《新概念英語》之父告訴你如何提高聽力

L.G.Alexander(1932.1.15-2002.6.17)生于英國。世界著名的英語教學專業(yè)，曾任歐洲現代語言教學委員會理事。其著作為交際教學法奠定基礎，其中一些已成經典教材。他和何其莘教授主編的《新概念英語》 成為英語學習經久不衰的經典教材。

亞歷山大先生潛心研究英語教學法，結合實際教學經驗(他曾在歐洲多所大學任教)，就廣大教師和學生廣泛關注的教學和學習問題，提供了專家指導和建議。

It’s difficult to catch the words in the Voice of America sports report. Do you have some skills?

聽美國之音體育報道，對詞的理解有困難。您能介紹一些竅門嗎?

One of the most difficult skills to acquire in a foreign language is the ability to understand the natural language spoken by native speakers at a normal speed. Additionally, with sports reports, the language is often delivered at speed. Listen to a commentary on a horse race or a car rally and you will find that the commentator can hardly keep up with himself as he tries to keep pace with the events he is witnessing. You can train yourself to cope with native speaker delivery in a number of ways. One way is to use ‘talking books’. These are published on audio tape, compact disc, or on video. They consist mainly of novels or biographies read by famous actors and are aimed at native speakers who like to listen to someone telling them a story, rather than reading one themselves. This is what you could do:

? Buy the book and the recorded version (in British or American English according to your preference).

? Play a small part of the audio version and concentrate on listening. Confine yourself to about two minutes at a time. Try to understand as much as you can. You will probably find it’s hard to‘keep up with the reader’.

? Play the taped version again while reading the text at the same time. Guess the meaning from the context, looking up only those words which seem to you to be essential to the meaning.

? Play the same part of the tape again without looking at the book. Contentrate only on listening. This time you will find that you can‘keep up with the reader’much more easily.

? Keep doing this until you feel able to cope with native delivery. Of course, it’s not a sports commentary. But following this routine will provide you with the kind of practice you need to cope with English delivered at normal native-speaker speed.

一門外國語最難掌握的一項技巧就是聽懂母語講話人用正常速度所說的自然語言的能力。另外，在體育報道中，語速通常是快的。聽一場賽馬或汽車比賽的評論，你會發(fā)現評論員幾乎都跟不上自己的速度，因為他要努力跟上他所看到的項目的進行速度。你可以通過幾個方法來訓練自己聽懂母語講話者說話的能力。一種辦法是使用“有聲讀物”。這些讀物以錄音帶、CD或錄像帶的形式出版。它們主要包括著名演員朗讀的小說或傳記，這些讀物是面向那些不想親自讀故事而想聽別人讀的母語講話者的。你可以：

? 購買有聲讀物及其配書(根據你自己的喜好選擇英國英語或美國英語)。

? 播放一小部分有聲讀物，集中精力聽。每次限制在兩分鐘內。盡量多地理解。你可能會發(fā)現要“跟上朗讀人”有困難。

? 重復播放有聲讀物，看著配書聽。根據上下文猜測意思，只有那些對理解意思起關鍵作用的詞才去查詞典。

? 再把磁帶的同一部分播放一遍，不要看書。集中精力聽。這次你會發(fā)現要“跟上朗讀人”就容易多了。

? 堅持做下去，直到你覺得能夠應付母語的講話為止。當然，這不是體育評論。這種做法能為你提供實用的練習，使你聽懂正常語速英語母語講話。

Along with listening to the radio, I always read some books about listening comprehension. I have got little progress in my listening comprehension. How can I improve it?

在聽收音機的同時，我還讀一些有關如何提高聽力的書。但仍然進步緩慢。我該如何提高呢?

The way to train listening comprehension in a language course is through the technique of‘active listening’, not ‘passive listening’. If a teacher introduces a text with a short commentary and sets a question, students will listen actively. For example, the teacher says: ‘Today I’m going to read you a story about an accident. After I have finished reading, I will ask you how the accident happened.’ This will encourage students to listen actively in order to find out the answer. If, however, the teacher introduces a story by saying: ‘Listen to this story’, the students will have no listening focus. They will listen (perhaps) with their eyes open, but with their minds shut. Here are a few tips to improve your listening skills:

? Listen for particular information; don’t worry about the meanings of individual words.

? If you have recordings of texts (the listening comprehension books you mention), first listen to the recordings, trying to pick up as much as you can at first hearing. Then listen again, while reading silently at the same time. Then listen to the text a third time (without reading)

? Try sharing a listening activity with a friend or with friends, so you can ‘pool’ your listening experience with others.

練習語言聽力的方法是要采取積極主動而非被動的方式。如果老師在介紹一篇課文時稍加一個短評，并且提出一個問題，學生們就會積極主動地聆聽。例如，老師說：“今天我準備給你們讀一則講述一個意外事件的故事。讀完之后，我要問你們這件事是如何發(fā)生的?！边@會鼓勵學生們積極認真地聽，以求找到問題的答案。如果老師只是說：“請聽這個故事”，學生們則沒有聆聽的重點。他們的雙眼可能是睜著的，但頭腦確是封閉的。在此，我給你提供一些建議，供參考：

? 為汲取特定的信息而聽;不要擔心個別詞的意思。

? 如果你所說的聽力課本中的課文有錄音，首先聽錄音，盡量在第一次聽時多聽懂些，然后再聽一遍，同時你可以默讀。之后，你可以再聽第三遍(可以不讀課文了)。

? 可以試著與一個朋友或幾個朋友一起進行聽力訓練，這樣你們可以集思廣益，互相借鑒。