Listening Theory and Lesson Plan
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WHAT IS KNOWN ABOUT THE PROCESSES OF LISTENING? This theory will discuss factors that affect teachers’ choice of listening activities for a group of second language learners. TEACHING DESIGN • Approach • Theoretical Assumptions METHOD • Teaching Context • Teaching Goals • Learning Objectives • Learning Outcomes PROCEDURE • Pre-listening Activity • Pre-listening Reading • LISTENING ACTIVITY • Post-listening Activity REFERENCES APPENDIX 1 • Pre-listening Activity APPENDIX 2 • Students’ Response to the Listening Task • Vocabulary Issues APPENDIX 3 • Metacognitive/Metalinguistic strategies APPENDIX 4 • Listening Text: Supermarket Conversation TEACHING LISTENING COMPREHENSION What is known about the processes of listening? This paper discusses factors which affect a teacher’s selection of listening activities for a group of second language learners. LISTENING AS A COMPLEX OF PROCESSES The critical importance and place of listening in language learning has only been recognized recently (Oxford 1993: Morley, 1991; Feyten, 1991). Formerly the concept of comprehension was limited in its application, understood largely as an outcome of some forms of repetition leading to understanding [Morley, 1991]). Today many scholars (whether focus on ‘form’ or ‘meaning’) recognize listening as comprehension as a complex process. Most linguists recognize that in the listening process two distinct types of cognitive processes are involved — top down and bottom up processing. Listening is no longer thought of as a ‘passive’ skill. Rather listening refers to listening actively and interactively in order to comprehend. Teaching listening therefore needs an intentional approach that understands the pivotal role of listening in language learning and recognizes the complex interactive nature of the listening process vivified in the concept of top—down bottom—up processing (Peterson, 2001). Top—down processing involves drawing upon schemata and scripts. Informed by schema theory, the concept of schema is understood as the background knowledge we bring to bear upon our world encounters. Top-down processing happens by engaging the long term memory, the long term memory being the place in our mind/consciousness where meaning resides and from which meaning is negotiated (Richards, 1987). On the other hand, bottom up processing is associated with incoming data, a processing that requires use of linguistic knowledge — “sounds to words to grammatical relationships to lexical meanings” (Vandergrift, 1997; Morley, 1991). The concern of top—down processing is meaning, and Richards (1987) asserts the basic unit of meaning to be propositional meaning. Richards identifies three levels to discourse processing — propositional identification, interpretation of illocutionary force, activation of real world knowledge, (Richards, 1987: 161). In addressing bottom-up processing Richards describes the listener in the comprehension process as utilizing two kinds of knowledge to identify propositional meaning, “knowledge of the syntax of the target language and real world knowledge (Richards, 1987: 162). From this position Richards describes the listener as comprehending by ‘chunks’. From this point he argues implicitly for the importance of ‘form’, ascribing this ability to “chunk incoming discourse into segments or constitutents”. While Richards presents a good case for the importance and role of 'form' in SLL, and while it is possible to agree with Richards that the listener comprehends by appropriating “chunks” of the incoming discourse, I cannot agree that conscious grammatical competence that is the key to comprehension. A bilingual child of tender age appropriates the second language without conscious syntactic knowledge. However the point that Richards makes leads to a further point which I believe is of greater significance and this point being “where segmentation is difficult, comprehension is also difficult”. This is true especially for the young bi-lingual as it is in distinguishing the sounds into separate patterns that the very young bi-lingual acquires both the first and second language. So if this patterning is not apparent, then comprehension is almost impossible. What Richards’ work highlights (from the standpoint of meaning as interactional) is that meaning construction is a dynamic, and what Richards is concerned with is the active and creative dimension to the construction of meaning in the listening process, which further to this points to the role of inferencing and interpretation in listening comprehension (Richards, 1987: 163). What I have have begun to outline in this paper is that there are different standpoints regarding listening comprehension and that today many scholars from various disciplines have a great interest in the listening process. Different standpoints means that those who research listening processes as well as those who teach listening skills will have different appreciations of the listening processes. There