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1. Assignment task
Write a paper entitled The Role of Note Taking On Listening Comprehension of EFL
Learners
2. Response to the assignment (1.define, 2.describe, 3.explain)
I will describe listening from general situation up to specific situation, and then
explain how note-taking can improve Listening Comprehension skill in academic
situations. I will find some references related to my paper and read them to complete
the paper. I choose listening for language skill and note taking for academic skill in
my paper. Then,
1. I am going to define what Listening from general situation up to specific
situation and note taking is.
2. Then, describing what listening Comprehension is and explaining the way and
procedure of how to take note.
3. And the last, I will argue for the importance of note taking in Listening
Comprehension of EFL learners.
3. List of argument
i. Among the four skills in English language learning, listening
plays the most important role in communication in real life and the
most widely used language skill in normal daily life: listening
accounts for 40-50% of communicating, with speaking at 25-30%,
reading at 11-16%, and writing at 9% (Mendelsohn, 2006).
ii. Note taking activity plays a key role in facilitating language learning,
especially when the students undertake a lecture session.
4. Outlines
a. Introduction
i. Describe the importance of listening as a foundation of understanding
from general situation up to specific situation, in this case Academic
situation.
ii. Defining the purpose of this paper
b. Body
i. Language skill used (Listening skill)
ii. Listening Comprehension
iii. Academic skill used (Note taking)
iv. The Method and Procedure of How to Take Note
v. The Role of Note Taking On Listening Comprehension
c. Conclusion
d. Reference

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The Role of Note Taking On Listening Comprehension of EFL Learners

1. Introduction
Among the four skills in English language learning, listening plays the
most important role in communication in real life and the most widely used language
skill in normal daily life: listening accounts for 40-50% of communicating, with speaking
at 25-30%, reading at 11-16%, and writing at 9% (Mendelsohn, 2006). For instance,
when we listen, we also need to be able to understand different kinds of spoken text types
such as conversations, stories, announcements, songs, movies, instructions lectures, and
advertisements. They contain different ways of organizing language and different language
features and some consist of just one voice while others consist. In this condition,
unconsciously we are involved a complex process that allows us to understand and interpret
spoken messages in real time by making use of a variety of sources such as phonetic,
phonological, prosodic, lexical, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic. Its not quite different
in EFL Classroom when the students have a difficulties to comprehend the teachers
explanation and the problem is getting worse when the students do not have a good
background knowledge. Traditionally, it is regarded as a passive skill with no place in L2
teaching. But, by giving the complexity that underlies this process of listening, it has been
considered as the most difficult skill to learn out of the four skills and as a result of this
progress, the primacy of listening is nowadays obvious and, as such, it plays an important
role in developing learners L2 communicative ability.
Missoum (2007) finds that in recent years, teachers in the English Department
of the University of Blida informally complained the students perceptibly low academic
achievement. These complaints are consistent with the researchers observations during his
thirteen-year experience both as a student and as ateacher in the Department. Signs of
academic underachievement in the English Department can be observed in failure rates
during the period from 1995 to2002. As will be substantiated in the rationale of the study
below, the students performance, particularly in the prevalent content modules, shows low
academic achievement.maintain the idea that support their low academic
achievement caued by their listening comprehension

Content courses consisting

essentially of literature, civilization and linguistics constitute more than half of the course
load for thesecond, third, and fourth year students in Algerian departments of English.Overall
academic achievement of students in these departments, therefore, depends on significantly

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on successful learning from content modules. And as theteaching almost always takes the
form of lectures, efficient learning in thesecourses requires the students to be good at aural
comprehension and notetaking. For this reason, the students listening comprehension to
lecture and note takingstrategies were suspected to be an area that necessitates a formal
investigation.
Related to that problem, the students should have a good skill in listening
comprehension, especially on academic situation. In this case, surely the role of note taking
helps the students to improve Listening Comprehension skill in academic situations. If the
students can take notes efficiently when they listento the teacher, their understanding of
materials given will be improved as well as teachers instruction. This paper will define what
Listening from general situation up to specific situation and note taking is. Then, describing
what listening Comprehension is and explaining the way and procedure of how to take note
and argue for the importance of note taking in Listening Comprehension of EFL learners.
2. Listening
Listening is one of the language skills that the students should acquire at early
step before other skills. Many people believe that learning begins with listening. Temur
(2010) claims that the first learning for the baby inside her mothers womb is via listening. At
that time, the individual starts to use listening as a foundation of understanding. As a
receptive skill, it involves responding to language rather than producing it. Listening involves
making sense of the meaningful (having meaning) sounds of language. There

