Abstract：Listening is one of the four important skills in the process of language learning. This paper analyzes rural-area middle school students’ problems in listening comprehension. And more importantly, it puts forward some countermeasures to the problems, such as raising teachers’ awareness of listening, selecting the listening materials appropriately, and creating a good listening environment.

 Keywords：students in rural middle schools; problems; countermeasures

Contents

Abstract

摘要

Introduction-1

1. Some key issues related to listening comprehension-2

1.1 Listening as a skill-2

1.2 Listening as a process-3

1.3 Factors involving in listening comprehension-3

2. Rural-area middle school students’ problems in listening comprehension-4

2.1 Objective problems-4

2.1.1 Lack of a lively language environment-4

2.1.2 Inappropriate listening materials-5

2.1.3 Backwardness of teaching resources allocation-5

2.1.4 Downplayed role of listening comprehension-6

2.1.5 Scarcity of professional English teachers-6

2.2 Subjective factors-7

2.2.1 The students' indifference to listening comprehension-7

2.2.2 The students' bad listening habits-8

2.2.3 Some other factors involving in the students incompetence in listening comprehension-8

3. Countermeasures to the problems-10

3.1 Improving the unreasonable school management-10

3.2 Raising teachers awareness of listening-11

3.3 Intensively training students' listening ability-12

3.3.1 Organizing class in English directives-12

3.3.2 Strengthening phonetic exercises-12

3.3.3 Helping the students to master a certain amount of vocabularies and phrases-13

3.3.4 Developing the students’ comprehensive skill-14

3.4 Imparting the methods of learning and problem-solving skills-16

3.5 Encouraging students to read more and improve speed-17

3.6 Guiding students to use logical thinking actively-18

3.7 Creating a good listening environment-19

3.8 Selecting the listening materials appropriately-20

3.9 Maximizing the value of the listening materials-20

Conclusion-22

Bibliography-23

Acknowledgements-24