交际教学法在听力课堂上的运用

The Application of Communicative Approach in ListeningTeaching内容摘要听、说、读、写、是语言的四项基本技能。

要想掌握一门外语需要这四种能力的均衡发展。

但在我国，英语听力教学长期处于被忽略的地位。

在英语听力教学中普遍缺乏适当的听力材料和互动多样的课堂教学活动。

目前所采用的听力材料大部分来自书面文章，而且在录制时被人为地减速，缺乏口语的特点和对话的真实性。

听力是一种积极主动的过程，是成功交际的重要环节。

交际教学法以培养学生的交际能力为教学目标，并强调语言的运用，课堂教学以学生为中心，鼓励学生用目标语进行相互交流和学习。

运用交际教学法进行听力教学，有利于提高学生的兴趣，有利于增强学生的感性认识及语感。

在运用交际教学法进行听力教学时，将听力教学分成三个阶段：听音前，听音中和听音后。

在听音前阶段，教师可以通过预教关键词，预猜，明确听力任务等各种方法让学生对所要的内容有个大概的了解。

听音中阶段，可以采用合作听音，两个搭档或者小组活动等形式来降低听力材料的难度。

听力后阶段，采取要求学生按照要求完成与听力材料有关的说或写的任务。

关键词：交际教学法；听力教学；听力理解AbstractListening, speaking, reading and writing are the four essential skills of language competence. The mastery of a foreign language requires balanced development in these four areas. However, in China, English listening teaching has been neglected for a long period of time. At schools, on the one hand, many listening materials are chosen from written prose and recorded at an artificial speed, which are unauthentic and deny the characteristics of spoken language.Listening comprehension is an active process and an important process of success communication.The goal of the communicative approach is to cultivate students’ communicative competence .In the classroom, teaching is more student- centered.Students are encouraged to practice communicating in the target language and learn from each other.The application of communicative approach in listening teaching can arouse students' interest and increase students sensitive perceptive.The application of communicative approach in listening teaching, listening teaching can be divided into three stages:pre-listening, while-listening,post-listening.In the pre-listening stage, teachers can teach through keywords, guess, various methods to listening tasks for the content to students have probably understanding. In while-listening, in pair work or group activities and so on,these activities can reduce the difficulty of the listening materials.In the post-listening, according to the requirement , requiring students to finish the speaking or writing task which is relevent with listening material.Key Word s：communicative approach；listening teaching；listening comprehension.ContentsIntroduction (1)1. Listening Comprehension (2)1.1 Definition of Listening Comprehension (2)1.2 Characteristics of Comprehension (3)1.3 Problems with Recent Listening Teaching (6)2. Communicative Approach (7)2.1 Definition of Communicative Approach (10)2.2 Theory Concerning Communicative Approach (13)2.3 Advantages of CLT in Listening Teaching (14)3. The Application of Communicative Approach in Listening Teaching (15)3.1 The Choice of Listening Material (15)3.1.1 Using Live Speech (16)3.1.2Using Recordings (17)3.2 The Design of Listening Task (18)3.2.1 Performing Physical Tasks (19)3.2.2 Transferring Information (20)3.2.3 Reformulating and Evaluation Information (21)3.3 Listening Teaching Models in Classroom (22)3.3.1 Pre-Listening Activities (22)3.3.2While-Listening Activities (24)3.3.3 Post -Listening Activities (26)conclusion (27)Notes (29)References (30)Introduction“Listening comprehension is the process of receiving, attending to, and assigning meaning to aural stimuli.”[1] It involves a listener, who brings prior knowledge of the topic, linguistic knowledge, and cognitive processes to the listening task, the aural text, and the interaction between the two. At present, listening teaching is still ignored in most schools. Commonly, students just listen to the tape, do the multiple choices exercises and then check the answers, and typically, listening comprehension activities provided with language textbooks have presented only the aural component of the language with little or no vocabulary or background information. Therefore, students’ references or needs have often been neglected, leading to poor comprehension.Students often find out that listening skill is the most difficult of all the four basic language skills. Although listening and reading are both receptive skills, usually students are able to do better in reading comprehension than they do in listening comprehension in the integrative English examination. So, it is a fact that these students are relatively good at grammar, but they are poor in listening and speaking owing to limited teaching facilities and traditional teaching methods. This leads to their lack of confidence about their own language competence.How to improve students’ listening comprehension has long been a heated argument. Joan Rubin makes a review of second language listeningcomprehension research. In his paper, he classified the factors that may influence second language listening comprehensive into five aspects namely,text characteristics, Interlocutor characteristics,task characteristics,listener characteristics ,and process characteristics.But Morley think that people engage in communicative listening in three modes. The first mode is listening in two-way communication or interactive listening. The second is listening in one way communication.The third communicative mode is self-dialog communication in which the listener may not be aware of his internal roles as speaker and listener in his own thought processes.J.R.Anderson puts forward three stage patterns which includes perception, parsing and utilization.But G.Brown divides listening comprehension into four stage patterns,which includes identifying information, searching existing memory, filing new information and using new information. Mary Underwood states that, “listening comprehension includes pre-listening, while-listening and post-listening”.