浅析交际法在英语听力教学中的应用

论文总字数：30117字

摘 要

交际法理论强调语言的社会交际功能，重视培养语言学习者的交际能力同时，英语听力教学的主要目的在于发展学生运用英语交际的能力。因此，交际法在英语听力教学中起着重要的指导意义。基于交际法的英语听力教学，真实性是其一大特点。交际法能最大限度地模拟学生日常生活中遇到的情境，因此它能让学生对英语更熟悉并且提高语言交际能力。这篇文章主要阐述了交际法的定义以及交际法的特点。进而文章阐明了在学校日常教学中运用交际法的紧迫性。最后，文章阐述了交际法在英语听力教学中的具体运用。

关键词：交际法， 英语听力， 交际能力， 应用

Content

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

3. Definition and Traits of CLT 3

3.1 Definition of CLT 3

3.2 Traits of CLT 3

4. The Urgency of CLT in Present School Teaching 4

5. The Application of CLT in the Teaching of English Listening 7

5.1 Choosing Natural and Authentic Materials 7

5.2 Setting Meaningful Listening Tasks 8

5.3 The Application in Different Stages in a Listening Class 9

5. Conclusion 11

Works Cited 13

1. Introduction

In the end of the 1960s, linguists and teachers of foreign language are dissatisfied with the dominating teaching methods of language. It required language learners to use language in accurate grammatical forms, and the mastery of language structured the measures of competence in a foreign language. People criticize it because this teaching method may cause students’ incompetent communication though they master the structures well. Besides, people had more possibilities to attend communication with people all around the world when they travel around the world. The Council of Europe then paid more attention to these changes. A number of experts set us a scheme to teach the languages of Europe with the needs of adult learners in mind. Finally, people find the Communication Language Teaching.

Communicative language teaching sees language function projects as the program while the developing competence of communication as the goal. It is a teaching method based on a series of social linguistics theories. Communicative competence is the center of communicative approach while enabling learners to use the language in the form of language learning to communicate in different situations effectively and decently is the core of communicative competence. Communicative approach emphasizes not an abstract language form, but the actual use of different languages forms and the communicative function.

Nowadays, English is the leading international language of the world. Many communication methods in official, governmental activities and documents are in English. English is also included in the exam and college entrance examination. We can see that English plays an important role in daily learning. English Listening is the most important part of English teaching. It is an important skill to acquire language information and language experience. It is a necessary part to promote the development of students’ English comprehensive competence. Therefore, teachers and students should be pay large attention to listening in English study. The teaching of English listening combining with communicative approach is an excellent method for both teacher and students to study English more effectively.

2. Literature Review

In the late 1960s, linguists discovered the communicative approach. At that time, people began to question about the current teaching method. Linguistics who were British applied began to emphasize that language should be with potential of communicative and functional. In 1957, Noam Chomsky, as a famous linguist, published “Syntactic Structures”. It challenges the theory of structuralism and behaviorism, which long-term affects the teaching of language. He believes that the form “stimulus-response-reinforcement” of behaviorism can not explain people’s original use of language. Moreover, he believes that mastering a language does not mean as what structuralism perceived to master pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, etc. Correspondingly, in 1971, the American anthropologist Hymes made a famous paper “On Communicative Competence”, which advocated concept of communicative competence. He believes that integrating language should include two other aspects: communication and language. Acquisition should emphasize both the knowledge of the language and the competence of using the language. That is to say acquisition should emphasize both the accuracy of the structure and the suitability of use. What’s more, some English educators such as H.G.. Widdowson and D.A. Wilkins, who are representatives of the Anglo-American countries, believe that popular Audio-lingual Method cannot effectively solve the problem of students’ communicative competence. They believe the center should focus on the teaching of English communicative ability, not just the mastery of structure. In 1976, H.G.. Widdowson formulated “Notional Syllabus” while D.A. Wilkins published “Teaching Language as Communicative” in 1978.

Krashen and Swain’ language input amp; output theory believes that “comprehensible input” is the only information source of the second language acquisition. The main task of the teaching of foreign language is to offer sufficient “comprehensible input” to learners. Optimal language input should include not only the language knowledge that learners have mastered, but also new language knowledge. They particularly emphasize the importance of language output. They believe that language output can not only improve the fluency of language express, but also make learners compensate on what they are learning and cause reflection with conscious, from which to make learners to use language more accurately.

