Overview, uniqueness and real-life listening

Overview, uniqueness and real-life listening

1. Dimensions in teaching of listening comprehension, Jack C. Richards

   • APPROACH
     • Tries to understand the nature of listening comprehension and takes into account the processes that the listeners make use of.
       • A related level of discourse processing
         • 1 prepositional identification: prepositions are the basic units of meaning involved.
         • 2 Interpretation of illocutionary force.
         • 3. An activation of real world knowledge
       • Central processes of listening comprehension and ways in which spoken discourse and written text differ.
         • Clausal basis of speech: several clauses coordinated
         • Reduced forms: speakers need to express meanings efficiently
         • Ungrammatical forms: ungrammatical forms and constructions are frequent.
         • Pausing and speech errors: pauses, hesitations, false starts, and corrections in speech.
         • Rate of delivery: our perception of the pace of speech is affected by pausing.
         • Rhythm and stress:
         • Cohesive devices
         • Information content
         • Interactive: formal or informal discourse.
   • DESIGN
     • The design component of methodology enables the identification of component micro-skills which provide the focus for instructional activities.
       • Design phase in curriculum development
         • Diagnostic testing assessment
         • Assessment of learners needs
         • Diagnostic testing
         • Formulation of instructional objectives
         • Needs assessment
         • Taxonomy of listening skills
   • PROCEDURE
     • In teaching listening comprehension the objective is to provide opportunities for the learner to acquire particular microskills.
     • Two variables in teaching listening that can be be manipulated and they serve to develop in particular skills areas Input and tasks.
     • Criteria that can be applied to the evaluation of exercises and classroom procedures.
       • criteria for evaluating activities and exercises
       • content validity
       • purposefulness and transferability
       • testing or teaching
       • authenticity

2. Characteristics of spoken texts (aspects of comprehension that are unique to listening)

   • Phonological modification
     • in rapid speech, adjacent sounds influence each other. Such modifications take place according to a set of a very complex rules, and these rules vary from one language to another.
       • E.G. English language. * Assimilation, when sounds influence the pronunciation of adjacent sounds. * Elision, when sounds are dropped in rapid speech.. * Intrusion, when a new sound is introduced between other sounds.
         • Also, a little words with a grammatical function usually have two pronunciations Strong and weak form.
   • Phonological modification and language comprehension phonological system: real speakers Vs classroom pronunciation
     • Accent
   • Prosodic features: stress and intonation
     • Word stress / Sentence stress
     • Intonation
     • Prosody and comprehension
     • Hesitation and language comprehension
     • Discourse structure
     • Non-verbal signals

3. Factors influencing Engllish Liistening comprenhensionand possible measures for improvement

   • In China the GTM has been found inadequate because it was found that English must be taught as a tooll for communication.
   • According to Asher, Postovsky, Winitz, Krashen the role of listening is a tool for understanding and emhasized as key factor in facilitating language learning.
   • Teachers must explore...
     • Nature and process of listening comprenhension
     • study the theory and methodology of LC
   • Listening strategies contribute to the comprenhension and recall of listening input.
     • Listening strategies are classified according to the way the listener processes the input.
   • Complex sentences are different from one language to another
   • