A Study On College English Listening&Speaking Teaching And Pragmatic Failures Of Freshmen

In this thesis, the author tries to find out the conditions of college students’pragmatic competence before and after taking the College English Listening andSpeaking course. The paper is theoretically based on the theory of pragmatic failuresput forward by Thomas and other relevant pragmatic theories and it aims to know theconditions of students’ grasp of the pragmatic knowledge and if the students meet therequirements of the College English Syllabus after studying the course. Some reasonsfor students’ pragmatic failures are analyzed and strategies for avoiding students’pragmatic failures are also put forward.The author makes a survey on three classes majoring in accounting from JilinBusiness and Technology College from September to December,2013. The survey isconducted through questionnaire, and the following research questions are posed:1. What are the conditions of college students’ pragmatic competence before and aftertaking the College English Speaking and Listening course according to thequestionnaires?2. Which pragmatic failure do they usually commit? pragmalinguisticfailure or sociolinguistic failure? Are there any distinct differences between them?3. When are students more likely to commit pragmatic failures? In which situation orreferring to which topics. What are reasons for it?4. Have the students met therequirements of the College English Syllabus after studying the course?The questionnaires are divided into two types, Questionnaire1which is fromHE and YAN, Questionnaire2which is self-designed. It is used to make a survey onthe conditions of students’ pragmatic competence before and after taking theListening and Speaking course. Through the investigation, the following conclusionscould be drawn: The situation of students’ pragmatic competence is not satisfactory asa whole, pragmatic failures can be found in most of the answers collected; Pragmatic failures found in the second survey are fewer than that in the first survey in bothquestionnaires; Compared with sociopragmatic failure, students are more likely tocommit pragmalinguistic failure; The topics or situations in which students are morelikely to commit pragmatic failures involve addressing, compliments and non-verbalcommunication; Most students do not meet the requirements of the College EnglishSyllabus after studying the course.The author makes an analysis of reasons for students’ pragmatic failures and putforward some strategies for teaching. Therefore, teachers should have the awarenessof improving students’ pragmatic competence in daily teaching and improve students’English abilities to use language.