3. Definition and Traits of CLT

3.1 Definition of CLT

Communicative language teaching, which is called CLT for short, is a method to teach foreign languages and second language. Communicative Language Teaching was put forward in the early 1970s. “On Communicative Competence” which was published by social linguist Hymes in 1971, is considered to be the theoretical basis of Communicative Language Teaching. It emphasizes to interact so that to get the ultimate goal. The Communicative Approach is also called Functional Approach and sometimes we call it the Notional Approach as well. It sees “function-ideas” project of the language as the guiding principle, cultivate the learners’ competence of communication in second language teaching.

3.2 Traits of CLT

There are many traits of communicative approach. We can list them in the following aspects: Firstly, the purpose of teaching is to make students pay more attention to communicative competence and enable students to use the language in the correct form of language learning to communicate in different situations effectively and decently. Secondly, communicative approach emphasizes that students play roles of protagonist of the classroom in the school and they should take part in classroom activities actively. Thirdly, communicative approach emphasizes fluency of language and does not request the accuracy of language. So teachers should encourage students to communicate in English boldly both in class and after class. What’ more, the teaching of communicative language encourages learners to compare purposes language with the national cultural, and pays attention to introduce cultural differences and foster cross-cultural knowledge.

According to M. Finocchiaro and C. Brumfit (1983), the traits of communication language teaching can be roughly described as the following aspects:

Communication language teaching focus on meaning and the usage of dialogues must center on communicative function.

Communication language teaching make people learn to communicate and the basic premise of it is conceptualization.

Communication language teaching emphasizes effective communication and comprehensive pronunciation.

Communication language teaching encourages the use of any device which helps the learners according to their ages and interests and encourages learners to do more attempts.

Communication language teaching accepts wise use of native language where feasible

and encourages translation to be used in which students find difficult in understanding.

The teaching of communication language emphasizes that communicative competence is the desired goal and it sees fluent use of language as the primary goal.

Littlewood (1981) believes that the teaching of communicative language pays attention to both functional and structural aspects, which is the most characteristics traits.

4. The Urgency of CLT in Present School Teaching

English is an international language which is accepted by most countries. Moreover, because more and more people are involved in frequently contacting in different nations, the ability of listening becomes more important. We accept that the purpose of learning a foreign language is to allow the learners to participate to a certain degree and to act for certain purposes as a member of community. Teachers, who take the traditional method as the method to teach students, neglect the ability of the students’ listening. Now the teachers have faced with the problem of improving the skills of the students’ listening. However, we lack the environment of foreign language learning now, and our English lessons are much less that Chinese and Mathematics. Under these circumstances, communicative approach is a better method to improve the students’ listening skills.

In English teaching, the basic issues are why students learn English and what students will use the language for. Learning a language in traditional methods is slow. Secondary school students can only master the essentials of English after six years learning and they still cannot speak the language well in many cases. It is thought to be of great importance especially for students to express their own ideas and personality, which is not allowed in the traditional methods of teaching. For example, traditional methods do not allow the students to speak out what they are thinking; therefore, they will show less interest in listening. Under this situation, it is much better to use communicative approach to improve English teaching. For the teachers, communicative language teaching makes more opportunities for learners to practice listening and speaking, and they can feel free to express themselves. Thus, the communicative approach makes the English teaching more meaningful and interesting. Just as what we all know, “English language teaching should be made of communication by communication and for communication”.

Communicative approach can create more realistic situation while traditional approach can not. The current teaching methods fail to cultivate students’ spontaneity. Mechanical question-and-answer sequences and artificial conventions cannot come up with the communicative interaction, which is flexible spontaneous and required for performing a task of situation relevant to the real world. The traditional classroom teaching requests learners to talk about things that are not of their own choosing and not based on their needs. Teachers always provide them some guided structures and they just need to speak with these structures. Taught in this way, the learners cannot master the skills to express themselves in specific situation. Simulation techniques, which require learners to simulate situations which they need to play different roles and do some tasks including problems solving, are much more interesting and meaningful. They offer a context for students to practice using the language as effectively as possible. It is obvious that simulation techniques can put the learners in realistic situations and it relates to the real world. The learners can have the chance to use and to practice language by simulating the situations in real world. The teacher can provide students efficient teaching by creating a meaningful realist situation.

