ing. It is, however, generally held that if a listener makes the correct interpretation of the directly-expressed meaning, or the indirectly-expressed meaning, if there is any, of what has been said. In my opinion, first, to achieve successful listening, the listener not only needs to understand what is directly expressed, but to identify what is indirectly meant such as the relationship between speakers, the moods or attitudes of the speakers; second, listening is successful as long as the listener gets the information he wants; third, the degree of success of a particular listening performance could be evaluated according to the listener¡s interpretation of what has been said.
             Factors constitutes the difficulty of listening comprehension
             Therefore, I think the most important thing on improving English listening skill is understanding following factors:
             Phonetic decoding is vital in listening comprehension. Though we can replay the recorder, ask for repetition, usually listening is once for all. In such a case, automatic decoding is very important. To achieve automatic decoding, special training is to be conducted.
             Lack of vocabulary is one of the main difficulties in listening. Without needed vocabulary it is difficult to conduct automatic decoding, and thus difficult to conduct plain listening, that is to understand the literal meaning of a listening material.
             Though one can guess from the context the meaning of unfamiliar words or the new meanings of idioms or phrases, it is very difficult to conduct word guessing as one can do in reading. Though a large repertoire of idioms is necessary for listening.
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