Listening_Skills.ppt

1、Listening Skills,A Probe into,Introduction,Status of English as the “l(fā)ibrary language” and the increased “international inter-dependence” are the two reasons of this which led to a greater focus on face-to-face language usage crossing the margin of pen and paper exercise. Language must be taught in

2、an integrative way where all four skills are focused.,What is listening?,Listening is a skill in a sense that its a related but distinct process than hearing which involves merely perceiving sound in a passive way while listening occupies an active and immediate analysis of the streams of sounds. Th

3、is correlation is like that between seeing and reading. Seeing is a very ordinary and passive state while reading is a focused process requiring readers instrumental approach. Listening has a “volitional component”. Tomatis (2007) view is, while listening; the desire to listen, as well as the capabi

4、lity to listen (comprehension) must be present with the listener for the successful recognition and analysis of the sound.,What will be checked?,What listening really means is listening and understanding what we hear at the same time. So, two concurrent actions are demanded to take place in this pro

5、cess. discriminating between sounds, recognizing words, identifying grammatical groupings of words, identifying expressions and sets of utterances that act to create meaning, connecting linguistic cues to non-linguistic and paralinguistic cues, using background knowledge to predict and later to conf

6、irm meaning and recalling important words and ides.,Three skills,As McDonough and Shaw ( 1993) and Rost (1991) explain that a listener as a processor of language has to go through three processes using three types of skills:,a. Processing sound/ Perception skills b. Processing meaning/ Analysis skil

7、ls c. Processing knowledge and context/ Synthesis skills,Processing sound/ Perception skills,As the complete perception doesnt emerge from only the source of sound, listeners segment the stream of sound and detect word boundaries, contracted forms, vocabulary, sentence and clause boundaries, stress

8、on longer words and effect on the rest of the words, the significance of intonation and other language-related features, changes in pitch, tone and speed of delivery, word order pattern, grammatical word classes, key words, basic syntactic patterns, cohesive devices etc.,Processing meaning/ Analysis

9、 skills,Its a very important stage in the sense, as researches show, that syntax is lost to memory within a very short time whereas meaning is retained for much longer. Richards (1985:191) says that, memory works with propositions, not with sentences. While listening, listeners categorize the receiv

10、ed speech into meaningful sections, identify redundant material, keep hold of chunks of the sentences, think ahead and use language data to anticipate what a speaker may be going to say, accumulate information in the memory by organizing them and avoid too much immediate detail.,Processing knowledge

11、 and context/ Synthesis skills,Here, context refers to physical setting, the number of listener and speakers, their roles and their relationship to each other while linguistic knowledge refers to their knowledge of the target language brought to the listening experience. Every context has its indivi

12、dual frame of reference, social attitude and topics. So, members of a particular culture have particular rules of spoken behavior and particular topic which instigate particular understanding. Listening is thought as interplay between language and brain which requires the “activation of contextual i

13、nformation and previous knowledge” where listeners guess, organize and confirm meaning from the context.,Successful listening refers to the integration of these component skills and listening is nothing but the coordination of the component skills.,Nature of listening as a skill,Besides the division

14、 of the skills as receptive and productive, another subdivision focuses on one-way reception and interactive reception in this age of active learning. Reading and writing are one-way skills where learners dont get direct feedback. But in speaking and listening, learners may have their understanding

15、and reproduction checked instantly. Thus active and self-learning takes place.,Moreover, there is a traditional labeling for reading and listening as “passive” skills. But linguists believe that a listener is involved in guessing, anticipating, checking, interpreting, interacting and organizing by a

16、ssociating and accommodating their prior knowledge of meaning and form. Rost (1990) thinks, listeners “co-author” the discourse and they construct it by their responses.,Even as a receptive skill, listening differs greatly with reading as reading materials are printed and permanent enough where the

17、learners are required to interact with the next sentence using the knowledge of the previous one while listening involves continuous material presentation where they have to respond to the immediate expression. From the view point of “product” or “process”, listening is more a process than a product

18、 which instantly shapes the understanding and utterances of the learners.,Strategies for Listening,Two types of strategies for listening have been in practice. They are defined so according to the ways of processing the text while listening:,Bottom up processing Top- down interpretation,Bottom up pr

19、ocessing,In Bottom up processing, like reading, learners utilize their linguistic knowledge to identify linguistic elements in an order from the smallest linguistic unit like phonemes (bottom) to the largest one like complete texts (top). They link the smaller units of the language together to form

