Models of Listening and Language Instruction

In the English language teaching programs of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, neither the British Situational Approach to language teaching nor American Audiolingual Approach paid much attention to listening beyond its role in grammar and pronunciation drills and learner’s imitation of dialogues. The language learning theories of those times attributed little importance to listening beyond the sound discrimination associated with pronunciation learning. Listening, along with reading, was regarded as a “passive” skill and was simply taken for granted.

However slowly and steadily, more attention has been given to listening comprehension. Today the role of listening and the purpose of listening comprehension instruction in the S/FL curriculum can be one of four different perspectives. A generic instructional model for each perspective that reflects underlying beliefs about language learning theory and pedagogy is outlined below.

1.     Listening and Repeating

Learner Goals: To pattern match; to listen and imitate; to memorize.

a.     Instructional material: Features audiolingual style exercises and/or dialogue memorization; based on hearing-and-pattern-matching model.

b.    Procedure: Ask students to (a) listen to word, phrase, or sentence pattern; (b) repeat it (imitate it); (c) memorize it (often, but not always, a part of the procedure).

c.     Value: Enable students to do pattern drills, to repeat dialogue, and to use memorized prefabricated patterns in conversation; enable them to imitate pronunciation patterns. Higher level cognitive processing and use of propositional language structuring are not necessarily an intentional focus.

2.     Listening and Answering Comprehension Questions

Learner Goal: To process discrete point information; to listen and answer comprehension questions.

a.     Instructional material: Features a student response pattern based on listening-and-question-answering model with occasional innovative variations on this theme.

b.    Procedure: ask students to (a) listen to an oral text along a continuum from sentence length to lecture length and (b) answer primarily factual questions. Utilizes familiar types of questions adapted from traditional reading comprehension exercises, has been called a quiz-show format of teaching.

c.     Value: Enables students to manipulate discrete pieces of information, hopefully with increasing speed and accuracy of recall. Can increase student’s stock of vocabulary units and grammar constructions. Does not require students to make use of the information for any real communicative purpose beyond answering the questions; is not interactive two-way communication.

3.     Task Listening

Learner Goals: To process spoken discourse for functional purpose; to listen and do something with the information, that is, carry out real tasks using the information received.

a.     Instructional material: Features activities that require a student respond pattern based on a listening-and-using (i.e., “listen and do”) model. Students listen, then immediately do something with the information received: follow the directions given, complete a task, solve a problem, transmit the gist of the information orally or in writing, listen and take lecture notes, etc.

b.    Procedure: Ask students to (a) listen and process information and (b) use the orally transmitted language input immediately to complete a task which is mediated through language in a context in which success is judged in terms of whether the task is performed.

c.     Value: The focus is on instruction that is task oriented. The purpose is to engage learners in using the informational content presented in the spoken discourse, not just in answering questions about it. Two types of tasks are (a) language use tasks, designed to give students practice in listening to get meaning from the input with the express purpose of making functional use of it immediately and (b) language analysis tasks, designed to help learners develop cognitive and metacognitive language learning strategies (i.e., to guide them toward personal intellectual involvement in their own learning). The latter features consciousness rising about language and language learning.

4.     Interactive Listening

Learner Goals: To develop aural/oral skills in semiformal interactive academic communication; to develop critical listening, critical thinking and effective speaking abilities.

a.     Instructional material: Features the real-time/real-life, give-and-take of academic communication. Provides a variety of student presentation and discussion activities, both individual and small-group panel reports, that include follow up audience participation in question/answer sessions as an integral part of the work. Follows an interactive listening-thinking-speaking model with bidirectional (two-way) listening/speaking. Includes attention to group bonding and classroom discourse rules (e.g., taking the floor, yielding the floor, turn taking, interrupting, comprehension checks, topic shifting, agreeing, questioning, challenging, etc).

b.    Procedure: Asks students to participate in discussion activities that enable them to develop all three phases of the speech act: speech decoding, critical thinking, and speech encoding. These phases involve (a) continuous on-line decoding of spoken discourse, (b) simultaneous cognitive reacting/ acting upon the information received (i.e., critical analysis and synthesis), and (c) instant-response encoding (i.e., producing personal propositional language responses appropriate to the situation)

c.     Value: The focus here is instruction that is communicative/competence-oriented as well as task oriented. Learners have opportunities  to engage in and develop the complex array of communicative skills in the four competency areas: linguistic competence, discourse competence, sociolinguistic competence, strategic competence (Canale ns Swain 1980

Reference

Marianne Celce-Murcia. 2001. Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language. Heinle & Heinle Thomson Learning

The Importance of Listening in Language Learning

It has taken many years to bring the language teaching profession around to realizing the importance of listening in second and foreign language learning. As observed by River, long an advocate for listening comprehension, “Speaking does not of itself constitute communication, unless what is said is comprehended by another person… Teaching the comprehension of spoken speech is therefore of primary importance if the communication aim is to be reached. (1966, p. 196-204). The reasons for the nearly total neglect of listening are difficult to access, but as Morley notes, “Perhaps an assumption that listening is a reflect, a little like breathing – listening seldom receives overt teaching attention in one’s native language – has marked the importance and complexity of listening with understanding in a non-native language” (1972, p. vii).