Communicative approach thinks highly of students-centered English teaching. The main characters of classroom should be students and not the teacher. However, the present situation of teaching in China is the opposite and the classroom is almost teacher-centered. The teacher does most the talking while students do the most listening. The teacher always makes the whole class under his strict control by ask-and-answer questions and often supplies correct answers to the students without providing any opportunities for them thinking questions. Obviously, the teacher is the most authoritative person in such a class and teacher controls the whole class. Students always do what the teacher asks them to do but not what they themselves want to do. Such kinds of teachers’ role make students become lazy and they would like to depend too much on teachers without thinking independently. So it frequently appears that even if the students have understood the text or they know the answers, they will still choose silence and do not speak out loudly when called upon for fear of making mistakes. As a result, teacher-centered education has actually reduced the opportunities for students to analyze and judge the things by themselves. What’s more, it has encouraged the students’ laziness in thinking. Without opportunities of active thinking, they may stop thinking and just spend most of their time copying from the blackboard or taking the note. This will reduce their enthusiasm in English study. So, it will be better if the class is students-centered. Communicative approach encourages learners to show themselves in class boldly and require the teacher to play a secondary role who will try to keep focus on the students and encourage students to communicate with each other actively. The teacher is expected to be a helper and adviser, to encourage students takes part in the communication as much as possible. The teacher should give more opportunities for the students and realize that students are the spontaneous of the classroom. The teacher should inspire students to express their own ideas actively and develop their interests in English. Only in this way will the students no longer feel inferior and enhance the students’ confidence. Finally they will form a positive attitude toward English studying and they will spend more time and energy on English studying. The teacher plays an important role for classroom in regulating the atmosphere of communication. The good relationship between teacher and students will do benefit to effective learning. It is to say that the students are the main part in communication while the teacher plays a role as a helper for the students to communicate. The teacher can play several roles in the class: he designs the class activities, controls the scene of communication and provides solutions to students. The teacher should be a partner of communication. He is the guidance of the communication and consultant to solving the problems in communication. He takes part in the students’ communication. The students should take part in communication actively without being afraid of making mistakes. They can listen to what their classmates say and communicate with their classmates.

5. The Application of CLT in the Teaching of English Listening

5.1 Choosing Natural and Authentic Materials

In the teaching of communicative listening, we often choose natural and authentic language materials. What is an authentic Language material? First, it would be natural and authentic language that a teacher used in the class. In the class, teachers should use their own words to pass clear and simple information to students. And of course, teachers should slow down if necessary to accommodate the students’ listening and understanding level. But such language is still spontaneous and natural. What language materials should we take in the teaching of English listening? Listening materials used in communicative teaching of listening often come from the recording of activities in real world, or are simulation of real world. They often come from the following areas: radio news, words in appointment, sports reports and so on; discussion of the jobs or the current problems with family or colleagues; making appointments with acquaintances or exchanging of news; making appointment or exchange news via telephone; chatting in parties or other social occasions and the reports from the loudspeaker at the train station or airport. From these we can easily see that this kind of recording materials is completely natural and authentic. However, there are two inevitable shortcomings in using these completely authentic and natural discourses. Firstly, the authentic and natural language can not be adapted to the level of listener, so the language is difficult to understand and it can be understand just by those high levels of the listener. Secondly, because of the invisible of speakers, it is difficult for English-speaking listeners to distinguish different speaker’s voice and to ascertain the overlapping of words between them, not to mention the non-native English students. So, is it should be abandoned to use materials that are authentic? The answer is of course no. Just to do some screening and presentation to the real materials and make them suit for students’ listening level. Thus, listening materials in Communicative Listening Teaching do not have to be completely natural and authentic words, but must be maximize appeal to realistic and all materials should be based on the students’ listening level.

5.2 Setting Meaningful Listening Tasks

It refers to the tasks which listeners need to accomplish should be in line with the situation in real life and the condition of language use in authentic words. It should maximize the simulation of real world. Littlewood described the following several communicative tasks in his book “Theory of Communicative Language Teaching”.

Listening and completing tasks, includes filling in blanks, multiple choice and etc. It refers to the listener to complete the filling by finding a series of relevant information, to choose the correct answers of the materials and other tasks. They can be described as the following five aspects: Identification and selection, which gives students a series of pictures, and asks students to choose the correct one based on the content of what they listened; or just gives students a picture and lets the students listen to a few brief dialogues or description, asking them to select the correct dialogue or description about the picture. Correct Ordering, which is actually a variant of the first task, requires the student correctly order the pictures or dialogues according to the contents they have listened. Correct Positioning, which requires students to put the item to the correct position according to the content they have listened. Teachers can require students to draw the correct line on the picture, or ask students to put a variety of furniture to the exact location of the room according to the dialogue they have listened. Drawing and building, which requires students to listen to a description or discussion, and then draw the scene based on the content of what they have listened. Performing, which requires students to make the right action or reaction based on the content of what they have listened.

