【Abstract】This article aims to discover and address the problems occur in the college English listening class for non-English majors in a medical university in Guizhou province. By analyzing the context where the situation takes place， a complementary mode of listening instruction is propsed to tackle the apparent reticence and the lack of interaction of the students in listening class.
　　【Key words】listening instruction； interactive listening teaching； motivation
　　1. Introduction
　　This article focuses on the listening class of the non-English major students in a medical university in Guizhou province， southwest China where English is regarded as a foreign language. The Chinese college English syllabus states that the importance of college English education should be focused on developing student’s communicative language ability. Therefore， how to improve student’s communicative ability should be one of the priorities for college English teachers to consider when they are designing their own lessons.
　　Listening， which occupies almost half of the time that a person is engaged in communication， plays a crucial role in improving student’s L2 communicative language ability. Thus， the teaching of listening is undoubtedly essential in college English education. However， in Guizhou， the teaching of listening seems to have been and still be neglected especially in middle schools. No listening training is provided in most of the middle schools due to the fact that listening is not tested in the English Test of College Entrance Examination in Guizhou province. Some of the students had never received any formal educational training in listening before they entered the university. They don’t have a clear clue of what is listening and what exactly they should do in the listening class，， so they are too confused and reluctant to give active responses to the teacher in class. So this article aims to find a solutions to the problems of the listening class in the current university.
　　2. The problems of the listening class
　　In the university discussed in this article， the college English education is divided into two levels. The students are taught elementary college English in the first two academic years， while medical English in the last two or three years. The class is usually made up of fifty to seventy intermediate-advanced students， which is regarded as a big multilevel class by most of the teachers. The teachers feel difficult to handle this kind of classes because the language proficiency of the students is not balanced， and it is unable for the teachers to meet the need of each student in class. Some students seldom or even never actively participate in classroom activities， so it requires the teachers to spend more time preparing for the lessons and thinking of different ways to motivate the students and involve as many of them as they can in classroom activities.