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“Language skills are fundamental to literacy development – they are the foundation
that underpins understanding, speaking and listening, communication of ideas,
reading and writing” (Thompson & Evans, 2005). Since language skills are the basis of
learning any language, there is no doubt that there are different arguments about the
reasons behind teaching them and the ways to teach them too. Nowdays, a body of
research exists about the teaching of skills which indicates the paramount
importance attributed to the four language skills.
In this paper, the focus is going to be on the listening skill as it is the first and most
frequent skill to appear in both language learning and language acquisition contexts.
What makes the teaching of listening an interesting issue is the fact that listening to
an L2 not only allows learners to understand spoken messages in the L2, but also
exposes them to a more authentic oral input.
Brown (2006) advocates that “Listening is perhaps one of the most important skills
we have, yet it is one of the least recognized”. Listening as other aspects of language
teaching and learning underwent various important influences. In the beginning,
listening was neglected since the written form of language occupied the central role.
During the late nineteenth century, the elaboration of a psychological theory of child
acquisition made listening part and parcel component in language learning.
(Rost. 2000)
1) Listening as comprehension
2) Listening as acquisition
Listening as comprehension:
Listening as an oral skill is complex to teach. Brown (2000) explains this complexity
stating that activation of prior knowledge is essential for the improvement of learners’
comprehension. In other words, listening comprehension is composed of three main
components:
Listening in general terms is not a simple activity that is carried out in one step.
However, in a typical listening activity there are three stages. (1) Pre-listening stage
is usually in the form of a warm-up where learners make use of their prior-knowledge
to make the task easier. (2) While-listening stage is where learners exploit listening
strategies (listening for the gist and listening …) to understand the task and perform
well. Lastly, (3) post-listening stage during which learners “demonstrate their level
of listening comprehension by completing some tasks” (Brown. 2006)
Listening as acquisition:
Listening is an activity that we do on a daily basis. In fact, there is not one way of
listening to people. Listening for gist, listening for details, and listening “between
the lines” are the main types of listening activities via which learners can develop
their listening strategies.
Listening for gist is when the purpose of the listener resides in identifying the
message without paying much attention to the words. Simply put, it is an opportunity
for learners to go beyond simple language drills.
Listening for details or listening for specific information is a listening activity where
learners are supposed to detect and recall key words and ideas in a listening
passage. Listening for details to some extent is a critical listening in a way that
learners retain relevant points and reject irrelevant information.
Listening between the lines or “active listening” requires an advanced level in L2
because the listener is supposed to identify the speaker’s intended meanings. In
other words, the listener constructs meanings according to the levels of discourse
(ex. Emotional overtones: anger, excitement, and happiness, etc).
The variety of types of listening makes it difficult for L2 teachers to decide about
which listening activity to integrate in their teaching. According to “(Field 1998) (White
1998) (Cauldwell 2000) “We spend so much time preparing learners for listening,
[but] we don't have time to do much more than see if the students got the answers
right or wrong and no time is spent on finding out why and where they went wrong”
(Smith.2010). In order to help learners develop their listening abilities, it is advisable
to teach them teach micro-skills or sub-skills.
As there are various types of listening, each type encompasses a number of sub-
skills; thus, it is not an easy task for teachers of the L2 to incorporate all the sub-skills
while teaching listening (see the appendix for sub-skills and tips to develop the
listening skill).
Conclusions:
University Press.
Juan,E. Usó, Flor, A. Martínez. (2006). Current trends in the development and
Walter de Gruyter.
Carter, Ronald & Nunan, David. eds. (2001). The Cambridge guide to teaching
http://www.latcomm.com/articles/l2listeningacquisition.html