A Qualitative Study of the Teaching Effectiveness of English Listening Class

趙張立

【Abstract】English listening teaching and learning is an import field that has acquired scholars attention. With the development of technology， in todays English listening class， teaching equipment has been changing， and the mental and emotional standards of English learners and teachers are different. Therefore， English listening teaching and learning still leave space for continuing study. The study reported in this article was designed as an interview-based， field observing study to investigate the effectiveness of English listening class.

【Key words】English listening class?teaching effectiveness?listening material

Listening comprehension is one of the most important ways through which people receive information in daily communication and it plays an important role in the learning of the English language. Johann Gottfried Von Herder once said that ears are the first teacher who teaches language （qtd.in Pan Yaling， 2004， p.127）. In todays English listening class， teaching equipment has been changing， and the mental and emotional standards of English learners and teachers are different. Therefore， English listening teaching and learning still leave space for continuing study. English listening classes are provided to almost every university students， no matter what major they are. The writer of this article is curious about the teaching outcomes of listening class.

The researcher attended the English listening classes of a Spanish major class with 22 students including 4 male students and 18 female in Tianjin foreign Studies University. The students average age is 21. In order to investigate the result of listening class in more depth， the researcher invited four students and the teacher to participate in an interview. This study was designed to investigate the effectiveness of English listening class. The study addresses two research questions： a How are English listening classes carried out？ b How do students and the teacher comment the effectiveness of an English listening class？

The study was designed as an interview-based， field observing study. The study concentrates on four students and the teacher. The research sample is randomly selected in which three students are female and one male. In the study， the researcher focused on five parts： teaching materials， class atmosphere， students reaction， interaction between students and the teacher， and the method of checking teaching effectiveness.

Students are familiar with this listening class routine and no question or interruption is involved during all these lessons. Students anxiety level is low. The cause of the low anxiety standard is inquired into during the interview. It is the teachers less threatening teaching style and friendly personality. The last 30 minutes of the class is spent on watching videos and students seem to be more attracted and all look at their computer carefully. The interaction between teacher and students are focused on the background information and exercise answer checking part. Students are quite interested in the enlightening cultural information. Multiple choice question are solved by speak out the letter of the right answer.endprint

Questions were asked about how they feel about the English listening class. In all four student interviews， it become clear that the participants felt unsatisfied about the effectiveness of listening class， and in the teacher interview， the teacher suggested that listening classes still need improving. During the class lead-in process， language difficulty and cultural shock are avoid， so that students are linguistically， mentally and emotionally prepared for the listening exercise. This conclusion is also proved by the interview data.

Answer checking part lacks possibility for deeper discussion because of the kind of question. From the data of the interview， a diploma is defined that students are much more interested in the latest news， movies or any other video materials than the listening materials of the listening textbook， while based on the observation and teacher interview， we see that， the teaching effectiveness of textbook exercise could be checked quickly and effectively， but interaction between teacher and student after out of text book multimedia material is totally neglected. Designing questions to check the teaching effective of supplementary listening materials should get much more attention.endprint