A Study On The Correlation Between Senior High School Students’ Tolerance Of Listening Ambiguity And English Listening Performance

Ambiguity is the inherent nature of language,existing widely in the second language acquisition.Many scholars have paid attention to it in recent years,but they paid more attention to other skills of English,rather than English listening skill.However,among listening,speaking,reading and writing skills,listening is the most fundamental.Therefore,based on Krashen’s Affective Filtering Hypothesis and Hartmann ＆ Lange’s Ego Boundary Theory,this study will focus on the correlation between the tolerance of listening ambiguity of high school students and their English listening performance.This study combines qualitative and quantitative research analysis,and the research objects are 234 students of grade one and grade three in a high school in Zhangzhou,Fujian Province.With questionnaire survey and interview methods,the study attempts to explore the following three questions: 1)What is the general level of the tolerance of listening ambiguity in high school students? 2)Are there any differences in the tolerance of listening ambiguity between students of grade one and grade three in high school? 3)Is there a correlation between the tolerance of listening ambiguity of high school students and their listening performance?The results show that: 1)High school students have a low tolerance of listening ambiguity（m=2.55）,with the highest tolerance of listening ambiguity in pronunciation（m=2.73）and the lowest tolerance of listening ambiguity in vocabulary（m=2.39）.2)There is a significant difference in the tolerance of listening ambiguity between students of grade one and grade three in high school（p=0.004<0.005）.The tolerance of listening ambiguity of students of grade three in high school（m3=2.66）is higher than that of students of grade one in high school（m1=2.44）.3)There is a moderate correlation between the tolerance of listening ambiguity of high school students and their English listening performance（r=0.647**）,indicating that the higher tolerance of ambiguity brings about the higher listening performance.No significant difference exists between high and low-groups in the four dimensions,but with significant difference in specific aspects.