is

consciousness in listening and it should be in a conscious process of effort and the

sounds caught by the ear should be attempted to be understood. In listening, not the
sole effect of the ear is considered. Although listening is done by the ear, it requires the
connection between the ear and the brain and due analysis. Therefore, listening is primarily
about the brain and requires an active mind work. Listening is Selecting the heard
information, arranging them, integrating what the speaker conveys with pre-possessed
information and structuring all in the mind. Listening also includes giving appropriate
responses as well as understanding the incoming messages correctly. From this perspective,
listening can be defined as an understanding of the message the speaker intends to convey
and to react appropriately against this mentioned stimulant by keeping a record of the
message given.

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2.1.
Listening Comprehension
Listening as comprehension is the traditional way of thinking about the nature
of listening. Indeed, in most methodology manual listening and listening comprehension are
synonymous. This view of listening is based on the assumption that the prime function of
listening in L2 is to facilitate understanding of spoken discourse. The teacher will examine
this view of listening in some detail before considering a complementary view of listening as
an acquisition. This latter view of listening considers how listening can provide input that the
further development of L2-proficiency.
Richards (1983) provides the general construct of listening comprehension
is that the students placed in the process of understanding speech in a first or second
language. The study of listening comprehension in second language learning focuses on the
role of individual linguistic units (e.g., phonemes, words, grammatical structures) as well as
the role of the listeners expectations, the situation and context, background knowledge and
topic. In her book, Ur (1984) points out what she calls the apparent need of the foreignlanguage learner to perceive and comprehend everything he hears, even though he would not
do so in his native language. She goes on to suggest that the learner who tries to understand
every single wordwill be handicapped both by his failure to do soand his success (p.
14). This means if learners dont catch everything, they are frustrated and if they do, they are
listening in a way that doesnt help since they dont ignore or skim unimportant items (p.
15).
Vandergrift (1999) Proposes that Listening comprehension is an active
activity. It is a complex, active process in which the listener must discriminate between
sounds,

understand

vocabulary and

grammatical

structures,

interpret

stress

and

intonation, retain what was gathered in all of the above, and interpret it within the
immediate as well as the larger sociocultural context of the utterance. Coordinating all
of this involves a great deal of mental activity on the part of the listener. Listening is
hard work, and deserves more analysis and support.
Feyten (1991) describes Listening comprehension as

separate

and

important component of language learning only came into focus after significant
debate about its validity. Recent research has demonstrated the critical role of
language input in language learning providing support for the primacy of listening
comprehension in instructional methods. This has led Feyten to assert that the study of

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listening comprehension has become the polestar of second language acquisition theory
building, research, and pedagogy.
To understand the nature of listening processes, we need to consider some of
the characteristic of spoken discourse and special problems they purpose for listener. Spoken
discourse has also been described as having a linear structure, compared to a hierarchical
consist of several coordinated clauses. Whereas the unit of organization of written discourse
is the sentence, spoken language is usually delivered one clause at a time, and longer
utterances in conversational general consist of several coordinate clauses. Most of the clauses
used are simple conjuncts and adjuncts. Also, spoken text are often context-dependent and
personal, assuming shared background knowledge. Lastly, spoken text may be spoken with
many different accents, from standard to non-standard, non- native. Chang and Lu (2012)
points out that there are two different process that are involved in understanding spoken
discourse. They are often referred to as bottom up and top down processing.
i. Bottom-up Processing
The bottom-up approach acknowledges listening is a process of
decoding sounds, from the smallest meaningful units to complex texts,
inclusive of the main four processing levels as follows: a) phonemes, b)
individual words, c) syntactic level followed by an analysis of the semantic
content, and at last, d) literal understanding.
ii. Top-down Processing
The top-down approach employs

background

knowledge

in

comprehending the meaning of the message. Listeners employ their

background knowledge of the context and situation to interpret what they hear.
They make use of the knowledge of the topic at hand, speakers, and their
personal correlation with the situation to enhance their understanding. It
emphasizes the way various kinds of knowledge are used to help
understand the message coming from the ears, but it is not arranged into any
fixed order because all the forms of prior knowledge interact and influence
each other

