The Monitor Theory Based English Listening Teaching In Senior High Schools

Krashen’s Monitor Theory has attracted more and more attention since it was put forward and many scholars have carried on deep and extensive researches to both the theory itself and its application to the second language teaching. As an important means of acquiring knowledge and information, a major language input channel and one of the four basic skills of language learning, listening has been critical to the success of language learners. Some of the researchers have already tried to apply the Monitor Theory to the college English teaching and they received the satisfactory results. But questions about the application and possible results of using this theory in English listening teaching in senior middle schools still remain. So this thesis aims to apply the Monitor Theory to the English listening teaching in senior middle schools and reformed the traditional input way, with the hope of offering some insights and implications to change the present situation of the English listening teaching in senior middle schools and improve the listening competence of the senior students.In order to confirm the validity of the new method, the author made a one-term experiment to Class11and Class12Grade One in Yongshou Senior Middle School in Shaanxi province. Class12was the experimental class, which was taught in the new way, and Class11was the control class which used the traditional method. Based on the analysis of questionnaires for the listening teaching in two classes in Yongshou Senior Middle School in Shaanxi province, the thesis presents and designs listening teaching according to the Monitor Theory:creating a relaxing learning environment, lowering anxiety and increasing comprehensible input. The teaching steps taken include five-minute’s work before class, background knowledge introduction before listening, group discussion while-listening, extensive listening after-listening and listening for tasks. The results of the experiment, which were analyzed by SPSS11.0, indicated there are significant and obvious differences between the two classes. Then such a conclusion can be drawn that the new comprehensible input method is effective in improving the listening comprehension competence of the senior students and it is worthy to be further considered and researched.The thesis is consisted of five parts:the first part is the background and significance of the study; the second part is literature review on the Monitor Theory and the listening teaching; the third part is to explain in details the objectives, hypotheses, subjects, instruments, procedures of the experiment and the collections, analysis of the data; the fourth part is the analysis of the results of the two questionnaires and the two tests; the last part is the conclusion, implication and limitation of the study.