Theoretical bases of teaching listening - Иностранные языки и языкознание курсовая работа

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Theoretical bases of teaching listening

Teaching listening comprehension as a part of educational process at school. Teacher's speech as a basic form of teaching listening comprehension. Principles for developing listening ability. The use of activities developing listening comprehension.


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1. Theoretical bases of teaching listening
1.1 Teaching listening comprehension as a part of educational process at school
1.2 Teacher's speech as a basic form of teaching listening comprehension
1.3 Principles for developing listening ability
2. The use of activities developing listening comprehension
2.2 Techniques the teacher uses to develop hearing
2.3 Language techniques in listening assessing proficiency
teacher listening comprehension educational
Language is a medium of communication, which helps the members of a community in the society, to communicate and interact with one another. This involves both verbal and non-verbal communication. Language focuses on listening and reading that can be named as passive or receptive skills, while speaking and writing can be named as, active or productive skills. Listening is one of the important skills in learning a language. The process of acquiring a language starts with listening and ends up in the production of writing. After birth, a child hears variety of sounds and can distinguish among them. Every language has a common and a natural sequence for the development of the language skills. Listening skill is ranked first of all the four folds. This highlights the importance of listening skill in the life of human beings. Students normally face and encounter listening problems especially in foreign languages.
This paper presents arguments for an emphasis on listening comprehension in language learning/teaching. An explanation of how listeners can use strategies to enhance the learning process is presented, with a review of the existing research base on how second language listening is taught. The major part of the paper presents and discusses pedagogical recommendations.
Listening and speaking are often taught together, but beginners, especially non-literate ones, should be given more listening than speaking practice. It's important to speak as close to natural speed as possible, although with beginners some slowing is usually necessary. Without reducing speaking speed it is possible to make a language easier to comprehend by simplifying vocabulary, using shorter sentences, and increasing the number and length of pauses in speech.
Given the importance of listening in language learning and teaching it is essential for language teachers to help their students become effective listeners. In the communicative approach to language teaching, this means modeling listening strategies and providing listening practice in authentic situations: those that learners are likely to encounter when they use the language outside the classroom.
The research available on second-language listening comprehension is insufficient. Comparing with other skills W. Goh said that "there are fewer insights about the process of listening and the way it is learnt". Similarly, D. Richards stated that: "there is little direct research on second language listening comprehension". As for that, we are doing this research not only to help students with better listening but also to contribute a small part to enrich the listening research which has been done so far.
The Topicality of this research is due to the fact that the issues of teaching listening at school is studied insufficiently and require more attention and methodological development.
The aim of the present research is to explore the classification of techniques for teaching listening of a foreign language and developing students' listening comprehension.
The general aims defines the following objectives of the research:
1. To explore listening comprehension peculiarities and fundamental characteristics.
2. To consider listening comprehension methods.
3. To study effective techniques for developing listening skills.
The object of the given research is the process of teaching listening.
The subject is the ways of developing students listening skills using a set of teaching materials which provide the formation of listening skills.
The major methods used in the research process are: the method of linguistic description and analysis, which let us create the theoretical basis of the present course paper. The method of continuous selection was used to single the research material out. The structural, formalization methods were used for working with the results got in the research process. The research material of the work is the exercises taken from different modern course books and manuals. The given material presents a broad field for research. It also gives us an opportunity to rich the set goals of the present research.
1. Principles of teaching listening comprehension
1.1 Teaching listening as a comprehension
Listening as comprehension is the traditional way of thinking about the nature of listening. Indeed, in most methodology manuals listening and listening comprehension are synonymous. This view of listening is based on the assumption that the main function of listening in second language learning is to facilitate understanding of spoken discourse. We will examine this view of listening in some detail before considering a complementary view of listening - listening as acquisition. This latter view of listening considers how listening can provide input that triggers the further development of second-language proficiency.
