The Role Of Context Theory In CET-4 Listening Comprehension

In language study, listening comprehension is probably the most primary, yet the most difficult skill to learn among the four basic language skills—listening, speaking, reading, and writing. However, "it has been neglected for a long time because for most people, being able to claim knowledge of a second language means being able to speak and write in that language" (Nunan,2001:199). According to Rivers (1978), the proportion of listening accounts for up to 45% in people's daily communication. On the one hand, with China's reforming and opening up, as well as its entering the WTO, chances of international communication and association will definitely increase. On the other hand, in College English Test Band 4(CET-4), which is regarded as one of the most important criteria to evaluate how well a student commands English as a foreign language, the ratio of listening comprehension has been increased from the former 20% out of the total score to 35% since June,2006. Therefore, it becomes an urgent task to improve students' listening comprehension in English teaching. However, for the sake of misunderstanding listening comprehension and teaching in a simple, out-dated way, most students do not have a very good command of listening ability.On what listening comprehension is, people's views have gone through great changes. Traditional teaching of listening only focuses on the form and structure of the language and regards the process of listening as a passive and static one. While with the deep-going study of cognitive psychology, researchers began to pay more attention to the communicative function of language and realize that the process of listening comprehension is an active, highly complex, multi-level one which not only relates to original data input, but also relates to one's understanding of the context. Listeners should learn to make good use of the interrelated knowledge he or she has acquired before.Therefore, we might say that context is the basis for understanding language correctly. However, since linguists do not have a unified understanding of context, this paper briefly reviews various context theories by researchers both home and abroad.As one of the most significant standardized foreign language tests in China, CET-4 more and more emphasizes listening. Thus, contextualization should be paid more attention. In chapter four, the paper discusses the application of context theory in CET-4 conversations in detail. Finally, the author thinks that teachers should not only enhance students'ability of recognizing pronunciation and intonation, but also activate their cultural background knowledge and teach them how to identify the communicative intention so as to foster both their linguistic context ability and non-linguistic context ability.