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“Improving Listening Skills from the Intermediate to

Advanced Level, What Does it Take?”Assistant Professor Bushra Alshakhly

Instructor of Arabic Language and Iraqi DialectLLC Offutt, Nebraska

Arabic LEARN7-9 September, 2011 CO

Introduction Teachers as Authentic Native Speakers

For a long time, realizing that I am the only native speaker, unfortunately, that my students can listen and converse with, I have thought of the authenticity of my discourse with my students. I am concerned about this because my students, mostly at the intermediate level, can understand me and carry out a successful conversation with me, yet, they stumble on translating or discussing most listening segments from Aljazeera and any other sites that we use on a daily basis. I have decided to focus my observation on the delivery of my instruction first, then focusing on the difficulties shown by my students. This presentation is based on my personal observation for my students and myself.

Authentic or not AuthenticIntroduction

Well, I guess, three things I, intentionally do wrong:

Three things I intentionally do wrong while teaching:

Speed

•Control the speed rate of my speech with the students

Vocab

•Control the quality and quantity of my vocab words and phrases

Structure

•Choose the structure that I know my students can handle

Introduction Teachers as Authentic Native Speakers

Introduction Teachers as Authentic Native Speakers

Skills of listening and listening comprehension have been a big concern for instructors, especially of the Arabic language. We teachers of Arabic put a lot of effort into bringing students of the basic level of Arabic into the intermediate, and we think that is a problem. However, preparing students to go to a higher level of listening comprehension seems to cause a bigger problem, a challenge. But, thinking about what it took to make native speakers of foreign language, such as most of us, to be comfortable and competent in the English language, and sometimes to the level of teaching it, here, we find the role model. Although different, our life and learning experiences and cultural backgrounds become of our students’.

Introduction About Listening Comprehension

Second language listening comprehension, in spite of being a complex process, is crucial in the development of second language competence. Students at the intermediate level may feel that they have learned enough vocabulary and grammar knowledge to help them understand authentic reading passages, and even analyze it. However, their vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation learning are limited to knowledge appropriation and incompetent toward answering content questions or drawing a conclusion from an authentic audio cut. Achieving language fluency, then is a big challenge, let alone that a near-native language level has to be reached.

Introduction About Listening Comprehension

No matter how we try to put it in another way, our students use listening more than any other skills in the classroom. According to Miller (2003), more than forty percent of our daily communication is spent on listening, thirty-five percent on speaking, about sixteen percent on reading, and only nine percent on writing. Therefore, according to Dornyei (2005), it is our responsibility, as teachers, to motivate, enhance, and improve students’ level of listening comprehension.

Challenges Affecting Listening Comprehension

Speaker is not clear:

The message &

delivery

Language level is too high: Poor Approach

Environment is not

helping : Distraction

Not interested enough:

Motivation

What am I focusing

on? Need instruction

Challenges Affecting Listening Comprehension: What can we do?

1. The Message: Provide authentic materials with the suitable level Design engaging task-oriented exercises Provide necessary input and instruction

2. The Speaker : Implement practices for variety forms of speed rate, native accents and

dialects, colloquialism, and redundancy3. The Students (Listeners):

Stimulate motivation, activate background knowledge, generate complex grammatical exercises and colloquial expressions

Prompt positive feedback, modify listening strategies 4. The Environment:

Create pleasant classroom condition and eliminate distractions Check quality of equipment

Challenges Affecting Listening Comprehension Typical Listening Activity Plan

•Plan for the listening task

•Prepare students by stating the purpose or background knowledge needed

•Determine whether to approach the cut from the top down or from the bottom up

Before Listening

•Monitor comprehension

•Verify prediction and check for accuracy

•Point out elements important for the task

During Listening

•Evaluate comprehension in a particular area

•Assess overall progress of the task. Keep records of it

•Evaluate strategies used in listening to give feedback about their appropriateness , or modify them if necessary

After Listening

Challenges Affecting Listening Comprehension

of Arabic Authentic Audios

Listening involves too much cultural references.

