pairs, but also it is important to help them use what they already know to understand what they hear. Thus when a teacher sees gaps in students' knowledge, the listening task can be preceded by designed activities to prepare learners for it.
Without the bottom-up processing, the listener won't understand the utterance. But with the bottom-up processing alone, his understanding would be limited due to lack of background knowledge. The following material provide a good example:
Sally first tried setting loose a team of gophers. The plan backfired when a dog chased them away. She then entertained a group of teenagers and was delighted when they brought their motorcycles. Unfortunately, she failed to find a Peeping Tom listed in the Yellow Pages. Further more, her stereo system was not loud enough. The crab grass might have worked but she didn't have a fan that was sufficiently powerful. The obscene phone calls gave her hope until the number was changed. She thought about calling a door-to-door salesman but decided to hang up a clothesline instead. It was the installation of blinking neon lights across the street that did the trick. She eventually frames the ad from the classified section. (Stein and Albridge 1978)
When first heard, the material may seem hard to understand. But when the top-down processing functions with the information, the listener would gain a compendium image: getting rid of a troublesome neighbor, and the general idea may come to light.
So at the beginning stage of learning a foreign language, teachers should employ both the top-down and bottom-up processing theories simultaneously in the listening class. When they focus on the top-down processing, teachers should examine students' familiarity with the situation, their background knowledge, and their purpose of listening before the listening training begins. 3). The purpose of listening:
Besides the top-down and bottom-up processes, purpose is another element that influences listening understanding. We can classify the thousands of purposes in the use of a language into 2 categories: to communicate and to exchange information, and respectively name them the interpersonal functions and transactional functions 3.1 The interpersonal function
The interpersonal function means that the purpose of using the language is to communicate, when the speakers focus on the harmonious relationship between them, but not to exchange information. Although the speakers may exchange information during the conversation, yet it's secondary to the main purpose. This generally happens when people greet, chat, or try to kill time with friends. 3.2 The transactional function
The transactional function means that the main purpose of using the language is to exchange information. This function focuses on information but not the relationship. The speaker cares if the information is expressed exactly and if the listener understands it correctly, so the language should be direct and brief. Examples can be found in news broadcast, speech, description or orders etc. 3.3 The relationship between the two functions
The relationship between the two functions can be demonstrated as the following: Interpersonal function Transactional function 4). Problems in the listening class
It is said that \(Postman & Weingartner, 1969). These provocative statements seem to suggest that the way we are in our classes, the way we feel, think and behave while teaching have an effect on our students every bit as important as the syllabus, the materials and techniques we use. Many of my colleagues feel that this is possibly the case, yet that their training courses, practicums, and pedagogic literature have neither explored these areas nor even recognised the necessity of exploration. This in turn makes it difficult for teachers to formulate or articulate their often strong subjective impressions that their own mood, attitudes and personal presence have a more profound effect on the quality of learning that takes place in their classes than the techniques and materials they use.
In a listening comprehension class, we teachers often bring a tape-recorder with us, and just push \button, ordering the students to focus on the materials they are going to hear. Probably the whole class is in tension. Sometimes we can find some students wandering in their dreams. Why does this happen?
The answer is that we have neglected the students' emotional barries. As students, they might be very nervous when suddenly asked to listen to a foreign language or they might not be confident. If they can't keep calm while listening, how can we expect that they can operate the two processes freely? 5). Emotional barriers (psychological block)
Emotional barriers here is not a common psychological term. It means the obstacles that students have in L2 learning and language acquisition. Dulay once said: \language, the first internal hurdles are posed by the individual's emotional state and motivation.\(1982:4) What Dulay means by \that emotional barriers are the first obstacles that affect the results of foreign language
learning. \
the learning efficiency is the learner's emotion control.\Then what emotional factors may obstacle the learners? Krashen thinks there are 3: (1)Motivation; (2)self-confidence (3)Anxiet 5.1. Motivation
Practice proves that motivation has a direct relation with the purpose of studying. We find a few students have no definite learning target and motivation, and the purpose of learning for them is to pass time and walk through their parents. So whenever they meet difficulties, they feel afraid, and emotional barriers appear. On the contrary, some students with clear target can be active to accept \overcoming the handicaps, and get good results. So \, as a factor of emotion, is of great importance to carry out a program successfully.\5.2. Self-confidence
Self-confidence is the psychological foundation on the way to success. It's more necessary to have it in learning a foreign language. We find the confident and aspiring students usually can get good results, especially in speaking and listening. I once had a student who came from the countryside. First, she was always laughed at for her poor pronunciation. But she didn't give up. She spent much of her time practising English, listening and imitating. And whenever she met the foreign teacher, she was always active to chat with them. At last, she went to Beijing Foreign Language Studies University with 141 scores in listening. From this, we can see how important it is to have confidence as an English learner. 5.3. Anxiety
Although moderate pressure makes up part of students' motivation, evidence shows superfluous pressure can have bad effect on learners. So teachers should keep the class challenging while at the same time create an easy and happy input atmosphere to reduce their \(Liu, 1990; 42).
