非英语专业高职高专生听力材料和听力焦虑的相关性分析

Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Motivation and Rationale of the Research
Learners are required to listen to heterogeneous listening materials if they intend toachieve effective and efficient communication in English under a variety of contexts.Nevertheless, comprehensibility of different listening materials may not be equal toevery listener even though they identify every word in the text. Studies demonstrate thatforeign language learners find it difficult to comprehend academic lectures and fail tocatch the main points of the lectures in spite of their sufficient language proficiency.(Allison & Tauroza，1995; Hyon, 1997; Thompson, 1994; Young，1994). This ismainly because learners' focal point is to decode the speech，word by word, rather thanlocate the main idea by recognizing the transitions between ideas and grasping the entirestructural feature of the given materials. Large amounts of evidence indicate thatbackground knowledge of the content and that of the text style should be equallyessential to learners in comprehending the text. In other words，if listening materials arein the same genres, similarity in form, style and structure, they may serve as the equalsocial purposes and information organization in the same famats. Li (2005) showsEnglish majors obtain the marks from the highest in conversation, then the lecture to thelowest in news broadcasting during TEM4's listening comprehension by a quantitativeanalysis and also proves that English majors perform differently among conversation,lecture, news (Li, 2005:102:63). So, familiarity with the generic characteristics of the 一listening materials will help listeners understand the entire structure of the text.
And recent years witness that an increasing number of researchers and educatorshave given learner factors, particularly affective factors their due because learners are"physically cognitive and primarily emotional beings" (Rogers, 1976, cited by Brown,1994). Among all the researches of affective variables，anxiety has gained moreattention, especially foreign language anxiety. Quite a number of researches haveproved foreign language anxiety influences inpidual achievement and success greatly(Spielberger, 1966; Chastain, 1975; Horwitz. 1986： Krashen. 1982; Macintyre Gardner,1991a). Nevertheless, researchers have made approximate consensus that there existsnegative correlation between foreign language anxiety and foreign languageachievements while some researchers, such as Kleinmann (1977:28) and Young(1990:62) state otherwise. They maintain that foreign language anxiety is positivelycorrelated with language learning. However, language anxieties on specific skills areignored, which provides justification for receiving more attention of foreign languageresearchers in recent year, so recent decades find that special attention has been paid toreading anxiety (Satio. Horwitz & Schallert, 1999)，writing anxiety (Cheng, Horwitz &Schallert. 1999) and listening anxiety (Vogely, 1998; Kim, 2000. cited by Liu，2003). Asis known, listening, as one of the language skills in foreign language learning, has itsown distinctive features. First, successful engagement in real communication is basedon the mutual understanding. Only if listening to others carefully can one responseappropriately. Second, listening requires learners to give a prompt answer. Suchresponsiveness makes learners easily nervous and even discouraged while difficultycomes to them. Owing to these distinctive characteristics, listening is more linked withanxiety in comparison to other language skills.
Actually, listening anxiety is influenced by the elements such as the difficulty ofthe material, the learners’ basic language skills, the listeners" self-confidence, theinstructional evaluation and feedback. Through the literature review of the relevantresearches, studies have only concerned with English majors as the subjects, but hardlywith non-English majors as the subjects in higher vocational colleges. Relativelyspeaking, it is possible that learners in the colleges have far more listening anxietybecause of their poorer strategies and their lower levels of listening competence.
..................................

1.2 Significance of the Study
When coming across difficulties in comprehending the listening materials，listenerswill be anxious and not so responsive in classroom English learning. As a consequence,a much more nervous climate in the listening classroom will undoubtedly do harm totheir learning, and a vicious cycle forms during listening process.
First, learners in higher vocational colleges, due to their relatively underminedself-confidence in English compared with those in university, fail to leam English aswell as their undergraduate counterparts. The studies on listening instruction are evident，but the literature on listening anxiety in language learning is sparse. Therefore, there is agreater need to research on how to reduce anxiety level to a certain degree in thelistening process so that learners' listening proficiency can be developed.
Second, researches concerning listening anxiety, most of them are in foreigncountries. Nevertheless, because of the cross-cultural difference, the situation occurringin foreign countries fails to apply the results to other populations in China. Therefore, itis of great necessity to carry out the research in Chinese background.
Third, the research regarding three kinds of listening materials, namely, dialogue,conversation and spot dictation, and the relationship between language anxiety andlanguage proficiency on one hand and gender difference on the other, hopefullyfit aimsto drop instructors a hint to listening strategy instruction, raise the awareness ofdifficulty existing in listening materials of different types, and have investigators bemeticulous about gender difference in listening anxiety.
In a word, it is expected that the research will ignite the studies and the concerns inhigher vocational groups, propelling their low levels of listening proficiency in English.
......................................

