azarnoosh et al,2016
azarnoosh et al,2016
azarnoosh et al,2016
INTRODUCTION
Listening as a receptive skill is considered the oral skill which is the primary ability
developed in first language acquisition. However, until recently listening was
ignored in the second language context. Nunan (1999) states that listening is the
Cinderella skill in the second language context because it is overlooked by its elder
sister, speaking. Moreover, Nunan (2002) adds that EFL students spend a lot of class
time for listening, but it is the most unnoticed of the four skills in EFL contexts.
Traditionally, speaking was emphasized more than listening. However, with the
emergence of Comprehension Approach and Natural Approach more attention
was paid to listening. These approaches put their emphasis on oral perception than
production; in this way, listening acquired its deserved significance. Krashen (1985)
stresses the importance of comprehensible input before language production. This
view bolds the role of listening in second and foreign language situations. Nord
(1980) claims that some people believe language learning is not just learning to
speak, but it is learning to build a mental map of meaning. Cognitive maps are, in
fact, built through listening but not speaking.
Like listening practice, developing listening materials has been marginally dealt
with in instructional materials. Until recently, little attention was paid to develop
appropriate listening materials. Most listening materials were based on audio files
used for developing oral production. To open new horizons to develop listening
materials in this technology era, this chapter tries to introduce different listening
activities and technologies used for the development of listening materials.
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SOME GUIDELINES FOR DEVELOPING LISTENING MATERIALS
lengthier than that used in intensive listening. It is more based on “the discourse used
in speeches, media broadcast, stories and anecdotes” (p. 257).
Brown further asserts that to foster selective listening skills, language learners
should be asked to listen for:
• People’s names
• Dates
• Certain facts and events—location, situation, context, etc.
• Main ideas and/or conclusion (p. 257).
Interactive listening refers to conversational interactions between listeners and
speakers. The listener receives the message and provides the speaker with feedback.
Collaborative conversation is considered vital for interactive listening. Rost (2011)
mentions that collaborative conversation forces both comprehensible output and
negotiation. Such conversations improve interactions among learners.
To promote interaction, according to Rost, learners should be involved in
collaborative tasks because such tasks require negotiation and meaning clarification
in order to arrive at an outcome. Lynch (1996) claims that communicative tasks
promote such skills as regulating turn- taking and seeking feedback through
clarification and confirmation checks.
Extensive listening aims to develop global understanding of spoken language
(Brown, 2001). However, Rost (2011) refers to extensive listening as meaning-
focused listening activities for an extended period of time. Learners are expected to
reach full comprehension during extensive listening by listening to lengthy lectures,
conversations, and broadcasts. Waring (2010) claims that extensive listening
is appropriate for all learners at intermediate and advanced levels of language
proficiency. Some extensive listening activities include:
• Watching Movies
• Listening to Radio Programs
• Watching Vodcasts (video on demand multicasting technology)
• Listening to Podcasts(digital audio files)
• Listening to songs
• Listening to interviews and lectures
Responsive listening is a classroom listening activity used to elicit immediate
response. As a result, the goal of this activity is the listener’s response. Some
examples include:
• Asking questions
• Giving commands
• Seeking clarification
• Checking comprehension (Brown, 2001).
Autonomous listening refers to independent and self-directed listening in which
the teacher plays no role. It is believed that all types of natural language acquisition
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LISTENING PROCESS
Foreign language learners, as well as their teachers, believe that listening is a difficult
skill to master. This is because of different processes, such as cognitive, affective,
social, and physiological processes, are involved in listening comprehension
(Field, 2002; Lynch, 2002). Two main cognitive processes are distinguished in L2
listening instruction. They include bottom-up and top-down processes (Lynch, 2002;
Mendelsohn, 1998).
Bottom-up processing is used to combine increasingly larger units of meaning. It
proceeds from phoneme-level units to discourse-level units, from sounds to words
and from words to longer lexical items (Vandergrift, 2004). Bottom-up techniques
typically focus on sounds, words, intonation, grammatical structures, and other
components of spoken language (Brown, 2001).
On the other hand, as Nation and Newton (2009) state, top-down processing
moves from the whole to the parts. Top-down processing happens when listeners
bring their background knowledge and their rhetorical schemata to the text. This
type of processing is used to predict the content of the message. It is the influence
of larger units to identify smaller units. Inferencing is the key concept of this
processing. Field (2008) also states that top-down processing serves two different
functions. First, ignoring the details and focusing on general issues can compensate
for gaps in understanding. Moreover, top-down processing may also enrich a fully
decoded and elaborated message.
These two types of processing are used to represent the directions of processing
(Field, 1999). Comprehension may be built from smaller units of language, such as
phones or words to longer units, such as phrases or clauses. This direction may be
the other way around, starting from context or co-text to words. These directions are
associated with decoding and meaning building. Sometimes they are considered as
synonymous with input and context (Field, 2008). Research in L2 listening suggests
that these two processes serve different purposes (Vandergrift, 2004). For example,
bottom-up processing is used to recognize the details of the message, but top-down
processing may be used to understand the general ideas. Both of these processes
are also used in real-life listening to satisfy different purposes (Mendelsohn, 2001).
Furthermore, Brown (2001) believes that L2 learners should operate from both
directions because both of them aid determining the meaning of spoken discourse.
Supporting Brown’s proposal, Flowerdew and Miller (2005) remark that these two
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Baleghizadeh (2012) suggests four features for effective listening materials. The
first feature of effective listening materials is incorporating both bottom-up and top-
down processing. Real-world listening is based on both bottom-up and top-down
processing. As a result, listening materials in the second language context should
incorporate both processes. Moreover, listening materials should provide exposures
to different types of listening. Depending on learners’ language proficiency level,
materials may expose learners to intensive, selective, interactive, extensive,
responsive, and autonomous listening. Furthermore, listening materials should be
based on authentic recordings. It means listening materials used in language classes
should match the spoken discourses used by native speakers. Finally, listening
materials should improve learners’ listening comprehension, not testing it.
Authentic Materials
One goal of listening instruction is to help learners to understand real life language.
It refers to providing learners with authentic texts. Underwood (1989) refers to
authentic audio materials as recordings of natural speech which are present in every
day sources. Morrow (1977) also defines authentic materials as stretches of real
language that are produced by real speakers/writers to convey a real message to real
audiences. Vandergrift and Goh (2012) believe authentic materials are inherently
interesting. It is so because such materials involve current topics, and current topics
are interesting to learners at all ages and backgrounds.
Vandergrift and Goh further suggest a number of sources for one-way listening
“such as videos, radio, and television broadcast, songs, audio recordings, CD ROM,
the internet and situations in which speech is performed such as drama and poetry
recitals” (p. 175). Some authentic materials have spontaneity, but some are more
controlled (Field, 2008). Such materials as news broadcasts, dramas, train and plane
announcements, advertisements, and documentaries are good examples for more
controlled presentations.
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CONCLUSION
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Parviz Maftoon
Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Branch, Iran
Maryam Azarnoosh
Islamic Azad University, Semnan Branch, Iran
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