A Plan for Teaching Listening Comprehension: Adaptation of an

Instructional Reading Model

Eileen K Glisan Indiana University of Pennsylvania

ABSTRACTMany studies in foreign language learn- ing over the past several years have explored thepro- cesses involved in listening and reading as well as the benefits of receptive skill development. Empirical in- vestigations continue to identifv the positive effects of extensive practice in listening and reading early in language study. The purpose of this article is to pre- sent a strategy for teaching listening comprehension by adapting several aspects of an effective reading model. The paper explores the processes underlying listening and reading as well as pedagogical implica- tions of current research in the receptive skills. Speci3c guidelines for integrating listening skills arepresented.

Current research in foreign language learning con- tinues to stress the importance of focusing on listen- ing and reading in the early stages of language study. Lending support to receptive skill development are studies showing that adults spend 40 to 50 percent of their time listening and 11 to 16 percent of their time reading (Rivers, 27). Empirical investigations in first language acquisition have shown that infants com- prehend before producing language, and further, that aural and reading comprehension are affected by the innate ability to adapt to the environment by means of listening and looking (Sticht, et al., 32). In the area of foreign language study, a wealth of experimentation has also verified the positive results of exposing students to an initial comprehension phase prior to language production (Asher, 1; Postovsky, 25; Winitz and Reeds, 35). It seems apparent that listening and reading must be addressed directly in the curriculum

Eileen W Glisan (Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh) is Assistant Pro- fessor of Spanish at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana, PA.

which seeks to develop global language proficiency. Although the processes which underlie listening and reading have been the focus of research, the develop- ment of instructional guidelines are areas ripe for investigation.

The purpose of this paper is to offer a strategy for teaching listening comprehension by adapting an ef- fective reading model. The processes involved in listen- ing and reading will be compared, and pedagogical im- plications of current research into the receptive skills will be examined. Finally, specific guidelines for in- tegrating listening skills will be outlined.

Listening and Reading in the Foreign Language At present we view listening and reading as complex,

active processes which involve factors such as linguistic knowledge, conceptual awareness, cognitive process- ing skills, and expectations of discourse structures (Omaggio, 23). Meaning is assigned to language input through the generation of “images:’ or, as Stevick describes, pictures in the mind‘s eye (31). According- ly, the listener or reader may comprehend a message by means of the pictures triggered by image-evoking items in the input. The effects of prior knowledge and context also seem to be instrumental in both listening and reading comprehension tasks. Listeners and readers construct meaning by reorganizing their previously acquired knowledge to accommodate new information and concepts! Smith maintains that ef- ficient comprehenders arrive at meaning by maximiz- ing their knowledge of the world and their understand- ing of discourse structure (30). According to Goodman, the comprehension process is an ongoing verification of hypotheses and anticipation of meaning as discourse

Foreign LanguageAnnols, 21, No.1, 1988 9

10 FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANNALS

is processed (9). In both listening and m d h g the abii- ty to predict forthcoming input, or the “grammar of expectancy;’ is a very effective strategy, one characteristic of native listener and reader processing skills (Oller, 21).

The key role of context in comprehending oral and written texts has been identified through various studies done by Bransford and Johnson (3) in listen- ing, and Omaggio (22) in reading, among others (Mueller, 19; Lee, 16). These investigations have shown that language users provided with prior contextual support, such as pictures or scripts, understand mean- ing with a higher degree of accuracy than if they &ve no initial information. Thus, background knowledge and an organizational framework for the oral or writ- ten passage facilitate the comprehension task by limiting the number of possible interpretations.

The processes involved in the receptive skills share many characteristics, since, according to Sticht, et al., “. .. they are both receptive communication acts that ~ e -

quire a central language and conceptualizing base” (32, p. 70). Studies in first language acquisition have demonstrated that infants are endowed with innate sensory, perceptual, motor, and cognitive capacities for adapting to the environment (Sticht, et al., 32). Accordingly, prior to acquiring the ability to com- prehend the spoken and written message, the child ex- periences an initial stage of listening to aural stimuli and looking at visual material. Thus, these preliminary reactive modes of listening and looking prepare the child for the receptive processes of auding and reading, respectively, and for the productive skills of speaking and writing.* Further, experimental atidence in- dicates that training in listening comprehension may transfer to readiig skill and that listening comprehen- sion skill may also be predictive of the ability to read (Hill, 12; Cooper, 6).3

Both the listener and reader generate images, whenever possible, in constructing meaning. In listen- ing, there is an interplay between various types of knowledge - phonological, lsrical. grammatical, and semantic - all of which convey meaning in different ways, depending on the linguistic level of the listener and the task. Similarly, readers utilize “process strategies:’ which as Coady describes, include grapheme-morphophoneme correspondences; syllable-morpheme information; syntactic informa- tion (deep and surface); lexical meaning and contex- tual meaning; cognitive strategies; and affective mobilizers (5 , p. 7). As readers (and also listeners) achieve higher levels of language sophistication, they rely less on strategies involving letter and word correspondences.

