TEACHING LISTENING

NOTES:

Φ Listening involves a sender (a person, a radio, or a

television), a message, and a receiver ( the listener).

Φ In the decades of the 1950s and ‘60s, language teaching

methodology was preoccupied with the spoken language

Φ Through reception, we internalize linguistic information

LISTENING COMPREHENSION IN PEDAGOGICAL RESEARCH

Total Physical Response.

Natural Approach

Stephen Krashen model

The conversion of input into intake.

Rubin (1994) identified five contextual characteristics that

affect the speed and efficiency of aural language:

Text

Interlocutor

Task

Listener

Process characteristics

According to Mendelson 1998, great attention

has been devoted to strategy-based instruction of

listening comprehension.

AN INTERACTIVE MODEL OF L ISTENING COMPREHENSION

Listening is not one-way street.

There is also an interactive model of listening comprehension

consisting of eight processes (Clark 1977 and Richards 1983)

which occur in extremely rapid succession :

1)The hearer processes what we call “raw speech”.

2)The hearer determines the type of speech event being processed

and then “colors” the interpretation of the perceived message.

3) The hearer infers the objective of the speaker through

consideration of the speech act, the context, and the content.

Thus, the function of the message in inferred.

4) The hearer recalls background information (or schemata)

relevant to the particular context and subject matter.

5) The hearer assigns a literal meaning to the utterance.

6) The hearer assigns an intended meaning to the utterance.

7) The hearer determines whether information should be

retained in short-term or long-term memory.

8) The hearer deletes the form in which the message was

originally received. The words, phrases, and , sentences

are quickly forgotten-”pruned”-and the important

information is retained conceptually.

TYPES OF SPOKEN LANGUAGE

Monologue (speeches, lectures, news broadcasts, readings, etc.)

1) Planned: (little redundancy, difficult to comprehend)

2) Unplanned: (more redundancy, easy to comprehend)

Dialogue (involve two or more speakers)

1) Interpersonal (social relationship)

i. Unfamiliar

ii. Familiar

2) Transactional (convey propositional or factual

information)

i. Unfamiliar

ii. Familiar

There is a difference between a participant and

eavesdropper.

In all cases these categories are really not discrete,

mutually exclusive domains; rather, each dichotomy ,

as usual, represents a continuum of possibilities.

WHAT MAKES LISTENING DIFFICULT?

Clustering (pick out manageable clusters of words)

Redundancy (rephrasing, repetition, elaboration, little insertion)

Reduced forms(phonological, morphological, syntactic, pragmatic)

Performance variables(hesitation, false starts, pauses, and correction)

Colloquial language (idioms, slang, reduced forms, and shared

cultural knowledge)

Rate of delivery (the number and length of pauses)

Stress, rhythm, and intonation (prosodic features of the

English language are very important for comprehension)

Interaction (negotiation, clarification, attending signals, turn-

taking, and topic nomination, maintenance, and termination)

MICROSKILLS OF L ISTENING COMPREHENSION

Jack Richards (1983) provided a list of aural skills

involved in conversational discourse.

Through a checklist of microskills, you can plan a

specific technique or listening module.

Less interactive forms of discourse include further,

more specific microskills.

TYPES OF CLASSROOM LISTENING PERFORMANCE

Reactive (tape recorder)

Intensive (focus on components, bottom-up skills)

Responsive (elicit students’ responses)

Selective (scan material, field independence)

Extensive (top-down, global understanding)

Interactive (learners actively participate)

P R I N C I P L E S F O R D E S I G N I N G L I S T E N I N G T E C H N I Q U E S

1.In an interactive, four-skills curriculum, make sure that you

don’t overlook the importance of techniques that develop

listening comprehension competence

( studied attention to all the principles of listening)

2. Use techniques that are intrinsically motivating

(appeal to listeners’ personal interests and goals)

3. Utilize authentic language and contexts

(authentic language enable students to see the relevance of

classroom activity to their long-term communicative goals)

4. Consider the form of listeners’ responses

(design techniques in a way that students’ responses indicate

whether or not their comprehension has been correct)

9 different ways that we can check listener's comprehension :

Doing Choosing

Transferring Answering

Condensing Extending

Duplicating Modeling

Conversing

5. Encourage the development of listening strategies

(equip students with listening strategies)

6. Include both bottom-up and top-down listening techniques

LISTENING TECHNIQUES FROM BEGINNING TO ADVANCED

Techniques for teaching listening will vary across the proficiency

continuum.

There are three lists of techniques for each of three proficiency

levels:

i. Bottom-up

ii. Top-down

iii. Interactive

THE END