About teaching listening

May 26, 2008 juliak2

Lots of teachers would regard movies as listening materials. I think it’s really a good idea. Students then could learn daily-life conversation and update their usage  or vocab. I also recommend my studetns to do so. However, I have a different idea different from others, that is, subtitle. It’s said that it will be better to shut the subtitle off or play the Eng version. Most peeps believe that subtitle will cultivate students to rely on it. However, I would say i learn a lot from the subtitles.

At first, my listening ability is quite poor. Without the subtitles, i could understand nothing & thus i could not enjoy the movie. Take students in Eng corner as examples, they asked me to show them the Eng version when watching ‘Friends’. However, there’s no laughter. It’s odd for me. Thus, I ask students to give it a try if i show them the Chinese one. Then, they could understand the humor. After that, they said it’s not a good idea to show Chinese version cuz they would read the Chinese subtitle directly. I said: ‘Well, but u understand nothing with Eng version. How would u expect your learning just from the blur meaning. it’s above ur head.’ I tried to explain Krashen’s ‘i +1′.

Here’s my suggetion. First, it could make our learning enjoyable. After certain time, we will find some vocab naturally ‘flow into’ our head. Then, some sentences could ’sneak into’ our brain. Third, we could make sure whether our comprehension is correct or not with Chinese subtitles. Next, We could read Chinese text and guess how the characters would express the intended meaning. If our ans is wrong, then we learn the new expression. Finally, now, what i’m doing is to compare my own real-time translation to the Chinese subtitiles. The real-time translation task is so interesting for me!!!

Here, I’m not saying others r wrong. I just want to share my own personal learning experience. After all, everyone is a individual and would has different learning styles.

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