Listening skills: how to untangle the noise and find the messageJudy Copage

Agenda

•Features of listening contexts

•Skills and strategies – 2 essential elements

•Listening tasks

1What is listening?

“an active process in which listeners select and interpret information that comes from auditory and visual clues in order to define what is going on and what the speakers are trying to express” Thompson, I. & Rubin, J. (1996) ‘Can strategy instruction improve listening comprehension?’ Foreign Language Annals, 29(3)

We listen twice as much as we speak, 4 times as much as we read, and 5 times as much as we write.

What is listening?

Receptive Listening = receiving sounds what the speaker actually says

Constructive Listening = constructing and representing meaningworking out what is in the speaker's mind finding out what is relevant for youunderstanding the content and why the speaker is talking

Types of listening

Collaborative Listening = negotiating meaning with the speaker and responding negotiating shared information or values showing interest signalling to the speaker

Transformative Listening = creating meaning through involvement, empathy and imagination being involved with the speaker empathising with the speaker imagining a possible world for the speaker's meaning

Rost, M. (2002). Listening in language learning. New York: Longman.

2Why is listening difficult?

Why is it difficult?

“ I don’t even recognize words I know.”“ I miss the next part when I think about meaning.” “ I can’t hear where the sections are in the stream of

speech.”“ I concentrate too hard and miss things.”“ I quickly forget what I heard.” “ I can’t picture the words I hear.”“ When I understand the words, I lose the message.” “ I get confused and can’t spot the key ideas in the

message.”

You can’t really blame them!

• lack of control over the speed at which speakers speak

• not being able to get things repeated• the kind of material /teaching techniques used

• failure to recognize the “signals” • problems of interpretation • inability to concentrate• established learning habits

Underwood, M. Teaching listening London: Longman (1989) adapted

Inappropriate strategies

“I should pay attention to every word and understand every detail in the text.”

“I have to translate the target language to my native one in order to understand the text.”

3What do learners listen to?

What sort of listening?

Participatory vs. non-participatory- the learner’s role

• Participant/listener present: +visualMost conversations

• Participant/listener absent: -visualPhone calls, call centre menus

• Non-participant/listener present: + visualLectures, plays, eavesdropping

• Non-participant/listener absent: +/- visualRadio, podcasts, TV, DVD, films, classroom recorded material

What is the demand on the listener in each case?

What kinds of discourse?

Unmodified vs. modified input

• Baseline talkI'm a vegetarian. D’you know what that is?

• Grammatical foreigner talk I don’t eat meat. I’m a vegetarian. Veg-e-tar- ian.

Do you understand?

• Interlanguage talkI no like meat. I eat vegetable, no meat.

• Ungrammatical foreigner talk

MEAT...ME...NO...LIKEY! NO MEAT .. SAVVY?

spontaneous > careful > scripted

chatting with friends

explaining instructions

reading the news

How do teachers model listening in the classroom?

Natural vs. evaluative

T: Do you like English food?

S: No, I don’t like.T: Oh? Why?

T: Do you like English food?

S: No I don’t like.T: No, I don’t.S: Oh, sorry. No,

I don’t.

4Skills and strategies

Skills and strategies

• prediction• grasping the main idea• key-word strategy• selective attention• using contextual clues• grouping• inferencing• self-monitoring

O'Malley, J.M. et al. (1985). ‘Learning Strategy Applications with Students of English as a Second Language.’ TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 3

Skilled strategy use

• more proficient listeners use “wide distribution” strategies e.g. inferencing, anticipating, conclusion drawing, selective attention

• less proficient listeners use “text heavy” strategies (reliance on bottom-up processing)

Essential strategy training

Students need to/Teachers should plan tasks to:

• make use of redundancy/weak forms• get background information on topic• make predictions• ignore information not needed• attempt guesses for unknown elements