are points of intersection however, theoretical intersections where common ground can provide teachers of listening comprehension skills with valuable insights. In both the work of Richards (construction of meaning) and Van Duzer (cognitive processing) there is recognition of several basic processes at work in listening. Richards in focusing on comprehension doesn’t differentiate between top down and bottom up processing per se. Richards gives a model for comprehension that is constituted by six identifiable elements in comprehension: (1) the type of interactional act or speech event in which the listener is involved is determined (e.g., conversation, lecture, discussion, debate.); (2) scripts relevant to the particular situation are recalled; (3) the goals of the speaker are inferred through reference to the situation, the script, and the sequential position of the utterance; (4) the propositional meaning of the utterance is determined; (5) an illocutionary meaning is assigned to the message; (6) this information is retained and acted upon, and the form in which it was originally received is deleted (Richards, 1987: 164). Van Duzer (1997), in contrast focuses on both the listener’s experience and cognitive processing, identifies the listener’s participation as the one who operates the listening process, describing the listener’s response as something which doesn’t happen sequentially or even simultaneously but as a switching backwards and forwards movement that occurs as needed. Van Duzer gives nine steps to the process where — the listener: (1) determines a reason for listening; (2) takes the raw speech and deposits an image of it in short-term memory; (3) attempts to organize the information by identifying the type of speech event (conversation, lecture, radio ad) and the function of the message (persuade, inform, request); (4) predicts information expected to be included in the message; (5) recalls background information (schemata) to help interpret the message: (6) assigns a meaning to the message: (7) checks that the message has been understood; (8) determines the information to be held in long—term memory; (9) deletes the original form of the message that had been received into the short—term memory (Van Duzer, 1997: 3). From a teaching point of view, Van Duzer gives a clear context for situating and understanding the cognitive, top—down bottom—up processes at work. Bottom—up processing as I have already outlined involves some degree of grammatical understanding (even just by patterning), where incoming data is processed firstly via sounds then into words, grammatical relationships and finally into meaning (Van Duzer, 1997; Morley, 1991; Vandergrift, 1999). Also phonological considerations are vitally important to conversational listening, where intonation, stress and rhythm are also significantly involved in bottom processing (Van Duzer, 1997). TEACHING LISTENING SKILLS: CHOOSING MATERIALS Having discussed the complexity of the listening process we will now turn to look at factors to consider when choosing teaching materials. 'Purpose’ plays a highly significant role in the complexes that make up listening comprehension. Listeners have a purpose both for their SLL and also in listening while at the same time the task itself has a purpose which place demands on the listener. What needs to be considered in the choice of teaching materials is that SLL listen selectively, which in turn determines the type of listening required and also determines the approach to the task (Richards, 1990). Regarding the two distinct types of processing Van Duzer insightfully says “Learners need to be aware that both of these processes affect their listening comprehension, and they need to be given opportunities to practice employing each of them” (Van Duzer, 1997: 3). It is clear that listening is not a passive process but a complex of processes that are both interactive and creative. Listening skills can be taught in an active and purposeful way. In the way teachers choose materials and present them to learners can help or hinder the listening skills learning process. There are many resources available to enable teachers to identify the actual listening skills they wish to teach. Taxonomies of listening skills are vailable, lists of microskills both in conversational listening and academic listening (Richards,1987: 167—169). However teaching listening skills not only involves being able to identify the actual skill that is being taught, the student needs to become part of their own learning so the teaching of listening skills in the classroom needs to be facilitated via a “strategy based approach”. Lund (1990) provides a framework for a strategic approach to teaching listening (six listener functions and nine listening responses [Lund, 1990, cited in Hadley, 2001]). There needs to be a word of caution here when considering the pragmatics of teaching listening skills, that at the same time there needs also to be some consideration of the affective parameters (motivation, anxiety, and