With the reform of the new curriculum in the middle schools in our country, higher requirement has been put forward for listening teaching of the junior middle schools。 However the present listening teaching in the junior is not satisfied and there is urgent demand to change the current situation。 The Input Hypotheses, as one of the most comprehensive theories, has attracted more attention since it appeared。 Many researchers applied it to language teaching and got the satisfactory results。 Some of them have tried to apply the Input Hypotheses to the listening teaching in the colleges and found some effective ways to improve the listening competence of the college students。 Listening comprehension has become the keystone of many theories of second language acquisition and instruction (O'Malley Chamot 418)。 If the Input Hypotheses are applied to the listening teaching in the junior, what effect will have? Is it helpful to improve the listening competence of the juniors? So this thesis intends to apply the Input Hypotheses to the junior listening teaching and made some changes to the traditional teaching methods in order to give some enlightenment to improve our current teaching situation in the junior。
2。 Literature Review
The Input Hypothesis had played an essential role in Krashen's theories of SLA。 How learners acquire a second language is explained clearly in this theory。 That's to say, it tells about how second language acquisition takes place。 This is an idea proposed by Krashen。 Krashen holds the view that learners should not only focus on explicit structures and learning activities, but also they should fulfill different kinds of acquisition tasks and activities。 It's clear to the learners that the input hypothesis focuses on acquisition instead of learning。 But how do learners acquire? Or in other words, how do they move from one stage to another? Based on the theory, they acquire from "i" to "i+1"。 "i" means the learners' current competence and "i+1" means the next level。 The understanding of the learners means that they should focus more on the meaning rather than form。
Krashen makes it clear that a good teacher must make input comprehensible for learners; no matter his or her competence level is high or low。 So it is very important for the teachers to make input comprehensible。 Otherwise, learners cannot understand it。 There are mainly two ways for the teachers to do this。 The first one is a linguistic way。 The teachers should make the language easy to understand with high frequency vocabulary。 The other one is a non-linguistic way。 The teachers should make full use of students' current knowledge of the world to help them understand, such as pictures and videos。
Michael Rost claims that the selection and use of input is the central aspect of teaching listening, and when the listening materials are fixed, the key point is how to make the input comprehensible in listening class。 Sperber and Wilson suggest that human pay attention only to information which seems to them relevant。 Relevance of input should be regarded as the top priority in teaching。 That is because listening materials are more comprehensible if they relate to students' goals and interests。 And relevant input for listening can be obtained through adaptation。 Teachers should adapt and add to existing input materials in order to make it more relevant and it can increase the students' motivation to listen to。来自优I尔Q论T文D网WWw.YoueRw.com 加QQ7520~18766
The Input Hypothesis predicts that the classroom may be an excellent place for second language acquisition, at least up to the "intermediate" level, especially at the beginning level, because within an hour in the classroom, we can provide comprehensible input of a whole day outside。
3。 The Characteristics of The Input Hypothesis