A Cognitive Perspective On English Majors' Listening Comprehension Difficulties And Their Use Of Strategies

It has been widely acknowledged that second language (L2) listening comprehension is a complex process, and it is crucial in the development of second language competence. The present thesis attempts to explore English majors'listening comprehension difficulties and their use of strategies in listening comprehension, so as to provide suggestions on how to improve English listening teaching in China.The thesis is composed of the following six chapters:Chapter One serves as the background of the research. After introducing the importance of listening in language learning and the current situation of Chinese English majors'listening learning, it discusses the necessity and significance of listening learning study.Chapter Two focuses on the theoretical underpinnings of the present study. After elucidating the reason that the present study is contextualized within the cognitive framework, this chapter emphasizes the theories of listening comprehension process. It introduces the bottom-up and top-down processing theories together with the three phases (perception, parsing and utilization) processing theory. After that, this chapter discusses the causes of second language listening comprehension difficulties. Then, a brief description of listening comprehension strategies is provided.Chapter Three is a review of studies related to the present study. The first part of this chapter is about foreign and domestic empirical studies on listening comprehension difficulties, and the latter part is about foreign and domestic empirical studies on listening comprehension strategies.