Effects Of Listening Process Models Upon Listening Comprehension And Memory

The boost of interest in listening is greatly due to the development in the area of second language acquisition research.Along with such interest,more attention has beenallocated to the practice of listening skill training.The essence of listening comprehension is that listeners process the information by activating and interacting their knowledge strategies with the listening texts,which is inclined to be defined as a dynamic process rather than a passive one by more and more researchers.From the psycholinguistic perspective,listening is a dynamic process in which listeners use different knowledge both linguistic and non-linguistic to identify the aural input to decode and understand the information.And the application and process of the two kinds of knowledge are labeled as listening process models,which are "bottom-up","top-down" and "interactive" listening process model.What are the differences of effects and the relationship of different listening process models on listening comprehension as well as listening recall?What barriers do students encounter in different listening process models?Taking such theory as the basic research background and framework,the present study tries to investigate the effects of different listening process models on the comprehension and listening recall to explore the obstacles in the listening process,trying to discuss the possibility of applying the analyzed results and approaches to English as second language learning.The study lasted for 16 weeks,using pre-test,questionnaires,post-test,interviews as the instruments to collect data and conduct experiment of listening process model training among four groups selected as the participants from Xi'an No.83 Senior High School.The results show that:(1)different groups of students in different listening process models encounter similar obstacles,while the choices of solving those obstacles are different between the relatively skilled listener and the less proficient students;(2)listening process model training has a positive impact and promotes listening comprehension and memory level,among which the effect of "interactive" model is the most significant;the models of the "bottom-up" process and the "top-down" process are mutually beneficial,the adoption and perception of either one having a positive influence and promotion upon the other model;(3)for the memory and recall of listening materials,different groups of students vary in terms of strategy selection,memory focus as well as details.