Listening involves variable rates of delivery: news, street talk, TV shows,

speakers

It involves numerous uses, conjugations, and

measures for each Arabic verb or word

It involves reduced, extended, or spoken Arabic

forms: different dialects and different accents

Examples of Challenges Affecting Higher Level Listening Comprehension of Arabic Authentic

Audios

• Twitters, Facebook, and youtube are now news resources.

تحوم هاذي الطيارة الحظنا بالليل واحد الساعة حوالي طبعا البارحسمعنا فترة حوالي وبعد وضواحيها، األبيار منطقة أجواء في

نفس وراء ثانية، طائرة كانت فيه، وبعدين انفجار صوتاللي الطائرة حول تدور تحاول فبدأت هاذي، الثانية الطائرة،

بالليل، شفناها اتضح، ولكن صاروخ، نتوقعو كنا واحنا انفجرت،. وقعت لما

Question: In your opinion, using this segment, what affects you from writing a reliable report about facts and attitudes related to this event?

Examples of Challenges Affecting Higher Level Listening Comprehension of Arabic Authentic

Audios

• Arabic sentences, sometimes, seem to have reduced or extended structures.

اعلن قام كما االحد اوقف الذي االسالم، سيفإتهامه خلفية على الجنائية، المحكمة عام مدعي

االخيرة السنوات في ، اإلنسانية ضد بجرائم.بدور باسمه ناطق او للنظام مبعوث

Question: According to this news item from the BBC, how have listeners’ impressions of Saif Alislam been

affected about his new position?

Examples of Challenges Affecting Higher Level Listening Comprehension of Arabic Authentic

Audios

• Arabic news and interview use “flowery” expressions may affect the main point.

الوعي: _ من بدرجة أصبح المحافظة جمهور الكربوليالناخب إرادة تعاكس إجراءات بأي يسمح ال بحيث

. هذه إن للجميع نقول ونحن الجماهير إرادة وتعاكسوهذا الفرسان ساحة فيها ويتبارى ،ميدان

الفارس يحترم أن عليه ينبغي غلWب إذا الحقيقي والفارساآلخر.

Question: According to the BBC Arabic interview, what is alKarabuli’s point in comparing an election campaign to a contest between knights?

Examples of Challenges Affecting Higher Level Listening Comprehension of Arabic Authentic

Audios

• Arabic texts and audios are interfered by their cultural references, and they are hard to be analyzed separately.

أكبر : من تعتبر بالكويت الكارثة هذه يعني الدولة وزيرأن وتعالى سبحانه الله ونسأل علينا مرت التي الكوارثوال حول وال ، المتوفين أهالي وأيضا الكويت أهالي يعين

نقوله نقدر إللي هذا إحنا ، بالله إال قوةQuestion: According to this cut from Aljazeera about who is responsible for the “Kuwait Fire”, reading through this minister’s sentiment about the event, what is the position of the Kuwaiti

government in relation to the Kuwait fire?

Examples of Challenges Affecting Higher Level Listening Comprehension of Arabic Authentic

Audios

• Arabic verbs come in many different sizes, shapes, and patterns, even with background knowledge about the Arabic measures and roots. Notice the verbs underlined

Question: according to the clip from CNN Arabic, how will Dubai face the world economy recession in relation to Khalifa City project?

باألزمة تعد ولم• تتأثر دبيطالت التي اإلقتصادية

العالممكانتها إستعادت• دبي

العالم في اإلقتصاديةبدبي • خليفة لمدينة وكان

المستقبل موعد مع

المراكز تعد• أكبر من دبيالتجارية

بالكثير تعد دبي• العالمالمليونين تعداد بلغ• دبي

العام لهذاعمل أعدت• خطة دبي

القادمة للسنواتدبي • بخطى العدوبدأت

مدينة بناء نحو سريعةالبرج

Examples of Challenges Affecting Higher Level Listening Comprehension of Arabic Authentic

Audios

Some MSA sentences and phrases inside an audio that students usually are baffled with:

من • يغني وال يسمن ال الصومال إلى المقدم الدعم كانجوع .

