大学英语听力理解过程中的障碍因素及对策论文-本科论文.doc

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Table of Contents
Introduction…………………………………………………………………......1
Chapter1 Obstacle Factors in Listening Comprehension…………....2
1.1Characteristics of listening materials...........................................................2
1.2 Characteristics of the speaker's speech in listening materials……………2
1.2.1 Changes in sound…………………………………………………...2
1.2.2 Intonation and the sequence of sounds……………………………..3
1.2.3 Verbiage’s intherlude……………………………………………………….4
1.2.4 Tow different voice systems, RP and GA…………………………………..4
1.3 Difficulties on the part of learners………………………………….5
Chapter2 Tactics to Resolve the Obstacles…………………………..7
2.1 Listening and vocabulary………………………………………………..7
2.2 Correlation of listening and reading……………………………………..7
2.3 To grasp the process of listening……………………………………………8
2.4 To focus on practical training………………………………………………9
Chapter3 Tactics in the English Listening Teaching………………11
3.1 Changes in teaching pattern……………………………………………11
3.2 To select the listening materials………………………………………..11
3.3 Aims of listening practice………………………………………………11
3.4 Emotional problems of learners……………………………………….13
Conclusion……………………………………………………………...16
Acknowledgements………………………………………………………...17
Bibliography…………………………………………………………………18

大学英语听力理解过程中的障碍因素及对策

专业班级：08级英语专升本班 学生姓名：张海丽
指导教师： 王冉 职称：讲师

摘要 “听”作为人类言语交际方式之一，在信息剧增、国际交往日益频繁的今天更具有重要意义，因此,在英语学习中“听”应该是第一位的。长期以来由于受环境等因素的制约，我们所学的英语大多是“聋子式的”或“哑巴式的”。因此，如何提高听力始终为人们所关注。鉴于听力的重要性和难度，本文将探讨解决大学英语听力理解过程中的障碍因素。首先从听力材料的特点，材料中说话者的语言特征，及学习者自身因素来分析听力理解过程中的障碍因素，并通过这一分析得出一些解决问题的策略和听力技巧（例如:增加词汇量、把握关键词、注重练习、扩大知识面等等），以及它们在英语听力教学过程中的实际运用。
关键词 听力 障碍 技巧

The Obstacle Factors and Tactics in College English Listening Comprehension

Abstract Leaps in information and international dealings are getting more and more frequent in society today. As one of the ways of verbal communication, “Listening” is becoming more significant during international exchanges. Therefore, “Listening” is the primacy in English study. Although we have learned English knowledge for many years, sometimes we also could not speak fluently or listen exactly, and even like the deaf-mutes. The reason is that we have been restricted within the surroundings and other factors for a long time. So, people are always pay attention to how to improve the level of listening. In view of the importance and difficulties of listening, the thesis aims at the discussion of the tactics to solve the obstacles in the college English listening comprehension. Firstly, it analyzes the obstacle factors in listening comprehension according to characteristics of listening materials, characteristics of the speaker’s speech in listening materials, and difficulties on the part of learners. In addition, it concludes some methods and listening skills to resolve problems (such as increase vocabulary, grasp the key words, focus on practical training widen the knowledge and so on), and their application in the English listening teaching.
Key words Listening Obstacles Skills

III
Introduction
As one of the principal ways of receiving information, listening plays an important role in English study. Listening comprehension is an essential capability to grasp the language and semantics. The listener has to complicatedly process the phonetic signals which they heard. The whole process is a very enthusiastic and active movement, and it also is the mutual-impact and interaction of the background knowledge, the context and language knowledge. The process absorbs information from the listening materials continuously till forming the process of understanding. This shows that verbal communication starts with listening, understanding and finally entering the exchanging process. The sociality of language determines the ultimate goal of language learning—interpersonal communication, and the whole process is the exchanging between the input and the output of information. In order to ensure the process goes smoothly and coherently, the information must be understood. The human has two basic ways to understand information: listening comprehension and reading comprehension. Listening comprehension processes various forms of language (written or oral, formal and informal, etc.) directly. It emphasizes the capability of dealing with information rapidly, which plays an important role in terms of language learning. In the process of the second language which can be learned lacks realistic speech circumstance, so listening training is the essential link. In view of this, the thesis will explore ways and strategies to improve students' level of listening by analyzing the obstacle factors in college English listening comprehension.
This thesis from three aspects to discuss the obstacle factors and tactics in college English listening comprehension. The first part mainly analyzes the obstacle factors. And these problems are analyzed from three aspects, namely listening materials, characteristics of the speaker's speech in listening materials and difficulties on the part of learners. The contents of the second part are the methods and strategies which are used to solve the obstacle factors mentioned in the chapter one. Combining with the English listening teaching, the third part discusses how to help students resolve these obstacles.