Various models, largely based on native-language processing, have been proposed to account for the specific processes involved in listening and reading in the foreign language While a comprehensive review of these models is beyond the scope of this paper, a comparison of two models wil l serve to compare fur- ther the receptive skills.’ Richards’ model of the listening process includes the following steps:

(1) The type of speech act is determined. (2) The relevant schemata are retrieved from

(3) The speaker’s goals are inferred through

(4) A literal meaning is determined. (5) An intended meaning is assigned. (6) The information is retained and utilized for

long-term memory.

references to the context and script.

some purpose (26, p. 223).

These procedures are similar to those involved in Munby‘s intensive reading model:

(1) The surface meanings in the text are under-

(2) Meaning is inferred, with tone and figurative

(3) The relationship of ideas in the passage is

(4) The reading is related to one‘s own knowledge

stood.

language being taken into account.

understood.

and experience (20, p. 144).

These models clearly illustrate that both the listener and reader determine the nature of the task at hand, activate background knowledge, arrive at literal and implied meaning, and utilize the new information in some way.

Other factors which play an important role in understanding the oral or written message are the com- prehender’s level of inmest in the message, the anxiety level concerning the task involved, attention and con- centration, and memory storage capacity. Inability to store information efficiently slows processing and limits the time for anticipation and interpretation. In discussing the effect of memory on the receptive skills, Lowe indicates: “Reading reseacch reveals that a failure to reorganize and shift material from short- to long- term memory leads to a loss or distortion of meaning. Presumably, similar constraints affect listening com- prehension; that is, if the listener pauses too long over one word or phrase, the meaning of the whole may be lost or misinterpreted” (17, p. 378).

The listener and mder make use of similar subskills in the comprehension process, such as:

FEBRUARY 1988 11

Discriminating different sounds or letters Recognizing suprasegmental patterns or sentence structure Recognizing word-order patterns Recognizing vocabulary Recognizing parts of speech Identifying key words and ideas Recognizing connecting elements Guessing meaning from context Understanding relationships between the parts of the oral or written text

(10) Understanding explicitly stated information (11) Understanding the implications (12) Understanding the function of the text (13) Listening/Reading for different purposes (14) Retaining the main ideas of text (15) Reacting to the text through expression of

In view of the differences between the spoken and written message, there are several distinct processes in- volved in listening and reading. First, written discourse is organized by sentences, whereas the clause is the ma- jor unit in speech. Thus while the reader can visually follow the text sentence by sentence, the listener must recognize and process each clause aurally. Second, spoken language is characterized by more ungram- matical, shortened forms, and by omissions of sub- jects, verbs, articles, or other parts of speech. This means that, while the reader can rely on grammatical clues, the listener must recognize informal speech and rely more on content words and context. Third, while written texts are highly organized, speech is filled with pauses, hesitations, false starts, and connectors. Ac- cordingly, inasmuch as the reader can utilize organiza- tional clues for meaning, the listener must be attentive to rapid changes in the organizational plan of the speaker. Fourth, since conversations are interactive, the listener can negotiate meaning with the speaker and can rely on nonverbal signals, neither of which can be done by the reader. On the other hand, the reader is able to reread the written script and refer to previous information, while, in contrast, the listener may find himself changing topics frequently, with no oppor- tunity to replay the conversation (Richards, 26). Figure 1 on the next page summarizes the similarities and dif- ferences between listening and reading.

opinions, attitude formation, etc.

Classroom Implications of Research into the Receptive Skills

The onset of audiolingualism in the 1960’s brought an emphasis on the development of speaking but a

superficial treatment, at best, of listening and reading skills. In recent years, however, the move toward more communicative, or proficiency-based, teaching has resurrected a renewed concern for attending to the receptive skills. Research in both first and second language acquisition has shown that the ability to pro- duce language is facilitated if language is “acquired” subconsciously through the process of attending to comprehensible input (Krashen, el, al., IS). That is, speaking skill develops as a result of listening to speech, just as effective writing abilities are aided by exposure to reading. For us as teachers, this implies that we must provide early opportunities for our students to receive linguistic input in both oral and written forms. In order to trigger acquisition, input should contain some grammar and vocabulary which are slightly beyond the student’s level (i +1) (Krashen, 13.)

