【正文】 s knowledge of English. That is to say if students want to improve their listening, they must read English widely, listen to English materials widely, and improve other skills at the same time. Old and unauthentic materials In Ankang University, many listening materials used today are unauthentic and not suitable for the students and for listening teaching indeed. The listening materials which Ankang University’s students used are the recorded materials of written language. These materials are usually extracted from some written prose with Standard English lack of the characteristics of spoken language and are difficult to understand. And listening prehension exercises are usually prepared in advance and read aloud by the teachers or on the tape, which obviously does not provide the land of practice needed. Many books of listening exercises often consist of passages originally posed as written texts. Students in Ankang University often listen to the text without any idea of what they are going to hear or what they are listening for, and then they have to answer prehension questions, usually multiplechoice. This is a convenient classroom technique, which does provide a certain type of practice— but it does not provide any realistic preparation for reallife listening. Students getting used to this kind of slow and clear English find it hard to municate with English native speakers in reallife listening, because they often fail to follow the rate of speech and to understand the idioms, slang and locutions used by native speakers. Although some can get high marks in listening test, they still find it rather difficult to catch what native speakers say and even more difficult to talk with them face to face. Unrealistic listening materials The contents of the listening materials often lose contact with the reality and with some specific situation。t know what the interactive activity is. So we need to consider what teachers should teach students and how to teach listening. Second, after investigation, the author found nearly % of the students don’t have good listening habit. Only % of the students practice listening one hour a day, but some of them choose improper materials. % of the students listen to English twice or three times a week. The author feels very sorry that % of the students don’t practice listening at all after class. More than % of the students told the author that they couldn’t understand the normal speed listening materials, because it is hard for them to get information through this kind of materials. In the daily life, they have got used to the slow speed of speech of the teachers and the 7 text tapes. When listening to one material of normal speed, they have no time to memorize or think what it says. So they found it difficult to follow. The author also interviewed 50 of the participants for the materials they listened to, and the result is that they choose English films and listening materials from CET4 and CET6 examinations papers. These information are reliable, through the overall analysis and refer to other educators’ achievements, the author have some suggestions in improving nonEnglish majors’ listening ability. 4. Problems caused the nonEnglish majors’ poor listening As the author has mentioned in the previous part, the reason why nonEnglish majors have a poor listening is caused by listening materials, teaching methods and the students themselves. In this part the author analyzed the causes of these problems. Problems in listening materials The audiolingual method emphasized that oral English practice must be supported with plenty of listening materials. Through the research the author finds that the listening materials used by students and teachers have the following problems. Monotonous listening materials Most students in Ankang University have background knowledge obstacle. British social anthropologist Malinowski said in 1923 that language is deeply rooted in the cultural display and the customs of the peoples’ lives。 cooperation would be highly appreciated. Data collection and analysis The questionnaire includes two parts. Part one (Table 1) is about the teachers’ understanding of listening and what do they do in the class. Part two (Table 2) is about students’ problems in/out of English listening class. Table 1 1. Do you think listening is very important? Very important Important 9 people 6 people 2. Do you think you have achieved your goals in listening class? Yes No 4 people 11 people 3. What kind of exercises do you usually do in listening class? Multiplechoicesquestion and answering question interactive activities 9 people 6 people 6 Table 2 1. How often do you usually read English after class? One hour a day Twice or three times a week Not at all 74 people 238 people 188 people 2. Can you understand some normal speed listening materials, such as standard VOA and BBC? Yes, I can know what they say. No, I can’t understand what they say. 121 people 379 people According to the investigation, first, we can see that 60% of the teachers think listening is very important because it serves as an input in language learning, as an access to language acquisition. 40% of the teachers think listening is important, because it is an important municative capacity. 60% of the teachers think it is important because it is an obligatory course, and because it is an indispensable part in all kinds of English tests. This reflects that most teachers don39。 to use clear definition when the question contains concepts。 therefore it affords a good deal of precision and clarity. Questionnaires can be used on a small scale, inhouse, and on