5.4. Reducing emotional barriers
From above, we can conclude that emotional barriers have great negative effect on learning. Obviously, \system of language acquisition. Thus the learner's ability of acquisition gets much discount. On the opposite, if there's no emotional barriers, a large amount of input can get into the system of language acquisition, and become part of their abilities. So teachers should take all kinds of measures to reduce their emotional barriers. Presently the western language teachers often use the following methods in L2 teaching: natural approach, silent way, total physical response, and suggestopedia.
6) Designing activities and materials in the Listening Class 6.1 Good pronunciation
If we want to improve our listening comprehension, we should start with get good pronunciation. The process of getting good pronunciation is also the process of getting good listening ability through imitation. As Wang Cairen (a famous English scholar) says: \to imitate. Such kind of imitation begins with direct listening. After analyzed by the brain and practised by the psychological apparatus, it finally comes into being.\ From this, we can see that the veracity of listening has a close relationship with that of pronunciation. The students can have better pronunciation by improving listening comprehension; at the same time, they can also improve their listening comprehension by pronunciation imitation. In fact, listening comprehension depends not only on the veracity of the pronunciation, but also on the proficiency of it. On the way to improve listening, veracity and proficiency are twin brothers.
While teaching the students to imitate good pronunciation, teachers should help the students master some Articulatory Phonetics knowledge and understand which vocal organs are involved and how they coordinate in the articulation process, so that the students can pronounce every phonetic sound correctly. For instance: lots of students have difficulty pronouncing the cardinal vowels. I often tell them: When the soft palate is raised and lips are unrounded, the vowel produced with the tongue raised as high and as forward as possible without causing audible friction is symbolized as |i|; and the vowel produced with the tongue held as low and as far back as possible without causing audible friction is symbolized as |a|. Then between the |i| and |a| positions , three points where the vowel qualities seemed to be equi-distant and symbolized them as |e, 3, a| are selected. The same procedure is applied when the back of the tongue is raised form the |a| position while the lips change progressively from a wide open shape to a closely rounded one. Another three auditorily equi-distant points are thus established from the lowest to the highest position and they are given the symbols| >, o, u|.
With the cardinal vowels as the standard, the vowels in a particular language can be described with relative accuracy and ease. When the students find | e| and | | hard to distinguish, they can do as follows: |i:| is pronounced with front of the tongue in a bit lower and more centralized position than the cardinal |i|. |e| is pronounced with the front of the tongue in a position between the cardinal |i| and |3|. When mastering the correct pronouncing positions, they can practice by themselves and I think it might be easier for them to distinguish: \special training on pronunciation, I think we teachers should correct the mistakes timely, and cordially
in order to help them get pure pronunciation.
When the students' pronunciation accuracy has come to a stage, teachers can collect some tongue twisters. For one thing, it can get them interested,; for another, it can strengthen the students' acquaintance of the articulatory position, so that they can improve their proficiency by sensing the rhythm of the language. For example: I once recommend the tongue twister to students when they find difficulty pronouncing |s| and | |: \sells seashells on the seashore, and the shells she sells are seashells, I am sure.\Another example: some students are not confident in pronouncing | |. First I get them to know the articulation position; then tell them |3| is the sonant of | |. At the same time, I asked them to practice the tongue twister below to consolidate it: \in viewing this treasure at leisure.\
After practicing tongue twisters, 90% of my students said that they felt more confident in pronunciation and felt less pressure in speaking. Through such practical activities, not only will the students enrich their sense to spoken English, but also they can get enjoyment in learning. 6.2. Psychological preparation
As I mentioned above, students' comprehension is closely connected with their psychological situation. If we want our students to get good results in listening, we should pay great attention to developing their psychological qualities. As we know, listening is a psychological process in which the listener gains information actively. Only when the information is necessary or interesting will the students concentrate on it. A psychological research shows junior high school students can concentrate for 25 minutes while senior high school students 40 minutes. If the students are made to listen without preparation or guidance, it's certain that they will be nervous and may go loose easily. If they are often asked to do listening in such a poor psychological situation, it will have bad effects on their confidence. We should get the students prepared before listening, and we'd better adopt all kinds of ways to help them develop their psychological qualities. 6.3. Systematical training
When the students have a good sense of pronunciation, teachers can help them build up good listening habits with calmness and confidence. In my teaching experience, I have found the following approaches particularly effective: 6.3.1. Visual listening materials
\listening materials\here means the in-class short plays that are adapted, directed and performed by students themselves and questions based on the content of the plays also designed by students. My students performed many short plays adapted from fairy tales and texts, such as: Snow
英语教学法教程教案