Further, since learners progress through various stages in their ability to comprehend and speak the language, researchers have suggested an initial “com- prehension’’ period, in which students concentrate on developing listening comprehension before speaking. Terrell maintains that during this stage learners “bind” or mentally associate new words with meaning by react- ing meaningfully with physical responses or brief oral answers (33). Much experimentation exists to support such an initial “silent period:’ during which time, like children exposed to their native language, students re- spond without being required to speak the target language. This stage is characterized by massive amounts of oral input which, embedded in mean- ingful, interesting contexts, is understandable to learners.

Extensive documentation exists to support the ef- fectiveness of the Total Physical Response technique, which helps students “bind” speech utterances through physical responses to commands (Asher, 1; Glisan, 8). The experimentation, which has been done with Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and English as a Second Language, has even suggested that the listening skill developed through TPR practice has a positive transfer to reading and speaking ability (Asher, l).5

These findings (Krashen et al., 15; Krashen, 13; Ter- rell, 33; Asher, 1; Glisan 8) imply that we must provide extensive amounts of target language speech in natural communicative contexts. If we expect our students to develop language proficiency, then we must give them practice with natural listening tasks; this means avoiding exclusive use of question-answer formats to

FIGURE 1

A Comparison of Listening and Reading Processes

LISTENING AND READING

Active Processes

Images Generated Guessing Strategies Employed

“Expectancy Grammar” Activated

Background Knowledge/Context Important Memory Capacity Vital

Inference Ability Necessary

Relating Meaning to One‘s Own Knowledge Understanding Function of Text

Recognizing Parts of Speech, Word Order, Relationships Between Parts of Text

Attention: Level of Interest/Anxiety

SPOKEN DISCOURSE

I ~

Organized by Clauses Features More Ungrammatical,

Shortened Forms Recognition of Suprasegmental

Patterns Important Listener May Hear Message Only Once

Listener Can Negotiate Meaning Listener Can Use Paralinguistic

Clues for Meaning

WRITl’EN TEXT

Organized by Sentences Features Correct Grammar

Recognition of Stylistic Elements Important

Reader Can Review Text More Than Once Reader Can’t Negotiate Meaning

Reader Can Use Written Words (Cognates) or Other Parts of Text as Clues for Meaning

$ m 5 Z

FEBRUARY 1988 13

follow listening passages or conversations. How many times in our native language has someone asked us five questions about the incident they just related to us? If our answer is “probably nevec then we must construct listening tasks such as: listening for specific pieces of information (airline flight announcements, weather reports, advertisements, times, dates, news items, etc.); listening for main ideas; listening to news items, or stories for the who, what, when, where, and why; listening for instructions or directions; listening to talks in order to understand opinions, attitudes, tones; among many other possibilities.

Accordingly, we must also guide students through listening activities, particularly at lower levels, and grade task difficulty gradually to avoid student frustra- tion in attending to the entirety of new input. Dunkel suggests that listeners be guided through four steps, as outlined by Rixon’s cognitive strategy hierarchy, to: (1) anticipate content of message; (2) monitor for discrepancies in message while listening; (3) select rele- vant and nonrelevant information while listening; and (4) check accuracy of comprehension through post- listening activity (7, pp. 100-101).

Like listening comprehension, reading should begin very early since it also provides input for development of language proficiency. In addition, a number of studies have shown that reading can serve to illustrate structural and stylistic features of the language and thus facilitate development of writing style (Krashen, 14). As in creating listening comprehension oppor- tunities, teachers need to provide authentic reading tasks which go beyond the factual question-answer format. Grellet has classified four types of reading as (1) skimming for the gist, (2) scanning for specific in- formation, (3) extensive reading for pleasure, and (4) intensive reading for detail (11, p. 4). Students must be guided through these different types of reading and understand the purpose of each in “natural” reading tasks. In her discussion of reading purposes, Phillips reminds us that we “ ... should keep in mind the pur- pose of the reading and design questions to check comprehension relevant to the task and not geared to a depth rarely required in real life” (24, p. 289).

Phillips has developed for classroom use a five-stage reading plan which integrates individual reading skills so that global reading proficiency may be attained. The five stages are as follows:

( I ) Preteaching/Preparation Stage: Students anticipate reading material by examining such contextual information as visuals, titles, and headlines and by highlighting ideas which are likely to appear throughout the text.

