Factors Affecting English Listening Comprehension

Students' learning requirements for English listening are increasing day by day, and most students realize the inapplicability of "deaf-mute Eng

Factors Affecting English Listening Comprehension

Students' learning requirements for English listening are increasing day by day, and most students realize the inapplicability of "deaf-mute English". Therefore, English listening learning has gradually received unprecedented attention. However, the level of English listening learning has not improved with the improvement of understanding ability. Both teachers and students can feel that the listening level of each English language learner is obviously uneven, which is due to the influence of many factors.

First, students' psychological barriers affect English listening learning

People's psychological factors refer to those non-intellectual factors that are not directly involved in the cognitive process, such as students' interests, attention, learning emotions and attitudes, willpower and other factors. Although these non-intelligence factors are not directly involved in the learning process, they play a role in promoting and inhibiting the learning effect. These factors are more obvious in English listening. If two people have the same listening level and different psychological States, the results of the exam will be very different.

1. Not interested in learning English.

Some students are not interested in English and are psychologically resistant. Especially in listening training, they seldom take the initiative to participate. Most of them are perfunctory and passive under the supervision of teachers, which leads to higher and higher learning resistance, lower and lower interest in learning, and of course it is difficult to improve listening level.

2. Not paying enough attention to English listening

Although most English learners pay enough attention to listening now, some students think that the main test is reading and writing knowledge, which accounts for a small proportion and lacks value in real life. So they think that as long as they learn grammar, writing and other knowledge well, they can get high marks, and they can also make subjective guesses in the listening part, and maybe they can guess a few questions correctly. This psychological factor of not paying attention to listening directly affects the listening level, and also makes some students get lucky in the listening teaching and testing center. After a long time, they will learn from it, and then have a fear of hearing, forming a serious psychological barrier.

3. Lack of self-confidence and bad mood

Some students lack self-confidence and often feel inferior. In class, especially in listening class, teachers need students' active participation. Students who lack self-confidence are often nervous, anxious, afraid, afraid of being asked by teachers and laughed at by classmates. Students who are worried about failing the exam, being criticized by teachers and scolded by their parents are under great psychological pressure and it is difficult to improve their English listening level.

4. Teachers' improper criticism of students

Although teachers criticize students out of kindness, in order to make students study better, sometimes teachers ignore students' psychology or criticize students in a misunderstanding, which will be counterproductive. Instead of making students progress, it will increase their psychological burden.

5. Poor listening environment

Listening environment is also very important to listening teaching. Some schools have outdated listening equipment, there is noise outside the classroom, and some students are too close or too far away from the sound source, which will affect students' mood, interest and learning confidence.

"In English listening teaching, teachers should consider students' non-intellectual factors, combine strengthening listening training with psychological counseling, pay attention to cultivating students' interest in learning and self-confidence, encourage students more, arrange listening environment patiently, help students overcome psychological obstacles and improve their English listening learning level." In July 2003, Yang Jianjian, metacognitive strategy training in listening teaching, 253 pages, foreign language teaching.

Second, students' lack of language and cultural knowledge affects English listening.

Knowledge of language and culture is the basis of learning English well, and English listening will naturally be influenced by knowledge of language and culture. If students lack knowledge of pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and culture, it will definitely have a negative impact on English listening.

1. Lack of phonetic knowledge

"English is a language, and the language is first of all vocal. The most basic material shell is pronunciation and intonation. If students' phonological knowledge is insufficient, their ability to distinguish sounds will be poor, which will affect their listening comprehension. " He Shanfen, 1992, Practical English Phonetics, 105, Beijing Normal University Press.

1 is not pronounced correctly or cannot be read at all.

2 can't distinguish between similar or similar factors in words. For example/f /f/&；; /v/，/s/& amp； /z/，/e/& amp； /? /and so on.

3 unfamiliar with strong reading and weak reading. For example, and is strongly pronounced/? Nd/, but it is often weakly pronounced as/? nd/，/？ N/ or /n/. In and out/`in? Nd' aut/, black and white /' bl? k？ Wait, bread and butter? t？ /

4 Not suitable for continuous reading. For example, remember /`θi? k？ Victor, put it on.

/`puti`t？ N/, first of all /`f? :st？ ` v？ :l/

Words or sentences cannot be distinguished by stress. Because sometimes different stress positions have different meanings, or different parts of speech, different emphasis, different tone and so on. For example, the word content, read /`k? Ntent/ is a noun "content". Read /k？ N`tent/ is an adjective "satisfied" and a verb "satisfied". Pei Cuglia. & amppeculi`arityn。 , perfect /`p? :fikt/adj & amp； Perfect /p? ` fekt/v。

I didn't know you were leaving.

The point is to "leave". I didn't expect you to leave. I thought you were going to do something. I didn't know you were leaving.

Focus on "you". I thought someone was leaving.

6 Not familiar with assimilation and simplification. Like assimilation. Do you like it? /"Did you do it? I'm glad to meet you? d t？ "Are you J? : r/don't/d? Unt/, we /wi? /。

7 Not familiar with the difference between English sound and American sound. For example, the English pronunciation of class is/,the English pronunciation is ` detail, and the American pronunciation is de`tail. Address, an English address and an American address.

2. Lack of grammar knowledge

In English listening, many sentences are complex sentences. If you can't tell the main clause from the subordinate clause and don't understand the relationship between them, even if you understand every word in the sentence, you may not be able to correctly understand the meaning of the whole sentence.