In reality, listening is used far more than any other single language skill in normal daily life. On average, we can expect to listen twice as much as we speak; four times more than we read, and five times more than we write. (Rivers, 1981, Weaver 1972)

Emerging recognition of the importance of Listening in Second/ Foreign Language study

It is easy for us to take listening for granted, often with little conscious awareness of our performance as listeners. Weaver commented on the elusiveness of our listening awareness: “after all, listening is neither so dramatic nor so noisy as talking. The talker is center of attention for listeners. His behavior is overt and vocal, and he hears and notices his own behavior, whereas listening activity often seems like merely being – doing nothing (1972, pp. 12-13)

Much of the language teaching field also has taken listening for granted until relatively recent times. Modern day arguments for listening comprehension began to be voiced in the mid 1960s and early 1970s by Rivers (1966) and others. Newmark and Diller underscored “the need for the systematic development of listening comprehension not only as a foundation for speaking, but also as a skill in its own right….” (1964, p. 20). Belasco expressed his concerns as follow: “I was rudely jolted by the realization that it is possible to develop so-called ‘speaking ability’ and yet be so virtually incompetent in understanding the spoken language… [Students] were learning to audio-comprehend certain specific dialogues and drills, but could not understand [the language] out of the mouths of native speakers” (1971, 0. 4-5). Morley decried the fact that “virtually no specialized textbook materials exist in the area of intermediate and advanced listening” (1972, p. vii), and Blair (1982) observed that special attention to listening just didn’t “sell” until recent times.

Reference

Marianne Celce-Murcia. 2001. Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language. Heinle & Heinle Thomson Learning

Approaches in Teaching English

1.      Grammar Translation Approach (an extension of the approach used to teach classical language to the teaching of modern languages).

a.       Instruction is given in the native language of the students.

b.      There is little use of the target language for communication

c.       Focus is on grammatical parsing, i.e.,the form and inflection words.

d.      There is early reading of difficult text.

e.       A typical exercise is to translate sentences from the target language into the mother tongue (or vice versa)

f.        The result of this approach is usually an inability on the part of the student to use the language for communication.

g.       The teacher does not have to be able to speak the target language.

2.      Direct Approach (a reaction to the Grammar Translation Approach and its failure to produce learners who could communicate in the foreign language they had been studying).

a.       No use of the mother tongue is permitted (i.e., the teacher does not need to know the student’s native language)

b.      Lessons begin with dialogues and anecdotes in modern conversational style.

c.       Actions and pictures are used to make meaning clear.

d.      Grammar is learnt inductively.

e.       Literary texts are read for pleasure and are not analyzed grammatically.

f.        The target culture is also taught inductively

g.       The teacher must be a native speaker or have nativelike proficiency in the target language.

3.      Reading Approach (a reaction to the problems experienced in implementing the Direct Approach; reading was viewed as the most usable skill to have in a foreign language since not many people traveled abroad at that time; also, few teachers could use their foreign language well enough to use a direct approach effectively in class).

a.       Only the grammar useful for reading comprehension is taught.

b.      Vocabulary is controlled at first (based on frequency and usefulness) and then expanded.

c.       Translation is one more a respectable classroom procedure.

d.      Reading comprehension is the only language skill emphasized.

e.       The teacher does not need to have good oral proficiency in the target language.

4.      Audiolingualism ( a reaction to the Reading Approach and its lack of emphasis on oral-aural skills; this approach become dominant in the United States during the 1940s, and 1960s; it draws from the reform movement and the direct approach but add features from structural linguistics [Bloomfield, 1933] and behavioral psychology [Skinner, 1957].

a.       Lesson begin with dialogues

b.      Mimicry and memorization are used, based on the assumption that language is habbit formation.

c.       Grammatical structures are sequenced and rules are taught inductively.

d.      Skills are sequenced; listening, speaking – reading, writing phosphoned.

e.       Pronunciation is stressed from the beginning.

f.        Vocabulary is severely limited in initial stages.

g.       A great effort is made to prevent learner errors.

h.      Language is often manipulated without regard to the meaning or context.

i.        The teacher must be proficient only in the structures, vocabularies, etc. that he or she is teaching since learning activities and materials are carefully controlled.

