An Investigation Of Senior High School Students’ English Listening Comprehension Ability In Anshan

Listed as the prior language ability in English Curriculum Standards for Senior High Schools(2017),listening is combined with speaking,reading,viewing,and writing to construct the ability of understanding and expressing in English.And the combination of all these abilities is the basic components of core competence of English as an academic subject in Chinese senior high school.Thus,developing students’ English listening comprehension ability(ELCA)inevitably becomes the primary and important goal of teaching and learning.Moreover,ELCA is of great significance in actual communication since like reading and viewing,listening itself is one of vital channel to obtain information and understand different opinions.Therefore,it is necessary to investigate the current ELCA of senior high school students and put forward corresponding suggestions to improve their ELCA.This study investigated ELCA of 400 students from three senior high schools in urban Anshan by means of the questionnaire,listening proficiency test and interview.The research focused on the following four questions:(1)What is senior high school students’ ELCA profile?(2)Are there any relationships between senior high school students’ ELCA and their English listening proficiency?(3)Are there any significant differences in terms of students’ personal characteristics,such as gender,grade and types of school?(4)What are the non-linguistic factors that affect senior high school students’ ELCA? Based on the results from Descriptive Analysis,Correlation Analysis,Independent Sample T-test,Analysis of Variance,and Thematic Analysis,the following main findings were obtained:(1)Due to the lack of attention attached by both teachers and students to listening comprehension training at present,senior high school students’ ELCA is currently at a medium level;(2)Students’ English listening proficiency can reflect their ELCA;(3)There are significant differences in ELCA in terms of gender,grade and types of school;(4)Factors that include listening strategies and motivations also affect ELCA.There are some suggestions to improve senior high school students’ ELCA:(1)The education administration should coordinate activities for various teachers and students in the community to achieve the coordinated development of English education;(2)In addition to teaching methods in class,teachers can also improve students’ ELCA by paying attention to their non-linguistic factors;(3)Students should improve personal beliefs,strategies,motivations and self-training habits about English learning early to improve their ELCA.