To understand the nature of listening processes, we need to consider some of the characteristics of spoken discourse and the special problems they pose for listeners. Spoken discourse has very different characteristics from written discourse, and these differences can add a number of dimensions to our understanding of how we process speech. For example, spoken discourse is usually instantaneous. The listener must process it "online" and there is often no chance to listen to it again. Often, spoken discourse strikes the second-language listener as being very fast, although speech rates vary considerably. Radio monologs may contain 160 words per minute, while conversation can consist of up to 220 words per minute. The impression of faster or slower speech generally results from the amount of intraclausal pausing that speakers make use of. Unlike written discourse, spoken discourse is usually unplanned and often reflects the processes of construction such as hesitations, reduced forms, fillers, and repeats. Spoken discourse has also been described as having a linear structure, compared to a hierarchical structure for written discourse. 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 conversation generally consist of several coordinated clauses. Most of the clauses used are simple conjuncts or adjuncts. Also, spoken texts are often context-dependent and personal, assuming shared background knowledge. Lastly, spoken texts may be spoken with many different accents, from standard or non-standard, regional, non-native, and so on [3, p. 48].
Listening involves a sender (a person, radio, and television), a message, and a receiver (the listener). Listeners often must process messages as they come, even if they are still processing what they have just heard, without backtracking or looking ahead. In addition, listeners must cope with the sender's choice of vocabulary, structure, and rate of delivery. The complexity of the listening process is magnified in second language contexts, where the receiver also has incomplete control of the language [2, p. 226].
Given the importance of listening in language learning and teaching it is essential for language teachers to help their students become effective listeners. In the communicative approach to language teaching, this means modeling listening strategies and providing listening practice in authentic situations: those that learners are likely to encounter when they use the language outside the classroom.
Instructors want to produce students who, even if they do not have complete control of the grammar or an extensive lexicon, can fend for themselves in communication situations. In the case of listening, this means producing students who can use listening strategies to maximize their comprehension of aural input, identify relevant and non-relevant information, and tolerate less than word-by-word comprehension. In Listening classes, students are usually given practice in listening but they are not actually taught listening. Practice is not enough.
Research and case studies have told us many things about how listening should be taught. But often, this knowledge has not made the jump into classroom practice. While many classes are based on the idea of giving students lots of practice with English, research tells us that we also need to teach listening. In addition to giving students plenty of listening practices. We should also break the skill of listening into micro-skill components and make sure that our students are aware of what they need to know to understand how to listen to English.
Students need to know and understand:
- how words link together (liaison);
- how vowels weaken (the central vowel);
- how sounds mix together (assimilation);
- how syllables disappear (ellipsis);
- how helping sounds are used between vowel sounds (intrusion);
- how intonation helps with conversational turn taking (intonation);
- how stress signals new information (prominence);
- how to use grammar to help guess meaning (strategies);
- how to use discourse knowledge to help guess meaning (strategies);
- how to use knowledge of intonation and stress to guess meaning (strategies).
1.2 Teacher's speech as basic form of teaching listening comprehension
Teaching is a very complicated complex process. Its success depends on several factors. One of the most important factors is a teacher himself or herself.
There are three main activities that teachers have to manage simultaneously:
In many group teaching situations, the role of the teacher is that of facilitator of learning: leading discussions, asking open-ended questions, guiding process and task, and enabling active participation of learners and engagement with ideas. However, small groups function and behave in various ways and have different purposes. Teachers therefore need to be able to adopt a range of roles and skills to suit specific situations, often during the same teaching session. According to McCrorie the roles that may be adopted include that of:
- the instructor, who imparts information to students;
- the consultant, from whom learners can ask questions;
- the wanderer, such as in a larger workshop;
Making the shift from teacher as expert to facilitator is sometimes seen as diminishing a teacher's power and authority, but this should not be the case. Facilitating learning is empowering for both the learner and the teacher and frees the teacher from many of the burdens that having to be an "expert" might entail. It would traditionally have been seen as a weakness for a teacher to say "I don't know, let's find out" or "I don't know, do any of you students know the answer?" and clearly clinical teachers need to know more about many topics than their students or trainees, but medical science is changing so rapidly that no one can know everything. Implementing an evidence-based approach to clinical learning and to medical practice involves finding out about the latest research. You can use these techniques and this approach to facilitate your own and your students'/trainees' learning [9, p. 16].
Practical learning a foreign language is possible only under condition when it is used as a mean of communication. A lesson has a lot of opportunities for using a language as a mean of communication between a teacher and a student. While choosing material for a lesson a teacher should take into account certain purposes of a lesson:
a) developing listening comprehension;
b) broadening passive vocabulary and potential foresight skills.
