《新概念英语》之父L.G.Alexander：关于提高英语听说能力的建议

L.G.Alexander(1932.1.15-2002.6.17)生于英国。世界著名的英语教学权威，曾任欧洲现代语言教学委员会理事。其著作为交际教学法奠定基础，其中一些已成经典教材。他和何其莘教授主编的《新概念英语》 成为英语学习经久不衰的经典教材。

亚历山大先生潜心研究英语教学法，结合实际教学经验(他曾在欧洲多所大学任教)，就广大教师和学生广泛关注的教学和学习问题，提供了专家指导和建议。

What’s the way to practise speaking in a non-English environment?

在非英语环境中练习说英语能力的最佳途径是什么?

Lack of opportunity to use the language is every student’s problem. That’s why, in China for example, foreigners are often rapidly surrounded by young people who want to practise their English. (I know, because it’s often happened to me.) Unfortunately, the visitors have their own agenda, which doesn’t necessarily include being used for English practice!

The only natural way to use English in a non-English speaking environment occurs when you are dealing with foreigners who are visiting your country and who are using English as the medium of communication. (A visitor’s English might be non-native as well.) You will then use English quite naturally when you are entertaining, showing your visitors the sights, etc. Human beings love to exchange information about themselves and their families, so there is always plenty to talk about.

If you don’t come into contact with foreigners for professional purposes, then arrange to meet other local people who want to practise speaking English, just as you do. You collectively decide that you will use English only and help and correct each other as necessary. Do this regularly. Choose a topic in advance, so that members of the group can think about it and prepare some of the vocabulary they will need. Turn it into a pleasant social occasion when you meet at someone's house or go out together as a group. It will do wonders for your spoken English.

缺少机会运用语言是每一个学生所面临的问题。这也是为什么在中国外国人能够很快被想练习说英语的年轻人围住。(我当然知道，因为类似的事经常发生在我身上。)遗憾的是，来访的人都有自己的日程安排，不一定能腾出时间与中国学生练习英语!

那么在非英语环境中使用英语的惟一可行办法是与在你的国家参观访问的外国人交往：与把英语作为交际媒介的人交往。(外国人讲的英语未必是自己的母语。)这样，你会在带领外国朋友进行旅游消遣活动时，很自然地使用英语。人们喜欢互相交流有关他们自己及家庭方面的情况，所以总是有很多东西可以谈。

如果你的职业无法使你接触到外国人，那么可以找一些想练习说英语的本地人彼此谈谈。大家可以决定只准许用英语交谈，必要时互相帮助修改错误。定期做这种练习。事先选定一个题目，以便小组中的成员可以事先思考，准备所需的词汇。当你们相聚在某人家里或者作为一个集体外出时，你们之间的谈话就会变成一次温馨的社交活动。你们的英语口语水平也就会因此突飞猛进了。

Which is more important, fluency or accuracy?

说英语的流利程度和精确性哪个更重要呢?

The idea that there is a clash between fluency and accuracy is quite false: they are equally important. There are times when we concentrate on fluency and times when we concentrate on accuracy. We don’t give or require grammatical explanations with the same high level of intensity all the time. For example, if we are conducting a conversation lesson, our main objective is to build up the student’s confidence and to give the student the opportunity to express him/herself freely. In this situation, fluency takes precedence over accuracy. We tolerate a great deal of error. If, for example, a student says *He go* (for He goes) we might completely ignore the mistake and leave it uncorrected. Our main criterion is that the student is making him/herself understood. We listen. We don’t interrupt. After the student has finished speaking, we praise the student’s effort and give him/her as much encouragement as possible. We correct only those errors (just one or two) that have really interfered with communication.

If, on the other hand, you are drilling students in some aspect of language like always remembering to add ’s to the third person singular in the simple present (He goes, not *He go*) then you want 100% accuracy and you don’t accept anything less. What is acceptable in one situation may be quite unacceptable in another!

那种认为说英语的流利程度和精确性不能兼容的观点很站不住脚：其实，它们同样重要。在说英语时，有时我们讲求流利，有时我们讲求它的准确。此时，我们对语法解释的要求不是一成不变的。比如，在组织一堂会话课的教学时，主要目标是增强学生们的信心以及给学生们提供一个自由表达的机会。在这种情形下，说英语的流畅程度比准确更重要。我们允许犯很多错误。比如，如果一个学生把He goes说成*He go*，我们尽可以忽略不计，把它放在一边。我们此时衡量学生的标准是看他是否让人懂得他的意思。我们只听，而不打断他的讲话。在学生发言完毕之后，我们要表扬他为此付出努力，尽量给予更多的鼓励。我们只纠正确实影响交流的一两处错误。

如果你在着重训练学生其他方面的技能，比如一般现在时第三人称单数加-s(说He goes,而不说*He go*)，那么你讲求的就是语言上百分之百的正确，否则你不会接受。其实，任何事物都不是一成不变的，在一种情形中可接受的准则在另一种情况下则很不可接受。

What is the best strategy to get used to listening to natural English? It is impossible for me to understand every word.

