The Characteristics of‘Attention’ in English Listening Classroom

侯博

Abstract:Attention is a crucial role in psychology and SLA.Foreign scholars have made some investigations and studies in attention,while in China the using of attention is not adequate,especially in listening.In order to find out the using of attention in listening class,we carried out a quantitative investigation on the distribution of studentsattention (noticing) by means of questionnaire.Based on the analysis we suggest way in which objective stimuli,constructing the reformulation,keeping the consciousness attention and self-evaluation lead to facilitate the attention in English learning.

Key word:attention;application;English listening class

1 Introduction

Attention plays a critical role in almost all aspects of human perception,cognition, and action,influencing ones decision-making process. In 1890,the definition of attention was provided by William James,“Everyone knows what attention is.It is the taking possession by the mind,in clear and vivid form,of one of what may seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought.Focalization,concentration,of consciousness is of its essence”.Other scholars said that it was well recognized in psychology and cognitive science that there is little if any Learning without attention (Baars,1988,1996;Carlson &Dulany,1985;Fisk & Schneider,1984;Kihlstrom,1984;Logan, 1988).Allport (1993) believed that there is actually no uniform function of attention.In recent years，more and more teachers concerned how to use the attention in English listening,because they found the attention and listening are connected with each other.So in this paper,the author will get the answer of the relationship between the two parts through the questionnaire,and then suggests some methods to improve the studentsscores by attention.

2 The Development of Attention in SLA

In the last two decades,researchers in the field of second language acquisition have become increasingly interested in concepts traditionally associated with cognitive psychology.The concept of attention has become especially important because of its crucial role in so many interrelated aspects of SLA theory.There are provided some methods to enhance the attention in SLA by scholars. Wilberg(1987)believed that reformulation has been promoted for the teaching for speaking skills one-to-one classes since it is an effective way of tailoring instruction to the individual students needs and interests.

In China,some scholars also proposed the advice about selective attention in listening strategy.Chen Jitang(2004)proposed that attention influences the absorbability of information.In order to improve aural comprehension,the best method is to construct,select and utilize attentive tendency.Chen Mei(2007)researched that selective attention listening strategy instruction can improve the subjectstransactional listening performance,and enhance their strategy awareness and learning confidence.Huang Guangjun(2007)gave different methods from the teacher and students angles to cultivated the strategies in selective attention,such as taking-note,explanation, evaluation of strategy using,etc.

3 The Design of the Research

3.1 The subject and the materials

Subjects for this research(N=63)were chosen from a freshman class majoring in Chinese Education and Real Estate from Sichuan Pre-school Educators College.The material was the studentslistening textbook which waspublished by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.

3.2 Procedure

The students finish the listening test in 30 minutes,and then fill thequestionnaires of their attentional activities during class.According to the conventional teaching model,there are 6 steps in the listening class:

First,teacher taught some key words and instructed some listening skills to students (e.g.make references,lower anxiety,grasp the information quickly,etc.).Second,students scan the related contents of the materials(the exercises of textbook).Third,students listen to the materials.Fourth,students complete the questions of materials.Fifth, teacher analyzes the listening materials and gives the answer as well as the students.Sixth,listen to the materials again in order to check the answer by the students.

The whole process was controlled in half an hour, then hand out the questionnaire to the students.

3.3 Findings and Analysis

There questionnaire was distributed to students and took back 57 because of among which 6 studentsquestionnaires were eliminated for their answers were not intact.From the results of odd number questions in the first part,we can find the variation in the degree of‘a(chǎn)ttentionin each step of listening Step five(M=8.23)which is the highest degree of attention in all the steps. The teacher analyzes the listening materials and gives the answers as well as the students;Next,Step two(M=7.70)students scan the related contents of the materials(the exercises of textbook).Step three(M=7.67)students listen to the materials;Step six(M=7.54)students listen to the materials again in order to check the answer;Step four(M=7.25)students complete the questions of materials;Step one (M=7.19)teacher taught some key words and instructed some listening skills to students(e.g.make references,lower anxiety,grasp the information quickly,etc.)

4 The Results of the Research

4.1 According to the research,the studentsattention of Step 1(7.19)and 4(7.25) is lowest. From the Table 2, the reasons of studentsattention too low in Step1 and 4 are respectively that‘the class just begin they are not ready to listen to the tape(61.6%);they felt tired since listen to the tape for a while so the attention is not concentrated (71.7%).As the teacher we should let the students know the necessity of ‘a(chǎn)ttention.It can help students grasp the key information and master the characteristics of target language.As Gass,Svetics and Lemelin(2003)claims,“l(fā)anguage processing is like other kinds of processing:Humans are constantly exposed to and often overwhelmed by various sorts of external stimuli and are able to,through attentional devices,‘tune insome stimuli and‘tune outothers”.In their efforts to account for what drives second language acquisition,researchers have recently started to explore the role of such learner-internal factors as attention.Thus the teacher should explore various methods to stimuli the students in listening.

4.2 The Step 6(7.54) the attention is lower than Step2,3,6.The main reason is that ‘they want to correct their answers after listen to the tape once again.Although the attention is concentrated,the teacher should instruct the students pay attention to the content and knowledge of the target language rather than the false answers.In addition, the students could use the reformulation which provides a useful way to recognize the mistakes they made.This way is a stage of their skill development.

4.3 The Step 3(7.67)and Step 2(7.70)the attention is not low. Because‘the listening is just beginning,the students want to get the information of the materials,their attention is concentrated.In psychology,the researchers believed that the language information received process;there are two kinds of attention which can provide filter signals:conscious attention and unconscious attention.Conscious attention is generated by the premise of prompt.This form of filtering features is:to prompt axis,intake is associated with prompt information-based,and this information is generally limited capacity through the channel,a memory factors.

4.4 In Step 5(8.23)the attention is high,the main reason chose by the students is that‘want to know the answers are whether right or not,so the attention is concentrated.In this section, although the studentsattention is concentrated,the teacher should ask students to evaluate their performance during the listening process and analysis the relationship between the attention and scores.This method is a good way to instruct the students strengthen the self-evaluation to know where and when enforce the attention.

5 Conclusion

Attention plays an important role in SLA.It was used in some aspects of English Courses.From the research,we find the regular pattern of‘a(chǎn)ttentionin the English listening class,and use some effective methods to enhance the attention in each step.To some degree,it make advantages in listening can facilitate the studentsresults. Although in foreign country there are a lot of researches about‘a(chǎn)ttention,in our country the use of attention in class is not adequate.So in the further research,we have to connect the attention to the class activities in order to help students complete the learning tasks.

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