SECOND LANGUAGE LISTENING Comprehension: Process and Pedagogy

Listening is a demanding skill for many language learners. It is also challenging for teachers to teach. WHY ?

TYPICAL LISTENING LESSON Most teachers don’t know what listening entails and how comprehension is achieved. TYPICAL LISTENING LESSON 1)Listening to an audio text (dialogue, narration, news.. Etc. 2) Answering questions 3) Checking answers What about pre-listening, post-listening?

Many language learners experience difficulty because 1) they miss key words or mishear the key words. 2) they segment individual words in a stream of speech. 3) they have problems with remembering key words long enough for meaning to be constructed or transferred to long-term memory.

Teachers should understand how comprehension is achieved…

WHAT IS INVOLVED IN LISTENING? Listening is not just hearing. Listening is an active process. Meaning is not extracted only from sounds. Understanding is not only the results of the recognition of sounds. Understanding is the result of active construction occurring at all levels of text. LEVELS OF TEXT a) Sounds b) Grammar c) Lexis d) Discourse structure

Understanding is also the result of context… The topic Participants Communication purpose The place or setting for the interaction Time An active listener realizes when more information is needed and asks for the needed information. In face to face conversations, listener contributes to his/her own comprehension by asking questions and asking for clarifications.

When direct interaction is absent (films, videos, other recorded materials, tv and radio programs) listeners have to find other ways to fill in the gaps in their comprehension.

Like all language communication skills, listening is goal-oriented and purposeful.

ACTIVE LISTENING One-way (Non-participatory) Two-way (Interactive) TV & Radio prog, Audio recordings, films, ..etc The listener has to rely on his/her own linguistic, nonlinguistic, paralinguistic, and communicative knowledge to comprehend the text. Two-way (Interactive) Face-to-face conversations, telephone conversations, interviews..etc.

Listening skills are acquired abilities. Language learners who are active listeners use a range of skills and strategies to direct and manage their listening processes according to their communication goals. Listening skills are acquired abilities. Listening skills enable a person to listen without great deal of deliberate effort or conscious planning

COGNITIVE PROCESSES The Three Phases Perception: Listeners match sounds to words (Also known as decoding and sound-script recognition) Parsing: Decoded words are simultaneously analyzed in larger units according to grammar and lexical cues. Utilization: This is necessary for higher level process. Information processed at phonological, grammatical and lexical levels is related to the listener’s prior knowledge of the facts and listening context to enable them to interpret the meaning and functions of the utterances. If the constructed meaning is not needed immediately, it is sent to the long term memory. But, in interactive listening, listeners have to hold the meaning in their working memory while they are formulating a response. For native speakers “perception” and “parsing” are automatized.

PHOLOLOGICAL LOOP holds the sounds (verbal information) long enough to be processed during perception phase. EPISODIC BUFFER: Information is integrated and represented as a single mental representation in the system known as the “episodic buffer”. The sounds that are perceived and parsed are interpreted semantically. This enables the listeners to arrive at an understanding of the overall message for utilization.

Listening skills are the result of frequent practice and comprehension is automatized. Bottom-up is automatized. LISTENING SKILS Listen for details Listen selectively Listen for global understanding Listen for main ideas. Listen and infer Listen and predict

LISTENING STRATEGIES Listening strategies are planned and consciously adopted ways to improve comprehension and communication as well as cope with listening difficulties. Planning Focusing attention Monitoring Evaluation Inference Elaboration Prediction Contextualization Reorganizing Using linguistic and learning sources Cooperation Managing emotions (See p.79 for detailed definitions)

ONE-WAY and TWO-WAY LISTENING TASKS (Examine Table 1 and Table 2 on p ONE-WAY and TWO-WAY LISTENING TASKS (Examine Table 1 and Table 2 on p. 82 and 83 )

Strategy Approach Strategy Approach focuses on helping students use strategies to enhance their listening processes and develop their listening metacognitive awareness about listening.

Teachers are advised to model the metacognitive strategies of “PLANNING”, “MONITORING” and “EVALUATING”. Pre-communication activities are recommended for raising learners’ awareness about listening processes: 1) Listening Diaries (students listen to various audio or video-audio materials at scheduled times and write their comments and reactions) 2) Group Dialogues.

Task-based Approach suggests that students should do a lot of listening practice. Students engage in metacognitive processes such as 1) planning 2) monitoring 3) evaluation in order to be more self-regulated in their listening development.

RISKS !! ! Background knowledge is useful but it sometimes distracts learners and leads them to ignore useful cues in the text. ! If students rely on bottom-up too much, they most probably miss the gist of the audio text and the main ideas in it.