A Complementary Mode of College English Listening Instruction

【Abstract】This article aims to discover and address the problems occur in the college English listening class for non-English majors in a medical university in Guizhou province. By analyzing the context where the situation takes place， a complementary mode of listening instruction is propsed to tackle the apparent reticence and the lack of interaction of the students in listening class.

【Key words】listening instruction； interactive listening teaching； motivation

1. Introduction

This article focuses on the listening class of the non-English major students in a medical university in Guizhou province， southwest China where English is regarded as a foreign language. The Chinese college English syllabus states that the importance of college English education should be focused on developing students communicative language ability. Therefore， how to improve students communicative ability should be one of the priorities for college English teachers to consider when they are designing their own lessons.

Listening， which occupies almost half of the time that a person is engaged in communication， plays a crucial role in improving students L2 communicative language ability. Thus， the teaching of listening is undoubtedly essential in college English education. However， in Guizhou， the teaching of listening seems to have been and still be neglected especially in middle schools. No listening training is provided in most of the middle schools due to the fact that listening is not tested in the English Test of College Entrance Examination in Guizhou province. Some of the students had never received any formal educational training in listening before they entered the university. They dont have a clear clue of what is listening and what exactly they should do in the listening class， so they are too confused and reluctant to give active responses to the teacher in class. So this article aims to find a solutions to the problems of the listening class in the current university.

2. The problems of the listening class

In the university discussed in this article， the college English education is divided into two levels. The students are taught elementary college English in the first two academic years， while medical English in the last two or three years. The class is usually made up of fifty to seventy intermediate-advanced students， which is regarded as a big multilevel class by most of the teachers. The teachers feel difficult to handle this kind of classes because the language proficiency of the students is not balanced， and it is unable for the teachers to meet the need of each student in class. Some students seldom or even never actively participate in classroom activities， so it requires the teachers to spend more time preparing for the lessons and thinking of different ways to motivate the students and involve as many of them as they can in classroom activities.

The listening lesson in the current university is often given at the beginning of each unit of the textbook. Eight lessons for each unit， listening occupies two lessons （40 minutes for one lesson）. Based on the teachers teaching experience and previous observations of the listening classes， the listening class generally follows the routine shown in the following table.

Table 1， The routine lesson plan

Lesson plan for the listening section of one unit in the textbook

Pre-listening

Introduce cultural notes on the topic of the listening tasks.

Teach vocabulary or listening strategies

While-Listening

Listening to short conversations.

Multiple choices task

Listening to long conversations.

First listening： listening for gist

Second listening： finishing multiple choices task

Listening to long passages.

First listening： listening for gist

Second listening： listening for details

Third listening： check the answers of the tasks

Post-listening

Re-listen to some recordings with pauses and ask the students to repeat the recording.

As we may notice from table 1 that the teacher and the recordings are the center of the listening class. Listening is more likely to be tested than taught in the class. Teachers are only record players and answers providers. Students only respond to the questions in the listening exercises. It is easily observable that in the listening classes the students are relatively reticent and passive than in other classes like reading and speaking. Some of the students complain that what they are doing in listening class is to endlessly listen to the recordings， finish the exercises， and correct the answers. Listening to them is only a passive activity in which they just sit in their seats with sounds coming through their ears. The interaction in the listening class is extremely limited and listening instruction becomes a unidirectional process for our students， thus they often feel dull and unmotivated to participate.

Students are not motivated to learn English. From the conversations with the students and also with the teachers， it is not hard to find that most of the students are primarily motivated by one test after another. This is typically evident when you enter the bookstores outside the university. The most popular English books are all kinds of books concerning test！ Most bookshelves are full of books providing information and tips for CET 4， TEM 4， and entrance examination for postgraduate studies.

The teaching materials used in the listening class are solely the recordings from the textbook which are not suitable for teaching listening comprehension as a communicative skill. They are merely written texts read and recorded by some native speakers. Our teachers never do any change to the listening materials. They design their lessons based on the original materials rather than adapt or improve the materials to fit in their own teaching context.

3. Possible solutions to the problem

Based on what is observed in the listening class， it is obvious that the change of the traditional one-way teaching mode appears to be necessary and essential to motivate the students to participate actively in class and to increase classroom interaction. Then the following three suggestions might be the possible solutions to change the teaching mode of the listening class in the current university.

3.1 Complementary teaching mode

The traditional teaching mode is one influential factor to students classroom participation in the listening class. The one-way teaching mode in the listening class may result in the reticence of the students. Therefore， the implement of interactive teaching may be one， not necessarily the only， solution to the problem. Cook （2011） points out interactive teaching， compared with traditional teaching mode， emphasizes the mutual interaction of three orientations that is between teachers and students， between students and students， and between students and the texts. It is not the teacher but the students that are in control of the class. Xie （2010） suggests this mode of class is more students-centered than teacher-centered in which teachers should avoid playing a dominant and authoritarian role. The students in such classes may have and be willing to take more opportunities to get access to different types of language input and also to interact with others.

