Listening Comprehension in Pedagogical Research

1
Listening Comprehension in Pedagogical Research

• TPR James Asher (1977) learners were given great
  quantities of language to listen to before they
  were encouraged to respond orally
• Natural Approach, Stephen Krashen (1982) Learners
  need not say anything during silent period
  until they feel ready to do so

2
Questions about Listening

• What are listeners doing when they listen?
• What factors affect good listening?
• What are the characteristics or real life
  listening?
• What are the many things listeners listen for?
• What are some principles of designing listening
  techniques?
• How can listening techniques be interactive?
• What are some common techniques for teaching
  listening?

3
Processes involved in Comprehension (Clark
Clark, 1977 and Richards, 1983)

1. The hearer processes raw speech and holds an
   image of it in short term memory (phrases,
   clauses, cohesive markers, intonation and
   intonation)
2. The hearer determines the type of speech event
   (conversation, speech, radio broadcast etc)
3. The hearer infers the objectives of the speaker
   through consideration of the type of the speech
   event, the context, and content.
4. The hearer recall background information relevant
   to the context and subject matter

4
Processes involved in Comprehension (Clark
Clark, 1977 and Richards, 1983)

• The hearer assigns a literal meaning to the
  utterance. (E.g.Do you have time?)
• The hearer assigns an intended meaning to the
  utterance
• The hearer determines whether information should
  be retained in short-term or long-term memory.
  (simple conversation and lecturing)
• The hearer deletes the form in in which the
  message was originally received.

5
Types of Spoken Language
Monologue
Dialogue
Planned
Unplanned
Interpersonal
Transactional
Unfamiliar
Familiar
Unfamiliar
Familiar
6
What Makes Listening Difficult

• 1. Clustering
• due to memory limitation and our
  predisposition for chunking or clustering, we
  break down speech into smaller groups of words
• Redundancy
• Rephrasing, repetitions, elaborations and more
  time and extra information can be boring
• Reduced Forms
• Phonological, morphological, syntactic or
  pragmatic
• Performance Variables
• Hesitations, false starts, pauses and
  corrections

7
What Makes Listening Difficult

• 5. Colloquial Language
• Idioms, slang, reduced forms are difficult point
  to deal
• 6. Rate of Delivery
• Native speaker speak too fast
• 7. Stress, rhythm and intonation
• Subtle messages like sarcasm, endearment,
  insult, solicitation, praise etc.
• 8. Interaction
• Negotiation, clarification, attending signals,
  turn taking, topic nomination, maintenance and
  termination

8
Microskills of Listening Comprehension

• Retain chunks of language of different lengths in
  short-term memory
• Discriminate among the distinctive sounds of
  English
• Recognize English stress patterns, words in
  stressed and unstressed position, rhythm etc
• Recognize reduced forms of words
• Distinguish word boundaries, core of words,
  interpretation etc
• Process speech at different rates of delivery
• Process speech containing pauses, errors,
  corrections etc
• Recognize grammatical word classes and systems

9
Microskills of Listening Comprehension

• Recognize that a particular meaning be expressed
  in different grammatical form
• Recognize cohesive devices in spoken discourse
• Recognize the communicative functions of
  utterance, according to situation, participants
  and goal
• Infer situations, participants, goals using real
  knowledge
• Distinguish between literal and implied meaning
• Use facial, kinesic, body language, etc.
• Develop listening strategies, such as detecting
  key words, guessing the meaning etc.

10
Types of Classroom Listening Performance

• Reactive
• Individual drills that focus on pronunciation
• Intensive
• focus on components (phonemes, words,
  intonation, discourse markers etc)
• Responsive
• activities designed to elicit immediate
  responses
• Selective
• Select certain material such as in speeches,
  media broadcasts, stories, anecdotes,
  conversations etc
• Extensive
• Develop top down, global understanding of spoken
  language
• Interactive
• Listening performance include all types
  (debates, role plays etc.)

11
Principles for Designing Listening Techniques

• Techniques should be intrinsically motivating
• Techniques should utilize authentic language and
  contexts
• Carefully consider the form of listeners
  responses
• Encourage the development of listening strategies
• Include both bottom-up and top-down listening
  techniques

12

• Good luck
• N
• See you

13
Have a wonderful trip!