The current situation of listening comprehension classes.
In listening comprehension classes, a large number of students often complain that the speed of the material is so fast that they cannot catch the meaning, if the material is slowed down; students will understand it quite well. But, in daily life who would speak so slowly? Therefore, its necessary to train the students to listen to the material spoken in a normal speed. Why do our students usually feel it difficult to follow the ordinary speed material? In my point of view, one of the main reasons is the inner-translation process while listening, some of the students usually translate the listening material into Chinese and only by that way can they understand it. Of course, translation costs them much time in understanding. Speed is sacrificed as a result of that. Thats why the building of a direct connection between information input and understanding is very important. In order to probe the listening comprehension process and learning strategies in listening comprehension classes, I designed a questionnaire and did a small-scale investigation.
A small-scale questionnaire investigation .
The subjects of the small-scale investigation are 98 students of grade 2000 in Military Economy Academy. We distributed 98 papers and collected 82 effective ones.
The following is the content of the questionnaire:.
1. The function of Chinese in listening comprehension.
A. I must rely on word for word translation in my mind or I cannot understand the listening material.
B. I must rely on translation at the sentence level in my mind.
C. I must rely on translation at the paragraph level in order to understand the listening material.
D. Direct understanding can be achieved without inner translation if the sentences are comparatively simple; but complexed sentences cannot be understood without the process of inner translation.
E. The listening material can be understood without the process of inner translation at all.