How to Teach Aural English More Effectively

As a means of communication, listening plays an important role in people’s life. In foreign language classroom, listening comprehension has never drawn the same attention of educators as it now does. So it is a vital importance to teach aural English more effectively. In view of present situation of aural English teaching and wrong ideas about it, the problems in traditional aural English teaching have been discussed, including monotonous pattern of teaching, ineffectiveness of teachers’ roles, students’ passivity, orientation at exams instead of students’ abilities and so forth. Then suggestions are presented on how to teach aural English more effectively: first, diversifying patterns of teaching should throw the emphasis on teaching in authentic environments and interaction between listening and other teaching activities; secondly, teachers should design listening activities for the class, build good interaction in the class and cultivate more creative methods in their teaching to change their ineffective roles; thirdly, students’ passive roles in class should also be modified by harmonizing their extrinsic motivations and intrinsic motivations; finally, the relationship between exams and development of abilities should be coordinated by using different strategies in different cases. Yet, there still exist a lot of problems in aural English teaching. For example, how to use authentic recordings in aural English teaching? Is it necessary to have audio equipment in order to train listening skills? And how to build the listeners’ confidence in listeners? etc. Therefore, there is still a long way to go for EFL educators.