2.Literature Review

     There exists many problems of English listening skill. Many people have talked about the importance of learning ability of listening. And many of them have given important suggestions on teaching listening. Chen Chuntian, Zhang Yujuan and Gao Ying stressed the importance of psychology influence(Chen Chuntian, Zhang Yujuan and Gao Ying,1998:12-13)With good psychological quality, students can relax themselves and devote themselves into listening. According to the survey, difficulties in listening comprehension arise from nonintellectual factors and psychological condition plays an important role in training listening. 

     Gong Xinyuan points out choosing answers is the last step in doing listening tests and it is a vital procedure(Gong Xinyuan,2002:20-22). We can explore regularity of choosing right answers by analyzing the correlation between answers and original texts. In this way, students can improve accuracy. However, we should improve our listening skill to communicate with others, more than taking a test.源:自'优尔.·论,文;网·www.youerw.com/

     Yang Lianrui & Zhang Deyu point out studying cooperative principle, polite principle and relevance principle, is beneficial for students to understand the intention of utterance in the context(Yang Lianrui & Zhang Deyu,2004:18-19). It helps students to choose right answers in listening context.

3. Situation of English listening teaching

     Nowadays, many primary school students have problems with listening. However, teachers are always ignoring the teaching of listening. It is because scores of listening are lower than writing. Primary students don’t master solid basic knowledge of English, such as vocabulary, grammar, some habits of speaking of foreign, and so forth. As a result, while students are listening English, students may be familiar with the vocabulary, but they can’t tell them immediately and even can’t learn the general meaning of the dialogue or the context. What’s more, in English, one word may have more than one meaning, which requires students to recognize which meaning it refers to according to the dialogue or the context. The reason for these situations is lack of practice. As we all know ‘ Practice makes perfect.’ Moreover, Chinese students lack a good language environment. They are influenced by the mother tongue, so large quantities of students often speak Chinese English, which is also a cause of their poor listening skills. Lots of students may achieve high scores in English text, but many of them can’t understand English dialogue in their daily life. With regards to English spoken, even college students can’t speak with standard pronunciation. Nevertheless, the aim of learning a language is not just to succeed in exams but to communicate with others. If we don’t master listening skills, how we can speak in standard English, let alone communication with foreign people. So we must take actions to improve primary students’ level of English listening.

4. Strategies of listening teaching in primary school

4.1 Practicing pronunciation文献综述

     For quite some time, ‘Chinese English’ bothers English learners. When students listen to foreigners, they may have a feeling that there are some differences between our English pronunciation and theirs. Chinese students begins to learn English only after they have mastered Chinese very well. In the meanwhile, pronunciation of some Mandarin Chinese is similar to that of English. Due to the effect of Chinese, many students are unable to read English with accurate pronunciation, which brings about bad influence on students’ listening comprehension because listening and reading are inseparable. However, ability of listening lies in their correct and skilled pronunciation. Reading is an effective way to improve listening ability. If you want to master correct pronunciation and smooth tone, you must work hard. Only when they can say, their listening ability will have a corresponding improvement. Only when one reads English accurately can he improve his listening ability. But how can students have access to accurate pronunciation? I have some insights. Firstly, teachers themselves should do it. If teachers can’t read English correctly, how students can do it, especially primary students, who tend to worship and imitate their teachers in many aspects.In the usual teaching, teachers should play the tape for students and ask them to follow the recording. In the meanwhile, teachers ought to pay great attention to students’ reading exercises. If there are some mistakes students made, they should point out immediately to prevent students from making mistakes next time. After students master the dialogue in their books, teachers can let them make a dialogue and performance it by themselves. As a result, students will be able to use language freely.Secondly, with regard to students themselves, they should learn phonetic symbol correctly and pay attention to pronunciation of each vowels and consonants. After mastering the phonetic symbol, then they can choose correct recording materials which are suitable for primary students according to their own English level. The recording should not be too difficult or too easy. If students choose over-difficult recording, they may not adapt themselves to it and lose interest in it right away. And if too easy recording is chosen, the ability of students’ reading and listening can’t be trained. So students should choose moderate difficult materials with pure accent. After selecting right materials, students should pay attention to how to follow the recording. What should be focused on are meanings of words, stress, tone of voice, as well as the emotion of the talker. Then imitate it. They had better write down what they have listened, which is beneficial to their listening ability at the same time. Students should read context everyday. ‘Practice makes perfect.’ as an old saying goes. Thirdly, teachers can make some tongue twist for students to train their reading like ‘Cat, cat, catch that fat rat.’, which will help students tell these confusing pronunciation and deepen their impression of the words. Apart from pronunciation, tongue twists are also good for speeding up the pace of reading, so that students will do better during the listening comprehension. What’s more, there is a simple song at the end of each unit and teachers can lead students to sing it before or after class.