English Listening Through Videos: An Experimental Study

In recent years, listening comprehension has received increasing recognition as a language skill that ought to be researched and taught in its own right. Two key reasons exist for this development, one theoretical and the other practical. From a theoretical perspective, listening is seen as a vital means of linguistic input for language learners. Several theories derived from empirical research emphasize the important role listening comprehension plays in the early stages of language acquisition. From the practical point of view, more people are learning English to communicate orally with speakers of English outside their own countries. The Ministry of Education has made explicit that college English teaching aims to improve students'comprehensive ability to use English, especially listening and speaking ability. However, the listening course is not easy to the teachers as well as the students. Especially in the Higher Vocational College, students have poor English foundation and their listening ability is the worst, while the listening teaching is not satisfactory.Through an experiment which lasted one semester, this study aimed to find out the effects of videos in English listening teaching and the methods to make good use of videos to promote teaching and improve students listening ability. In the thesis, the author first introduces theories of Krashen's Input Hypothesis and Affective Filter Hypothesis supporting the application of English videos to listening class, then uses the new teaching method in a social constructivist model. The subjects in the experiment were 100 college students randomly chosen in the first year students. They were divided into two groups, namely, the experimental group and the control group. With various activities designed by the teacher, English videos were applied as listening materials for the experimental group, while the control group just used the traditional textbooks for listening. The instruments included questionnaires, interviews and tests.With help of the software SPSS13.0, the data of the tests were analyzed. The results indicated that both the experimental group and the control group made significant progress in their English listening ability, but the experimental group has got significantly bigger progress than the control group. According to the analysis of questionnaires and interviews directed to the teachers and students, most of them had positive attitudes to this new teaching method. They believed that this new method could provide a relaxed and pleasure environment to better motivate students and lower their anxiety comparing with the traditional listening teaching with textbooks. Students in the control group benefited a lot from the experiment. The new teaching method improved their listening ability and stimulated their interest in English and participation in class. In addition, they became more aware of the non-verbal communication and western cultures.The study indicates that teaching listening through videos has more advantages than the traditional listening teaching with textbooks. Besides, the author discusses the teaching procedure, the selection of videos, the classroom activities as well as their effects. Finally, the limitations of this study were presented. Suggestions are made for future study.