A Study On The Application Of Relevance Theory To English Listening Teaching

This thesis centers on an application of Relevance Theory to the teaching of English listening. In view of the vital position of listening comprehension ability in successful communication in reality and the deficiency of theoretical guidance to the current college listening class teaching for English majors in many places, this thesis attempts to set up a new teaching model based on Relevance Theory and explore the feasibility of the model by an empirical study.The thesis starts with a review of former linguists'and scholars'understanding and interpretation of listening comprehension from different perspectives as well as the recent studies on listening comprehension teaching methods and models. The problems with the current listening teaching in practice are summarized. Then Relevance Theory is introduced to make up for the defects in the current English listening comprehension teaching models. From the perspective of Relevance Theory, the process of listening is interpreted as a kind of communication as well as a process of searching for the optimal relevance to obtain maximal contextual effect.Then an adapted three-phase listening comprehension teaching model under the guidance of Relevance Theory is constructed. Great efforts are made to elaborate on how to improve students'relevance sensitivity and stimulate their interest in the listening materials, how to design the teaching plan, and how to employ relevance theory to guide every step of listening class. As a great part of listening teaching, news comprehension has always been a headache for the English majors. Under the framework of the adapted teaching model, the author suggests some teaching strategies and methods to help students establish and develop cognitive context in class activity.An empirical study is conducted to further examine the feasibility of the new teaching model. The subjects are two intact classes of term-2 sophomores majoring in English from Xinglin college, Nantong University. Two tests (pre-test and post-test) and a questionnaire are used as instruments in the empirical study. The two tests are used to examine the improvement of students'listening proficiency at the end of study. And the questionnaire is used to investigate students'attitude toward listening class and listening comprehension after the application of the new teaching model. The data collected are processed by SPSS11.0. In addition, a case study is conducted to assess students'improvement in different aspects of listening competence. The results show: (1) The adapted teaching model set up by the author under the guidance of Relevance Theory can highlight teacher's role in the teaching and are more effective in helping students enhance their abilities, compared with the traditional teaching method. (2)Students'attitude toward the adapted teaching model is positive and their interest in listening class is boosted greatly.The thesis comes to an end with a summary of the suggestions based on the findings of the present research on the teaching of English listening. The suggestions are as follow:(1) The teacher in listening class can play an influential role. The teacher is the instructor and guide in the listening process.(2) The teacher can improve the students'inference ability more effectively by helping students to build a reserve of key words and expressions. With the help of this large reserve stored in mind students can easily and quickly find relevance and make inferences.(3) The teacher can teach listening by topics to help students develop relevant context, especially in news broadcast teaching.(4) In order to arouse students'adequate interest in the listening materials the teacher has to pay special attention to the listening materials he chooses. The materials should bear a proper degree of relevance.