基于图式理论和支架理论的大学英语听力教学研究
Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study
As we enter in an age of globalization and technology, English has become popular in the wake of plentiful international exchanges and cooperation. Responding to this international trend, Chinese government attaches great importance to English education with the hope that young generation can stand erect on the world stage when confronted with the numerous changes and challenges. Among the four basic language skills--- listening, speaking, reading and writing; listening is believed as the most essential one, for listening is the basis of information intake and understanding, just as the Turkish proverb goes ―If speaking is silver, then listening is gold‖. Consequently, in the field of second language acquisition, we should put listening teaching at first place. During the past decade, although language teaching theory in various fields has developed rapidly, the practice in China had been lagged behind greatly. Most English teachers in China still clung to the traditional teaching pattern, and dealt with listening comprehension as a passive take- in process, which had resulted in an overlook to provoke students‘ initiative and created a huge barrier in their listening studying, especially for those who do not major in English. Almost all the Chinese students have studied English at least nine to ten years before they entered the college, they scarcely missed one English class and spend hundreds of hours on English studying after school, yet they are still deaf and dumb in the listening and speaking class. Hence, it is considered as the most difficult course for them. Why there was such a tremendous gap between the time and energy students paid and the achievement they made? Why their hard working turned out to be in vain? Based on the author‘s investigation.
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1.2 Purpose of the Study
Considering the importance of listening instruction and the need for improving students‘ English ability, the thesis examines a new teaching model based on schema theory and scaffolding theory which may counter the current situation. In order to ascertain that the new model is functional, the author conducts an experiment on listening teaching in her university. The aim of the study is to make a comparison between the new model and the traditional one by investigating the changing pattern of students‘ listening comprehension ability, so as to find whether and to what degree the new pedagogy can solve problems presented in listening class.Considering features of schema and scaffolding, a well designed teaching procedure will make it possible to combine schema theory and scaffolding theory in the listening class, where applying instructional scaffoldings, the teacher can help students build and activate relevant schema in order to aid their information processing and remove the obstacles in listening comprehension, and provides students an interesting and motivating learning environment so as to cultivate students‘ interests and abilities in independent study and cooperative learning through interactive activities.
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 The Previous Study on Listening Comprehension
In China‘s traditional pattern of foreign language teaching, the cultivation of listening and speaking abilities are used to be loopholes, which demand an ambient of authentic English built for students. And this raised concern among teachers and researchers. They started to pursue the solution from theories of foreign language teaching abroad, and tried their best to apply such theories into their teaching practice in order to sum up a useful and effective new pattern. Based on the process of listening comprehension, many research studies have proposed appropriate learning strategies according to learners‘ listening needs. Vandergrift defines cognitive strategies as ―the actual mental steps listeners use to understand what they hear‖.① These types of strategies include setting tasks such as organization, summarization, and elaboration of information that students used to manage the oral input on what they are hearing. Studies also have revealed that the different listening strategies should be adopted depending on language learners who were at different level. Smidt and Hegelheimer find that low- level listeners tend to use a majority of cognitive strategies, while more advanced listeners use a mix of both cognitive and metacognitive strategies.② Hegelheimer and Tower conclude that effective listeners are able to utilize a variety of listening strategies intelligently.③ In addition, some studies concentrate on the listeners‘ background knowledge functioned as premise in language comprehension.
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2.2 The Nature of Listening Comprehension
Listening comprehension is processed in the mind, which requires the brain to transfer a series of acoustic information it heard into concrete images, and then interpret these images into languages, and finally get the intended meaning. Basically, listening is the process from the sounds to images, and finally forms into language. Listeners hardly have a second chance to hear exactly the same text, and it is well accepted that some factors like the nature of the acoustic input, stress, intonation, and memory capacity take an important part in listening comprehension; Considering the factors one chooses to examine, the nature of listening comprehension is characterized in many ways. From 1980s to 1990s, Boyle defines the nature of listening comprehension and concludes that listening is different from hearing, which is an active process of meaning construction, elements of perception, linguistic and world knowledge interact in a complex manner① as early as 1984. Later, in 1988, Boyle‘s idea that listening is different from hearing is reiterated by Vanderplank, who regards listening as ―following‖ and ―understanding‖;② following is considered to be more language dependent than understanding, and it is based on world knowledge and experience. Vanderplank‘s definition is obviously vague, while it grasps a theme throughout the literature history of listening comprehension---the distinction between what is named bottom- up processing and what is named top-down processing. Then during the 1990s, Witkin examines the state of the art of the first or native language listening research and concludes that there are absences of generally accepted definitions.
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Chapter Three Theoretical Framework ...... 14
3.1 Schema Theory.... 14
3.1.1 Definitions and Typologies of Schema........ 14
3.1.2 Classification of Schema ...... 15
3.1.3 Function of Schema in Listening Comprehension Process ........ 17
3.2 Scaffolding Theory ...... 18
3.3 The Combination of Schema Theory and Scaffolding Theory .... 21
Chapter Four Research Methodology ...... 24
4.1 Questions and Hypotheses........ 24
4.2 Subjects .... 24
4.3 Instruments ...... 24
4.4 Introduction of the Experiment Research .... 26
4.4.1 A General Description of the Experiment .... 26
4.4.2 New Teaching Procedures bases on the Experimental Research .... 28
Chapter Five Analysis on Final Date and Discussion.... 33
5.1 Analysis of Test and Research Results .... 33
5.2 Discussion ........ 40
Chapter Five Analysis on Final Data and Discussion
After the empirical study, data came out, and analysis will be collected to answer the questions listed in Chapter Four, which will help the author better evaluate the effect of the study and find out whether it is feasible to introduce the new teaching model into college English listening class.
5.1 Analysis of Test and Research Results
5.1.1 Comparison on Scores between Pre-test and Post-test
At the beginning of the experiment, pre-test was conducted in order to work out if there is any difference between the two classes (EC and CC). The test result is as following: According to the results of the statistics in Table5.1 and Table 5.2, in the pre-test, there is tiny difference between the mean scores of the experimental class (EC) and the control class (CC) (6.47 and 5.69 respectively). The standard deviation demonstrates the scores dispersion among the students (2.424 and 2.285 respectively). The significance value is 0.126﹙p>0.05). We can see there is no significant difference between the two classes; obviously, the students in these two classes are at the same listening level before the experiment.
Conclusion
After the experimental study for 12weeks, a conclusion can be drawn. The new teaching model incorporated schema theory and scaffolding theory, which greatly improve students' listening comprehension ability, is more effective compared with the traditional one. In addition, it can arouse students‘ learning enthusiasm so as to relieve the stress and spark the interests in listening learning.Firstly, according to both the questionnaire and the teacher‘s interview, the new teaching model facilitates students' interest and confidence in English learning. We can see that nearly all the students from the experimental class think it interesting and motivating in the listening class, where learning environment is easy and comfortable; activities are various; learning content is closely related; and teacher‘s instruction is clear and specified. In addition, they find it is easier to keep up with the teachers‘ pace and can understand the listening materials better as well. Secondly, from the data that collected, the new teaching model is able to develop students' language competence both in listening and in speaking. Compared with the control class, students in the experimental class are more likely to use listening strategies and skills to aid their listening comprehension when performing tasks and are more positive to exchange opinions with their teacher and classmates in English.
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The reference (omitted)
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