1 I. Introdu ction Language is a means of communication, and listening is an indispensable part of communication. By listening we can know what the speaker tells, and what his or her idea is. Maybe we can also know the speaker’s feeling. To Chinese students, it is necessary for them to master listening. Because it enables them to learn different cultures, widen their English knowledge range, and pave way for their future. Therefore, today it is necessary to help our students to develop the English listening skills so that they may use it for their future study and work. There are many problems, as troubles with sounds, words, and spoken speed etc. They exist in listening teaching and learning. And also there are lots of factors, which affect the listening comprehension. They are the features of listening materials, learners, listening tasks, listening process and the speaker of listening material. According to these problems and the factors teachers should find out different approaches to improve students’ listening skills. It includes training students ‘ thinking and perception ability, discrimination skill, predicting skills etc. In this way they will not be among the people who have studied English for many years but are still unable to communicate with others, especially with native speakers II. Problems in Listening Teaching and Learning We have a lot of difficulties in listening teaching and learning. To overcome these difficulties, we should find out the existing problems. First on the problems which students face I did an investigation in grade one of Hengshan middle school last September. Four classes including more than300 students took part in the investigation. The result is as f...
