An Empirical Study Of The Application Of Pragmatic Presupposition To College English Listening Teaching

Listening plays a prominent role in language learning, which lays a solid foundation to improve the ability in reading, writing and speaking. However, it is difficult for many language learners to master the listening skill. Most of learners attribute their low listening levels to lacking vocabulary and grammars knowledge, but neglect the crucial role of pragmatic inference in listening comprehension. Therefore, how to help students cultivate pragmatic inference competence becomes a vital task for college English listening teaching to improve students’listening level.As a kind of pragmatic inference, pragmatic presupposition plays a key role in verbal communication, which is often defined as information supposed and background knowledge to be known by participants in communication. Listening is considered as an active process to infer the real meaning in the conversation where linguistic knowledge and non-linguistic knowledge exert the positive effect. Thus, pragmatic presupposition has certain guiding significance for listening comprehension.Based on pragmatic presupposition theory, this research attempts to explore the effect of listening teaching method based on pragmatic presupposition on English listening comprehension for college students. Under the purpose, two questions will be answered:(1) Does the listening teaching method based on the pragmatic presupposition theory have more effect on students’listening comprehension than the traditional method?(2) What are the students’attitudes to the listening teaching method based on pragmatic presupposition theory?104non-English major students in Grade2012from Hunan Agricultural University involve in one-semester experiment. At first, closed-end questionnaire are carried out to get familiar with the current situation of students’listening comprehension. Result shows a majority of students lack pragmatic inference competence. Based on the results of survey, experiment is conducted. In the experiment, one of classes is chosen for experimental class in which a new teaching method based on pragmatic presupposition theory is applied, while the controlled class is instructed by traditional one. The two classes are required to take the post-test and delayed posttest after experiment. Meanwhile, the open-closed questionnaire is handed out to students in experimental class. SPSS11.5statistical package (Statistical Product and Service Solutions11.5) is applied to analyze the data.The research results show (1) Listening achievements of the experiential class have improved significantly compared to controlled class, which proves teaching method based on pragmatic presupposition theory can contribute to improving students’ listening comprehension.(2) Open-ended questionnaire indicates that the students have favorable attitudes towards the teaching method based on pragmatic presupposition theory. They hold the view that the new teaching method is helpful to improve their listening comprehension and enhance their interest in listening learning.Based on above findings, listening teaching method based on pragmatic presupposition can help the students improve their listening proficiency effectively. Thus, some pedagogical suggestions to improve listening teaching and learning for teachers and students are proposed.