Then， in listening class， students should have the right to decide what and how to listen， when to stop and start， and it will be useful for them to be also provided opportunities to have access to different listening machines. In this case， it is feasible to divide the students into small groups， especially in a large class， and allow them to use their own facilities like iPod， mobile phone， or mp3， etc. They need to communicate with other members of the group to choose a material to listen to together， or they may listen to different materials at their own speed by themselves and then exchange ideas about what they have understood from the material to supplement each others comprehension. Another suggestion from Harmer （2007） is that teachers may ask students to close their eyes， and raise their hands whenever they feel a need to stop or repeat the recording. In this way， students may feel much more secured because they do not have to ask for a pause in front of their classmates.

However， if we want to implement the interactive teaching in our listening class， we will definitely come across many difficulties in actual practice. On the one hand， we should think of the fact that listening instruction is for pedagogical purposes. We cannot go too far to ignore its pedagogical purposes， and we do not want our students to lose control in class. On the other hand， the interactive class has a much higher requirement both to the teacher and to the students， particularly in listening class. Considering the relatively low and unbalanced English proficiency of the students of the current university， it will be very hard to do so.

Therefore， a complementary mode appears to be more practical. Interactive teaching may not be carried out through the whole class. It occurs on different levels and different time of the teaching process. Teachers may use some interactive listening activities in class instead of making the whole period of class interactive. Moreover， because the listening class in this university is made up of sixty-seventy students， it will be difficult to carry out the interactive activities to the whole class， so the teacher may need to divide students into small groups. Then the teacher should monitor the whole class paying attention to the students to see whether they feel dull or too excited， and then be ready to change the teaching mode at any time. He may also need to go to some groups to see if the students need any help. As we may see from table 1， the post-listening stage seems to have been ignored， so the teacher should provide more post-listening activities to students. They may do some preparation work for the next class， some extensive listening for gist or activities which allow the students and the teacher to exchange ideas with each other.

3.2 Design authentic activities and materials

The teacher has to design his own activities and he should remember that the activities need to be authentic， or at least the materials should be authentic， for the students to be exposed to the real-life communicative situation. The teacher should also be aware of the focus of the activity， because it is listening we are teaching. He may be an onlooker as well as a participant of the activity. The activities should be interesting and able to give students reasons for listening. Feedback from the teacher or from the peers is also necessary， and the students are expected to give response to the feedback to make this process a conversation.

Listening materials for an interactive activity are better to be authentic. According to Wilson （2009）， the authenticity of a listening text is determined by the purpose of the text， that is to say， the purpose of people using the text in real life is to communicate rather than to teach language in class. It is easy to find authentic materials like radio， film or TV， songs， and so on， especially through the Internet.

As is mentioned before， the teachers in the current university never do any change to the listening material. However， what really matters here is what the teacher does with and to the material. The teacher has to adapt the material to meet the need of the students and the activity. To put it in a simple way， the teacher has to make the material easier or more difficult according to the need of the activity or the English proficiency of his students.

3.3 Create reasons for listening

Gardner & Lambert （1972） identifies two orientations of motivation： integrative and instrumental. According to their theory of motivation， the students in the current university are mostly motivated by the instrumental motivation. Their purposes of learning listening are mainly to pass the exam， to get the CET 4 certificate， and to graduate successfully， due to the fact that they are living in a monolingual country where English is regarded as a foreign language. They do not have opportunities to use English in their daily life. Insufficient integrative motivation may influence students interest in learning. Therefore， to help students construct their integrative motivation of listening is seemingly to be one possibility to cope with the problem.

On the one hand， people listen for different purposes in real-life situation. By giving our students reasons for listening and providing them opportunities to use the langue may motivate them to listen and participate actively. Therefore， the teacher may incorporate some motivational activities in the pre-listening stage using adapted authentic materials which the students are interested in to create their short-term motivation in class. On the other hand， students have more opportunities to get access to visual and audio language materials especially via the Internet， so the teacher may encourage the students to do more extensive-listening after class. Songs， films and video are extremely attractive to the students and the teacher can also try to use more of these materials in listening activities. In this way， our students may gradually become interested in English culture or people and consequently the language.

4. Conclusion

In the domain of L2 teaching， the teaching of listening has been widely studied in the past decades. However， comparatively less attention has been focused on the interactive teaching of listening. This article proposed a complementary mode of listening class to deal with the issues of students reticence and lack of motivation in listening class by integrating the traditional teaching mode with the interactive teaching mode and promoting students motivation. Further work needs to done to examine the effectiveness of this complementary mode of listening instruction.

References：

[1]Cook，V.（2011）.Second language learning and language teaching.4th ed.Beijing：Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.

[2]Gardner，R.C.&Lambert，W.E.（1972）.Attitudes and motivation in second language learning.Rowley，Mass：Newbury House.

[3]Harmer，J.（2007）.The practice of English language teaching.4th ed.Harlow：Longman.

[4]Wilson，J.J.（2009）.How to teach listening.2nd impression.Harlow：Pearson Longman.

[5]Xie，X.Y.（2010）.Why are students quiet？ Looking at the Chinese context and beyond.ELT Journal.64（1），pp.10-20.

作者簡(jiǎn)介：阮曄（1981-），女，漢族，貴州遵義人，遵義醫(yī)學(xué)院講師，碩士，研究方向：二語(yǔ)習(xí)得、英語(yǔ)教學(xué)。