That is why it is essential that material should be comprehensible and having all the qualities listed above. If to speak about grammar constructions used by a teacher during a lesson it is clear he or she cannot use all of them. However, basic structures should be taken into account as students usually memorize the phrases repeated by a teacher as a whole. A teacher has more freedom with lexical material. He or she should include into a lesson new words all the time using such techniques as language guess, context and potential foresight [8, p. 142].
Presenting new material should be carefully dosed and balanced. At first a teacher should give 2-4 new expressions a lesson. Besides he or she should add new elements every lesson. But new material should be brought only in case when a teacher is absolutely sure that the old one has been already memorized. A teacher should also take all the measures so that students could understand it correctly. There are several techniques for gaining it:
- a teacher can vary the forms of pronunciation of the same phrases each lesson. For instance, "read please" can be substituted for "will you read". These variants will not cause troubles in understanding as separate parts of it have been already used by a teacher;
- each new word should be pronounced 2-3 times suggesting students guessing what it might mean. For example, the expression "raise your hands" has been mentioned before. The phrase "put down your hands" will be easier to understand. This also helps to develop students' abilities to analysis and synthesis;
- new phrases should be repeated in different ways, in 4-5 lessons new phrases may be included in the questions to students so that they could be ready to face them in real life.
That means the dialogue between a teacher and a student becomes the leading part of having students got used to oral speech in foreign language and, thus, the first fundamental step to auding itself.
1.3 Principles for developing listening ability
Using general knowledge about language skill development, we can draw up some guidelines for developing listening ability.
Listening ability develops through face-to-face interaction. By interacting in English, learners have the chance for new language input and the chance to check their own listening ability. Face-to-face interaction provides stimulation for development of listening for meaning.
Listening develops through focusing on meaning and trying to learn new and important content in the target language. By focusing on meaning and real reasons for listening in English, learners can mobile both their linguistic and non-linguistic abilities to understand.
Listening ability develops through work on comprehension activities. By focusing on specific goals for listening, learners can evaluate their efforts and abilities. By having well-defined comprehension activities, learners have opportunities for assessing what they have achieved and for revision.
Listening develops through attention to accuracy and an analysis of form. By learning to perceive sounds and words accurately as they work on meaning-oriented activities, our learners can make steady progress. By learning to hear sounds and words more accurately, learners gain confidence in listening for meaning [9, p. 7].
One of the main reasons for getting students to listen to spoken English is to let them hear different varieties and accents - rather than just the voice of their teacher with its own idiosyncrasies. In today's world, they need to be exposed not only to one variety of English (British English, for example) but also to varieties such as American English, Australian English, Caribbean English, Indian English or West African English. There are, of course, problems associated with the issue of language variety. Within British English, for example, there are many different dialects and accents. The differences are not only in the pronunciation of sounds (`bath' like `laugh' vs. `bath' like `cat') but also in grammar (the use of `shall' in northern varieties compared with its use in `Standard English' - the southern, BBC-type variety). The same is of course true American, Indian or West African English.
Despite the desirability of exposing students to many varieties of English, however, common sense is called for. The number of different varieties (and the degree to which they are different from the one students are learning) will be a matter for the teacher to judge. But even if they only hear occasional varieties of English, which are different from the teacher's, it will give them a better idea of the world language, which English has become.
The second major reason for teaching listening is because it helps students to acquire language subconsciously even if teachers do not draw attention to its special features. Exposure to language is a fundamental requirement for anyone wanting to learn it. Listening to appropriate tapes provides such exposure and students get vital information not only about grammar and vocabulary but also about pronunciation, rhythm, intonation, pitch and stress.
Lastly, students get better at listening the more they do it. Listening is a skill and any help we can give students in performing that skill will help them to be better listeners [5, p. 97-98].
In order to define listening, we must outline the main component skills in listening. In terms of the necessary components, we can list the following:
c) identifying grammatical groupings of words;
d) identifying `pragmatic units' - expressions and sets of utterance which function as whole units to create meaning;
e) connecting linguistic cues to paralinguistic cues (intonation and stress) and to nonlinguistic cues (gestures and relevant objects in the situation) in order to construct meaning;
f) using background knowledge (what we already know about the content and the form) and context (what has already been said) to predict and then to confirm meaning;
g) recalling important words and ideas.
