A Survey Study On The Teaching Of English Listening And Speaking In Mongolian Rural Senior High Schools

As an indispensable part of English learning, listening and speaking is a prerequisite of foreign language teaching. The ultimate goal of second and foreign language learning is to attain the skills to acquire, and process information for communication. Listening and speaking are two fundamental skills in English learning, the level of which is an indication of an individual's ability in communication and practice, and it is also an important process as the premise and main approach to improve English as a whole. Listening and speaking, as the basic skills of language communication, are the important qualities of students' English competence. The new national English Curriculum Standards has made the specific requirements for the cultivation of English listening and speaking ability for senior high school students. It says "The general goal of English Curriculum in junior middle school is to cultivate students' comprehensive ability,and in senior high school , students should be able to exchange information with other people on a variety of topics in daily life, and to state their views."Under the influence of examination oriented education, in rural areas, awareness for the need of English listening and speaking teaching in high schools is weak and the evaluation criteria of students' performance are limited to the test scores. In high schools' general English tests there are usually no listening and speaking tests. Because listening is excluded from the total scores in college entrance examination, it leads to the results that students do not show interest or attach importance to the practice of English listening and speaking.Based on the theory of interaction, task-based language teaching, situational language teaching this research selected 200 senior high school students and 30 teachers in Qianqi No.1 High School, Xingan League as the subjects of the investigation. Through the analysis of the questionnaire and interview, we can see that current situation of teaching of English listening and speaking in the Mongolian rural senior high school is pessimistic. Most students have rather poor foundation of English; their English listening and speaking abilities are weak; they are lack of relevant learning strategies, lack of ideal learning environment, lack of the ability to use the learning resources available; teachers' teaching methods are traditional; they seldom practice English listening and speaking in class; more qualified and competent teachers are required; some textbook materials are difficult for the students. Based on the findings the research puts forward some strategies for the improvement of the English teaching quality to enhance the English listening and speaking ability of the Mongolian rural senior high school students.This paper consists of six parts: the first part briefly describes the research background of the study and the status of Mongolian high school students' English learning; the second part provides the theoretical basis for the study and relevant research both at home and aboard; in the third part, the objectives of the study are presented first, followed by the specific process of data collection, and analysis and discussion of the results of the questionnaire and interview; the fourth part is an elaborate analysis of the present situation of English listening and speaking teaching in Mongolian senior high school; the fifth part summarizes the major findings and puts forward some suggestions about teaching speaking and listening; the sixth part provides a summary and points out the limitations of this research and some suggestions for future research.