An Experimental Research Into The Effect Of Reading Aloud In English On Rural Junior High School Students' Listening Comprehension

Listening is one of the four basic skills of a language.It is an important mean for people to obtain information and to acquire knowledge directly.In English teaching and learning,listening plays an important role in promoting students' mastery of English language knowledge and cultivating students' practical ability to use language.However,rural junior high school students' listening comprehension is particularly poor.Students cannot recognize the words and material while hearing them and the speed of the students' comprehension cannot keep up with that of listening.Reading aloud is regarded as a sufficient and effective method in teaching and learning language.There are a number of studies on listening comprehension and on reading aloud.Nevertheless,there are few researches on the relationship between reading aloud and students' listening comprehension,and those carried out in rural junior high schools are much fewer.The present study firstly theoretically expounds the relationship between reading aloud and listening comprehension.After analyzing the characteristics of reading aloud,it holds that reading aloud is beneficial to the development of sound recognition system.By analyzing the relevant theories of listening comprehension,it points out that the key to the process of listening comprehension is the sound discrimination stage.It is concluded that there is close relationship between reading aloud and listening comprehension.Based on the above analysis,Input Hypothesis,Information Processing Model and three listening models,a 16-week experiment was conducted to attempt to answer the two research questions: 1)Can reading aloud improve rural junior high school students' listening comprehension proficiency? 2)To what extent does reading aloud affect the listening comprehension proficiency of students at different levels in rural junior high school? 82 students of Grade Eight from a rural junior high school in Zengcheng District,Guangzhou were selected as the subjects.The 41 students in the experimental class read aloud the language materials while the 41 students in the control class read the same language materials silently.Pre-test and post test were carried out in the two classes.3 students of top listening level and 3 students of low listening level from the experimental class were interviewed after the experiment.Data collected from the tests and interview were analyzed by the SPSS.It is found that reading aloud can improve students' listening comprehension proficiency in rural junior high school and that reading aloud has greater effect on listening comprehension proficiency of students at top level than those at low level.In conclusion,the application of reading aloud in English teaching and learning plays a positive effect on students' listening comprehension proficiency.Teachers and students in rural junior high school are encouraged to apply reading aloud method.It is hoped that the research can provide some enlightenment for the application of reading aloud to English listening teaching and learning in rural junior high school.