Factors Affecting English Listening Comprehension of College Students英语专业（毕业论文）.docxVIP

Factors Affecting English Listening Comprehension of College Students Ⅰ. Introduction There are many factors affecting listening comprehension of college students. The most important two are background knowledge and finding relevant links between an oral text and known knowledge. The former can be explained by the schemata theory and the latter by the relevance theory. Topic familiarity and language level have a profound effect on listening comprehension. These two factors can be explained by schemata theory and relevance theory. Besides, college students’ listening comprehension may be affected by the difficulty of an oral material itself, the speed and sound of language, the vocabulary accumulated and so on. Due to young people’s own characteristics, such as numbness, laziness, etc, psychological factors and their learning habit also exert great influence on their listening comprehension. Ⅱ. Schemata Theory and Listening Comprehension A. Introduction of Schemata 1. Definition of Schemata Schemata are the structure of background knowledge that a learner has acquired previously (Carrel ＆ Eisterhold, 1983). A schema is used to demonstrate stereotypical knowledge that people acquire from time to time (Schank ＆ Abelson, 1977). Schemata are a series of events, situations, relations, objects, etc. (Eysenck ＆ Keane, 1990). From the above definitions of schemata, it is not hard for us to draw a conclusion that schemata actually refers to background knowledge or knowledge bases stored in people’s brains. 2. Features of Schemata Schemata have specific instantiations. According to Howard, when a schemata finds specific exemplars in reality, it is believed to have been activated (黄子东,1998). Schemata can be made up of many sub-schemata and be a part of other schemata. Schemata represent knowledge in any way. These features tell us that schemata have a certain relationship to background knowledge. The most important of all is that “schemata have a deep influence on ‘world per