International Journal of Social Sciences & Educational Studies

ISSN 2520-0968 (Online), ISSN 2409-1294 (Print), January 2023, Vol.10, No.1

A Review of Listening Skills in Language Learning

Mustafa Altun1
1
English Language Learning Department, Faculty of Education, Tishk International University, Erbil,
Iraq
Correspondence: Mustafa Altun, Tishk International University, Erbil, Iraq
Email: [email protected]

Doi: 10.23918/ijsses.v10i1p56

Abstract: The significance of listening skills lies in the fact that it provides comprehensible input for
language acquisition. Through listening, learners encounter new words and grammatical rules, develop their
pronunciation and learn how to use the language in real-world context. Language learners need to interact
with the speakers of the language. With this in mind, learners try to create meaning from the messages
conveyed by the speaker and respond for effective communication. This paper attempts to show the
importance of listening skills in language acquisition.

Keywords: Listening Skills, Comprehension, Comprehensible Input, Language Learning

1. Introduction

Underwood (1989) defines listening as "the activity of paying attention to and trying to get meaning
from something we hear" (p. 1). Mendelsohn (1994) simply defines listening as the ability to understand
the spoken language of native speakers. Listening is the most frequently used skill in language learning
(Morley, 1999). Both in and out of the classroom, listening is commonly used. At all stages of education,
it is used as a primary medium of learning. Listening is an active process which requires language
learners to discriminate between vocabulary and grammar structures, interpret intonation and stress and
create a meaning. Comprehensible input has a fundamental role in language acquisition and learning
does not take place without understanding the input. Listening provides comprehensible input to and
learners cannot respond if they fail to comprehend the message. For that reason, “listening is thus
fundamental to speaking.” (Nunan, 1997, p 47). Also, language is for communication. Without
understanding the input, communication cannot be achieved.

Rost (1994) outlines the importance of listening in as: 1. Listening is pivotal in language learning
because it provides input for the learners. 2. Learners need to interact with the speakers of language;
thus, they need to understand the messages sent by them 3. The use of listening tasks is a useful way to
introduce new vocabulary and grammatical structures. In order to sustain communication, it is highly
important that

Received: November 24, 2022

Accepted: December 30, 2022
Altun, M. (2023). A Review of Listening Skills in Language Learning. International Journal of Social Sciences and
Educational Studies, 10(1), 56-61.
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ISSN 2520-0968 (Online), ISSN 2409-1294 (Print), January 2023, Vol.10, No.1

language learners understand and respond; therefore, listening skills cannot be neglected in language
learning. This paper attempts to demonstrate the significance of listening skills in language learning.

2. Literature Review

While listening “chiefly served as a means of introducing new grammar through model dialogues” (p.
13) in the early days, since the early 70's, it has become an essential skill in language learning.
Pourhosein Gilakjani and Ahmadi (2011) emphasizes the significance of listening and stress that
listening skill plays a crucial role in the process of communication. The importance of listening lies in
the fact that it provides comprehensible input for language acquisition. Learners need to benefit from the
language input provided by listening tasks for the development of language proficiency. Rost (2001)
argues that a major difference between more successful and less successful learners is their ability to use
listening in a skillful way.

As it is the most widely used language skill in daily life, listening has a critical role in language learning.
It is noteworthy to mention that “an estimated 80% of what we know is acquired through listening”
(Swaine, Friehe, & Harrington, 2004, p. 48). It would be a better idea to define listening. It has been
defined by Glikjani and Sabouri (2016) as “a process of receiving what the speaker says, making and
showing meaning, negotiating meaning with the speaker and answering, and creating meaning by
participation, creativity, and empathy” (p. 124). Learners need to understand, evaluate and analyze the
messages; for that reason, listening involves some processes. It is apparent that the central idea in
listening is to create meaning from the utterances produced by the speaker. During this process listeners
endeavor to make meaning from they receive and respond to the messages.

Compared with other skills, listening has its own demands and features. Field (2007) states that
“listening is a rather more demanding skill than reading” (p.27). We do not see blank spaces between
words in reading. Learners have an opportunity to check overall understanding which cannot be done in
listening. Similarly, listening involves stress, intonation, and loudness which do not exist in written
language. These features suggest that listening is quite different than the other language skills. However,
Peregoy and Boyle (2013) stress that listening, speaking, reading and writing mutually support each
other during development and any practice contributes to the overall development of the other.

Listening is an active and dynamic process. Underwood (1989) argues that “whilst hearing can be
thought of as a passive condition, listening is always an active process” (p.2). Listener is in an active
process in which he/she tries to interpret information and in order to understand the message of the
speaker. For that reason, Lynch and Mendelsohn (2010) state that “active listening is also an interpretive
process” (p.180). The difference between hearing and listening is explained by Rost (2002) as “hearing
is a form of perception. Listening is an active and intentional process. Although both hearing and
listening involve sound perception, the difference in terms reflects a degree of intention” (p. 8). During
listening the listeners try to attach meaning to the sound.

