Emily HerreroPaula Isturiz

Ana RoaAngel Serrano

Your quick guide to …

Group # 3

Listening is a skill that requires an active analysis of sounds.

It is the process of understanding streams of sounds. It is important because:

It provides input for the language learner. Without this input language learning cannot begin. Input acts as a model for production. It precedes speaking. Allows students to recognize expressions and emotions,

experience different accents and intonations, build their vocabulary.

Enables students to process information in the target language at a faster pace.

In a classroom the learner must be actively involved in the listening situation. Teaching should be focused on students, so they can internalize and analyze the information in order to achieve effective language learning.All listening activities must allow learners to play an active role. Students must be aware of why and what they are listening to, so they can be conscious of their learning. It can be structured in the following way:

Pre-listening stage to reactivate past knowledge. Introduction and clarification. Listening stage. Post-listening activities.

Schema-building activities should be carried out before the listening activity, in order to reactivate prior knowledge.

It is very important for student to recall previous "sound experiences" in order to further build on that knowledge.

Recalling information allows for correct recognition and interpretation of what is being said.

There are two ways to trigger past experiences: Bottom-upTop-down

According to Brown and Yule (1983) "interactional talk is the one which refers to social speech and transactional talk is the one which main purpose is to achieve successful exchange of information. Most situations require a combination of both types of talk, in which linguistic and non-linguistic skills are involved"

A general idea would be that interactional talk is the language in conversation used for interpersonal reasons and/or socializing; and transactional talk is the language to get things done or to transmit content or information.

There are two types of listening processing, which are top-down processing and bottom-up processing. The first one refers to using background knowledge to interpret the message, whereas the second one refers to understanding the message based on the language information.

According to McDonough and Shaw (1993) and Rost (1991) a listener goes through three processes, using three types of skills, in order to understand. These are called micro-skills and they are neither used nor effective in isolation.

1.- Processing sound/ Perception skills: During this stage, listeners detect the sounds, stress, pronunciation, the significance of intonation, tone, speed of delivery of words, key words, etc.

2. - Processing meaning/ Analysis skills: It is an important mental step. During this stage the grammar structure of the language and syntax might get lost to memory within a very short time, whereas meaning of the words and phrases remain much longer in a learner’s mind. During this stage, listeners analyze and can also think in advance, about what a speaker might say.

3. - Processing knowledge and context/ Synthesis skills: This stage is divided into two parts. The context refers to physical

setting, the number of listeners and speakers, and their relationship to each other. Whereas processing knowledge refers to the linguistic knowledge a listener should have of the target language in order to comprehend the message. This combination of syntax and cultural aspects of the target language help listeners have a successful understanding during the listening comprehension process.

The interest of the listener about a topic and the background knowledge about what is being said.

The way a speaker talks (slow, fast or with many idioms and typical expressions from a culture) and the accent. Gestures and body expression may help or affect the process of listening comprehension.

There are other variables, such as noise, equipment (radio, headset, phone), repeating a word several times, that can help or not a listener have a better understanding and cause a successful listening experience.

When designing listening activities for your students, you may follow these 6 principles as compiled by Brown:

Use an interactive, four-skill curriculum. Remember that this receptive skill has to be developed as the other three. Even though you are teaching young learners, test their listening, not just the way they exchange short ideas.

Use intrinsically motivating techniques. Including students’ goals and interests will make activities more fun and useful for students.

Utilize authentic language and contexts. Newspaper and magazine articles give students the opportunity to get in touch with the culture of English speaking countries. Also, this exposure is useful to familiarize with English syntax.

Principles when designing listening activities

Principles when designing listening activities

Carefully consider the form of listener’s responses. Be a bright teacher! Pay attention to their behavior and find out if they really understand or are just telling you what you want to hear.

Building strategies that help students improve their listening comprehension beyond the classroom.

Include both bottom-up and top-down listening strategies. Usually beginning students are happier with activities that involve bottom-up techniques, but to focus too much on them could be inconvenient.

Types of listening classroom performance and example

There are six different types of listening classroom performance, they are all useful and focus on different but related activities and/or skills.  

Intensive: techniques whose only purpose is to focus on components (phonemes, words, intonation, discourse markers) of discourse. For example, when a teacher asks his/her students to listen to a sentence or longer discourse and notice a specific element, such as intonation, stress, or a grammatical structure.