Skimming a,nd Scanning Stages: Students skim the passage for main gist, to fill in charts, match subtitles to paragraphs, select para- phrases, and scan for specific pieces of information. Decoding/Zntensive Reading Stage: Students read for meaning of the text, guess from con- text, and decode in order to expand vocabulary, recognize role of structures, or identify cohesive elements. Comprehension Stage: Students check com- prehension through graded questions/acti- vities. Bansferable/Integrating Skills: Students practice reading exercises which take them beyond the confines of the passage and help them enhance effective reading skills (24, pp. 289-95).

A Plan for Teaching Listening Comprehension In view of the similarities between the listening and

reading processes, Phillips’ reading plan described above could be adapted to listening. In fact, Omaggio suggests the development of such a listening plan for achieving proficiency goals more easily (23). The strategy to be outlined will integrate various listening and cognitive skills, guide the student through sequen- tial linguistic processing and help the listener work toward gaining global listening proficiency. Existing empirical research to support each stage of the plan will be cited.

I. Preteaching/Preparation Stage: We reviewed earlier the empirical evidence to support the positive effect of utilizing background knowledge and context in the comprehension task (Bransford and Johnson, 3; Omaggio, 22; Mueller, 19; Lee, 16) Accordingly, as a first step in the listening activity, the teacher should use students’ knowledge brought to the task as a basis for preparing them to listen. The teacher gives a brief introduction to the message or passage by presenting the title, first sentence, or several phrases and then eliciting student expectations of possible content to follow. Students discuss possible organization, con- tent, vocabulary and structures which might follow in the text. “Setting the stage” is a crucial step in introduc- ing a listening activity, for our expectations often determine how we will reconstruct our existing knowledge, or schemata, to internalize new informa- tion. In real life situations we are usually “prepared” for listening tasks (e.g., we wait for our flight number to be called; we listen for the weather report; we listen to travel directions, etc.), and yet in the classroom we

14 FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANNALS

often expect our students to understand oral messages without the benefit of contextual information.

(1) Students review vocabulary for clothing and prices in anticipation of a radio commercial an- nouncing a clothing sale.

(2) Students predict vocabulary they are likely to hear in a news bulletin about a cocaine bust in Central America, as well as discuss the names of coun- tries and cities which might be mentioned.

(3) In preparation for listening to a conversation in which two youngsters are discussing last night’s party, students relate the details of the last party they attended (in past tense) and anticipate possi- ble happenings to be mentioned such as the music, food, games, how guests were dressed, who’s dating whom, etc

Examples of prelistening activities are:

II. Skimming/Scanning Stages: Research into reading in the second language has revealed that effec- tive native reading strategies are not always automatically transferred to the reading task in the se- cond language (Clarke, 4). Further, ‘! ... limited control over the language ‘short circuits’ the good reader’s system, causing him/her to revert to poor reader strategies when confronted with a diffficult or confus- ing task in the second language” (Clark, 4, p. 206). In addition, as the reader (and by analogy, the listener) processes a written (or spoken) text, comprehension is influenced by the student’s ability to use different processing strategies (Goodman and Burke, 10). Two such strategies which are utilized in everyday reading and listening tasks are skimming for the gist and scan- ning for specific information.

We often aurally “skim” or listen for the gist of messages such as news items, announcements, inter- views, and commercials in order to ascertain the main ideas without attending to all the details. Similarly, listeners often “scan” or extract specific pieces of information from oral stimuli (eg., tonight’s predicted temperature, the location of the big furniture sale, the names of people involved in the shooting incident, and the address for more information on dieting). Although skimming and scanning are often done simultaneously by native-speaker listeners, we should familiarize students with these strategies by providing practice in developing each skill separately.

Inclusion of these two stages facilitates the listen- ing task by allowing students to focus on a limited amount of oral input, thus avoiding frustration often experienced by students in attending to the entire message before they are ready. Through early stages of skimming and scanning, students progressively

acquire a global view of the oral message while acquir- ing listening skills which they can apply to other listen- ing situations.

(1) Students listen once to a news announcement and are asked to select the main idea or topic from a list of possible alternatives.

(2) Students hear a dialog and tell where it takes place (eg., in a store, school, gymnasium, theater, train station, etc).

(3) Students listen to a conversation and identify the mood of the speakers (happy, sad, angry, indif- ferent, concerned).

(1) Students listen to an airline announcement in order to ascertain flight numbers and ar- rival/departure times.

(2) Students hear a weather report and listen specifically for the temperatures forecast for the surrounding towns.

(3) Students listen to a radio commercial and report the name, price, and use of the product being advertised.