Successful listening involves an integration of these component skills. In this sense, listening is a coordination of the component skills, not the individual skills themselves. This integration of these perception skills, analysis skills, and synthesis skills is what we call a person's listening ability.Even though a person may have good listening ability, he or she may not always be able to understand what is being said. In order to understand messages, some conscious action is necessary to use this ability effectively, so it is not possible to view it directly, but we can see the effects of this action. The underlying action for successful listening is decision making [9, p. 4].
There are many types of listening activities. Those that don't require learners to produce language in response are easier than those that do. Learners can be asked to physically respond to a command (for example, "please open the door"), select an appropriate picture or object, circle the correct letter or word on a worksheet, draw a route on a map, or fill in a chart as they listen. It's more difficult to repeat back what was heard, translate into the native language, take notes, make an outline, or answer comprehension questions. To add more challenge, learners can continue a story text, solve a problem, perform a similar task with a classmate after listening to a model (for example, order a cake from a bakery), or participate in real-time conversation. Good listening lessons go beyond the listening task itself with related activities before and after the listening. Here is the basic structure [15, p.196]:
Prepare your learners by introducing the topic and finding out what they already know about it. A good way to do this is to have a brainstorming session and some discussion questions related to the topic. Then provide any necessary background information and new vocabulary they will need for the listening activity.
Be specific about what students need to listen for. They can listen for selective details or general content, or for an emotional tone such as happy, surprised, or angry. If they are not marking answers or otherwise responding while listening, tell them ahead of time what will be required afterward.
Finish with an activity to extend the topic and help students remember new vocabulary. This could be a discussion group, craft project, writing task, game, etc.
Teaching listening skills is one of the most difficult tasks for any teacher. This is because successful listening skills are acquired over time and with lots of practice. It's frustrating for students because there are no rules as in grammar teaching. Speaking and writing also have very specific exercises that can lead to improved skills. This is not to say that there are not ways of improving listening skills, however they are difficult to quantify [16, p. 207].
One of the largest inhibitors for students is often mental block. While listening, a student suddenly decides that he or she doesn't understand what is being said. At this point, many students just tune out or get caught up in an internal dialogue trying translate a specific word. Some students convince themselves that they are not able to understand spoken English well and create problems for themselves.
They key to helping students improve their listening skills is to convince them that not understanding is OK. This is more of an attitude adjustment than anything else, and it is easier for some students to accept than others. Another important point that I try to teach my students (with differing amounts of success) is that they need to listen to English as often as possible, but for short periods of time [17, p. 175].
Students need to apply the same approach to listening skills. Encourage them to get a film, or listen to an English radio station, but not to watch an entire film or listen for two hours. Students should often listen, but they should listen for short periods - five to ten minutes. This should happen four or five times a week. Even if they don't understand anything, five to ten minutes is a minor investment. However, for this strategy to work, students must not expect improved understanding too quickly. The brain is capable of amazing things if given time; students must have the patience to wait for results. If a student continues this exercise over two to three months their listening comprehension skills will greatly improve [18, p. 23].
Effective, modern methods of teaching listening skills encompass everything from interactive exercises to multimedia resources. Listening skills are best learned through simple, engaging activities that focus more on the learning process than on the final product. Whether you are working with a large group of students or a small one, you can use any of the following examples to develop your own methods for teaching students how to listen well.
One effective and nonthreatening way for students to develop stronger listening skills is through interpersonal activities, such as mock interviews and storytelling. Assign the students to small groups of two or three, and then give them a particular listening activity to accomplish. For example, you may have one student interview another for a job with a company or for an article in a newspaper. Even a storytelling activity, such as one that answers the question "What was your favorite movie from last year?" can give students the opportunity to ask one another questions and then to practice active listening skills [19, p.27].
Larger group activities also serve as a helpful method for teaching listening skills to students. You can begin with a simple group activity. For the first part, divide students into groups of five or larger and instruct them to learn one hobby or interest of at least two other group members. Encourage them to ask clarifying questions during the activity, and you may allow them to take notes if helpful. However, as time passes and their skills grow, you should limit students to only writing notes after the completion of the first part of the group activity. For the second part, have the students sit in a large circle, and then have each individual student share the name and the hobby or interest of the group members that she or he met. This second part of the group activity can also lend itself to additional listening exercises. For example, you may ask students to name a number of the hobbies and interests identified during the sharing session [18, p. 26].
You can also teach listening skills through audio segments of radio programs, online podcasts, instructional lectures and other audio messages. You should model this interactive listening process in class with your students, and then instruct them to repeat the exercise on their own. First, instruct students to prepare for listening by considering anything that they will want to learn from the content of the audio segment. Once they have written down or shared these ideas, then play the audio segment, allowing the students to take notes if helpful. Once they have gained confidence and experience, repeat this activity but instruct students to not take notes until the completion of the audio segment. You can use shorter or longer audio segments, and you can choose more accessible or more challenging material for this type of exercise.
Another helpful resource for teaching listening skills are video segments, including short sketches, news programs, documentary films, interview segments, and dramatic and comedic material. As with audio segments, select the portion and length of the video segment based on the skill level of your students. With your students, first watch the segment without any sound and discuss it together. Encourage the students to identify what they think will be the content of the segment. Then, watch the segment again, this time with sound, allowing students to take notes if helpful for their skill level. After the completion of the video segment, you can have students write a brief summary of the segment, or you can take time to discuss as a group how the segment compares with the students' expectations [18, p. 27].
Whatever method you use for teaching listening, keep a few key instructional tips in mind that will help both you and your students navigate the learning process. One, keep your expectations simple, as even the most experienced listener would be unable to completely and accurately recall the entirety of a message. Two, keep your directions accessible and build in opportunities for students not only to ask clarifying questions, but also to make mistakes. Three, help students navigate their communication anxiety by developing activities appropriate to their skill and confidence level, and then strengthen their confidence by celebrating the ways in which they do improve, no matter how small.
Listening-really listening to students is critical to the student/teacher relationship, for knowing their teacher is interested in what they are saying, makes students feel cared about and emotionally connected to school. Since research shows that feeling connected is requisite to students' motivation to learn, showing that we listen is important not only as a matter of kindness, but also as a motivational strategy [20, p. 116].
It is easy to perform routine tasks while listening to students. In fact, at times teachers are evaluated for their multitasking ability; however, unless you appear to be completely focused on the student speaking to you, he is apt think you care neither about what he is saying or him. Consequently, in addition to really listening to students, we must also show we are really listening.
An effective way to demonstrate your attentiveness is to use active listening, a technique extraordinary:
- for making people feel understood;
- for making people feel cared about;
- for the ease with which it is learned.
By using active listening with students, you build the relationship of trust and caring essential to students' motivation to learn. By teaching active listening, you help students overcome poor listening habits such as:
- Turning a speaker off and dwelling on the plethora of internal distractions we all have.
- Letting an early remark of a speaker, with which one disagrees, develop a prejudice which clouds or puts a stop to any further listening.
- Allowing personal characteristics of the speaker or his poor delivery to prevent understanding [21, p. 18].
Although some people recommend giving feedback with a statement rather than a question, the objective remains the same--to clarify either the factual and/or emotional content of the message. By refining the listener's interpretation of his statements, the speaker gains greater insight about his own feelings, he may reap benefits of a catharsis, and he knows the listener is really paying attention to him. The listener improves his ability to focus on a speaker and to think about implied meanings.
Although the feedback step is at the heart of active listening, to be effective, each of the following steps must be taken:
- Look at the person, and suspend other things you are doing.
- Listen not merely to the words, but the feeling content.
- Be sincerely interested in what the other person is talking about.
- Ask clarification questions once in a while.
- Be aware of your own feelings and strong opinions.
- If you have to state your views, say them only after you have listened.
The main conclusion can be based on following suggestion: there is an analogy between native and foreign languages. In the first case a child goes from hearing to speech. In the second case a student does the same thing, where a teacher's speech is the basic condition and factor predetermining these transfer.
Also it has become clear that recognition is possible under several conditions: solid lexical, grammar and pronunciation skills. There is a methodological recommendation that texts for
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