الحائط . • بعرض الدولية القرارات إسرائيل ضربتوحبك • الدنيا في إمرأة أجمل أنك في شك عندك هل

التاريخ . في خبر أحلىالمتفرج . • موقف تقف المتحدة الواليات وكانتصدر . • برحابة األوربي المشروع قابلت إيطالياحنين . • بخفي اإلجتماع من سوريا خرجتغزة . • من السارة األخبار هي قليلةمنذ • لها حصر ال وهمية عقود العراقية الحكومة أبرمت

تشكيلها

Examples of Challenges Affecting Higher Level Listening Comprehension of Arabic Authentic

Audios

Some Arabic Terms and phrases that make statements negative or comparative , students are baffled with when translating and analyzing a spoken text.

عنف • أعمال عن ناهيكقيد • أو شرط بدونب ....... • فكيف كان إذاالفقرات • بين ربط أدوات

مثل : ال ، دام ما ، سوى ، أن على

على ، ب مقارنة ، سيماإلخ ، بينما ، غرار

على • إقتصرذلك • من النقيض علىمنازع • وبال اإلطالق علىاألعراف • لكل خالفا�في • هراء تصريحاته كانت

هراء جدوى • وبدون عبثا� حاولالمجردة • بالعين يرى بالكادواحدة • دولة باستثناء

Challenges Affecting Higher Level Listening Comprehension of Arabic Authentic Audios

Teaching Listening

• Practice is not enough. Listening strategies should be taught, monitored, and modified. Their learning strategies and ours are not the same.

• Grammatical uses and Arabic ten measures are not bad ideas for teaching and reminding students of now and then.

• First day assessment for the short-session classes are necessary to acknowledge students’ learning styles and level of competence.

• Encourage analyzing spoken texts rather than translating them word by word. Themes and messages of spoken Arabic are often hidden

• Always activate the students’ conscious learning to help think as their target language not their native one.

• Arabic language is a cultural phenomenon; Arabic and culture (beliefs, rituals, and ideologies) can not be separated. Immersion is a “canon”.

• Artificial repetition for colloquial and grammatical expression are effective for developing the students’ auditory memory.

Three Recommended Standard Listening Modes

Listening effectively takes three modes depending on the level of the students and tasks:

1. Passive: We ask for main ideas

2. Active: We ask for message behind the speech

3. Combative: We ask students to negotiate and debate

Passive/Attentive

Active/Reflective

Competitive

/Combative

10 Standard Learning Strategies We Have to Teach

• Looking for key words (basic). Taking notes. • Looking for non-verbal cues to meaning• Predicting speaker’s purposes by the context of the spoken

discourse• listening for general gist (as an initial task)• Guessing at meanings (for main ideas) • Relating information by activating schemata (comparing and

contrasting)• Seeking clarifications, support with evidences• Determining which technique to use: bottom-up or top-down

listening technique according to task. • Achieving the required task: evaluating, describing, criticizing,

modifying, supporting, producing, and etc.• Altering learning strategy with ease when necessary

“Improving Listening Skills from the Intermediate to Advanced Level, What Does it Take?”

The specific information supplied here are mostly based on my personal observation and students’ feedback in my teaching intermediate students striving to push them to the higher level . Key factor here, is motivation. Arabic language is a very living and wealthy language that is capable to perk up no matter how tired they were. Although we teachers, as I stated before, are not full authentic for students but mini immersion activities can work on helping our students to learn, as they say, through osmosis to unlock their potentials.

“Improving Listening Skills from the Intermediate to Advanced

Level, What Does it Take?”