Constructing Listening Teaching Strategies Based On Analysis Of Listening Tests Of Senior High School Entrance Examination

For human beings,listening is the initial step to perceive the world.It is not only a precondition of human normal communication but also the basis of second language acquisition.Teaching listening is of great importance in language teaching.The National English Curriculum Standard for Compulsory Education(2011 version)has put much emphasis on listening teaching,which categorizes listening as one of the four language skills and classifies listening learning and teaching objectives into five levels.With the general direction of curriculum standard,the Senior High School Entrance Examination(SHSEE)has also attached great importance to the listening test,which accounts for 20% to 30% of total scores and function to examine the listening ability of high level.However,listening has remained one of the challenging parts for most students,who have difficulty in obtaining and decoding information because of lack of appropriate instructions and sufficient practice.Meanwhile,there are many English teachers teaching listening with limited listening teaching strategies in class.In this way,students' listening ability may not be improved effectively.Considering the reality of listening learning and teaching,it is necessary for teachers to explore some effective teaching strategies to improve the quality of listening class.Based on the Schema Theory and the Backwash Effect,this study attempted to construct strategies of teaching listening in junior high school in accordance with the analysis of the listening tests of the Sichuan Senior High School Entrance Examination,and then to testify the effectiveness of these strategies.The following two questions were proposed in this study:(1)How can the listening teaching strategies be constructed based on the analysis of listening tests of the Senior High School Entrance Examination in Sichuan Province?(2)What are the effects of the constructed listening teaching strategies? This study combined quantitative and qualitative research methods to conduct a comparative teaching experiment in two classes of a junior high school in Sichuan Province.First,the listening tests of Sichuan Senior High School Entrance Examination were analyzed and the features were summarized.Next,on the basis of theanalysis,corresponding listening teaching strategies were proposed.After that,a10-week teaching experiment was conducted in the two classes,when the students in the experimental class were taught with applying listening teaching strategies while in the control class,the way of teaching remained the same.Finally,the changes of the two classes before and after the experiment were discussed along with the results of the interview with the students in the experimental class to examine the effectiveness of the constructed listening teaching strategies.The study found that(1)Through the analysis of the listening tests of the Sichuan Senior High School Entrance Examination from four dimensions,including form of presentation,type of question,topic and skills,the corresponding listening teaching strategies could be constructed from the four dimensions.According to the analysis of form of presentation,two teaching strategies of emphasizing the cultivation of awareness of text and increasing the diversity of listening materials were provided.In the aspect of type of question,taking advantage of visual materials and designing listening questions with various types were suggested.In light of the analysis of topic,the teaching strategies of broadening related expressions based on familiar topics and creating opportunities for students to experience unfamiliar topics were proposed.As for skills,focusing on the training of basic listening skills and cultivating advanced listening skills and thinking quality were summarized as possible listening teaching strategies.(2)Generally speaking,the constructed listening teaching strategies had positive effects on students' listening performance,which could help improve students' listening ability.The positive effects of the listening teaching strategies can be shown from the four aspects.In terms of form of presentation,the improvement of the students in the experimental class in single sentence,short conversation and long conversation was more significant.As for type of question,the students in the experimental class improved their listening performance on the questions of picture-selection and multiple choices more significantly.In terms of topic,the learners in the experimental class and control class improved their performance on listening questions with familiar topics significantly,although their improvement in the listening questions with unfamiliar topics was not obvious.As for listening skills,after the teaching experiment,the students in the experimental class got higher scores on the questions of makinginferences based on content and understanding speakers' intentions,views and attitudes.Based on the findings above,this study put forward three suggestions for the listening teaching in junior high school:(1)Reduce or eliminate the anxiety of students before listening and speaking.(2)Conduct text analysis carefully when preparing the listening class.(3)Help students experience listening materials with unfamiliar topics.