Sample

The current view of listening practice distinguishes between two key processes. One way is known as the “bottom up processing” as we discussed above in 2.1 Problem Identification and Analysis. The other process is known as the “top down processing”. According to this view, “the listener uses prior knowledge of the context and situation within which the listening takes place to make sense of what he or she hears”(Nunan, 2001: 201).

Listening is essentially a process of predicting and confirming language. This idea can be easily understood if we consider our experience of listening in our first language. Clearly when we listen in our mother tongue, we do not listen to every word, but we can guess a lot of what is going to be said since language is full of patterns and certain situations, which will be very familiar to us. We can often predict what is going to be said next (Gu,1999).

2. Research about comprehensible input

Comprehensible input is a term popularised by Krashen (蒋，1999). He suggests that we should work just above the level reasonably higher than that of the student?s comprehension. This is what he means by ?i+1?, where the ?i? represents the learners? current level and the ?1? means that the input is challenging but not overwhelming to the learner.

We need to let the children listen to the comprehensible language and a bit more. The “bit more” can be dealt with through gesture, through their understanding of the context, through visual clues etc (Philips, 1998). There seems to be a lot of sense for language learners in setting the level of the listening input just above the current level of the

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students, so as to push them on (Ur, 2000b).

There are many sources to contribute to language input in the classroom, such as the teacher, the students themselves and of course, the stories, which are in the broadest sense (Ur, 2000a). Nevertheless, in the listening process, “…the learner is an active participant. In order to comprehend, listeners need to reconstruct the original intention of the speakers by making use of both bottom-up and top-down processing strategies, and by drawing on what they already know to make use of new knowledge” (Nunan, 2001: 211).

3. Advantages of storytelling

All children love stories. Wright (1988) claims that telling stories to children can be a central part of classroom life. There are many advantages of storytelling, such as: 1) 2)

Stories are motivating so that students will always be willing to listen.

Stories are rich in language experience. Students want to find meaning in stories, so they listen with a purpose. 3)

Stories can enhance students? listening fluency. When they listen to the stories, there is a positive attitude to not understanding everything. So their skills of searching for meaning, predicting and guessing are trained as well. 4)

Stories help students become aware of the general ?feel? and sound of the foreign language. The language point, which including vocabulary and the sentence structures, are introduced and made familiar through stories.

Drawing on the above theories, we decide that story-telling can be a good top-down device to solve the problem identified in this project, as stories are interesting and can actively involve the students as more “motivated participants”; and in most cases, the stories are slightly more advanced than the students? current language level, but given the context of the story, those otherwise incomprehensible contents may turn out to be “comprehensible input” (Harmer, 2000).

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Bibliography

Gu, Y. (2002) Practical Project Design. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.

Gu, Y. (1999) English Language Teaching Methodology. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.

Harmer, J. (ed.). (2000) How to Teach English. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.

Nunan, D. (ed.). (2001) Second Language Teaching and Learning. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.

Phillips, S. (ed.). (1998) Young learners. 上海 & Cambridge: 华东师范大学出版社 & Cambridge University Press.

Ur, P. (ed.). (2000a) Teaching Listening Comprehension. Beijing & Cambridge: People?s Education Press & Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press & Cambridge University Press.

Ur, P. (ed.). (2000b) A course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press & Cambridge University Press. Wright, A. (ed.). (1998) Storytelling with children. 上海&Cambridge: 华东师范大学出版社 & Cambridge University Press.

蒋祖康，(1999)《第二语言习得研究》。北京：外语教学与研究出版社。 Online reference: http://www.home.aone.net.au/ (obtained by June 19, 2008)

5. 教学活动框架

Project Design

Drawing on the discovery of the problem analysis and rationale quoted above, a project is designed to improve the students? listening ability by integrating storytelling in their classroom learning.

1. Target Group and Control Group

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Two groups of students will be needed for comparison, the Target Group, who will use the innovative storytelling method, and the Control Group, who will be taught in the same traditional way. The sample groups consisted of two classes of Grade 4 students, who were about the same English level at the beginning of the project. They were taught by the same teacher, but in different ways. Students of Class 2, Grade 4 comprised the Target Group and used for listening practice. They were asked to spend 20 minutes to tell a story in each 40-minute lesson. Students of Class 1, Grade 4 served as the Control Group and continued to use traditional method, namely, the bottom-up method, to practice English listening.

2. Teaching materials

Five stories will be needed in the project. They should be suitable for the students? present English level and the content should be related to the students? curriculum so as not to interrupt their normal learning plan.

Five stories (See Appendix I) were selected by the researcher and the teacher from New Standard English Graded Readers 3-4 of Level 1 (Curriculum Standard Level 1, which has been tested as suitable for the general English level of Grade 4 students). The content of the five stories were relevant to students? normal English lesson topics, such as animals, fables, school life, and sports.

3. Storytelling design

A four-week storytelling lesson plan by the researcher, based on the project objective, and especially pertinent to the students? problems as analyzed in 2.2 Problem Analysis. The project will last for four weeks and have 5 periods, which include five stories and fifteen tasks. The table below is an overview of the project design: Table 2: Timetable of Project Period 1 Week I Date Jun. 2 Story How the elephant Objectives Tasks Time (Min) 20 -To make students 1. Brainstorm what they enjoy the story. have seen and heard 8