| Volume 1 Index August 2008 |

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Title
Three Ways to Motivate Chinese Students in EFL Listening Classes

 Author
Xiaoying Wang
Beijing Foreign Studies University, China

Biodata
Xiaoying Wang, (M.A. & M.Ed.), is an associate professor at the School of English and International Studies of Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU), Beijing, China. Her research interests are classroom assessment, student motivation, and theories and practices of EFL teaching and learning.

This paper is a report of an action research project conducted in a listening course for the second-year English majors in one university in China. After finding the existing teaching practice in the listening course not quite interesting and rewarding to my students, a new teaching plan was designed to motivate students in practicing listening. The plan consisted of three parts: providing students with explicit knowledge about the listening process, listening skills and the general process of improving listening skills at the beginning of the course; modifying ways to manage each session so that each session is a purposeful and growing experience for students; adding two ways to assess students’ learning: news report following a strict format and journal writing. Based on the data obtained from classroom observations, students’ journals, interviews with students, and students’ response to an open-ended questionnaire at the end of the term, students developed a fairly high degree of motivation towards practicing listening.

Key words: action research, EFL listening, student motivation, journal writing