Chapter 1 Obstacle Factors in Listening Comprehension
1.1 Characteristics of listening materials
To some extent, characteristics of listening materials decide the difficulty of the listening:
1) They belong to the audio materials, which is easy to fleet from listener's ears that is different from the reading materials which the reader can go back to read in any time;
2) The content relates to all areas of life, including chat at the street, saying proverbs, new affairs and situations being not well-known by learners, and the speakers change the topic in the same dialogue from time to time;
3) For some content, the listener can not forecast what the speaker will say next, such as reports, interviews and daily dialogues, because sometimes they are lack of logic.
4) Although we know it well if we look at it in the paper, characteristics of liaison and lost plosive make it difficult for the listener to indentify the single word when he listens to the materials.
5) A large number of colloquial words and expression often appear in the daily dialogue materials. For example, using stuff to replace material, and using guy to express the meaning of man and so on. Sometimes there is slang or some expressions which are inconsistent with the grammar, for example, the compositions of the sentence are incomplete or tautological. These are unfamiliar for the learner who mainly learns the formal written expression.
1.2 Characteristics of the speaker's speech in listening materials
1.2.1 Changes in sound
Changes of sound refer to the English words' pronunciation change in a sense group. The main changes include liaison, incomplete plosion, epenthesis, elision and assimilation and so on. And these changes have an important effect on the level of listening, because it is difficult for beginners to master the law of these sounds. I will discuss the effect of the changes as follows:
（1）In the same sense group, the suffix's pronunciation of the former word is read by linking with the initialness of the latter which adjacently follows it, that is called liaison. There are the following three conditions:
a. The two adjacent words, the former ends in a consonant sound and the latter starts with a vowel sound, namely: consonant+ vowel;
b. The two adjacent words, the former ends in the letter of “r” and the latter starts with a vowel sound. In this case, /r/ should be read out, and together with the vowel. Namely: /r/+ vowel;
c. The two adjacent words, the former's suffix and the latter's initialness usually are liaison. There is no pause between them and sounds like a word, namely: vowel+ vowel;
（2）Incomplete plosion
Incomplete plosion refers to losing plosive in the production of plosive. It is essential to separate three phases in the production of a plosive: the closing phase, the hold or compression phase, and the release phase. However, in some cases, these plosives only have the first two phases but lose the release phase, and these cases are called incomplete plosion or lost plosive. There are several situations as follows:
a. Any two adjacent plosives, the former pronounces the incomplete plosion, such as:
She has a bad) cold.
b. When the plosive is before the fricative, it should be incomplete plosion, such as:
I rea(d) the book yesterday.
c. When the plosive is before the nasal, it should be incomplete plosion, such as:
It ma(d)e me happy.
（3）Elision. When a certain sound or some sounds of the word are influenced, it does not pronounce.
（4）Assimilation. Assimilation refers to a sound is influenced by the adjacent sound and becomes the same or similar as the adjacent sound, or the two sounds interact and become the third sound, as shown by the following:
a. has to [z] → [s]
b. love to [v] → [f]
c. five past [v] → [f]
1.2.2 Intonation and the sequence of sounds
Chinese characters are hieroglyphics and ideograms, and each character has a tone including the level tone, the rising tone, the falling-rising tone and the falling tone. English is an alphabetic writing. So there are differences between Chinese and English, especially some sounds exist in English but do not in Chinese. For example, many students have troubles in distinguishing /v/ from /w/. English and Chinese systems also have great differences in pronunciation. There is no ending of consonants in Chinese, so students often are affected by the mother tongue in learning English to add vowel to the end or prolong the syllable. There are several aspects related to sound transfer and level of the transfer:
（1） great differences in pronunciation
Tones in Putonghua
Putonghua [pa]
Chinese character
Pinyin
Tone numbers
