Effectiveness Of Activity Based Approach In English Listening Teaching In Junior Middle School

Listening plays an extremely important role in the foreign language learning. It is not only an important part of the integrated language skills, but also serves as a critical channel of obtaining information. However, it seems that few middle school teachers realize the increasing significance of listening comprehension in the second language learning. They still teach the students with the traditional listening teaching methods so that the students show less and less interest and confidence in listening. In such situations, it seems to be urgent to try some new effective and feasible teaching methods to help students improve their listening abilities.The present research aims to know the effectiveness of activity based approach in English listening teaching in junior middle schools. The research questions are listed as follows:1. Can Activity Based Approach help to significantly improve the listening comprehension abilities of junior middle school students? If yes, why?2. Can Activity Based Approach influence the application of listening comprehension strategies by junior middle school students? If yes, why?3. Which listening comprehension strategies are affected most by Activity Based Approach?The subjects are74students in Grand one from Shinan junior middle school in Rugao, Jiangsu Province. The empirical research lasts one semester. Three instruments (test, questionnaire and interview) are used in the present study. It is necessary to mention that the author has taken the entrance examination paper published by Rugao Education Bureau as the pre-test paper. And the software SPSS17.0(Statistical Package for Social Science) is used to analyze the data collected from test and questionnaire. The reliability and validity analysis, descriptive statistics analysis, Pearson correlation analysis, independent samples t-test and paired samples t-test are conducted in this study.The major findings of this investigation are summarized below: Firstly, activity based approach can significant improve the junior middle school students" listening comprehension abilities. Secondly, activity based approach can help students use listening strategies more frequently. Thirdly, activity based approach has affected the students a lot on using three major listening comprehension strategies, particularly in the use of some subcategories of listening strategies. They are advance organization, selective attention and self-management in meta-cognitive strategies, elaboration and note-taking strategies in cognitive strategies, and cooperation and reducing anxiety strategies in social/affective strategies.The thesis gives some pedagogical implications to future English listening teaching in junior middle school in the end. It proposes that designing listening activities should obey the principles of purpose, context and integrity. Therefore, teachers can arouse students’ interest in listening, stress the main centre role of students and help students improve their listening comprehension abilities.