[2]Many researchers in China also did some work in the study of listening comprehensive to English leaners.Wei Zerong, Jiang Lingxiang set forth several approaches to improve listening comprehension. ZhuYunping studies on the influence of schemata on listening comprehension from the angle of cognitive psychology and thought on an analysis of the mastic theory and the listening comprehension model. All of these studies have indicated that we should understand the listening process comprehensively and a more complete mode of the second language comprehension.They did not put forward a good way inlislening teaching .Which kind of teaching method is effective for students becomes a key factor. In English teaching , the main task of teachers is to cultivate the four basic skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, so as to benefit students’communicative competence. Since they need communication most in their work, we should give top priority to communication and the cultivation of the learners’communicative competence. Therefore the author adopted the communicative approach in English listening teaching.1 Listening ComprehensionA brief introduction has been pointed out in the previous section. According to the plan of the paper, this chapter will first briefly consider studies on listening comprehension.1.1Definition of Listening Comprehension“Listening in other words may or may not be participatory and reciprocal.”[3]According to Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied L inguistics, “listening comprehension refers to the process of understanding speech in a second or foreign language. It includes both top-down bottom-up pr ocessing”[4]While Malley,Chamot,and kuppre defines: listening comprehension is anactive conscious process in which the listener construst meaning by using cues from contextual information to existing knowledge, while relying upon multiple strategic resources to fulfill task requirements ,effective listening involves a large number of component skills.[5]Brown thinks that listeners are nor simply passive processors who undertake automatic signal recognition exercise as acoustic signal are fed into them and so construct meaning when listening, the listeners are active searchers for meaning.[6]It is worth quoting Larry Vandergrift.Listening comprehension is anything but a passive activity, it is a complex, active process in which the listener must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and structures, interpret stress and intonation, retain what was gathered in all of the above, and interpret it within the immediate as well as the larger socio-cultural context of the utterance. Co-coordinating all this involves a great deal of mental activity on the part of the learner. Listening is hard work.All the definitions above indicate that listening is an active process rather than a straight forward matching of sound to meaning as it was assumed because listening demands active involvements from the hearer.1.2 Characteristics of Listening ComprehensionListening comprehension is the most general form of language comprehension.As a highly integrative skill, it plays a key role in the process of language use. In recent years, there has been an increasing theoretical interest inthe mental processes involved in listening comprehension.’’The nature of listening comprehension means that the learner should be encouraged to engage in an active process of listening for meaning, using not only the linguistic but also his nonlinguistic knowledge”.[7]Listening comprehension is not a passive acceptance of acoustic signals, but a signal of complicated psychological activities related to the interaction of thinking, judgment and predicting .Marianne states that listening comprehension, which is something complex, dynamic and rather fragile to begin with, brings great difficulties to both learners and researchers for its transitory non-permanent nature and the limited degree of control by the listening on the stream of speech.Listening comprehension is an interactive process between language and brain memory structure. Listening comprehension is not only a function of the interplay between language on the hand and what the brain does with it on the other, it also requires the activation of contextual information and previous knowledge.1.3 Problems with Recent Listening TeachingIn present listening teaching, many listening materials used are written texts which are often extracted from novels, newspaper articles and so on, instead of the authentic and natural language from the real life. These listening materials are usually read in a monotonous tone lacking of any characteristics of spokenlanguage. Students are getting used to this hind of slow and clear standard English find it hard to communicate with English native speakers in real life because they cannot follow up the rate of speech, the accent, the intonation and the stress of the speakers. It's obvious that these listening materials are unfavorable to improving students’ listening ability, let alone their communicative competence.Apart from the problem in listening materials,another problem is the construction of listening tasks. Nowadays multiple-choice format is widely used in most listening activities. Students are required to choose one correct item from the given alternatives when or after listening to the materials. This is a convenient teaching technique, which does provide a certain kind of practice, but it inevitably results in two circumstances. In one circumstance, students may choose the correct item by guessing from the given alternatives instead of understanding the correct item by guessing from the listening materials. In another one the students may understand the listening materials, but fail to choose the correct item, just because it takes them too much time to read the given alternatives if the given ones are in long sentences.There is little time for them to pick a correct item. So it is clear that the multiple-choice in listening teaching cannot really reflect students’listening abilities, and students’listening abilities cannot be improved by such listening practice.The third problem lies in the teaching model used nowadays in classroom activities. Because of the limited classroom hours and the large size of class, listening classes are usually conducted in this way: the teacher plays therecorded materials and the students listen and do the exercises. He plays the tape several times,pauses at the difficult sentences,explains the meaning, and sometimes asks students to recall the whole sentence, and at last checks the answers. It is easy for teacher to conduct such kind of listening class. While it is very boring for students to have such kind of listening class which totally ignores student motivation and can not arouse students’ interest.2 Communicative ApproachIn this chapter, the author will