A Study On Teaching Listening To Non-english Majors Through Movies

As a part of the four learning skills, listening, speaking, reading and writing, listening takes an important position in English learning. According to the College English Curriculum Requirements, non-English majors are supposed to understand English lectures and brief sessions, as well as English conversations and speeches. At the same time, they should grasp the main idea, key words, and related details to understand the author’s views and attitudes. However, most current college students cannot meet the standard. That is to say, there are some problems with the current English listening teaching which cannot be ignored. Therefore, it is necessary to explore a new way to teach College English listening.Aiming to explore a better way to teach English listening, on the basis of Krashen’s Input Hypothesis, the Affective Filter Hypothesis, the Constructivism, and the Communicative Approach, the study puts forward a new way to teach English listening, which is teaching English listening through movies. The study tries to investigate students’ attitudes towards teaching English listening through movies, what kinds of movies are suitable for teaching and what effects teaching English through movies can have on students’ listening comprehension.The study is carried out in the first semester of 2014, from March 3rd to June 20 th, lasting for about 16 weeks. In the study two natural classes of non-English majors in the second grade in College of Optical and Electronical Information of Changchun University of Science and Technology are selected as subjects. First, to investigate students’ attitudes towards movies and what kinds of movies are suitable for teaching, some questionnaires are distributed. Then, to explore the effect of teaching listening through movies, the two classes are divided into control class and experimental class. The present teaching models are adopted in the control class, the learning material of which is the third book of New Horizon: Listening and Speaking Course. In the experimental class, the selected English movies are used for teaching and the related teaching activities are designed and carried out. After the experiment, the results of the questionnaire, the scores of the pretest and post test of the control class and the experimental class are analyzed.Through the study, it is found that there are some problems in the current college listening teaching. Students have great interests in teaching listening through movies. And they think that romance movies, the movies of life, cartoons related to the content of the textbook are suitable for English teaching. By analyzing the scores of the pretest and post test, it is discovered that teaching English listening through movies has a better effect than the current teaching methods. At the same time, on the basis of the questionnaire and classroom teaching experience, the study explores ways to teach English listening through movies and things to be noticed. At last, the limitations of the study were pointed and some suggestions were provided for further studies.