attitude towards the target language community) in implementing and evaluating strategy instruction (Mendelsohn, 1998:83). Further to this Morley (1991) notes that the learner’s experience of instruction must be contextualized, reflecting “real-world situations and feeling, tasks, and outcomes” noting further that intellectual, emotional, and moral attitudes are part of the “interweaving of interactional and transactional talk” (Morley, 1991: 89 italics in original). In terms of language learning itself Oxford notes that “the affective side of the learner is probably one of the most important influences on language learning success or failure” (Oxford, 1990). By now the reader can see that choosing materials to teach the many subskills in listening comprehension requires thought, knowledge, and skill in making choices that will foster acquisition skills for the learner. Materials chosen need to have the potential to facilitate teaching listening skills not just test them (Van Duzer, 1997) (although I would argue that teaching and ongoing testing are possible and desirable in the one activity). Materials used to teach listening skills need to also be authentic (Guariento & Morley, 2001). Listening skills also need to be taught in a way which promotes them as transferable (Morley, 1991). WHile commending the use of authentic texts to teach listening skills, it must be remembered that unmodified authentic discourse is often not suitable as it is “often random in respect to vocabulary, structure, functions, content, situation, and length”(Hadley, 2001: 188). This means in choice of materials that the learner’s stage of development also needs to be considered. Relevance of the material is another factor which should influence a teacher's choice of material, ensuring that the listening material used is both relevant and responsive to the learner’s needs and purpose for listening as well as holding the learner’s attention (Morley, 1991). The key principle here is that intake is more important that intended input (Baker, 2001: 121). Hadley (2001) recommends that teachers “keep in mind the normal or natural purposes for which someone might listen to a given text” (Hadley, 2001: 185). In choosing materials a teacher needs to keep in mind the learner’s listening goals (and they are often a combination of goals). Lund (1990) believes that listener function (what the listener is attending to, i.e., listener’s goal of “identification”, “orientation”, “main idea comprehension”, “detail comprehension”, “full comprehension”, “replication”) is the most important consideration in developing listening skills (Lund, 1990 cited in Hadley, 2001) In concluding this discussion on a teacher’s selection of listening activities I would like to refer again to Van Duzer’s recommendation — “Learners need to be aware that both of these processes (top—down and bottom—up processing) affect their listening comprehension, and they need to be given opportunities to practice employing each of them” (Van Duzer, 1997: 3). What Van Duzer is implying here is that activities need to be chosen in a way that consciously focuses on the development of specific skills (or combination of microskills), the development of microskills being a basic component of teaching goals. Also what Van Duzer’s statement makes clear is that in making choices regarding the selection of listening activities for a group of second language learners the need to provide a balanced approach to developing listening skills would also seem crucial — not only in empowering students and accelerating linguistic growth, but also a balanced approach ensure learners are orientated towards lifelong learning, a process of healthy, developing, enjoyable, self—driven and ongoing SLA, long after their period of ESL instruction has finished. TEACHING DESIGN APPROACH THEORETICAL ASSUMPTIONS: Teacher/student working model as interactive (Candlin, n.d. ) SLL needs comprehensible input Krashen, S. (1985) and intake (Baker, 2001). Listening crucial component in SLA (Peterson, 1991; Feyten, C. M., 1991). METHOD: Content (task based) teaching method (Nunan, n.d.; Weidman, 2005) TEACHING CONTEXT: South west China, Provincial town with modern school good teaching conditions. Class - five (Grade 3) high school students participating in the IELTS program. Assessment level — high intermediate/advanced (Peterson, P.W., 1991). SL is English. This lesson in this design is part of a (teacher designed) mini—program called Shopping western style — a (4) lesson schema/script development of cultural knowledge which culminates in writing a letter of complaint to a supermarket. The pre-listening activity and post listening activity is a continuation and part of ongoing the accumulation of cultural knowledge regarding western shopping habits and lifestyle. TEACHING GOALS: to foster cultural knowledge, deepen skills in notetaking and inferencing through employment of top-down and bottom up processing using metacognitive skills, metalinguistic skills (Appendix 3) and recursive