Listening can be a very overlooked skill in language acquisition. "Listening and reading are therefore secondary skills- means to other ends, rather than ends themselves." (Anthology, p. 238) However, that is contrary in fact because listening is crucial to language learners because it provides input.
Bottom-up and top-down processes have been a popular pedagogy since the 1980s. The bottom-up interpretation views the listener as a decoder. The listener forms words, links phrases, phrases link to form utterances, which in turn form to complete, "meaningful" text. Bottom-up processing uses a very illustrative detail which displays surface language features of text in letters, words, and sentences, testing the reader's language proficiency. On the other hand, the top-down view thinks of the listener as an active constructor that makes "..original meaning of the speaker using incoming sounds as clues." (p.239) In short, the listener uses his or her own background and perspective in order to convey meaning. They listen to create an episodic sequence that allows them to follow along to the speaker.
Listening should be used in practice as a way to help a learner build their skills, OBVIOUSLY. However, in order to build, the learner must be actively engaged in the process. Students must be motivated and also develop reflective skills to help monitor and assess themselves. This allows the students to take a sort of pride in their learning, and also pushes them to continue pursuing the target language.
*What are some ways that students can assess their listening skills?
How do we present listening? When are students ready to begin listening exercises?
First, students need pre-listening instruction to be able to do the activities. As we begin any unit, what do we do? We teach all the important vocabulary, grammar, and the topic of listening itself, that sounds about right. However, pre-teaching of vocabulary has been discontinued, according to John Field. I understand that idea because it does teach students to be out of their comfort a bit, but how much is too much outside of their element? Should students receive some vocabulary, all of it, or none at all? I think it should be based on their proficiency levels. If the students have a decent background of the language, it will be a lot easier than students with little to none.
When creating listening activities, the use of "authentic" (natural English speakers) materials has increased. Real-life listening experience can be quite beneficial for students in making the activity more applicable for outside the classroom use. The texts suggest that students tend to not be discouraged by authentic materials, if they are told in advance. However, when do you begin to use authentic materials (at what level)? What is an authentic listening exercise? An "L" conductor speaking over an intercom on the train in Chicago? A surfer from California?
Chapter 23 touched on how there is more emphasis on the written text in the teaching syllabus. This is true. How many teachers HAVE NOT given you a written or typed syllabus on the first days of class? We tend to overlook the symbiotic relationship between listening and speaking practices. I think it is the job of the teachers to highlight the differences between reading and listening. Reading tends to be quite dense and structured, as listening seems to be more loose and has a better flow of the text. Teachers need to adjust learners to cope with real-world listening input and communication. Students need to find ways to compensate when they become unfamiliar or lost during normal interaction, by guessing meaning through repetition of discourse, reformulation, and rephrasing the content. As much as we have to prepare our students for the test, we also have to prepare them for the real-world, outside the school walls.
What are your thoughts of some real-world/awareness-raising exercises that may be useful for your students?
Blogfully yours,
The TESOL Bro,
Tommy T.
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