis will focus on listening.The author mainly analyzes how to develop the listening strategies to improve the ability of listening comprehension.     

College English Listening Teaching and Schemata Theory

English listening comprehension is the key to master English.The paper draws the conclusion of the students’ listening comprehension problems based on their exam papers.The paper applies the Schemata theory to analyze the factors and brings forward a suggestive teaching mode to improve the students’ listening comprehension:Listening teaching should not only activate the students’ old schema but construct a new schema.     

The Obstacles and Solutions to Improving Non English-major Students’Listening Comprehension

Listening has been playing an essential role in daily communication.However,listening is the most difficult part and has been an obstacle in the process of learning English for most of learners for a variety of reasons.The paper mainly discusses the linguistic and non—linguistic obstacles in the process of listening and aims to help English learners find out their own shortcomings and put forward some corresponding solutions to improve learners' listening ability.     

An Analysis of English Listening Test-taking Skills and Strategies for College Entrance Examination under A New Field of View

As we all know, listening has always been a weak point in students' English learning. Doing English listening tests often encounter some difficulties. At the same time, many students have a serious fear of listening test, and listening itself has a transient effect, so students should be able to calmly cope with the listening test to play the best level. In addition, students need to understand the types of the college entrance examination listening test , listen to more listening practice and lay a solid foundation. Students should also master some listening skills, so as to obtain high scores.     

Application of Schema Theory to English Listening Teaching in Middle School

This paper from the point of view of cognitive psychology,which is based on the background of the Chinese middle school students’generally low ability of English listening,it explores the listening course of English language teaching which guided by Schema theory and summarizes the connotation of this theory then discusses the role of it to listening comprehension and the practical value of combining listening teaching with it.The paper also puts forward the strategy of implementation of the theory.This article aims to make students to realize the importance of background knowledge to help them to understand the listening materials and to guide the students using different strategies of Schema theory to improve their listening comprehension ability.     

Strategy-based Listening Instruction: Possibilities and Impossibilities

Due to the covert nature of the listening process, English listening comprehension has become a demanding challenge for most EFL learners in China. Strategy-based listening instruction, with its more accurate insight into the listening process, could be one of the timely answers to the challenges facing Chinese EFL listeners. Starting with a comprehensive review of theories and studies on strategy-based listening instruction in recent Western academia, the current paper critically examined the possible advantages and the theoretical and practical limitations of strategy-based listening instruction.     

Evaluation of Pre-listening Activities by Effective Listeners and Less-effective Listeners

This study,which is about pre-listening activities in language comprehension,seeks to obtain a better understanding of Chinese EFL students’listening comprehension in relation to radio news broadcasts.It investigates listeners’evaluation of the effects of pre-listening activities involving three listening texts with three kinds of different pre-listening activities.The findings yielded that the pre-listening activities had some impact on influencing the listeners’listening comprehension and it differed for effective and less-effective listeners.     

The Enhancement Effect of Learner Autonomy on Motivation in SLL

For many years now," autonomy" in learning has been a topic of widespread discussion in educational field.Accordingly,it is Henry Holec who introduced learner autonomy to the field of second language in his project report to the Council of Europe in 1981.Motivation is also a widely used psychological term in our daily life and research.Both learner autonomy and motivation are important factors in influencing learning effects.Many researchers conduct studies on learner autonomy and motivation.There are also some studies on the correlation between learner autonomy and motivation in SLL(Second Language Learning).However,few of them focus on the effect of learner autonomy on motivation.Thus,it makes an attempt to investigate whether learner autonomy has an enhancement effect on motivation.It combines motivation and learner autonomy together to find some effective and efficient ways of promoting foreign or second language learning.In another way,it enriches learner autonomy research.It holds that learner autonomy is a very important factor in influencing motivation.It will make a combination between learner autonomy and motivation in SLL to find some new ways of promoting learners’ motivation and learning efficiency.A survey methodology has been employed which consists of qualitative and quantitative methods.Specifically,both questionnaire and interview have been conducted in the research.     

Cultivation in Learner Autonomy Based on Learning Styles

Learner autonomy is no easy choice for most students when they are used to having teachers do everything for them.As teach ers,it is their responsibility to help the students know how to use it and to understand that autonomy goes beyond of freedom.Learning styles play an important role because teachers need a clear picture of each student’s learning capabilities.Teachers can encourage students to reach dependence by attending their needs,taking into account learner styles.The goal of this research study is to find ways in which teach ers and students can build autonomy together.It first examines the learning styles of the sample students,and then makes discussions about fostering learner autonomy based on different learning styles.     