Examples of skimming exercises are:

Examples of scanning exercises include:

IIL Comprehension Stage:6 At this stage, students receive feedback with respect to their comprehension of the oral message. Exercises to check understanding can be of various types, contingent on the purpose of the task, and can be done in concert with other language skills. Depending on the level of the students, however, the case can be made for utilizing “pure” comprehension checks which elicit answers in the students’ native language, thereby avoiding the mix- ing of skills.

Examples of comprehension exercises are: (1) Students write native language summaries. (2) Students choose an appropriate title or main

idea. (3) Students select appropriate pictures to sum-

marize passages. (4) Students complete a diagram or chart with infor-

mation from the passage. Other kinds of integrative comprehension checks

which combine several modalities include: (1) Students answer questions in the target language (2) Students create a series of “SAAD’s” (simple, ac-

tive, affirmative, declarative sentences) in oral or written form.

(3) Students fill in blanks to complete a written sum- mary of the passage.

(4) Students complete statements about the passage in oral or written form.

( 5 ) Students provide the who, what, when, where

FEBRUARY 1988 15

and how to explain the key details. In addition to checking comprehension of stated

ideas, we must be sure to provide opportunities for students to discuss subtleties contained in the speaker’s message, such as the implied meaning, tone, and at- titude of the speaker, wherever possible.

I K Pansferable/Integrating Skills Stage: Resear- chers have found that new information will be inter- nalized and understood better if it can be linked in a meaningful way to existing schemata or cognitive structures (Rumelhart, 29; Minsky, 18). Further, con- cepts are bound or internalized through meaningful activities (Krashen, et. al., 15).

Accordingly, a final stage in listening comprehen- sion provides opportunities for students to: (1) inter- nalize new information; (2) develop ideas, attitudes, and evaluative judgments while integrating listening with speaking and writing skills; and (3) receive addi- tional practice in applying their listening strategies to other similar kinds of spoken messages.

Certain types of passages, such as conversations, in- terviews, news items, and documentaries lend themselves to post-listening activities in which students utilize the target language to express their own feelings or attitudes orally or in written form. We, as teachers, often overlook the importance of providing oppor- tunities for our students to conceptualize and exercise their creative processes, yet real-life experiences con- stantly demand these tasks. Many listening com- prehension passages offer the context for students to practice speaking and writing by means of the follow- ing types of creative activities: (1) debating orally in groups (2) class/group discussions (3) group consensus/problem-solving (4) interviewing in pairs/groups ( 5 ) hypothesizing in given situations (6) acting out role plays/spontaneous dialogs (7) manipulating the oral passage (changing begin-

ning or ending, expanding, adapting characters, etc.)

(8) writing character sketches (9) writing results of oral interviews (10) writing esssays to express opinions of oral

passage. These speaking and writing tasks serve to develop

more sophisticated conceptual abilities while enabling students to practice using higher-level language.

This last stage could also focus on transferring the listening strategies utilized throughout the initial stages to other oral contexts. By attending to the strategies, such as skimming, scanning, guessing in context, etc.,

rather than the context itself, students are likely to understand how such techniques can be applied in the attempt to interpret all oral messages. Thus, additional oral input at this stage would provide further oppor- tunities to apply such processing strategies within a different context.

Conclusion This paper has proposed a plan for teaching listen-

ing comprehension through adaptation of an existing reading model. The four stages integrate the various listening processing strategies to facilitate understand- ing of the text in light of the function of the message. In addition, this model provides for practice of global strategies which can be transferred to other listening tasks and includes focus on conceptualization and higher-level language use in speaking and writing.

While this paper has attempted to deal with the issue of teaching listening comprehension in the classroom, a great deal of research is needed to explain further the complex processes involved in foreign language aural processing. In addition, the implications of the ACTFL/ETS proficiency guidelines for receptive skill development remain to be clearly articulated by subse- quent investigation. Finally, innovative strategies for teaching effective listening skills and for integrating listening with other linguistic and cognitive abilities must be disseminated in an effort to encourage teachers to provide active classroom practice for listening.

NOTES I This background knowledge has been termed “schemata”

or “frames!’ For further discussion, see Rumelhart (29) and Minsky (18.)

Sticht, et a). (32) refer to auding as listening to speech for comprehension. In their developmental model of languag- ing, listening prepares one for auding while looking prepares one for reading.

For a detailed description of these studies, see Sticht, Beck, Haucke, Kleiman, and James (32).

+For a comprehensive discussion of listening and reading models, the reader is advised to refer to Wing (34).

Detailed descriptions of these experiments can be found in Asher (2).

6The “decoding/intensive reading stage” is not being adapted to the listening plan since it would be of little value to the listener to examine the structure of ephemeral segments of discourse.

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