Chinese universities have invested heavily in sound labs to teach English listening.
Post-graduate students who have spent many hours in these sound labs know nothing about proper listening skills. They speak with each other in Chinese and off topic while someone else has the floor. Their cell phones ring and they answer them. They send text messages or worse, play games on their cell phones. Some sleep with their eyes wide open while other lay their head down on the desk and sleep. There is little or no eye contact between listener and speaker. They have not learned the basic rudimentary principles of listening.
Give your full attention on the person who is speaking. Don’t look out the window or at what else is going on in the room.
Make sure your mind is focused, too. It can be easy to let your mind wander if you think you know what the person is going to say next, but you might be wrong! If you feel your mind wandering, change the position of your body and try to concentrate on the speaker’s words.
Let the speaker finish before you begin to talk. Speakers appreciate having the chance to say everything they would like to say without being interrupted. When you interrupt, it looks like you aren’t listening, even if you really are.
Let yourself finish listening before you begin to speak! You can’t really listen if you are busy thinking about what you want say next.
Listen for main ideas. The main ideas are the most important points the speaker wants to get across. They may be mentioned at the start or end of a talk, and repeated a number of times. Pay special attention to statements that begin with phrases such as “My point is…” or “The thing to remember is…”
Ask questions. If you are not sure you understand what the speaker has said, just ask. It is a good idea to repeat in your own words what the speaker said so that you can be sure your understanding is correct. For example, you might say, “When you said that no two zebras are alike, did you mean that the stripes are different on each one?”
Give feedback. Sit up straight and look directly at the speaker. Now and then, nod to show that you understand. At appropriate points you may also smile, frown, laugh, or be silent. These are all ways to let the speaker know that you are really listening.
Remember, you listen with your face as well as your ears!
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These principles cannot be learned sitting in a cubicle wearing a set of headphones while listening to canned dialogue.
So what do the students learn in the sound lab?
They memorize set phrases that are subsequently unusable because the student has learned only one context in which the set phrase was used. There is little likelihood that the student will ever be confronted with the exact same dialogue in real life and the student has no idea how to use the set phrase in any other context.
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The investment in sound labs has not furthered the Chinese students’ functional English capability.
Read China EFL: What Does Reform Mean?
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Why does China continue to invest heavily in sound labs when they do NOT bring about the desired result?
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The only people who support the use of sound labs for language learning are the designers and manufacturers
or the developers of the software programs they use. Sound labs have not worked for the past 30 years.
Replacing Teachers With Technology -
September 28, 2010 – 11:34 AM | by: Meredith Orban
http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/09/28/replacing-teachers-with-technology/
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It is really good principles we should follow in listening, no matter in which language they speak. It shows the basic respect to the speaker.
Why does China continue to invest heavily in sound labs? As to the problem, I think some students do want to learn, the sound is a choice for them.
EDITOR’S NOTE: USELESS CHOICE
It is very confused that many Chinese people has learn English for many years but cannot speak English. Is the less investment for English education?Is the wrong educational methods? Or, Chinese people do stupid.
EDITORIAL NOTE: CHINESE PEOPLE ARE VERY SMART AND ARE GOOD LEARNERS WHEN GIVEN THE PROPER TEACHING METHODOLOGY.
I has make a mistake in the above remarks.Chinese means people in China.”chinese people” is a tapical chinglish.So,the chinese thinking may also hinder chinese learning english.
EDITOR’S NOTE: THIS IS CALLED “MOTHER TONGUE INTERFERENCE” AND IS THE REASON CHINGLISH IS BOTH NORMAL AND ACCEPTABLE.
In China, many build sound labs just to show people, experts that they have devices to learn listening skills ,but few NOTICE whether it will really works, make our students improve English listening skill, that a very common phenomenon in China of many aspects, not just in school,also in enterprises,factory, etc, just show other we have labs, but seldom really improve the skill of English.
I don’t know when and where the sound labs were used in China English education in the first time,in my opinion,it could be a successful experience came from the foreign country,maybe the former Soviet Union.So the sound labs may be useful,I guess.
To my omn view,universities are just try their best to creat a enviroment for us,as they know we students are so shy to speak English with each other,because they do not they are good at it!
I can not agree with that idea anymore that you can not practise your listening and speaking very well without chating or communication with each other.How to express that ,just when you are talking and listening to others’ words in the reality ,it is little time left for you to think about it ,just open your mouth to say,say what you want after you can understand your friends’ meaning.At the same time,you should make feedback, feedback which is pointed out in the passage will make your friends be happy to continue the topic. But in the sound lab ,after we finished the listening ,we have times to think about the quetions in the book.Maybe it is useful for the beginning of learing english,we have to change our ideal about that.The most important thing of learning a foreign language is using it to communicate,let others to understand your opinions.So it is really unusable to spend so much money on sound labs.Some will be fine ,not too much.We can not improve english just by buying book .I think this reform should be in the same situation.
The skills of listening,speaking,reading,writing are the basis for us to learn a foreign language,we can learn reading and writing well alone,however,it’s difficult to learn listening and speaking by yourself,because we have no natural situation,we can’t speak and listen face to face.It’s necessary for us to speak English with foreigners not to listen to the text in sound labs .
I am completely agree with your opinion that you should listen for main ideas, ask questions, give feedback and flexible utilize the sound labs. Chinese students memorize the set phrase so that they can’t promote the english capacity. You give us appropriate method how to exploit the sound labs.
The sound lab of Chinese universities have invested heavily to teach English listening.These behaviors should be found in the process of Western countries’s language learning.Chinese students in English just stay in a lower level,that is what we usually call “Chinglish”.Even now.Many people can freely communicate with foreigners through English,but that does not mean that the Chinese people in English have reached the international standard.Now,English is the world’s largest language.Therefore,as our generation,we need to seize this opportunity.AS university graduates,we should make our own ability to adapt to the development of the society and the times.
If we want accurate and complete grasp of the English other people say,we must learn to listen,carefully listening to what others are saying.Even if,in the beginning,we will have great trouble in listening and understanding,we are still need to make an effort to contiune learning,learning how to pronounce,how to say the sentence and understand their idiom use.If we focus our attentionand say it out loudly,we can do it better.
It is generally known that listening,speaking,reading and writing are the four basis skills of for us to learn English,we can learn reading and writing well alone,but it’s difficult to learn listening and speaking by ourselves,because we have no a English envionment around us ,but I think we have too many ways to change this situation,we can make friends with international student,we can talk with them in English,in return we teach them Chinese culture.Win-win in the process.We can see more original English movies and so on.
This article is very useful to me .I agree you in some degree.In China,the sound lab is inefficient for most students who have used it .Beacuse students can not pay attention to the vedio which is playing.They alway think other things when they are listening .And teachers open one eye and close the other eye to them .Sometime they do not connect with students at all.So it is a waste of time and technology in China.But some stucents have their skills to listen to the vedio.They can pay attention to the listening material.These students will repeat the listening material and practice in other situations after class .Thus, to some students ,the sound lab is useful.