first state definition of communicative approach and then give some relevant theories in detail, which will act as the theoretical base of the thesis.2.1 Definition of Communicative ApproachAlthough the movement began as a large British innovation, focusing on alternative conceptions of a syllabus,since the mid-1970s the scope of Communicative Language Teaching has expanded.As for the meaning of the word communicative, there seems to be many misunderstandings.For example,communicative equals oral work, communicative means group work or communicative denies the participation of teachers as a major focus in the classroom. According to Holliday, the word, “communicative refers to a whole range of aspects of the approach: teaching communicativecompetence, teaching language as communication, having students communicate with each other and with the teacher, and ensuring that the methodology communicates with the students and other concerned parties”.[8]There have been a lot of writings on the theory. In Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching, Richards and Rodgers point out that both American and British applied linguistics define the communicative approach as (a) making communicative competence the goal of language teaching and (b) developing procedures for the teaching of four language skills that acknowledge the interdependence of language and communication.[9]There is no single text or authority on it, nor a single model that is universally accepted as authoritative. For some, Communicative approach means little more than an integration of grammatical and functional teaching. Little wood states, “One of the most Characteristic features of communicative language teaching are that it pays systematic attention to functional as well as structural aspects of language”. [10]For others, it means using procedures where learners work in pairs or groups employing available language resources in problem-solving tasks.Today, there are two versions of communicative approach in its global practice. The stronger version that insists on acquiring communicative competence through communication activities,totally neglects any intentional learning of grammar. Littlewood gave a name to this way of learning as Natural Learning Model, because the followers of this model believe grammar can be picked up in the course of their communication activities.The weaker version of communicative approach regards knowledge ofgrammar (the form or structure of the target language) as an integral part of communicative competence. When you learn a foreign language, you must learn its grammar rules so as to facilitate correct and better use of the target language in communication. [11]If the former could be described as learning to use English, the latter entails using English to learn it.` David Nunan offered five points to characterize the Communicative approach.1) An emphasis on learning to communicate through interactions in the target language;2) The introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation;3) The provision of opportunities for learners to focus, not only on language but also on the learning process itself;4) An enhancement of the learner’s own personal experiences as important contributing elements to classroom learning;5) An attempt to link classroom language learning with language activation outside the classroom.[12]The most obvious characteristics of the communicative approach are that everything that is done is done with a communicative intent. Students use the language great deal through communicative activities such as games, role-plays, and problem-solving tasks.2.2 Theory Concerning Communicative ApproachThe communicative approach in language teaching starts from a theory of language as communication. The goal of language teaching is to develop what Hymens refers to as competence. The next part will focus on this point .The term communicative competence was first coined by Hymns in order to contrast a communicative view of language with Chomsky’s theory of competence. Chomsky held that linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker-listener in a completely homogeneous speech community, who knows its language perfectly and is unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant considerations as memory limitation, distractions, shifts of attention and interest, and errors in applying his knowledge of the language in actual performance .[13] Hymens held that linguistic theory needed to be seen as a part of a more general theory incorporating communication and culture.[14]In his paper delivered in 1966 at a conference on language development among disadvantaged children, Homes points out that Chomsky’s theory of competence provides no place for competence for language use and neither does his theory of performance, despite his equating language use with performance.Sociocultural factors, says Hymes, have a constitutive role in communication and therefore,they will prove of prime importance in linguisti study.The Chomsky restriction of the concept of competence to the perfect knowledge of an ideal speaker-listener, in a homogenous speech community, unaffected by sociocultural or psychological restraints, cannot account for the communicative function of language. Indeed, linguistics needs a theory that cannot deal with differentialcompetence within a heterogeneous speech community.Therefore, Hymes argues, “if an adequate theory of language users and language use is to be developed, judgments must be recognized to be not of two kinds (grammaticality and acceptability) but of four, and if linguistic theory is to be integrated with theory of communication and culture, this four-fold distinction must be stated in a sufficiently generalized way”[15]Whether (and to what degree) something is formally possible.Whether (and to what degree) something is feasible in virtue of the means of implementation available.Whether (and to what degree) something is appropriate (adequate, happy, successful) in relation to a context in which it is used and evaluated.Whether (and to what degree) something is in fact done, actually performed and what its doing entails.The first sector is very much like Chomsky's original competence. It corresponds to the term of grammaticality and expresses the systematic potential of Language.The second sector deals with the notion of feasibility. Systematic potential might allow for a sentence like“the mouse the cat the dog the man the woman married beat chased ate had a white tail,”[16] but a native speaker knows that this is not feasible or possible in real life. Again there are no rules to say how many adjectives one may have before a noun, but at some point the native speaker will say that there are too many to make sense. It is no longer feasible.The third sector relates the concept of appropriateness. “A sentence may begrammatically possible, feasible but inappropriate. For example, the sentence do you fancy a bite to eat this evening?