Chapter TwoLiterature Review and Theoretical Basis

The current chapter will introduce factors and theories on listening comprehensionand listening anxiety，which is composed mainly of three parts. The first part focuses onproviding a theoretical basis for processes of models in listening comprehension so thatthe processes of how anxiety provokes are acquired; while the second part concentrateson schema theory to further explain the factors which affect listening anxiety andprovides the approach to easing listening anxiety. The third part is a brief review ofresearch in listening anxiety and the urgency to conduct the study.

2.1 Listening Comprehension
Barker et al. (1980) conduct an investigation, finding that time allotted in verbalcommunication by college learners was 52.5 percent in listening. 17.3 percent inreading. 16.3 percent in speaking, and 13.9 percent in writing. Another investigationfound by Gilbert (1988) states that learners from kindergarten to high school wereexpected to spend the time of 65 to 90 percent on listening. So. it can be indicated thatEnglish comprehension occupies a vital position in our daily lives and in Englishteaching.
2.1.1 Features of Listening Comprehension
Although similar features and cognitive processes occur between listeningcomprehension and reading comprehension, “spoken texts differ from written forms inlength of passage, organization style of ideal units, and the frequency of colloquialexpression used (Chafe, 1985)." What is more, ‘listeners will encounter spokenlanguage with peculiar features like false starts, irregular pauses, backtracking, andphonological changes (Rost. 1990).” As words run into each other, epenthesis, deletion,replacement blurred, it results in the fact that most unstressed vowels are prone tochange into neutral sound; on the other hand, “the existence of non-verbal messages inlistening and a number of contextual dimensions like tone of voice or intonation, facialexpression and gestures should be taken into consideration (Brown, 1990)." As for theforeign language learners, the obstacles mentioned above may prevent them fromcomprehending listening materials. Admittedly, it would be a high demanding job forthem to figure out the meaning from foreign language listening materials.
2.1.2 Listening Processes
Researchers have said that we listen twice as much as we speak, four times asmuch as we read and five times as much as we write. Listening to a news broadcast, ajoke, a lecture or engaging in a conversation takes place on people's regular basis.Listening，as one of the important input, is vital to foreign language classrooms. Only ifone understands input at the right level can one has a good mastery of listening skills;whereas listening process, “it is meaningful interactivity and a comprehensiveunderstanding of the text in the course of listening; listeners select messages from the).-auditory and visual cues and connect the messages with past experience in the long-termmemory (Hasan, 2000; O'Malley Chamot & Kupper，1999).” O'Malley and Chamot(1990, cited by Rubin, 1994:199-221) further point out the process is inpidualsconcentrate on selected aspects of aural input, construct meaning from passages, andrelate what is heard to past experience. Three views hold a dominant position inlanguage teaching pedagogy, namely that bottom-up processing, top%own andinteractive processing, which will be illustrated in the following sections..
..................................