Tone description
English gloss
八
bā
55
High level
‘eight’
拔
bá
35
High rising
‘pull out’
靶
bǎ
214
Low falling rising
‘target’
坝
bà
51
High falling
‘dam’
（2）the sound that Chinese does not have but English do, such as [w], [v], [r] and so on.
1.2.3 Verbiage's interlude
Ur said: in general conversation or impromptu address, lectures, we actually said a lot of unnecessary words to express the theme. It is usually marked by repeating, re-worded, self-correction, a detailed description, tautology and some expressions do not have any real meaning, such as “I mean, you know”and so on(Ur, P. 1984). The tautology is a natural characteristic of expression. It may help the listener to comprehend but be likely to bring obstacles to the listener, and that depends on the level of English language learners. For primary students, it is no doubt that they have more difficulties in comprehending what the speakers said; however, for senior learners, it helps them to win time to adapt to sounds and the style of language of speakers.
1.2.4 Two different voice systems, RP and GA
English learners of China from primary school to middle school, basically follow the RP (Received Pronunciation) voice system, namely English teaching system. However, students in university usually contact with speech materials of GA (General American) voice system that is the American pronunciation, so they feel it very difficult to adapt to.
1.3 Difficulties on the part of learners
(1) Lack of knowledge of English pronunciation.
Questionnaire survey shows that 65percent of learners in secondary schools did not systematically study English phonetic knowledge, and 73percent of learners did not inquire into the rules of read aloud of liaison, lost plosive, stress and reduction, and do not handle these skillfully. Therefore, obstacles of the voice become the first “stumbling block” in their listening comprehension (王年英，2002).
(2) Lack of knowledge of English language
Learners do not know well about language phenomena of English and do not have enough accumulation, such as the usage and collocation. Therefore, when they hear of a part of information of these expressions, they can not predict or speculate the others. For example, they can not directly predict “cheeks” to be after “rosy” by the usage when they heard the word “rosy”. Similarly, hearing such an expression as “he flew into…”, they can not quickly speculate it should end with a word such as “rage” by virtue of the good language sense. It is a major problem for Chinese learners in the listening.
(3) Lack of relevant background knowledge
Language is the carrier of culture. Anderson and Lynch have pointed out: “Lacking socio-cultural, historical facts and background knowledge will be obstacles of listening comprehension, because language itself is used to transmit culture (Anderson, A. and T. Lynch, 1988).” Listening materials display all aspects of the culture and the epitome of knowledge, such as science and technology, customs, famous persons, history and geography, health, education and other social problems. However because of lacking relevant common sense and foundation knowledge, the listeners distort the information and even do not know the content of materials which are the carriers of these above mentioned.
(4) No enough time
English learners tend to spend more time and energies on reading but less on listening, so they contact with listening materials very limitedly. In the survey, 84percent of the learners frankly expressed that they spent time on listening less than two hours outside listening classes every week; 11percent of them spent four or more hours and 5percent of them even spent less than an hour(董本友，2001).
(5) Emotional factors
Emotions in language learning are the learners' sentiments, feelings, affectivities and attitudes and so on, which affect their conducts during the learning process. Results of the survey show that, 100percent of students believe that their emotional factors directly affect their listening effectiveness; 75percent of them think that their listening obstacles include emotional factors(郑锡良，1991). The main negative emotions are: 1) no interest in learning English, “do not like to listen”, 2) nervous, “afraid I can not understand it”, 3) anxiety, “worry about having bad scores”, 4) frustration, “after listening but do not comprehend anything”, 5) lack of self-confidence, “my level of listening is low”, 6) attention can not be concentrated sustainedly, “usually desert during listening process”.

Chapter 2 Tactics to Resolve the Obstacles
2.1 Listening and vocabulary
Most people always believe t