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1、Factors Affecting English Listening Comprehension of College Students. IntroductionThere are many factors affecting listening comprehension of college students. The most important two are background knowledge and finding relevant links between an oral text and known knowledge. The former can be expl
2、ained by the schemata theory and the latter by the relevance theory. Topic familiarity and language level have a profound effect on listening comprehension. These two factors can be explained by schemata theory and relevance theory. Besides, college students listening comprehension may be affected b
3、y the difficulty of an oral material itself, the speed and sound of language, the vocabulary accumulated and so on. Due to young peoples own characteristics, such as numbness, laziness, etc, psychological factors and their learning habit also exert great influence on their listening comprehension. S
4、chemata Theory and Listening ComprehensionA. Introduction of Schemata1. Definition of Schemata Schemata are the structure of background knowledge that a learner has acquired previously (Carrel Eisterhold, 1983). A schema is used to demonstrate stereotypical knowledge that people acquire from time to
5、 time (Schank Abelson, 1977). Schemata are a series of events, situations, relations, objects, etc. (Eysenck Keane, 1990). From the above definitions of schemata, it is not hard for us to draw a conclusion that schemata actually refers to background knowledge or knowledge bases stored in peoples bra
6、ins.2. Features of Schemata Schemata have specific instantiations. According to Howard, when a schemata finds specific exemplars in reality, it is believed to have been activated (黄子东,1998). Schemata can be made up of many sub-schemata and be a part of other schemata. Schemata represent knowledge in
7、 any way. These features tell us that schemata have a certain relationship to background knowledge. The most important of all is that “schemata have a deep influence on world perception and language understanding (Howard, 1987).B. The Model of Schemata Listening ComprehensionIt is based upon the dev
8、elopment of “information processing”, which mainly refers to bottom-up processing and top-down processing. The former is a process of using basic language knowledge, such as vocabulary, syntax, grammar, etc. to understand the meaning of an oral text. The latter is a process of employing world inform
9、ation, context situation, background knowledge and common sense to guess and get the meaning of a colloquial text. The model of schemata listening comprehension admits that the listening comprehension process is a process of combining these two information-handling methods, but it focuses on top-dow
10、n processing and the function of listeners fixed background knowledge, the activation and instantiation of schemata on listening comprehension (黄子东, 1998).C. The Influence of Schemata Theory on Listening ComprehensionSchemata or background knowledge play an important role in listening comprehension;
11、 they can accelerate the listening process, especially when they are exemplified or instantiated. The listening comprehension process is not simply a process of decoding the literal meaning of a text, it is rather that of actively exchanging the input information and the stored knowledge or schemata
12、 in listeners brains (贺玲, 2005). The meaning of a text is the result of collision between students world knowledge and the texts information. More importantly, the fixed schemata in listeners brains plays a decisive part in the process of listening (黄子东, 1998). In the course of foreign language lear
13、ning, students often meet such questions: They have no difficulty in understanding each word in a sentence, but they are not able to figure out the sentence as a whole unit. On the contrary, sometimes they can get the meaning of a sentence or even a passage without hearing all its content or they ca
14、n understand a sentence with some grammatical errors. The reason for this is that schemata takes effect in such cases. The reason why listeners sometimes fail to understand a sentence or a passage as a whole unit even if they hear every word in it is that they lack background knowledge, without whic
15、h they can only get the superficial and literal meaning. The wider the gap between the different cultures, the less the background knowledge listeners know, and the more difficult it is for them to understand an oral passage.When schemata are activated and find exemplars in the listening process, st
16、udents will be on the road to a better understanding of what they have been dictated. Schemata which are activated correctly can be used to explain the meaning of an article. When the opposite thing happens, the process of listening would be greatly impacted. According to some linguists, the activat
17、ion of schemata is the preparing period of peoples thought understanding, which can not only help them predict the main content of a passage they are going to listen to but also improve the quality of listening. It is also a psychological preparing stage. Psychologists universally believe that nervo
18、usness and anxiety have a great impact on listeners concentration. Due to being afraid of being unable to understand what they are going to listen to, they can hardly focus on the listening business. We may say that it is very essential for teachers to activate schemata in students minds before list
19、ening. Background knowledge can make up the deficiency of listeners vocabulary, syntax and enable them to ignore or quilt the difficulties of language (汪兴权, 1991).In conclusion, schemata play a vital role in listening comprehension. Both teaching plan and practical teaching should include encycloped
20、ic and background knowledge (黄福洪, 2002). Schemata is knowledge frame stored in brain, which include many slots; when these slots are filled with input information, the schemata is thus activated, and language is easily understood. The role of background knowledge in language comprehension process ha
21、s been formalized as schemata theory (金涛, 2001). Background knowledge contains linguistic and world knowledge; they are the two important factors exerting influence over language understanding. Schemata theory attaches much importance to the function of top-down processing, but it does not necessari
22、ly follow that young people can neglect the strengthening of basic language knowledge. Relevance Theory and Listening ComprehensionA. Introduction of Relevance1. Definition of RelevanceRelevance is a series of Interco textual relationship. It is a relationship between utterance and its colloquial co
23、ntext in the course of language communication (Sperber & Wilson, 1986). The known knowledge people have acquired previously is an initiating context, and the relation between the initiating context and new information is called relevance (刘立国、刘立华, 2003). Judging from the name “relevance” and the def
24、initions, we clearly know that relevance refers to the relevance between initiating contexts and new contexts or input information, between questions and new contexts, such as in Test for English Majors and College English Test examinations.2. Features of RelevanceRelevance lays much stress on the c
25、onnection of known knowledge and new information, and uses this connection to figure out the real intention of speakers utterance. Listening comprehension is to apply the existed knowledge to look into context information. To a certain extent, listening comprehension is a process of making use of kn
