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ign language test, listening comprehension usually occupies a considerable proportion. Yet, to the students who learn English in situations where English is not the language of the country and where opportunities for hearing English outside the classroom are few, it is usually extremely difficult for them to comprehend English spoken to them. Many students, usually influenced by some traditional habits, are accustomed to putting what they are hearing into their native language in order to get the original meaning. As a result, when trying to understand one sentence, and then they will miss the next one. So when a conversation or a passage is over, they almost know nothing and are totally at a loss what to do about the exercises they are required to do. In order to develop their listening skills, some teachers just give them plenty of graded practice and hope that they will work out for themselves the most efficient way of coping with it. Unfortunately, it only proves to be a time—consuming but inefficient way and they can hardly arrive at the most satisfactory solution of their own accord. When they repeatedly meet with setbacks, they come to the conclusion that listening comprehension is only the eagle’s nest and it is an impassable chasm. Some even lose their confidence. Actually, the improvement of listening comprehension can be gained by good methods.
B. The Present Situation in English Teaching of Speaking
For a long time, students have been used to the English learning situation where
teachers explain grammatical structures and the content of texts most of the time while students’ job is to take notes and respond to. Their role in the class is passive. Although sometimes they have some speaking activities in class, such as doing oral translations, making sentences orally or reading texts aloud, none of these involve genuine communication in which they can express their own opinions, exchange their own ideas or find their own solutions to the problems. As a result, students feel frustrated when they face with genuine English-communication situations. They find it difficult to talk with a real native speaker and to express themselves orally.
In view of all the students’ difficulties in listening and speaking, we, as teachers, will have to try our best to use a more gradual but most efficient approach to the real language and help them in various ways.
　　Something must be done in English classes to give students more chances to practice speaking English and to encourage them to engage in meaningful interactions
II. The solutions
A. Ways of Improving Listening
For some years now, methodologists have recommended small group work (including pair work) in ELT (English Listening Text) classrooms. The pedagogical benefits of group work are summarized as follows: “it increases the quantity of language practice opportunities; it improves the quality of students talk in several ways; it helps individualize instruction; it creates a positive, relaxed phenomenon in the classroom and it increases students’ motivation.”(Long and Porter, p124) With group work, students can practice language use and cooperative learning in which they can form relationship with others in the group and share their beliefs and perception with others with only本论文由英语论文网 www.51lunwen.org整理提供 minimum amount of direction from teachers. How can we improve the students’ listening level in a small group? There are seven practical ways.
1. To Proc