[17]May sound inappropriate if one is speaking to his superior whereas the question ,I was wondering if you’d like to come to dinner this evening?(I bid) may not. All native speakers know how to choose the suitable thing to say in a given situation. Put otherwise, the native speaker’s underlying competence includes rules of appropriateness.The fourth sectors mentioned above constitute a native speaker’s communicative competence, reflecting his grammatical (formally possible), psycholinguistic (implementation all feasible),sociocultural(contextually appropriate) and the actual (actually occurring) knowledge and ability for use.The final sector concerns with oc currence. “A sentence may be possible, feasible and appropriate but not occur.”[18] The sentence “May God be with yo u”is an example of such. A native speaker knows whether or not something is said in the language.In sum, says hymes the goal of a broad theory of competence can be said to be to show the ways in which the systematically possible, the feasible and the appropriate are linked to produce and interpret actually occurring cultural behavior.[19]Therefore, as language learners, they need to know rules of language as well as rules of language uses. Another famous linguist Halliday further complements Hyms’s view of communicative competence with his powerful theory of functions of language. Some other source of communicative views of language can be found in Cooper, Henry Widdowson,Canale andSwainand other linguists. Theirviews have formed the basis of the theory of language and learning in modern popular teaching approac h the communicative approach, which emphasizes that the goal of language learning is communicative competence.2.3 Advantages of CLT in Listening TeachingCommunication is very important in listening teaching, through communication, students can increase their language store as they listen to authentic materials.In a communicative classroom,almost everything is done with a communicative intent. There are a variety of games, role-plays, simulations, and task-based interactive activities between students or between the students and teachers. By using this approach in listening teaching will increase students' interest. Students often feel boded and depressed under the circumstance of the present listening models in the classroom .Some activities and teaching techniques that involve communicative approach can enliven the atmosphere of the class , thus improving the result of listening teaching. As we know most of the listening tasks used presently in classroom are in the multiple-choice format. And overusing multiple-choice Format inevitably hinders students improving their listening ability.While listening tasks designed in communicative approach are simulated to the communicative activities in real life, which to the most extent can motivate them to participate in communication. Communicative approach is learner-centered. Learners are not passive recipients. Instead, they actively participate in classroom learning process, performing tasksand taking the responsibility of their own learning.3 The Application of Communicative Approach in Listening TeachingThe previous section we have mentioned the definition and characteristics of the listening comprehension, and theory Concerning Communicative approach .and this chapter intends to study how communicative approach teaching can be applied in listening teaching.3.1 The Choice of Listening MaterialsListening materials plays in important role in listening teaching, even if not totally they should be approximate as closely as possible to the real situation. Obviously, communicative listening materials should be used in listening activities.3.1.1 Live SpeechBecause most listening materials used in listening class are the extracts of discourse which students may face in real life, live speech plays an important role in classroom listening activities. How can listening materials be represented live in classroom activities? Penny Ur suggested that theteacher can take the information he/she wants to convey to the class and deliver it in his/her own words.[20]Simplifying and slowing down a little perhaps to suit his or her students' level, but providing nevertheless a reasonable model of spontaneous natural speech. Thus, it is much easier for the teacher to control the level of difficulty and normality. While non-native teachers feel uneasy about doing that, because they don't have enough confidence in lexis, syntax and so on. In short, they are unsure if they are speaking correctly or using an appropriate variety of the language.Penny Ur also pointed out that their pronunciation, spontaneity is far more important than accuracy and students who learn from native English speakers do not necessarily seem to acquire noticeably better accents than those who come from non-native. Therefore, it is not necessary for the teacher to focus on accuracy of the language too much. What they should do is to improvise listening materials as often as possible.3.1.2 Using RecordingsNowadays, most listening practice is based on tape recordings. Penny Ur.says“Let’s look objectively at the pros and cons”[21]Taped listening passages can be prepared in advance, thus saving work for the teacher in the actual lesson. At the same time, recordings may expose students to the greatest extent in native accents, and provide students with far greater range of language situations, different voices and accents, moods, registers, and。