26、own knowledge to figure out unknown information (陈小明、杨朝晖, 2006). Relevance emphasizes listen intentionally to get the most relevant information. Language understanding is a process of seeking the most effective relevance (李冬梅，2000). Such as in Test for English Majors and in College English Test exam
27、inations, after having skimmed questions requiring examinees to answer, they ought to concentrate on the part that has a close relationship to these questions. Listening purposefully is the key to understanding.B. The Model of Relevance Listening ComprehensionRelevance is closely tied to getting inf
28、ormation by predicting and inferring topic sentences, titles and questions after a passage. Listeners check and verify their inference in the course of listening comprehension. Relevance also tends to adopting the method of top-down processing, but its model puts much emphasis on the overlapping and
29、 interdependence of different inferring period in listening comprehension (黄子东, 1998). Take Test for English Majors Grade 8 for example; when examinees have found the correct answer to one question, they need not to pay much attention to the information irrelevant to this question. All they have to
30、do is to move on to next questions and keep in mind what other questions are, what are their selective choices and what kinds of words requires them to fill in mini-lectures.C. The Influence of Relevance Theory on Listening ComprehensionAlthough relevance is built on connecting known information to
31、a new passage, it largely depends on ones ability to infer, which is very significant for him to get a decent score in listening comprehension tests. Helping students improve their capability to guess the content of an article is an extremely important step in listening comprehension. The purpose of
32、 the improvement of this kind of ability is to help listeners find correct answers quickly. These answers have a close relation to the article. Prediction or inference has to be in accordance with peoples common sense and world knowledge. Guessing without ground does nothing good but harm to listeni
33、ng comprehension. So known information is rather indispensable to enhancing students ability of inferring, which in turn helps them listen more successfully. While understanding and absorbing input information, young people need to link it to existed knowledge, namely, background information and con
34、cepts they have got to know previously. If they can connect common sense and an oral text or speakers utterance together, their understanding of the text and the utterance will be much more effectively. This kind of connection requires students inferring of a passages title and questions, and the co
35、nnection has to correspond to common sense.Relevance theory belongs to cognitive pragmatic theory of communication, which originates from cognitive psychology. Utterance in natural language can be explained in many ways; not everybody is capable of completely figuring out different meanings expresse
36、d on different occasions. The same words may have distinct meanings in different contexts, and different words or phrases can convey the same meaning in the same context. Students have to use their common sense to get the contextual meaning of these words. The more common sense they have, the easier
37、 it is for them to guess the correct contextual meanings. As foreign language learners, they have to pass various kinds of tests from time to time; the most important thing for them to do is to understand the general idea of a listening passage and answer related questions following it. Speakers not
38、 only want to say something about certain topic, but also want to convey their purpose of saying something (陈小明、杨朝晖, 2006). If listeners have rich life experience and they are good at connecting it to oral texts and speakers utterance, their listening comprehension would be better than others who ha
39、ve little life experience. The difficulty of listening comprehension chiefly lies in the difficulty to weigh and consider speakers speeches. The closer the relation or relevance between listeners world knowledge and input information, and the stronger their ability to link them together, the easier
40、it is for them to understand an oral text, and vice versa. Those who have got to learn necessary information before listening, plus ability to predict according to the known knowledge can perform better in their listening comprehension than those who do not. So both the ability of connecting initiat
41、ing contexts and new contexts, and the ability to infer contribute to the understanding of listening texts. Topic Familiarity and Listening ComprehensionA. 1The Influence of Topic Familiarity on Listening ComprehensionTopic familiarity is, in other words, familiarity of background knowledge of a lis
42、tening context. The research of Liu (1991) found that students who are familiar with the topic background knowledge of a listening passage they are going to listen can do better than those who are unfamiliar with it in listening comprehension; vice versa. Familiar with the topic of oral passages is
43、very helpful for listening comprehension and not familiar with it would definitely slow down the listening process.B. Schemata Theory and the Effects of Topic FamiliarityThe effect of topic familiarity can be explained by schemata theory. When students are familiar with the topic of an oral passage,
44、 the related schemata in their brains will be easily activated; language skill deficiency can be compensated by the familiarity of the topic of a text (黄子东, 1998). According to schemata theory, it is unnecessary for young people to hear every phoneme of each sentence or understand the meaning of eac
45、h word in it; nor to check thoroughly syntactic structure of each sentence in the course of listening, so long as they are able to employ the related common sense and logical mind to understand the meaning of an oral article. Topic familiarity is the familiarity of background knowledge of the topic
46、of a passage; the familiarity of background knowledge can help listeners activate schemata stored in their brains. It is apparently that topic familiarity aids the activation of schemata; it also assists students in their listening comprehension.C. Relevance Theory and the Effects of Topic Familiari
47、tyAccording to Anderson, schemata theory is not so perfect as to explain all the phenomena appearing in listening comprehension, while relevance theory can explain that of schemata theory can not. Few students are familiar with background knowledge of a passage, but they are incapable of doing well
48、in listening comprehension. This can be explained by relevance theory: these few students fail in linking their knowledge and input information together. Specifically speaking, they are unable to make good use of their world knowledge, logical semantic information provided by listening texts and any
49、 other useful messages while listening a passage. From this point of view, we can conclude that even when listeners are familiar with the background knowledge of the topic of a listening article, but they do not succeed in connecting it with new information, their listening process would certainly be impeded; when they are unfamiliar with the background knowledge of an oral passage but succeed in connecting known messages obtained from its title, topic sentence, e