How to Improve Students' Listening Ability

At present, the purpose of middle school English teaching is to improve students＇ skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. However, the teachers and the students yield to the examinations, which result in many problems in English learning, particularly in English listening. The main causes of it are as follows： （ 1 ） Teachers and students think it＇s not important to practice listening in junior one and junior two. They prefer tactics for the examination of entering schools of a higher grade. （2）Listening is not taught systematically to students, such as how to choose words, make sentences, organize paragraphs, conceive the whole essay and so on.     

How to Promote EFL Learner Autonomy in China

The learner–centered teaching method is replacing the traditional teacher-centered one.This means that learners will assume greater responsibility for their own learning.This paper aims to introduce the definitions of leaner autonomy,the necessity and factors of cultivating learners’autonomy and how to promote learner autonomy.     

对大学英语听力课教学的一些思考

Many problems can be seen in the practical listening class, such as a distorted listening motivation, a lack of sufficient and authentic input and a corresponding neglect of metacognitive awareness of learning in actual teaching. In fact, what we are doing in the listening class is to test rather than to teach, to foster the passive receiver rather than the active learner. This article analyzes these problems from theoretical perspective, speculating on the limitations in terms of the comprehensible input, the affective filter and metacognitive awareness. Then, based on the author teaching experience, it provides some suggestions to solve the present problems. It suggests what is needed in teaching listening is careful consideration of pre-,during and post- listening tasks incorporating both the top-down and bottom-up processes.     

Research on the Interrelationship among Understanding, Memory and Oral Expression in Listening Teaching of non-English in Higher Vocational College

This is a research report on the interrelationship among understanding, memory and oral expression in listening comprehension training. The research investigated 150 non-English majors through a questionnaire in a higher vocational college. The result indicates that the interrelationship among understanding, memory and oral expression in listening classes which are determined by the listening materials and teaching method directly influences students’ listening proficiency and speaking ability. It is suggested that some strategies to be used to foster students’ abilities in these three areas so as to improve their listening ability.     

Learner Autonomy and English Teaching——On Fostering Learner Autonomy in FLT

Learner autonomy has been a buzzword in foreign Language teaching in recent years. The concern with teaching and learning has shifted from the teachers‘teaching to the students＇ learning. This paper reports an experiment conducted by the author using tests, questionnaires and interviews in a senior middle school located in Hubei Province. It has proved the promotion of learner autonomy helps to improve students＇ foreign language proficiency and confidence in learning the language.     

Critique of a Language-Learning Website

Listening plays a crucial part in the learning of overseas students in the United Kingdom. Students can never follow a lecture or discussion in English without listening. Traditional classroom teaching in listening limits students＇ time and space. However, the Web-based listening course accommodates listeners a great deal, enabling them to access the Internet at their own pace. In this paper, the author would like to study on a language learning Website for developing learners＇ listening skills, designed by the CELE （Centre for English Language Education） at the University of Nottingham. In the first part, the author will review the issues concerning listening, conventional materials design, CALL （computer assisted language learning） and actual Websites established for EAP （English academic purposes）. Through analysis, the author would develop a set of evaluation criteria in order to evaluate the CELE listening Website. These guidelines should also be helpful for teachers and students to select suitable online listening materials. By using these criteria and comparing with other Websites for similar purposes, the author would highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the CELE Website and offer suggestions for its improvement. In the last section, the author would consider the generalisability of the Website in respect of design principles, exercise types and tools, to check whether it is appropriate for teaching listening in a specific context and whether it is applicable for creating a parallel site developing reading skills.     

The Mastery of Listening Skills for College Students

Aiming at solving the problems of lacking listening skills practices in English class. The paper is written for two purposes. Firstly, it intends to drive the attention of present obstacles in English listening teaching. Most children in China have their English classes at schools, however, they don’t learn too much English they just learn about English. After years of learning the problems come up: the college students who have passed CET4(College English Test) and CET6 are unable to speak or listen to native speakers. Secondly, it tries to introduce the listening skills and the methods of teaching it. Language is not a knowledge but a skill, to learn language does not mean to know as many rules and information about it, but is to practice from the first day your learn it and do practice as much as possible.     

On the Pilgrim to “A Room of One’s Own” in The Hours

In A Room of One’s Own,Virginia Woolf argued her famous proposition that a woman needed to have a room of her own to achieve literary autonomy,and laid the foundation for present-day feminist criticism.Yet the author believes that economic independent does not foster women’s identity with certainty.In this thesis,the author explores the crucial place of spiritual and economic independence in building up women’s autonomy through analyzing Michael Cunningham Pulitzerwinning work The Hours,which he draws inventively on the life of Virginia Woolf and her work Mrs.Dalloway.     

A Study of Cultivating Autonomous Listening Ability of Non-English Majors

Based on the literature review of learner autonomy,this paper analyses the necessity and importance of cultivating autonomous listening ability for non-English majors.Then,it presents some practical ways of cultivating autonomous listening ability of non-English majors.