20、the larger parts and its a linear process where meaning is derived automatically at the last stage. It is absolutely “text based” process where learners rely on the sounds, words and grammar in the message in order to create meaning.,Top- down interpretation,Top- down interpretation, on the other ha

21、nd, requires learners to go to the listening with their prior knowledge of topic, context, and type of text as well as knowledge of language to reconstruct the meaning using the sounds as clues. “This back ground knowledge activates a set of expectations that help the listener to interpret what is h

22、eard and anticipate what will come next.”,Summary,It is assumed that bottom up process is applied while practicing minimal pairs, taking pronunciation tests, listening for specific details, recognizing cognates and word-order pattern but top-down interpretation is used in the activities like listeni

23、ng for the main idea, predicting, drawing inferences, and summarizing where learners relate what they know and what they hear through listening comprehension.,Division by reciprocity/interaction,According to the types of situation where the understanding takes place, listening is divided into: Recip

24、rocal or interactive Listening Non-reciprocal or non-interactive Listening,Reciprocal or interactive Listening,Reciprocal or interactive Listening where the listener is required to take part in the interaction and alternately listens and speaks. Interactive listening situations include face-to-face

25、conversations and telephone calls in which listener has a chance to ask for clarification, repetition, or slower speech from conversation partner.,Non-reciprocal or non-interactive Listening,Non-reciprocal or non-interactive Listening where the listener is engaged in listening passively to a monolog

26、ue or speech or even conversation. Some non-interactive listening situations are listening to the radio, CDs, TV, films, lectures etc. and here listener usually doesnt have the opportunity to ask for clarification, slower speech or repetition.,We believe, this type of listening is not totally non- i

27、nteractive too. The interaction takes place here is the cognitive one where students respond through understanding and creating the meaning. On the other hand, this might be turn to semi- reciprocal if the instructor makes them responding while checking their understanding through question-answer or

28、 discussion and clarification in the class or lab.,Teaching listening,A shocking fact: Most of the classes complete their Language course without practice listening even for a day! Listening takes place everywhere The efforts for listening practice consisted of teacher reading aloud a written text s

29、lowly, once or more so that it is understood and than asking some comprehension questions.,A principle of teaching listening,One of the main principle of teaching listening, as I believe, should be “ Language material intended to used for training listening comprehension should never be presented vi

30、sually first.” Good listening lessons go beyond the main listening task itself with related activities before and after the listening.,Three Stages,The format may be like the following: Pre-listening Stage: While-Listening Stage After-listening Stage,Tasks at the Pre-listening Stage,Some activities

31、before listening may serve as preparation or warm-up for listening in several ways. These function as reference and framework by giving prior knowledge of listening activities.,Some recommended per-listening activities,include: a. Introducing the topic and assessing their background knowledge of the

32、 topic or content of the material through commenting on a picture or photograph.b. Activating their existing knowledge through discussion. Reading through comprehension questions in advance, working out own opinion on a topic, predicting content from the title etc. can be done.c. Clarifying any nece

33、ssary contextual information and vocabulary to comprehend the text. In this regard showing pictures maps or graphs and may be helpful.d. Informing them of the type of text, their role, purposes of the listening etc. A short reading passage on a similar topic may help them.,Tasks at While-Listening S

34、tage,The activities in this stage must follow the learners specific needs, instructional goal, listening purposes and learners proficiency level. While listening activities directly relate to the text and listeners are asked to do these during or immediately after listening.,Some specific cares are

35、required in designing while-listening activities. a. If the students are asked to give written information after listening, they should have chance to listen the text more than once which makes it easier for them to keep concentration while listening with specific purposes.b. Writing activities shou

36、ld be to a minimum. As comprehension is the prime target, writing would make the listening more demanding. are samples of this.c. Global activities like getting the main idea, topic, setting, summary that focus on the content and forms of the text should be given more so that listeners are guided th

37、rough the text. Listening for the gist is such an activity.,d. More questions should be set up in order to focus students attention on the crucial elements that might help to comprehend the text. Following the rout on a map or searching for specific clues to meaning, or identify description of the g

38、iven pictures might be appropriate here. e. Attaching predicting activities before listening so that students can monitor their comprehension as they listen. Listening with visuals may serve here. f. Giving immediate feedback to make the students examine their responses and how it was. Checking off

39、items in a list, distinguishing between formal and informal registers conducted by teacher are examples here.,Listening activities here become varied according to their purposes and objectives. Four major distinctions include Attentive listening Extensive listening Intensive listening Selective list

40、ening and Interactive listening.,Attentive listening,Both of the ideas are true that attentiveness is a prior condition for understanding and listener often lapse attention for various reasons. Losing interest, inability to keep up with, losing track of goals, less confident are some of them. Teache

