How to Improve English Listening？

肖琳燃

【Abstract】How to improve English listening is a topic both teachers and students are concern about.To improve listening，you need to master a good method and prepare a lot of suitable material.In this article，we will discuss the procedure in detail such as preparation before listening，comprehension and memory in listening and summary after listening.

【Key words】English listening； ability； improvement

English is the most widely used language all over the world. It is so common in politics， military， economics， technology， culture， trade， transportation and so on that we have to have study English well to communicate with others. To communicate， we should first listen to others and make clear what he or she wants to express.

To practice listening， you should have a standard pronunciation. After listening for a while， you can follow the recorder to imitate the pronunciation of the tape recorder. By constant practice， you can have a standard pronunciationwithout which you will probably miss some individual words. That will lead to the misunderstanding of the whole sentence.

Firstly， listen to the tape before you read it. Generally we read the English text before we listen. Now let us change it. We listen to the tape repeatedly and do not open the book until we understand it roughly. When we read the text， pay attention to what we were not clear. And then listen to the tape with the book closed. Each time we listen to the tape， especially focus on the sentences， new words and phrases we do not understand. After we do like this for several times， we will master these new words and improve our listening. By the way， youd better prepare a notebook to take notes and make a summary. Underline and write down what you dont understand and what you cant follow when you listen and solve them timely. Write down the important and difficult points. Try to make them clear and expand your vocabulary.

Secondly， when you practice listening， you should analyze the text to make it clear that how the article begins， what to say first， what to say next and what the logical sequence is. To express the same topic， are there any other ways of narration？ Are there better ways of layout？ If its me， how can I spread out the content？ Thats indeed a kind of thinking training. After training for a period of time， you will predict whats next after you listen to the former paragraph. When you listen to other material， you neednt follow the tape recorder passively. Whats more， your spoken English will improve unconsciously.

Thirdly we should also listen to English as much as possible. There are two aspects. The one is that after you can watch English news on TV or listen to English broadcast like VOA Special English or BBC after having supper. Just put yourself in the language environment of English spoken countries. The other is to prepare a walk-man and purchase some English tapes. I strongly recommend Crazy English. On your way to school， you can put on your earphone to listen to it. So you can use your spare time to enlarge the input amount of English listening. Then your English listening will be improved naturally.

It is nature that we dont understand when we listen sometimes because we are not native speakers. There are unavoidable differences between English and our mother tongue. It really takes much time and energy to improve listening and there is no shortcut to go. Stick to it and exercise gradually. As time goes by， you will see great improvement.

References：

[1]賈冠杰.外语教育心理学[M].广西教育出版社，2003.

[2]国峰.浅谈提高中学生英语听力的策略[J].中国教育创新与发展，2003.