3.1 listening - unizar.es 3/3.1.listening... · 3. listening skills ... them about the topic can...

Unit 3.1 Listening 1

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3.1 LISTENING1. Introduction

1.1 Spoken Language and Oral Skills1.2 The role of comprehension in L2 learning

2. Perspectives on Listening2.1 Bottom-up / Top-down models2.2 Intensive Listening / Extensive Listening2.3 Two Conceptions of Listener2.4 Teaching / Testing

3. Listening Skills3.1 Receptive subskills3.2 Listening skills in childhood

4. Listening Materials4.1 Grading Listening4.2 Isolating the Listening Skill: TPR

5. Audiovisual materials: television and video5.1 Rationale: Advantages5.2 Selection /grading

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1.1 Spoken Language & Oral Skills

• Traditionally oral skills have been eclipsed by written skills (literacy) in FLT

• Listening has traditionally been perceived as a passive skill ( it did not require specific attention)

• Oral skills neglected until Structural linguistics & Audiolingualism

• With the Communicative Approach speaking and listening become basic skills

• Speech & writing involve different skills & serve different functions

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1.1 Spoken Language & Oral Skills

• What skills are necessary in order to use listening?– Linguistic competence: grammar, vocabulary,

phonetics– Motor-perceptive skills: recalling, perceiving

sounds and structures– Knowledge of context– Social & cultural knowledge and skills

• Do you dance? • Do you drink?

Knowledge and skill: See task 1 (Bygate)


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1.2 The role of comprehension in L2 acquisition

Three approaches (Brewster: 1991)1. Language learning as a linear process:

• listening speaking written skills2. Language learning as comprehension focused:

• Listening as a source of input (Krashen) • Learners acquire when they understand

structures just above their level (i+1 ) • Production will emerge when the learner is ready

3. Language learning as an integrative process: • All four skills are developed in parallel• Practice in one of them reinforces the other

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2. PERSPECTIVES ON LISTENING:2.1.The Bottom- up/top- down modelsFig. 1. Sources of information in listening (Anderson & Lynch)

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2. PERSPECTIVES ON LISTENING:2.1.The Bottom- up/top- down models

• Bottom-up processing model:- Listening is a linear process, i.e. decoding

sounds as we hear them- We link sounds to form words, link words

to form phrases, …- Role of listener: to reconstruct the

speaker’s message (passive receiver)“Listener as tape-recorder” view (Anderson & Lynch)

Task 19 (Bygate)Fig 1 Sources of information in listening (Anderson & Lynch)


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2. PERSPECTIVES ON LISTENING:2.1.The Bottom- up/top- down modelsTop-down interpretation view (economy model):- The listener actively constructs (reconstructs) the original

message using sounds as clues- In order to (re) construct the message the listener uses prior

knowledge :- Background knowledge of the topic- Knowledge of participants- Knowledge of the situation

- Listeners focus on the function & the result of communication- REMEMBER: The goal of communication is to achieve a

particular effect (perlocutionary act) - Messages are (re)constructed differently by each listener

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2. PERSPECTIVES ON LISTENING:2.1.The Bottom- up/top- down models

Summary

Interpretation involves both the speaker & the listener.

Subjective selection of information

The listener reconstructs the original message Communication

is linear.

Each listener gives meaning to the message using his own beliefs,

interests, background knowledge, assumptions, etc.

The process of understanding is bottom-up: from small units to

bigger units

Emphasis on purposeEmphasis on content

Economy model (Top-down)

Information processing model (bottom-up)

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2. PERSPECTIVES ON LISTENING:2.2.Intensive/ extensive listening

Intensive listening:1. Detailed comprehension of meaning: comprehension

questions where the answer is clearly given in the passage2. Listening for language: sound recognition, vocabulary,

grammatical patterns, linking devices, etc.Extensive listening:

– Listening for pleasure. Storytelling– Learners focus on following the story

Focus on global meaning– The Teacher prepares SS by giving key words or telling

them about the topic

Can intensive & extensive listening happen at the same time?


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2. PERSPECTIVES ON LISTENING:2.3.Two conceptions of the listener

1. The listener as tape recorder– The listener takes in & stores messages sequentially (one

sound, one word, one phrase at a time)

2. The listener as active interpreter– Listener constructs a coherent (using our previous

knowledge, expectations, knowledge of context, etc) interpretation (subjective) of any spoken message

– Our interpretation is the result of combining new & old info.– We interpret the listeners intention and desired effecte.g. That’s the university. It is going to rain tomorow

-The phone is ringing!! -I’m in the shower!

Passage 1: Two views of listening

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2. PERSPECTIVES ON LISTENING:2.4.Teaching/testing listening

• Testing listening = measuring performance• Teaching listening = Training SS in the

acquisition of specific skills (inference, usingprevious knowledge, predicting…)

Imagine a football/basketball coach who only makes a note of the final score in every match his team plays. Is he teaching them how to play??

What kind of listening have you experienced as a student?

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3. LISTENING SKILLS:3.1. Receptive subskills

Brown pag.256: List of microskills in listening comprehension

• When listening we use several specialized skills• Successful understanding of the message largely

depends on our expertise in these skills• Different skills are used depending on the

perspective of listening we adopt:1. Bottom-up: we segment speech into its

constituent sounds, words, phrases...2. Top-down: we use background information to

predict, guess, infer,...


