A Study On English Majors’ English Listening Comprehension In Independent Colleges

As an important part of English education, listening teaching and research hasbeen paid more and more attention to. At present, to improve the students’ listeningcomprehension has been regarded as one of the main tasks in the process of Englishteaching. However, to various people, there are many different obstacles affectinglistening comprehension. This research aims to analyze the listening comprehensionobstacles of English majors in independent colleges and to explore the appropriatecountermeasures to help the students overcome their difficulties in listeningcomprehension and improve their English listening ability.The present thesis aims to address the following questions:1. Is there a positive correlation between content schemata (i.e. familiarity withtopics of listening materials) and the listening comprehension accuracy of Englishmajors in independent colleges?2. Which type of schema causes greater obstacles in the listening comprehensionof English majors in independent colleges?3. Are there other factors affecting the listening comprehension of Englishmajors in independent colleges?In order to answer the above three research questions, with the guidance ofschema theory and theories of listening strategies, two paper tests and a questionnairewere respectively designed, and the study was conducted in Wuchang University ofTechnology (WUT). The paper tests consisting of a topic familiarity test (TFT) and alistening comprehension test (LCT) aim at analyzing the correlation between topicfamiliarities and listening accuracy. The questionnaire probes into the causes oflistening comprehension obstacles.The results of the study shows that:1) The familiarity with the related contentschemata does not necessarily mean better listening comprehension accuracy;2) Asfor English majors in independent colleges, the deficiency of linguistic schemata attributes more to the listening comprehension barriers;3) Apart from obstacles interms of language competence, listening strategies as well as psychological factorsaffect their listening comprehension greatly.Based on these findings, strategies like developing linguistic competence,strengthening guidance of listening strategies and reducing psychological barriers areproposed, which is expected to be helpful for students in independent colleges.