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3. Note taking
Academic skill used in this paper is note taking. Sharpe (2010) mentions that
taking notes is the practice of writing down pieces of information in a systematic ways. Note
taking is important because it assists the pupils in concentrating on and understanding the
information which they heard by helping them to summarize the ideas and arguments in the
text. Note taking is closely related to summarize because it requires that students take
information and synthetize it using their own word. The purpose of note taking is to help
students acquire and integrate knowledge; it is a way to organize and process information.
Because English language learning are extracting a new knowledge in a new language, they
will need explicit instruction in the art of note taking.
McPherson (2012) states that note taking is used when you need to remember
the information for a long time, when reliability and accuracy are important and when
information is coming at you too fast. The benets of note taking: rst, it increases attention
to the lesson. While recording a set of notes, it is impossible for a students to get bored or
inattentive. Second, it aids memory for the lesson. It is easier to remember noted lesson point
that non noted point. Third, it produces a set of notes available for review.
Howe (1970, cited inTsai-fu and Wu, 2010) finds that if important information
was contained in notes, it had a 34 percent chance of being remembered. Information not
found in notes had only a five percent chance of being remembered. Based on that idea,
surely note taking plays an important role in helping the students to get the main points
provided in the listening comprehension.As a learning strategy that has been well known
studied in a variety of different learning environments, notes help to remember the important
points of a lesson and it can be for revision and reference purposes. Since memory is fallible,
it isnecessary down information while people are listening.
Note taking is writing down information while listening, but there are some
problems happened when taking notes.
1. The listener have to take note as quick as the speakers speech.
2. The notes must include all the main ideas and major facts. This
means that listeners have to know how to identify important
information when hear or read it.
3. The notes may be used for different reason. This means that
listeners have to organize the notes to remember he information
from another assignment or to plan a speech or an essay
(Sharpe, 2010)
4. The Method and Procedure of How to Take Note

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There are five methods which can be used by a note taker to take note
(California Polytechnic State University, 2012). Those are Cornell Method, Outlining,
Mapping, Charting, and Sentence Method. But, in this paper, I choose CM (Cornell Method)
as a method to be explained. Historically, CM got its name from Walter Pauk at Cornell
University. Walter Pauk, a director of the reading study center at Cornell University and an
author of numerous study skills texts, developed CN in the 1950s. Pauk, influenced greatly
by the SQ3R Method, a method for and studying that stands for surveying, questioning,
reading, reciting, and reviewing, changed his speed reading course during 1953, into a study
skills course (Kerstiens, 1998). Below, an illustration of CM notes form is given.

Pauk and Owens (2011) claims that Cornell Method takes students through a
systematic approach of recording information. In the form of Cornell Method, all students
have the same outline to follow while recording notes. The students start by dividing their
paper into two columns by drawing a vertical line about a third of the way in from the left
edge of the paper stopping two inches from the bottom. Students then draw a horizontal line
across the paper, two inches from the bottom of the paper. The left column is one third of the
page, and the right column is two thirds of the page. The right column is used to capture the
lecturers ideas and facts, with students taking notes during the lecture in this column. The
left column (the cue column) is filled in later with questions matching the main points. After
the note-taking session, students can review their notes and write questions in the cue column
to highlight main points, meanings, and relationships. They mention that the process of
writing the questions in the cue column is to help students clarify the meanings of the
sentences made, reveal relationships between each sentences noted, and strengthen memory