Listening comprehension is an essential part of communication and it “takes place within the mind of the
listener, and the context of interpretation is the cognitive environment of the listener” (Buck, 2001,
p.29). According to Hamouda (2013) listening comprehension is an interactive process between the

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speaker and the listener and the speaker in which the listener tries to construct meaning from the oral
input. With this

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in mind, it is noteworthy to mention that listening comprehension aids learners to promote linguistic
knowledge for the mastery of the language. It involves learners to decode input and establish meaning
from spoken words. As learners hear, they try to derive meaning by calling on their prior knowledge and
guessing unfamiliar words to create meaning (Lund, 1991). Listening comprehension is a complex
process and rather than simply decoding messages, it is an active process between the speaker and the
listener. Simply put, listening comprehension is an interactive process in which listeners perform a
number of strategies to construct meaning with the help of their own existing knowledge and clues from
contextual information (Osada, 2001).

Learners’ listening comprehension can be hindered by some reasons. It is not easy for some language
learners to understand the spoken messages because they “need to integrate information from a range of
sources such as phonetic, phonological, prosodic, lexical, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic” (Osada,
2004, pp. 55-56). Speed of delivery is one of the major problems that impedes listening comprehension.
Learners fail to receive the messages sent by the speaker if the speech is delivered at a fast speed.
Similarly, vocabulary knowledge plays a huge role on listening performance. Field (2003) stresses the
correlation between vocabulary knowledge and listening comprehension. An unknown word learners
encounter can result in missing the next part of the speech. Also, if learners do not have an idea about the
topic, they might not understand the messages conveyed. Therefore, contextual knowledge holds an
important place in listening comprehension. Ur (2007) lists some of the major problems language
learners face while listening as “hearing sounds, understanding intonation and stress, coping with
redundancy and noise, predicting, understanding colloquial vocabulary, fatigue, understanding different
accents, using visual and aural environmental clues” (pp. 11-20). Generally, the problems language
learners experience during listening activities can be summarized as: unfamiliar vocabulary, accent of
the speakers, the speed and length of listening. Also, cultural knowledge is another factor that hinders
comprehension of listening tasks. Providing some background knowledge before the listening activity
will help learners better comprehension of the listening materials.

Listening comprehension has been considered as a critical language skill for the development of fluency
and accuracy. Moreover, it is essential to promote other language skills (Vandergrift, 2007). Peterson
(2001) states that “no other type of language input is easy to process as spoken language, received
through listening … through listening, learners can build an awareness of the interworkings of language
systems at various levels and thus establish a base for more fluent productive skills” (p. 87). Without
understanding the input, learning cannot begin. Listening comprehension is an active and cognitive
process; for that reason, it requires exposure, practice, and the implementation of some strategies (Rost,
2007).

Language learners employ some strategies to comprehend the messages conveyed through listening.
Cognitive strategies “interact with text information directly through recall, identification, analysis and
response in order to comprehend a given text” (Kyoko, 2002, p. 68). These strategies are related to
gathering data and problem-solving techniques language learners use to acquire knowledge and skill.
Furthermore, cognitive strategies allow learners to facilitate the learning of language (Bingol et al.,
2014). In addition to cognitive operation, the interactivity of linguistic and non-linguistic knowledge is
also needed for listening. While linguistic knowledge encompasses vocabulary, semantics, syntax,
discourse and phonology, non-linguistic knowledge entails context and topic. Metacognitive
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strategies are

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ISSN 2520-0968 (Online), ISSN 2409-1294 (Print), January 2023, Vol.10, No.1

“conscious strategies that relate to listeners’ awareness of how to regulate, plan and monitor their
cognition, and learner’s ability to evaluate their comprehension” (Kyoko, 2002, p. 68). Metacognition
has underlying potential to strengthen the awareness of learner abilities.

Learners learn how to monitor, plan and evaluate the gathered information. The use of this strategy
enables learners to learn faster and apply the knowledge easily. Therefore, it provides clear advantages
for learners to understand the nature of listening (Mart, 2021). When learners are not metacognitively
engaged they cannot apply their skills and knowledge to meet the cognitive demands of listening tasks;
thus, they cannot build confidence to develop their listening performance. Simply put, metacognitive
strategies promote motivation and self-confidence of learners to perform the tasks skillfully. Socio-
affective strategies are “the techniques listeners use to collaborate with others, to verify understanding or
to lower anxiety” (Vandergrift, 2003). Learners need to control their emotions, motivations, attitudes
towards learning. This regulation will allow them to interact with others. At the same time, these
strategies help learners with checking their comprehension and reducing their apprehension. Learners
need to reduce their anxiety and feel confident for interaction with others. Socio-affective strategies are
significant for language learners because the learning situation and social-psychological factors of
learners are linked to each other.

These strategies will facilitate listening comprehension and help learners have a native-like skill.
Listening is a skill which should be developed to master the language. Although listening is a complex
skill and deciphering the spoken language is challenging for language learners, increasing the amount of
listening time and developing conscious listening strategies will greatly contribute to the development of
their listening performance.

3. Conclusion

Listening comprehension is an active process of understanding and making sense of spoken language.
Listeners through using previous knowledge, sound discrimination, grammatical structures, linguistic
and non-linguistic clues endeavor to understand the oral input. The use of listening strategies is
important in that they will facilitate the learning process. While cognitive strategies are related to
problem-solving techniques learners use for language acquisition with the help of the gathered data,
metacognitive strategies help learners to control their learning by means of planning, monitoring and
evaluating. And socio-affective strategies help learners to reduce their anxiety and develop their self-
confidence to interact with others.

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