2.2 Theoretical Basis
2.2.1 Models of Listening Comprehension
2.2.1.1 Information Processing Model of Listening Comprehension
Any effective practice must be supported by some relevant theories, otherwise itwould be aimless and pointless (Li & Chen, 1997). Foreign language anxiety is atheory-loaded affective factor, on which linguistics, psychology, education, sociology,etc, have been excelling increasing influence and impetus. The following theories willprobe into it from the perspective of psycholinguistics. As an interrelated part in foreignlanguage learning, foreign language listening comprehension has proved to be crucial inlanguage learning. The accumulating evidence indicates that listening, as one of thelanguage input, plays a significant part in foreign language learning. So, a number ofresearchers have recently paid attention to it. The Information Processing Modelconstructed by McLaughlin, Ressman and Mcleol (1983, from Freeman & Long，2000)is one of the important theories the present paper tends to explore. The model isrestricted by the quantity of attention distributed to the given task and the quality ofinformation process，viewing humans as processors of information (1983, Cook). Twostages are included in information processing, that is, controlled process and automaticprocess. The former is temporary and slow due to the limited attention and capacity;while the latter is quick, necessary to be built up by practice and little capacity.Meanwhile, there lie in the three basic structures of memory, namely, sensory memory，working memory, or short-term memory and long-term memory, among whichlong-term memory plays a critical role in information processing. Another modelproposed by Broadkent (1958, quoted from Guenther. 1998) is used to interpret humancognition which takes the role of affective elements into listening comprehension. It is afilter model responsible for listening task selection. The filter is based on the principlethat listeners can attend to a message at a time, with attention being controlled by thefilter. There are three stages accounting for the information processing. The first stageconcerns with all sensory stimuli for their physical dimensions, and the next touches onthe stimuli for meanings; the last centers on the interpreted stimuli put into thelong-term memory. And above all. what information goes through the filter is reliant oninpidual aims of listening and their affective state.
2.2.1.2 Krashen's Affective Filter Model
Learning process is not sheer cognitive factors. It also involves affective factors.The past few decades see researchers shift their attention from cognitive variables toaffective ones. With the advent of humanistic psychology, the importance of affectivevariables has been emphasized in foreign language learning. Stevick, Rinvolucri，Moskowitz, Galyean. the representatives of humanistic language teaching approach, arein search of ways to enrich language learning by absorbing learners' affectivedimensions. The indispensability of affective factors in foreign language learning hasbeen mentioned and discussed in multiple second language acquisition theories, such asKrashen's Monitor Model. Giles' Accommodation Theory. Krashen's Affective FilterModel, among which Krashen's Model gains wide eminence. Affective Filter Model isone of the five key hypotheses in Krashen's Theory, claiming that there is a mentalblock caused by affective variables preventing acquisition from sufficiently receptivecomprehensible input, which is critical for acquisition to take place. Nevertheless, thefilter, which has something to do with learners' affective factors such as anxiety,controls how much input is converted into intake. Krashen further holds that "acquirersseek and obtain more receptive input with a low affective filter (filter is down), whereasanxious acquirers possess a high affective filter (filter is up), which keeps acquisitionfrom happening (1985:3)." As is clearly shown, the model captures the relationshipbetween affective factors and the processes of foreign language acquisition by positingthat acquirers vary in their affective state.
......................................

Chapter Three Research Design...................................... 27
3.1 Subjects...................................... 27
3.2 The Listening Test...................................... 27
3.3 Instruments...................................... 29
3.4 Procedures of Data Collection...................................... 33

Chapter FourData Analysis

The chapter below will show the analysis of the reliability of the total foreignlanguage listening anxiety. Four hypotheses will be interpreted with reference to theresults from statistic analysis. From the angle of types of materials, the investigatorspicked up some of them on listening anxiety in order to have a detailed analysis of therelationship between styles of different materials and listening anxiety, which will be ofgreat help to further analyze the causes of the listening anxiety, and to relieve thelistening anxiety in the course of listening process. In the first place, the measurementplays a significant part in reliability and validity. In this paper, the data collected are rawmaterials, the test papers of which are valid included. For one thing, thai^fesearch iscomposed of the result of subjects' English listening test, namely PRETCO, employedto describe their English listening proficiency. In other words, the descriptive statisticsof maximum, minimum mean, standard deviation and the result of T-test are discussed.For another, the listening comprehension test of three types of materials are adopted tocheck whether there exists correlation between three different types listeningmaterials and their listening anxiety including the descriptive statistics of learners'listening performance, the result of T-test and the result of the correlation etc.
As the table 4-1 illustrates, 33 items of the Cronbach's alpha is .854. Reliability canbe achieved when a coefficient is 0.7 and 0.8; while a coefficient between 0.8 and 0.9means the scale can be wonderfully used to measure desired variables. According to theanalysis, it can be inferred that the coefficient alpha of the foreign listening anxietyscale possesses sound internal consistency. So，it is high reliability of the total scale formeasuring subjects' English listening anxiety.