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for a longer period. This column is also used in the review process when notes are studied.
At the bottom of the page, a two inch-space is left for summarizing the main points of the
page, which again clarifies meanings and also makes review easier. When the note column,
cue column and summary area are used for note-taking and for review, students have an
organized system that can improve comprehension and achievement.
When students are started to engage the CM note-taking process. They write
classroom or textbook notes in the right-hand column they created. When they get some
important ideas heard, they must write in the form of questions to recite the main ideas of the
lecture. This will help students retain the knowledge they wrote down. For the next step, the
students should think about the notes they have taken and why the material they noted is
important to them. They can then write summaries about the notes on the bottom of the page
in the section they created. This last task helps them internalize the information and review
for tests, which is the final step in the note-taking processreview the notes they have taken.
Students can re-read the summaries they wrote, ask themselves the questions they wrote in
the left margins, or just re-read all the original notes they took.
5. The Role of Note Taking On Listening Comprehension
As mentioned above, it is now generally recognized that note taking
activity plays a key role in facilitating language learning, especially when the students
undertake lecture session. Ferris and Tagg (1996) claims that despite their concerns about
students oral production, they noted more about their ESL students' lecture comprehension
and note-taking abilities. It is proven by their result of qualitative analysis that the lack of
note-taking skills and problems with note-taking as well as listening comprehension are
placed in glitch areas which most often reported by international students and lecturers
research; thus, students lack of comprehension may contribute to their silence in oral
classroom discussion. As a sequence, it takes an important point to be concerned, that the
learners should master note-taking for school, work, and life in general. A rational way to
make taking notes become an important point is that you should not never re-listen to speech
or a presentation given. In this case, the audience must take every chance to record and keep
information so you can use it later. A very basic problem from the listeners is

the

disappearance of the content from what they listen to. Many students claim that as
they can follow the speakers with no serious loss, but when it comes to remembering
and retell it later, they find themselves stuck in a place. This problem needs more

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consideration in studies on retention. One way to solve the problem is by exposing learners
variety in listening activities that note-taking is able to become the resolution.
Some researchers have found positive relationships between note-taking and
leaning, especially in listening. Hartley and Davies (1978) states that out of 35 studies on the
effects on note-taking, 17 studies found that the note-takers performed better than the nonnote-takers, 16 studies found no difference, 2 studies found that note-taking interfered with
performance. Recent investigations into language learning behaviors have revealed that
there are several methods of note-taking strategies, each of which is deployed for
different purposes in acquiring the target language.
Hayati and Jalilifar (2009) find something interesting with CM method which
is usedin the environment of first year university classes. Among hundreds of students in a
big class, high school students that entering to university culture for the first time can be very
intimidating for their aural skill. Because they are accustomed to the smaller classrooms and
group discussion. In this case, the have an obligation to develop their new skills of listening,
for example note-taking, and using notes as a cognitive learning strategy. The method called
CM which is more comprehensive and widely used format to the students learning English as
a foreign language, because this system provides a systematic method for recording and
reviewing notes. It is used to assist students in their lecture classes to improve the
organization of their notes. They found that the CM method is great for those who are new to
taking notes; the format makes it easy to pick out what the key words and concepts are so that
the note-takers do not waste their time or energy studying irrelevant material.
6. Conclusion
Listening comprehension is one if an academic activity that the students are
placed in the process of understanding speech in a first or second language. It needs students
recognition and background knowledge within the topic explained. It needs a kind of aid in
order to facilitate in putting some statements from the speaker on the paper.
Note-taking takes a vital skill that the students need to learn can help students
learn more about the subject matter under instruction, especially in listening comprehension.
By doing note taking activity, the students are hopes to revisit their notes frequently in order
to remember or review and tie important pieces of information together to improve their
overall understanding of the material.

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By examining the explanations above, it can be concluded that the role of note
taking onlistening comprehension is very important. When the students are listening to the
material, comprehending the explanation is not an easy thing to be done. By using Note
taking, students can equip their understanding because they can rewrite the explanationand
remember with their own words. It can also help them in integrating the sources.

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References
California Polytechnic State University. 2012. Note Taking Systems. Retrieved 26
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Chang, Pearl, & Lu, Cynthia. 2012. Efl Listening Instruction. No. pp.
Ferris, Dana, & Tagg, Tracy. 1996. Academic Listening/Speaking Tasks for Esl Students:
Problems, Suggestions, and Implications*. TESOL Quarterly Vol.30No. 2 pp. 297320.
Hartley, James, & Davies, Ivor K. 1978. NoteTaking: A Critical Review. Programmed
Learning and Educational Technology Vol.15No. 3 pp. 207-224.
Hayati, A Majid, & Jalilifar, Alireza. 2009. The Impact of Note-Taking Strategies on
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Kerstiens, Gene. 1998. Studying in College, Then & Now: An Interview with Walter Pauk.
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