41、r can help the listeners to hold their attention by personalizing the martial, using the target language while talking to them to keep flow, and lessening their stress and motivating by asking oral responses repeatedly. Activities in this stage would be interesting and easy including face to face in

42、teraction, using visual and tangible topics, clear description of the listening procedure, minimum use of written language, and immediate and ongoing responses etc so that learners can easily keep pace with the text and activity.Listening to short chunks, music image, personal stories, teacher- talk

43、, small question- answer, and interview etc may be applied in this stage.,Extensive listening,This type of listening has also a greater ease than other types as it is concerned to promote overall comprehension of a text and never requires learners to follow every word and understand them. Learners n

44、eed to comprehend the text as a whole which is called global understanding. Activities in this section must be chosen in terms with the proficiency level of the listeners.,At the lower level they may have problems to organize the information, so some non-verbal forms in responding might be given suc

45、h as putting pictures in a right sequence, following directions on a map, checking of items in a photograph, completing a grid, chart or timetable etc.,At the developed stage, some language based tasks requiring constructing meaning, inferring decisions, interpreting text and understanding gist are

46、usually recommended. Completing cloze exercises or giving one or two word answers, multiple choices, predicting the next utterances, forming connected sets of notes, inferring opinions, or interpreting parts of the text are some samples.,Intensive listening,Hearing clearly is also a prime aspect of

47、listening as it includes accurate perception without which the second phase of processing meaning becomes very difficult. Listening intensively is quite important to understand the language form of the text as we have to understand both the lexical and grammatical units that lead to form meaning. So

48、, intensive listening requires attention to specific items of language, sound or factual detail such as words, phrase, grammatical units, pragmatic units, sound changes (vowel reduction and consonant assimilation), stress, intonation and pauses etc. Feedback on accuracy and repetition on the teacher

49、s part promote success here.,Paraphrasing, remembering specific words and sequences, filling gaps with missing words, identifying numbers and letters, picking out particular facts, discriminating the pronunciation of same phoneme in different positions, replacing words, finding stress and boundaries

50、 are some good intensive listening practice.,Selective listening,It involves listening to selected part of a text, as its name suggests, to predict information and select cues surrounding information. Thus, the listeners may have an assessment of their development in listening to authentic language.

51、 Here the focus is on the main parts of the discourse and by noticing these parts listener construct their understanding of the meaning of whole of the text through inferring. As the expectation on understanding is focused and has a purpose, in these activities, listeners have the chance of second l

52、istening to check understanding and have feedback repeatedly.,Listening to sound sequences, documentary, story maps, incomplete monologues, conversation cues, and topic listening are examples of selective listening.,Interactive listening,This is a very advanced stage of listening practice as it impl

53、ies social interaction in small groups which is a true test of listening. In interactive listening, learners, either in pairs or in groups, receive new information, identify them continuously. Besides, they have to work out the problems of understanding each other and formulate responses immediately

54、 as we are required to do in real life. So, in spite of calling practice, this goes beyond of it. As this phase involves both comprehension and production, it directly promotes speaking skill. Teachers have a central role in this stage. They have to set up specific goals so that learners can asses t

55、heir own performance, observe learners language in order to provide immediate feedback on their interaction strategies. Group survey, self introductions, short speeches, chatting and discussing, exchanging news and views, interviewing and being interviewed etc. might be appropriate here.,After-liste

56、ning Stage,Post-listening activities can be used to check comprehension, valuate listening skill, use of listening strategies and use the knowledge gained to other contexts. So, these are called listening exercises at all and defined as follow-up works.,The features of these activities are: a. Relat

57、ed to pre-listening activities, such as predicting.b. May create a real life situation where students might be asked to use knowledge gained through listening.c. May extend the topic and help the students remember new vocabulary. Using notes made while listening in order to write a summary, reading

58、a related text, doing a role play, writing on the same theme, studying new grammatical structures, practicing pronunciation, discussion group, craft project etc. are some post-listening activities.,Homework is a must!,Homework: In teaching listening, homework is a must. A listening task between two

59、classes prevent them forgetting. Encouraging public listening and having notes on them is a free pave to walk in teaching listening which leads to success. Providing tape recording with questions, dictation, or a worksheet to complete may bring the expected results.,Variables affecting and effecting successful listening,Noise Equipment Repetition Content,Noise,Distractions and noise during the listening segment should be reduced and sound-proof language lab is perfect for this purpose.,Equipment,If the cassette player