listening. LEARNING OBJECTIVES: to teach/develop (and simultaneously test in demonstrated competence) notetaking and inferencing (inferencing as strategic ‘guessing’). Build learner confidence, enjoyment and listening skills. Increase cultural knowledge. LEARNING OUTCOMES: student will be able to demonstrate use of notetaking and inferencing (metacognitive and metalinguistic strategies, Appendix 3) through correct guessing of meaning of idiomatic phrases such as “working out at the gym” and “opening specials”. PROCEDURE PRE-LISTENING ACTIVITIY: (10 minutes) continuing discussion of cultural knowledge plus 2 new key ideas (Appendix 1) PRE-LISTENING READING: (5 minutes) Students to review notes taken during pre-listening discussion as well as read over student response sheet (with questions). This is in order to prepare learner mentally for strategic listening (top down bottom up processing). (Strategies for listening, see Appendix 3) LISTENING ACTIVITY: (12 minutes) ‘Supermarket conversation’ (Appendix 4) to be played (5 min. duration) twice with 2 minute break to allow students to review question sheet, check notes and mentally prepare for strategic approach in listening comprehension (re-inforcement of learning goals (notetaking and inferencing) in second listening. POST LISTENING ACTIVITIES: (13 minutes) 1. completion of written response ( [a] outlining some thoughts on the ‘single’ issue [b] what should Barry do?) 2. student verbal feedback on idiomatic phrases using notes taken during pre—listening activity and discuss inferences made during listening time (Supermarket conversation – appendix 4) 3. (if time permits) Initiate discussion of the implications of ‘single’ issue in supermarket shopping (to be carried over into following lesson – reinforcement of notetaking value). References Baker, C. (2001). Foundations of lingual education and bilingualism (3rd ed.). Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters. Candlin, C. Researching and teaching for a living curriculum: Australia's critical contribution to praxis in language teaching and learning. Retrieved January 7, 2006 from http://www.immi.gov.au/amep/reports/pubs/papers/candlin.htm Feyten, C. M. (1991). The Power of Listening Ability: An Overlooked Dimension in Language Acquisition. The Modern Language Journal 75:173-80. Guariento, W. & J. Morley. (2001). Text and task authenticity in the EFL classroom. ELT Journal 55 (4): 347-353. Hadley, A.O. (2001). Teaching language in context, 3rd ed. Heinle & Heinle, Boston. Krashen, S. (1985). The input hypothesis: issues and implications. London: Longman. Mendelsohn, D. (1998). Teaching Listening. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 18:81-101. Morley, J. (1991). Listening comprehension in second foreign language instruction. In Marianne Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second language. New York: Newbury House (pp. 81-105). Nunan, N. Aspects of Task-Based Syllabus Design. Retreived January 13, 2006 from http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/syllabusdesign.html. Oxford, R. (1993). Research Update on L2 Listening. System 21:205-11. Peterson, P.W. (1991). A synthesis of methods for interactive listening. In Marianne Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second language. New York: Newbury House (pp. 106-122). Richards, J. C. (1990). The Language Teaching Matrix. New York: Cambridge University Press. Richards, J.C., (1987). Listening comprehension: Approach, design, procedure. In M.H.Long & J.C.Richards (Eds.), Methodology in TESOL — A book of readings (pp. 161-174). New York: Newbury House. Richards, J.C., & Rodgers, T.S. (2001).The Nature of approaches and methods in language teaching. In Approaches and methods in language teaching, 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Rost, M. (2002). Teaching and Researching Listening. London, UK: Longman. Sternberg, RJ. (1987) Most vocabulary is learned from context. In M.G. McKeown and M.E. Curtis (Eds.) The Nature of Vocabulary Acquisition. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum. Vandergrift, L. Listening: theory and practice in modern foreign language competence. Retrieved January 7, 2006 from http://www.lang.ltsn.ac.uk/resources/goodpractice.aspx?resourceid=67. Van Duzer, C. (1997). Improving ESL learners’ listening skills: at the workplace and beyond. Retrieved 5-1-06 from http://www.cal.org/caela/esl_resources/digests/LISTENQA.html. Weidman, A. (2005) Assessing academic literacy in a task-based approach. Forthcoming to appear in Language matters. Appendix 1 PRE-LISTENING ACTIVITY: (10 minutes) Providing cultural knowledge about western supermarkets — Students pre-knowledge (previous lessons): Supermarkets as the ‘norm’ are normally well organized and well-run businesses (sensitive contrast made to the local context here in South west China were ‘markets’ are still the ‘norm’). 1. Discuss some advantages and disadvantages of supermarket shopping — ‘bulk’ type shopping and making savings vs. small store and personalized service. 