9.Teaching Listening


  • Knowledge on how we reach understanding
1. The ‘map’ below sketches the relationship between the various information sources that we may need to refer to in order to understand a spoken or written text.

C
O
M
P
R
E
H
E
N
S
I
O
N
background knowledge schematic
- factual knowledge
- sociocultural
procedural knowledge
- how knowledge is used in discourse
knowledge of situation
- physical setting, participants, etc .
context
knowledge of co-text
- what has been/will be said (written)
knowledge of the language system
- semantic
- syntactic systemic
- phonological knowledge

Fig.1 from Anne Anderson and Tony Lynch, Listening, OUP, 1988
2. There are two distinct modes of listening: integrated (i.e. where the listener can become the speaker- in conversation) and isolated (i.e. where the listener cannot respond to the speaker)
3.1 ‘Top-down’ processing (Fig.1) corresponds to encoding (prediction)
3.2 ‘Bottom-up’ processing (Fig.2) corresponds to decoding (comprehension)

listener’s long term memory


final text


semantic/pragmatic analysis (meaning)
speaker’s intention and required response

linguistic analysis
(lexical, grammatical and prosodic structure of the text)


auditory analysis
(sounds, word boundaries)


drop-out noise

speaker’s output text

Fig.2 ‘Bottom-up’ Processing

NB Anderson & Lynch (1988) contrast the Bottom-Up view of ‘listener as taperecorder’ with Top-Down view of ‘listener as active model builder’: the listener constructs an interpretation of a message by utilizing both bottom-up and top-down knowledge.

4. Types of aural texts:
Aural Texts



monologues dialogues

planned unplanned interpersonal transactional

unfamiliar familiar
5. Text vs. Non-Text: Halliday & Hasan (1976) consider that text is defined in terms of the linguistic elements which serve to bind the texts together i.e. cohesive devices. Widdowson (1978, 1979) challenges the fact that coherence of a text is created by cohesion by arguing that we can create our own coherence by recognizing the function that each utterance fulfils within a given context or situation.
e.g. Edmonson(1981) proves that the example of non-text Van Dijk gives(‘We will have guests for lunch.’ ‘Calderon was a great writer.’) is, in fact, a perfectly coherent text.

Conclusion: Successful listening involves the integration of information encoded in the message itself with broader knowledge of the world viz. successful listeners use both bottom-up and top-down strategies in reconstructing messages.

  • Knowledge about Teaching Listening
Aim: to train Ss to understand and respond quickly to: (1) the sort of language they are likely to encounter in normal use;(2) the sort of situations they are likely to find themselves in. (both verbal behaviour and non-verbal behaviour should be encouraged)

1. A checklist of listening sub-skills
1.1 Anticipation (develop appropriate expectations; adjust listening strategy to listening purpose; scan for ‘activated’ information)
1.2 Recognition (phonemic contrasts; word stress pattern; key morpheme; stress as indicator of information focus; intonation as cue to information structure; (known) vocabulary; grammatical word class; syntactic structure; ideas; reference markers; variation between form and meaning; main discourse markers; fillers; attitude from intonation or word-choice)  ‘What did you say?’
1.3 Inference (word meaning from context; function of utterances; situations from context; purpose of discourse; connection between events in the discourse; relationship between topic and sub-topics; attitude from context; meaning of non-verbal parts of the message such as gesture)”What did you mean when you said?”
1.4 Construction (build up a coherent picture on the basis of: Anticipation, Recognition, Inference; distinguish literal from implied meaning; follow the main ‘thread’ of the discourse; predict next ‘move’ or eventual outcome from ongoing discourse)”Why are you telling me this?”

2. Enabling skills and enacting skills in listening from Rost, Listening in Language Learning, Longman, 1990

What the listening skill consists of: (A) Emphasizing perception: Recognizing prominence within utterances; (B) Emphasizing interpretation: formulating propositional sense for a speaker’s utterance; formulating a conceptual framework that links utterances together; interpreting plausible intention(s) of the speaker in making the utterance; (C) Enacting skills: utilizing representation of discourse to make appropriate response.
3. Types of listening tasks
4. Criteria for evaluating activities and exercises:
4.1 Content validity: Does the activity practice listening or something else?
4.2 Listening comprehension or memory?
4.3 Purposefulness and transferability: Does the activity reflect a purpose for listening and approximates authentic real-life listening?
4.4 Testing or teaching?
4.5 Authenticity: To what degree does the input resemble natural discourse?
5. Four clusters of factors which can affect the difficulty of oral language tasks as discussed by Brown & Yule (1983): (1) related to the speaker (2) related to the listener (3) related to the content (4) related to the support

  • CLASSROOM OBSERVATION: PRESENTATION OF LANGUAGE VIA LISTENING/READING

  1. Purpose of presentation
  2. Features of presentation
  3. Activities
  4. Type of interaction
  5. Role of teacher
  6. Degree of control
  7. Correction
  8. Length and pace of lesson
  9. Success of lesson – were students using language correctly by the end?

Reflection as Exercise:

  1. The ‘dictogloss’ approach encourages learners to use both bottom-up and top-down listening strategies. The 4 stages to go through are: (a) preparation; (b) dictation; (c) reconstruction; (d) analysis and correction. Hypothesize about advantages and disadvantages of such an approach. Mainly think about the importance of integrating background, ‘inside the head’ knowledge with the clues picked up during the dictation.
  2. Brown and Yule referred to 4 clusters of factors, which can become sources of difficulty of oral language tasks. Take them in turn and hypothesize about how they can hinder comprehension.
  3. Reflect upon your experience of listeners to news broadcasts, for instance. How can this help you improve the listening class?
  4. How far do you agree with the following statements?
  1. Listening is an active process.
  2. Classroom listening practice can be used to develop the listeners’ general linguistic resources.
  3. Authentic listening texts are essential.
  4. Learners should be exposed to as wide a range of listening rtexts as possible from a variety of sources.
  1. Which phases might you expect to find in a lesson devoted to listening practice?
  2. What are the features of real-life listening and how far do the listening texts in present textbooks reflect real-life listening?
  3. How can replaying a text at various stages of the lesson be rewarding for both teacher and students?
  4. What about the practicalities of a listening class? Are they important or not?
  5. Select one listening task from any textbook available to you and carefully plan the activity so as to make it most profitable for your students. Detail stages and state purposes. Refer to Teacher’s book for help. Mention level, age, number of students.
  6. List the listening tasks favoured by textbook writers.