A Study On The Application Of VOA Special English In Listening Teaching In Secondary Vocational Schools

In the Information Age, along with the fast social and economic development andfrequent international communication, profound changes have taken place in English teachingaims and means and English has been playing more and more important role. Listeningcomprehension, one of the most important ways through which people receive information indaily communication, plays an important role in the learning of the English language. Theability of listening comprehension is an important factor to measure the integrativecompetence of the language learners. And the ability of listening comprehension caninfluence the language learners’ development of other language skills. However, Englishteaching in our country especially the listening comprehension teaching in secondaryvocational school still adheres to the traditional teaching model: listening to therecordings-checking the answers-comparing with the original typescripts-listening to therecordings again. The listening materials used in the textbook of secondary vocational schoolrarely involve the news reports and most of the materials are out of date and cut-and-dried.The improvement of the students’ listening comprehension ability is relatively slow under theinstruction of traditional teaching model. Meanwhile, the traditional teaching model alsorestricts the improvement of the English language ability of the secondary vocational schoolstudents.In view of this current situation, by examination and observation of the listeningcomprehension class of the secondary vocational school, the author finds out the followingfactors that influence and hinder the advancement and improvement of students’ listeningcomprehension ability: the students lack or have little knowledge of the backgroundinformation about the listening materials; they do not know how to make inferences accordingto the specific contexts; the selected listening materials fail to arouse the students’ interest;and an effective teaching model is urgently needed in listening comprehension class. In orderto solve these actual teaching problems, the author proposes a new teaching model which isbased on metacognitive and schema theories, using VOA Special English as a listeningteaching material auxiliary in English listening teaching. The Voice of America, one of the world’s largest news broadcasting agencies, has a huge and far-reaching impact on politicaland cultural life of the world. Just like a living textbook, its English programs can not onlyhelp people grasp the development trend of the modern English, cultivate accurate andauthentic language sense and learn the beautiful, native American English, but also helppeople get to know about the world, especially the background of American history, social life,social customs, cultural practices, and geographical features, broaden our horizons and deepenour understanding of the people all over the world.This thesis intends to demonstrate and prove the advantages of English listening teachingwith VOA Special English as auxiliary materials by comparing the teaching effects oftraditional listening teaching and listening teaching with VOA Special English as auxiliarymaterials. And the thesis also puts forward feasible suggestions for VOA special Englishteaching applied to English listening teaching in the secondary vocational schools. This studytries to provide some teaching strategies for reference for domestic secondary vocationalEnglish listening teaching and related English language teaching to improve English listeningteaching.