Information migration, which requires students to converse the information they have listened in the content into other forms. Such tasks can do benefit to develop students’ reorganization of listening materials and inspire students to guess the contents of listening materials so that it can help them more easily to understand listening materials.

Reproduction and evaluation of information, compared with the first two tasks, is a comprehensive task. In general, before listening, teachers should tell some hind information of the theme to the listeners so that they can re-product and restrict the listening materials with the information. It is a comprehensive task which requires students to have a high proficiency in English. Of course, the difficulty can be also adjustable of this kind of tasks. If the students’ listening level is lower, teachers can give students a summary which is incomplete firstly, according to which the students should accomplish missing parts.

5.3 The Application in Different Stages in a Listening Class

5.3.1 Activities before Listening

In the traditional teaching of listening, there is no activity before listening between the teacher and students. Teachers bring tape recorders into the classroom and put the tape into the recorders, after which students began to do listening.

Students know nothing about what content they will listen and what tasks they will need to accomplish. Compared with communicative approach, the teaching of listening is completely different. Before students begin to listen to the content, teacher will bring students to do some “warm-up activities”. Teachers usually teach words firstly which play a vital role in understanding the listening materials and then correct pronunciation of the words which is essential. Thus, when the students listen to it, they can distinguish them out easily. The second “warm-up activities” is familiar with theme. Teachers can use the “brainstorming”, discussion, and related activities such as providing picture or subtitle to stimulate students to guess the content they will listen to, so that students can have a certain understanding on it. As teachers, they should enable students to clearly understand what the listening task is and what they have to do is to complete the task, without need to understanding the materials in every word or every sentence. The criterion for success is whether they completed the listening task or not.

5.3.2 Activities during Listening

Students’ missions are to listen and to complete the tasks while teachers’ are to check whether or not students have finished the tasks. To help students to pay attention to the listening tasks, teachers should allow students to completely listening material for the first time and then allow them listen to it again for the details. Teachers can put the material into several parts, such as stopping at the end of each speaker’s words and let the students have enough time to recall the details. If listening material is difficult, it is necessary and important to provide students with original text. Some teachers believe that it is unable to raise the level of listening when students watching listening material while listening, but they all know if students do not understand contents when reading the materials, they would not know when listening. So reading the materials before listening sometimes is necessary. Proper use of hearing can reduce students’ anxiety and enhance self-confidence, which is very helpful to improve students’ listening abilities. Of course, excessive use of the original text will make students rely on it excessively, and thereby it would hind students’ listening levels. “Cooperation listening” is a means frequently used in teaching Communicative Listening Teachers which can help students find difficulties exist in the listening process. After listening, teacher invites one or several students to write their answers on the blackboard and do not correct the student"s answers immediately, because it does not matter if the answer is not complete. Then teachers should require students to listen to the tape again and this time students need to work in groups to modify or supplement the answers on the blackboard. By this way teachers will be able to find out which part of the listening material for students is the hardest, then according to which focus on teaching.

In the traditional teaching, teachers will check answers after listening and they often call students to speak out their answers loudly, and then make corrections right away. In Communicative listening teaching, teachers can use different ways of listening for students to complete the inspection tasks. For example, teachers can draw a correlation table on the blackboard, and then call the students who do better in listening to accomplish the table, so that the students in lower level can see the answers on the blackboard. This will not only protect the weaker students’ self-esteem, but also enhances the high level students’ confidence. Teachers can also ask students to check answers with each other within the groups. If students come up with different answers to a question, teachers should then provide the answers to students and solve the problem. In order not to hit students’ confidence, teacher should not correct the mistakes of one student for too many times.

5.3.3 Activities after Listening

At this stage, teachers ask students to do some of the tasks related to writing and listening or oral practice in order to enhance understanding of the materials. That is what previously mentioned “Reproduce and evaluate the information”. Writing exercises are often used in Communicative Listening. Students can write a related article or just do a dictation of the original text. Dictation is a very effective comprehensive way to test students’ English abilities involving listening, writing, speaking, vocabulary, and other language skills. Therefore, it is a kind of effective means to improve students’ listening levels. The competence of using English to communicate with others is the main purpose of learning English. Teachers can ask students to imitate the listening materials of words, phrases or sentences. The purpose of learning English is to use it communicate with other English speakers. Students can talk with classmates in English after class to practice their listening and speaking.

5. Conclusion

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