Listening vs. Hearing in the context of Second language learning

Definitions

•Hearing is simply the act of perceiving sounds by the ear. If you are not hearing-impaired, hearing simply happens.

•To perceive or apprehend by the ear; to gain knowledge by hearing; to listen to with attention.

Hearing is passive and occurs even while we sleep.

•Listening ,however, is something the listener consciously choose to do. Listening requires concentration so that your brain processes meaning from words and sentences. Listening leads to learning. just about every body hears but only so many people listen.

•To pay attention to sound; to hear something with thoughtful attention; to give consideration; to be alert to catch an unexpected sound.

•Listening is active and involves hearing, paying attention, and understanding.

•Most people tend to be “hard of listening” rather than “hard of hearing”.

•Listening is a kind of ART which needs to be practiced over and over again.

The role of listening in second/foreign language learning

• Although listening played an important role in audio-lingual method, students only listened, repeated and developed a better pronunciation (for speaking).

•Listening is an invisible mental process, making it difficult to describe. Listening is a complex, active process of interpretation in which listeners match what they hear with what they already know.

• L2 listening competence is a complex skill that needs to be developed consciously. It can best be developed with practice when students reflect on the process of listening without the threat of evaluation.

• Research from cognitive psychology has shown that listening comprehension is more than extracting meaning from incoming speech. It is a process of matching speech with what listeners already know about the topic.

• Listeners do not pay attention to everything; they listen selectively, according to the purpose of the task.

• There are two distinct processes involved in listening comprehension.

i. top-down: In this process prior knowledge is employed to understand the meaning of a message.

ii. bottom-up: In this process linguistic knowledge is used to understand the meaning of a message.

• Guiding students through the process of listening not only provides them with the knowledge by which they can successfully complete a listening task; it also motivates them and puts them in control of their learning (Vandergrift, 2002).