Think about it. Moreover, students are used to analyzing grammatical components through rapid psychological analysis, which needs to be completed in an instant. Students are often confused by the relationship between sentences or sentences, and don't understand what kind of relationship this is. Therefore, the lack of grammar knowledge will also reduce the English listening level.

3. Lack of vocabulary knowledge

1 Small vocabulary, too many words to learn.

I can't hear prepositions, adverbs, articles, auxiliary verbs, conjunctions and other words. Generally speaking, these words are weak, passing by, light and fast, and it takes more practice to recognize them.

I can't hear the prefix and suffix of this word. Many words in English are composed of words, prefixes and suffixes. If you can't recognize prefixes and suffixes, you will increase your vocabulary or reverse the meaning of words. For example,

Antidepressants, we all know the word depression, but if we don't recognize the prefix and suffix here, we can't recognize the meaning of "antidepressants, antidepressants". For another example, we all know the word illegal, but when we hear that it is legal, it means the opposite.

I don't know the lexical difference between American English and British English. The United States and Britain sometimes use different words to express the same meaning, or use the same word to express different meanings. For example, Britain uses "elevators" and the United States uses "elevators"; "sidewalk", "sidewalk" in Britain, "sidewalk" in America and so on. For another example, the first floor refers to the second floor in Britain and the first floor in the United States; Public schools refer to private schools in Britain and public schools in the United States. If you are not familiar with these differences between English and American words, it will affect your listening.

4. Lack of cultural background knowledge

Language is the carrier of culture, and a specific culture produces its own unique language background. Many articles in English listening textbooks are written by Europeans and Americans. If students don't understand their social system, local customs, folk customs, people's way of thinking and values, when listening to these articles, if the author thinks that readers all know this knowledge and there is no need to explain it clearly, then students may not understand it. For example, there is a sentence in an article about American telephone network: it provides 800 telephone services. In America, when making a free long distance call, you should dial 800. If you don't understand this, you will understand the correct meaning of this sentence as "this network provides 800 free telephone service"

The network provides 800 kinds of telephone services.

Therefore, if students want to improve their English listening level, they must have enough knowledge of language and culture, increase their knowledge of language and culture and enlarge their vocabulary by reading more and remembering more. By reading more articles from westerners and talking with foreigners, we can learn about the general situation of European and American countries and cross-cultural communication knowledge. Moreover, our knowledge of language and culture has also expanded and our listening level has naturally improved.

Third, students' bad study habits affect English listening.

I remember Ye Shengtao, a famous educator in China, once said, "What is education? In a simple sentence, it is to develop habits. " Good study habits, like a catalyst, can accelerate the learning process and improve the learning effect, and get twice the result with half the effort. However, some students are not good at forming good habits in the process of listening, and it is difficult to improve their listening level over time.

1. Not sitting correctly when listening.

Sitting posture is also very important in the process of listening training. Some students are used to listening on their desks, or holding their heads in their hands, or playing with pens in their hands, or listening with their eyes closed, and so on. Instead of making them more relaxed, these postures will distract them for a little longer and then fall asleep. This bad habit seems trivial, there is no need to make a fuss. However, it will devour students' ability to acquire knowledge bit by bit. Therefore, in the process of listening, sitting posture must be correct, which is conducive to concentration.

There is no habit of listening, writing, talking, doing, calculating, drawing and guessing.

The listening process is not an independent listening process. In this process, we should learn to listen, see, speak, hold hands and mind. Listen, write and record key words, important information, etc. , so as not to forget; Listening and speaking, listening is input, speaking is output, first understand, and then let students speak on the basis of understanding; Listen, do and express the information you hear with actions; Listening and calculating, especially digital teaching and listening training, need to get the results after calculation. After thinking, do some calculations to cultivate the ability of calculation and thinking. Draw while listening, and express the information you hear with pictures; Listen, guess, guess unknown words, guess the next information, predict the final result and so on. "In the process of listening, some students have not developed the habit of using their ears, hands, brains and hearts, and often answer irrelevant questions.

Too busy to attend to one thing and lose sight of another, affecting the listening effect. Gao Lihua, 2003, English listening teaching methods, 243 pages, research on foreign language teaching in Shanghai basic education.

3. Do not pay attention to the combination of intensive listening and extensive listening

Intensive listening means that students can understand not only the meaning of the whole article, but also every sentence and word. Generally speaking, intensive listening requires students to listen several times, or divide the article into idiom paragraphs and sentences, or practice dictation word by word, with the emphasis on understanding sentences. Extensive reading does not require students to understand every sentence and word in the article, but mainly to grasp the general idea of the article and focus on understanding the text.

"In listening teaching, we should combine intensive listening with extensive listening to cultivate students' basic skills, positive thinking listening habits and discourse understanding ability. "Liang Xinhui, 2003, Interactive Listening Teaching, p.21. The teaching and management of intensive listening is the basic skill of training, and extensive listening is the result of the consolidation and expansion of intensive listening. One is the means, and the other is the purpose. Only by combining the two can we achieve the purpose of listening teaching.

Some students don't pay attention to the combination of intensive listening and extensive listening, especially they don't know how to widely contact with listening materials of various themes and use various media to practice listening, such as listening to English songs, watching original movies, insisting on listening to English radio and participating in English corner activities. This will affect the improvement of listening skills.