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
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