5.      Oral-Situational Approach (a reaction to the Reading Approach and its lack of emphasis on oral-aural skills; this approach become dominant in Britain during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s; it draws from the Reform Movement and the Direct Approach but add features from Firthian Linguistics and the emerging professional field of language pedagogy).

a.       The spoken language is primary.

b.      All language material is practiced orally before being presented in written form (reading and writing are taught only after an oral base in lexical and grammatical forms has been established).

c.       Only the target language should be used in the classroom.

d.      Efforts are made to ensure that the most general and useful lexical items are presented.

e.       Grammatical structures are graded from simple to complex.

f.        Next items (lexical and grammatical) are introduced and practiced situationally (e.g., t the post office, at the bank, at the dinner table).

6.      Cognitive Approach (a reaction to the behavioristic features of the Audiolingalism Approach influenced by cognitive psychology [Neisser 1967] and Chomskian Linguistics [Chomsky 1959, 1965].

a.       Language teaching is viewed as rule acquisition, not habit formation.

b.      Instruction is often individualized; learners are responsible for their own learning.

c.       Grammar must be taught but it can be taught deductively (rules first, practice later) and/or inductively (rules can either be stated after practice or left as implicit information for the learner to the process on their own).

d.      Pronunciation is de-emphasized; perfection is viewed as unrealistic and unattainable.

e.       Reading and writing are one again important, as listening and speaking.

f.        Vocabulary instruction is once again important, especially at intermediate and advanced levels.

g.       Errors are viewed as inevitable, to be used constructively in the learning process.

h.      The teacher is expected to have good general proficiency in the target language as well as an ability to analyze the target language.

7.      Affective Humanistic Approach (a reaction to the general lack of affective consideration in both Audiolingualism and Cognitive Approach; e.g., Moskowitz 1978 and Curran 1976).

a.       Respect is emphasized for the individual (each student, the teacher) and for him/her feelings.

b.      Communication that is meaningful to the learner is emphasized.

c.       Instruction involves much work in pairs and small groups.

d.      Class atmosphere are viewed as more important than material or methods.

e.       Peer support and interaction are viewed as necessary for learning

f.        Learning a foreign language is viewed as a self-realization experience.

g.       The teacher is a counselor or facilitator

h.      The teacher should be proficient in the target language and the student’s native language since translation may be used heavily in the initial stages to help students feel at ease; later it is gradually phased out.

8.      Comprehension Based Approach (an out-growth of research in first language acquisition that led some language methodologists to assume that second or foreign language learning is very similar to first language acquisition; e.g., Postovsky 1974, Winitz 1981, Krashen and Terrell 1983).

a.       Listening comprehension is very important and is viewed as the basic skill that will allow speaking, reading and writing to develop spontaneously over time, given the right condition.

b.      Learners should given by listening to meaningful speech and by responding nonverbally in meaningful ways before they produce any language themselves.

c.       Learners should not speak until they feel ready to do so; this results in better pronunciation that if the learners is forced to speak immediately.

d.      Learners progress by being exposed to meaningful input that is just one step beyond their level of competence.

e.       Rule learning may help learners monitor (or become aware of) what they do, but it will not aid their acquisition and spontaneous use of the target language.

f.        Error correction is seen as unnecessary and perhaps even counterproductive, the important thing is that the learners can understand and can make themselves understood.

g.       If the teacher is not a native (or near-native) speaker, appropriate materials such as audiotapes and video tapes must be available to provide the appropriate input for the learners.

9.      Communicative Approach (an out-growth of the work of anthropological linguists [e.g., Halliday 1973], who view language first and foremost as a system for communication).

a.       It is assumed that the goal of language teaching is learner ability to communicate in target language.

b.      It is assumed that the content of a language course will include semantic notions and social functions, not just linguistic structures.

c.       Students regularly work in groups or pairs to transfer (and if necessary, negotiate) meaning in situations in which one person have information that the other (s) lack.

d.      Students often engage in role play or dramatization to adjust their use of the target language to different social context.

e.       Classroom materials and activities are often authentic to reflect real-life situations and demands.

f.        Skill are integrated from the beginning, a given activity might involve reading, speaking, listening, and also writing (this assumes the learners are educated and literate)

g.       The teacher’s role is primarily to facilitate communication and only secondarily to correct errors

h.      The teacher should be able to use the target language fluently and appropriately.

Reference

Marianne Celce-Murcia. 2001. Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language. Heinle & Heinle Thomson Learning