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HOWEVER, research has shown that speechperception is an interactive process:

– We make simultaneous use of a wide variety ofinformation sources: both the systemic & schematicknowledge of the individual

– We use higher-level information to supplementphonological information:

Example: I’ve bought a new h@t for the wedding

– We process incoming speech in meaningful chunks– We start with the most prominent parts (content

words) and fill in the missing parts (function words)

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WHAT TO TEACH? Systemic knowledge:• Phonetics:

– Sound discrimination (minimal pairs)– Stress/prominence– Intonation patterns

• Semantic knowledge: vocabulary• Syntactic knowledge: grammar

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3. LISTENING SKILLS:3.2. Listening skills in childhoodReading Task: Learning to listen (Rost 1993)Reading comprehension questions:1. Which type of listening approach do children develop

first? (bottom-up, or top down?)2. What lexical items will the children acquire first? 3. What are the key features which will help children

recognise the language4. What features of caretaker language are important to

enhance comprehension.5. Your nephew asks you ‘member me? What has

happened?


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3. LISTENING SKILLS:3.2. Listening skills in childhood

What skills do children master earlier?• Social skills: maintaining friendly interaction• Cognitive skills: efficient transfer of information

Two aspects affect a child’s ability to do a listening task:1. Information content2. Familiarity

SS more successful when (1) the information content of the task is not very demanding & when(2) context is familiar and supportive

Moreover, SS have difficulties with novel &information-oriented tasks

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4. LISTENING MATERIALS:4.1. Grading Listening

Teaching a skill involves:1. Deciding what elements make up the knowledge or

skill to be taught2. Deciding the order in which to present those

elementsTraditionally it was assumed there are some fixed

guidelines for grading materialsYET, there is no ready-made theory of language

teaching to guide these decisions How then can we grade listening?What do we mean by “grading listening”?

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Difficulty does not only depend on the language.It depends on several factors: the listener, the text,features of oral language, the task and the context.

Reflection task: Which of these definitions of L2 grading seems most useful? Why?

1. ‘The building up of a selected system in the best order possible’ (Mackey 1954: 58)

2. ‘A progression from simple to complex, both in phraseology and information’ (Davis 1978: 17)

3. ‘A progression from what seems simple and easy to the learner towards what appears to be harder because more complex, although of course several other factors have also to be taken into account’ (Lee 1977: 248)


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4.1.1. Features of text affecting comprehension1. Information organization2. Familiarity with the topic3. Explicitness of information

a) Specificity of informationb) Pronominal expressions

4. Text factors: a) Vocabulary: is new vocabulary difficult?b) Grammar: c) Text length: is a longer text more difficult?

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4.1.2. Features of spoken language (Brown p.252)

1. Clustering2. Redundancy3. Reduced forms4. Performance variables5. Colloquial language6. Rate of delivery7. Stress, rhythm & intonation8. Rules of interaction

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4.1.3. Other factors affecting difficulty:1.Context:

a) Visual supportb) Amount of information: Task 48: flights from

Glasgow2.Type of task: See Task 70 (Windeat)

Which of these tasks is more difficult?• Recalling complete content• Summarising a message• Understanding a message


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4. LISTENING MATERIALS:4.2. Isolating the listening skill

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION?– Language experts recommend integrating the four skills. Is this always desirable and effective?– How is the listening skill different from the rest?

Sometimes it is difficult to check comprehensionwithout isolating the listening skill:

– SS may understand a text but not remember info.– SS may understand but be unable to produce an answer (especially in early stages)– SS may NOT understand what they have to do

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How can we isolate the listening skill?By asking SS to respond in non linguistic ways

Benefits:– Immediate response– No linguistic demands on production– Interaction (similar to real life)– Easy to demonstrate, fun,..

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ACTIVITIES: – Listen and draw: finish drawing, paint, ...– Listen and identify: put tick, number,...– Listen and follow: e.g. route on a map– Listen and do: TPR

EXAMPLES (see photocopies):–Reading : Isolating reading skill. Hubbard 1983–Reading : TPR. Vale & Feuntenn 1995: 244-246–Sample tasks: TPR activities (Phillips 1993: 19-21)–Slattery, M. & Willis, J. 2001. Listen and Do (Chapter 2). Listen and make (Chapter 3)


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5. AUDIO VISUAL MATERIALS:5.1. Advantages & Rationale

Advantages:– Purposeful communication– Stimulus for communication, Interesting – Real context: spontaneity– Cultural aspects– Support for comprehension (non-verbal communication)Useful resource for the L2 classroom

Television or Video-Recorder?

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5. AUDIO VISUAL MATERIALS:5.2.Selection & grading

• What types of sequences may be used?• Selection of an appropriate video scene:

– Length: What is the appropriate length?– Interest: How to make interesting? – Level: Is the level of language a problem?

• Other decisions:– Pre-teaching?– Language objectives– Viewing task– Follow up activities

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5. AUDIOVISUAL MATERIALS:5.2.Selection & grading

TYPES OF ACTIVITIES USING VIDEO:–Classroom Task: See photocopies from Harmer (2002) Stemplesky & Tomalin (1990). Now describe 5 possible tasks and activities we can plan using video

Other considerations when using video:–Prepare a script–Reduce the writing load–Adapt task to student’s level (mixed ability classes)–Start with simple tasks (build confidence)

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