听懂很地道的英语的最佳策略是什么呢? 对我来说，要听懂每一个词是非常困难的。

How often I have heard the lament: I can understand my teacher’s English, but I can’t understand anyone else’s! I can only suggest a few tips for improving your listening comprehension:

1) Try to extend the range of English you listen to. This means listening to as much native-speaker English as you can (varieties of British and American English) and different varieties of non-native English (Spanglish, Frenglish, Gerlish, etc.). The BBC World Service is an excellent source of native-speaker English, as are films on video.

2) When listening to English (whatever its source) don’t try to puzzle out the meaning of individual words. Try to get the gist of the whole, by listening for the global meaning and ignoring words you haven’t fully heard or understood.

3) Remember, that native speakers in particular take a lot of short cuts when speaking and you have to get used to them. For example, something that sounds like‘Wodjasay?’would be ‘What did you say?’when written out in full.

4) One of the biggest barriers to understanding is the failure to recognize word boundaries, so that you can’t tell, when English is spoken at speed, where one word ends and another begins. If someone quickly says‘You shouldn’t’ve done that’it may sound like a single word, whereas it is actually six separate words. A good way of training yourself to distinguish word boundaries is to listen to recordings of English, while silently reading the printed text at the same time. There are whole libraries of books on tape, so that you can listen and read at the same time to train the ear and the eye simultaneously.

That’s enough to be getting on with, for the time being, and good luck!

我听过这样的抱怨已经不止一次了：我可以听懂我的老师说的英语，但我却不能理解别人说的英语!这里，我只能就如何提高你的听力理解提几点建议：

1) 尽可能扩大你听英语的范围。这就是说尽可能多听说英语的本族人的谈话(英国英语和美国英语，等等)。同时也要多听非英语国家人们的谈话(西班牙英语、法国英语、德国英语，等等)。英国广播公司(BBC)的面向世界的广播是听地道的英语的极好来源，观看电影录像也是如此。

2) 在听英语时(不论其来源)，先不要为个别单词的意思犯愁。一定要先抓住所听的内容的大概意思，即先听懂内容的全貌，忽略个别你没有完全听懂或理解的词。

3) 请你记住，说英语的本族人在说话时，通常省掉一些词，以求省事，你必须习惯他们的说话方式。例如：你若听到他们说Wodjasay?，那么写全了就是What did you say?

4) 对英语学习者来说，听懂英语的最大困难还有一个，即他们不能正确地辨出词与词之间的界线。这就是说当别人在快速说英语时，你不能分辨一个单词在哪儿结束，一个单词在哪儿开始。如果有人以很快的速度说You shouldn’t’ve done that(你本不应该做那件事)，这句话听起来就像一个词一样，但实际上它却是由六个单独的词组成的。训练你自己分辨词与词之间界线的最好方法是一边听英语录音，一边默读与之对照的课文。类似这类的材料可说是汗牛充栋，你可以以这种方法同时训练眼和耳。

眼下，你可以开始试试，祝你好运!

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

听美国之音体育报道，对词的理解有困难。您能介绍一些窍门吗?

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.

一门外国语最难掌握的一项技巧就是听懂母语讲话人用正常速度所说的自然语言的能力。另外，在体育报道中，语速通常是快的。听一场赛马或汽车比赛的评论，你会发现评论员几乎都跟不上自己的速度，因为他要努力跟上他所看到的项目的进行速度。你可以通过几个方法来训练自己听懂母语讲话者说话的能力。一种办法是使用 “有声读物。这些读物以录音带、CD或录像带的形式出版。它们主要包括著名演员朗读的小说或传记，这些读物是面向那些不想亲自读故事而想听别人读的母语讲话者的。你可以：

购买有声读物及其配书(根据你自己的喜好选择英国英语或美国英语)。

播放一小部分有声读物，集中精力听。每次限制在两分钟内。尽量多地理解。你可能会发现要“跟上朗读人有困难。

重复播放有声读物，看着配书听。根据上下文猜测意思，只有那些对理解意思起关键作用的词才去查词典。

再把磁带的同一部分播放一遍，不要看书。集中精力听。这次你会发现要“跟上朗读人就容易多了。

坚持做下去，直到你觉得能够应付母语的讲话为止。当然，这不是体育评论。这种做法能为你提供实用的练习，使你听懂正常语速英语母语讲话。

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?

在听收音机的同时，我还读一些有关如何提高听力的书。但仍然进步缓慢。我该如何提高呢?

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.

练习语言听力的方法是要采取积极主动而非被动的方式。如果老师在介绍一篇课文时稍加一个短评，并且提出一个问题，学生们就会积极主动地聆听。例如，老师说： “今天我准备给你们读一则讲述一个意外事件的故事。读完之后，我要问你们这件事是如何发生的。这会鼓励学生们积极认真地听，以求找到问题的答案。如果老师只是说：“请听这个故事，学生们则没有聆听的重点。他们的双眼可能是睁着的，但头脑确是封闭的。在此，我给你提供一些建议，供参考：

为汲取特定的信息而听;不要担心个别词的意思。

如果你所说的听力课本中的课文有录音，首先听录音，尽量在第一次听时多听懂些，然后再听一遍，同时你可以默读。之后，你可以再听第三遍(可以不读课文了)。

可以试着与一个朋友或几个朋友一起进行听力训练，这样你们可以集思广益，互相借鉴。