4.1 A General Description of English Listening Anxiety AmongLearners in Higher Vocational Colleges
Given the first research question in the present thesis, the overall states of listeninganxiety accompanying with learners in higher vocational colleges will be measured andthe data to the question will be used to describe the relevant findings.
The table 4-2 shows that N means the number of the subjects 78. The minimum oflistening anxiety is 1.10. while the maximum of listening anxiety is 4.40. The meanscore of learners' listening anxiety is 3.2747. with its standard deviation of .58557,which indicates that there occurs listening anxiety in higher vocational colleges.
In general, listening anxiety will cause nervousness and apprehension Jusl asmentioned. The easy-to-disperse attention as well as poor mental endurance will make iteasy for learners to produce anxiety. Their incorrect beliefs have them make mistakeseasily and even lead to poor proficiency. Their attentions will not be easily focused on.so, as for them, it is difficult to cope with some listening materials and it is hard to dolistening comprehension well. Additionally, short-term memory and language input arcinfluenced by anxiety when learners listen to some words which they actually haveknown. However, anxiety will have those words which originally stored in memory lostin a short time. Consequently, anxiety should be evaded in the process of their listeningcomprehension.
..........................................

Chapter FiveConclusion

5.1 Overview of the Findings
The present study explores the correlation between the listening materials of thethree styles and the listening anxiety as well as gender difference in terms of listeninganxiety. The hypotheses put forward are testified by the detailed analysis.
The first hypothesis examines whether learners experience listening anxiety inhigher vocational colleges. For one thing. Results demonstrate that there exists Englishlistening anxiety among learners. Since the mean score of listening anxiety is 3.2747which proves that listening anxiety is widely experienced by listeners: while thefrequency analysis of anxiety levels shows that 11.8% of the listeners with high anxiety,56.4% with moderate anxiety and 31.8% with low anxiety.
The second hypothesis concerns about whether different styles of listeningmaterials will bring about listening anxiety. Results derive from the statistics that therelationship between different styles of listening materials and English listening anxietyoccurs; listening materials of different sorts lead to subjects" different level of Englishlistening anxiety; there is a moderate negative correlation between types of listeningmaterials and English listening anxiety. While doing passage spot dictation, listenersfeel the most anxious, but they feel the most relaxed while doing dialogue. In addition,the subjects in high level group，they obtain significant different listening anxiety leveltowards the three genres in the order of the highest in the level of listening anxiety ofpassage spot dictation, the lowest in dialogue and the intermediate in conversation.Nevertheless, as for the subjects of low level group，no significant difference is found intheir listening anxiety towards the three different kinds of materials. Furthermore, asignificant negative correlation is found between listening anxiety and achievements ofthe three materials, with spot dictation the highest and dialogue lowest. In other words.if learners can understand the given materials better, they will perform better.
The third hypothesis touches on whether English listening anxiety is correlated tolearners' English listening achievements. Pearson Correlation coefficient indicates thatthere is negative correlation between general English listening anxiety and learners'listening achievements. To be specific, learners obtain the highest marks in dialogue,whereas the lowest marks in passage spot dictation and the intermediate in conversation.As is known，materials of different genres will influence the overall performance in theprocess of listening comprehension. Since the schematic knowledge varies frominpidual to inpidual in global comprehension, the mental schemata of dialogue andconversation, compared with insufficient schematic knowledge in spot dictation，activate top-down processing during listening. It also reveals that the higher degree ofanxiety listeners experience during the test makes their performance poorer. In turn,learners with lower degree of anxiety are more inclined to do better.
The fourth hypothesis probes into whether there occurs gender differei^e in termsof listening anxiety. The report obtained from group statistics shows that after T-testbetween two variables between males and females, significant difference exists betweenmale and female in terms of the total mean scores of foreign language listening anxietyscale with male experiencing more anxiety than female.
.....................................
参考文献（略）