Abstract

“National English Curriculum for Full-time Compulsory Education”（2011）clearly puts forward that “language skills mainly include listening, speaking, reading, writing and the integrated applied abilities to use these skills.” Nevertheless, Listening is the most basic and the most critical step in all-round development of these four skills. It is one of main skills to use to understand and master a language in linguistic input phase. It is also a main way of acquiring language information and language experience. The first year in junior middle school is the critical period for the students to acquire English language knowledge and skills. Meanwhile, English listening is both the important and difficult skill to learn in this stage. It is not only beneficial to the accumulation of English language knowledge and the development of the other three language skills, but also to cultivate and maintain students’ interests and motivation in English learning, which will lay a solid foundation for their future study. However, as the students have just begun their formal study of English listening, they will meet various difficulties. Therefore, the English teachers should learn more scientific theory to improve their theoretical knowledge reserve of English listening teaching, and explore and apply the appropriate strategies and methods in their listening courses. Only in this way can they help their students improve their listening ability and comprehensive language ability.

Based on schema theory and Stephen D. Krashen’s Input Hypothesis, with the adoption of questionnaire survey, interview and the analysis of some factors affecting junior one students’ listening comprehension, the author aims to raise attention from English teachers of junior one on the importance of English listening and pertinently put forward some effective approaches for the English teachers to improve junior one students’ English listening ability. 

Key Words: English Listening Teaching; Schema Theory; Krashen’s Input Hypothesis; Affecting Factors; Effective Ways

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1  Introduction-1

1.1 Research Background-1

1.2 Research Purpose-2

1.3 Significance of the Research-2

1.4 Structure of the Dissertation-3

2  Literature Review-4

2.1 Listening Comprehension-4

2.2 Schema Theory-5

2.2.1 History of the Notion of Schema-6

2.2.2 Classification of Schema Theory-6

2.3 Stephen D. Krashen’ Input Hypothesis-7

3  Methodology-9

3.1 Research Questions-9

3.2 Participants-9

3.3 Instruments-10

3.3.1 Questionnaire-10

3.3.2 Interview-11

4  Findings and Discussions-13

4.1 Some Factors Affecting Junior One Students’ Listening Comprehension-13

4.1.1 Language Knowledge-13

4.1.2 Listening Materials-13

4.1.3 Background Knowledge-14

4.1.4 Psychological Factors-15

4.2 Some effective ways to improve junior one students’ listening ability-15

4.2.1 Paying Attention to the Teaching of Pronunciation-15

4.2.2 Paying Attention to the Selection of Listening Material-16

4.2.3 Cultivating Students’ Listening Skills-17

4.2.4 Adopting PWP Listening Teaching Model-18

4.2.5 Removing Irrelevant Emotional Disturbance-19

5  Conclusion-20

5.1 Implications of the Research-20

5.2 Limitations of the Research-21

Appendix-22

Appendix Ⅰ Questionnaire for students-22

Appendix Ⅱ Interview for teachers-24

Bibliography-25

Acknowledgments-27