Extensive: ranges from listening to long lectures to listening to a conversation and deriving a comprehensive message or purpose. Listening for the gist, for the main idea, and making inferences are all part of extensive listening.

Types of listening classroom performance and example

Selective: scan for details. In longer monologues, students must not process everything said, but must ‘scan’ the material for certain information. For instance: people's names, age, description, certain facts or events, location, situation or context.

Reactive: doesn’t require much meaningful processing. Specifically, activities to improve pronunciation such as, "listen and repeat after the teacher: my name is xxx, my hobby is football.”

Responsive: to respond what your teacher asks (how are you doing? did you bring your homework?), to follow commands (please, turn to page 30), to seek clarification (excuse me, what was the word you said?), and to check comprehension (so, how many guys were there?).

Types of listening classroom performance and example

Interactive: Competency. Students’ listening is integrated with speaking…give and take of communicative exchange. For example, face-to-face conversations, telephone calls, group surveys, short speeches and its questions, exchanging news and views, interviewing and being interviewed, negotiations.

Listen between the lines and pay attention to body language!

In order to facilitate the development of students' listening abilities, this basic framework should be taken into account:

1. Pre-listening phase, which serves to prepare students for

the listening activity. Some techniques are:• Show pictures related to the listening.• Explain the new vocabulary or grammar structures

featured on the listening.• Explain to students that not every word in the

listening is important for them to know.• Explain to students the type of text that they will be

listening to, and the purpose of the listening activity.

3. Post-listening phase, which aims at making students integrate what they have learned from the listening activity with their previous knowledge and evaluate their comprehension. Some techniques are:

• Have students compare their notes and discuss what they understood about the listening.

• Encourage students to debate whether or not they agree with the listening.

• Ask students to provide a solution, when possible, to the issue discussed.

• Have students do an oral presentation, role-play or a simulation of the listening.

In order to reduce to manageable proportions the amount of information in any one sound sequence, each language has developed a certain amount of redundancy. Redundancy allows the speaker to elaborate the message. If this redundancy was eliminated, the human organism could not absorb information at the rate at which it would be emitted in normal speech. Redundancy in language is to be found in elements of sound and in morphological and syntactic formations, which reinforce each other in the conveying of meaning. It is redundancy in language, which helps us to piece together the information we hear. (Wilga M. Rivers, 1982)

Then, when it comes to recalling what the dialogue was about, that overuse of terms referring to the same idea will definitely be of help for students when doing a post-listening activity, for instance.

Nevertheless, there could be problems for the students when practicing listening comprehension; because they worry about every single word they do not know, instead of trying to catch the main idea. This is why sometimes when students are learning a second language they get stressed and ask the teacher to slow down.

If they understand that in listening comprehension the main idea is to grasp the global aspects of it, they will achieve the task. This is something they will get with the practice.

Indeed, this is why students need to understand and learn that there are redundancies in any language that they will acquire with practice and will make listening comprehension easier for them.

On the other hand, we could also show the students that a simple question or answer in an every day life situation will show redundancy. It also depends if is a verbal or non-verbal situation. An example could be when asking the question: "Where did you go last night?" because it is only a situation between two persons (a one-to-one situation), the person would not repeat "Where did I go last night?" but this is way the students need to know that in these cases, the best is to use gestures or facial expressions to also express communication.

In general, after teaching them about listening techniques and redundancies, it is important for students to get involved in the activity, to be aware that by practicing they will identify redundancies, to learn and to enjoy when doing the activity.

 

Teachers could advice the students not to focus their attention on the overuse of adjectives, the overuse of nouns and verbs linked by connectors such as "or" or "and".

If the purpose of the listening was to get the gist, why

would they want to focus their attention in knowing every single word of it? Of course, looking up those "extra" words could be an after class activity to enhance their vocabulary, but if the purpose of the class is getting this or that information from the recording and those "extra" words definitely do not seem to contribute to it, they should move on to the next level of the activity.

In addition, it would be good to let them hear the tape the first time to understand what it's being played, a second time to take notes of the words or phrases that are redundant, and a third and final time to confirm their notes by listening again to the tape.

After that, the teacher could ask them to share those words or phrases with their classmates to make them all participate and add something else, so everyone can learn how to identify redundancies when dealing with acquiring listening skills.