2. Also bring into the conversation the different types of lifestyles and activities for western people, particularly single people, different shopping needs which creates the supermarket shopping culture (the local context here being much more family orientated with defined roles). Appendix 2 STUDENTS’ WRITTEN RESPONSE TO THE LISTENING TASK: Answer Questions 1, and 2 during first listening session. Complete questions 3 & 4 after second listening of ‘supermarket conversation’ 1. Why was Barry surprised to see Rowena in the shop? (please circle answer) a) Because she doesn’t like to go shopping? b) Because she doesn’t like shopping for food? c) Because she doesn’t shop often? 2. Why was Rowena shopping at the supermarket? (please circle answer) a) It was convenient b) To meet Barry? c) To make some savings? d) It was near the gym? 3. Rowena and Barry discuss some shopping issues that arise from being single. (in your notetaking take down as much detail of this part of the conversation as possible for further discussion next lesson). a) What does being ‘single’ mean? ____________________________________________________________________________ b) What was the difficulty for Barry regarding the one item he was overcharged? ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ 4. What do you think Barry should do? Give the conversation an outcome. ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ VOCABULARY ISSUES: Can you describe what these idiomatic phrases might mean? – ‘Not my scene’ ‘Working out at the gym’ ‘Overworked and underpaid’ ‘Opening specials’ ‘Make savings’ ‘An hour and a quarter to kill’ ‘Catch the bus’ ‘Super fast service’ ‘ “get 50% more” label’ ‘Take action’ ‘In the long run’ You will be asked to participate in class discussion and provide answers for three of these idiomatic phrases giving reasons as to how the answers were inferred. Appendix 3 METACOGNITIVE AND METALINGUISTIC STRATEGIES FOR INFERENCING FROM CONTEXT: • Selective encoding • Selective combination • Selective comparison (Sternberg, 1987) Appendix 4 SUPERMARKET CONVERSATION: Barry: Hi Rowena. Hey..what a surprise. I mean…fancy meeting you here! Rowena: Oh...g’day Barry. Yes…it probably is a surprise. Food shopping is not my scene…. but mind you though….I do have to eat sometimes! Barry: Hey…last time we met was when we were working out at the gym. Rowena: mmmm..yes…you mean that time when we were talking about being overworked and underpaid? Barry: Yes, that one. But listen…what brings you here…I mean to this supermarket? Rowena: Well…it advertised some opening specials…you know….after that overworked/underpaid conversation I need to make all the savings I can. But what about you? I mean this supermarket isn’t exactly on your way home. Barry: It is near work though…and I do have an hour and a quarter to kill before catching the bus. So it suits me to shop here — and after all it’s a lot better than shopping before I get on the bus than after I get off the bus. Although I nearly didn’t come back here after the last time. Rowena: Oh…why? Did something happen? Barry: Well…they overcharged me. Not that it was entirely the check-out guy’s fault…I think is is more the fault of their policy of super fast service at the check-out. You know part of their advertising blurb…”Speedy Supermarket’ by name and shopping experience….no waiting in line at the check out” Rowena: Wow…you sure know your ads. But didn’t you notice you had been overcharged at the time? Uh…how many extra items were on your bill? Barry: Oh……there was only one extra item…..six large cans of peas. Now I like peas….but I NEVER buy large cans….and what would a single person want with six cans of peas? Unless I was stocking up in case war broke out or our country got invaded!!! Rowena: Yeah….I know what you mean….the “get 50% more” label doesn’t suck me in. Small is good for ‘single’ consumers. But didn’t you notice that what you bought cost you MORE than it should? Barry: Well…actually…I did think the bill was a little high. But everyone was getting rushed through….….it wasn’t until I got home and happened to glance at the bill that I could see that there was a problem with it. Rowena: Are you going to do anything about it? I mean let’s face it, you could just ignore the fact that you were overcharged. Barry: Yeah…umm…I should do something about it I suppose. I mean I’m still annoyed about it….even though here I am again….back here again in ‘Speedy’ supermarket. Rowena: I think you should do something about it. Even if it was an honest mistake….its going to happen again to someone else if they keep their ‘speedy service’ policy going. Barry: You’re probably right. Although I am not quite sure what to do about it…after all in the long run we’re only talking about $5.50. Rowena: Better your pocket… than in their till. Barry: Yeah…I know….but it all seems a bit hard….you know…I don’t know who talk to, and I don’t want to get the check-out guy into trouble….all for 5.50….I’ll think about it Rowena…. |
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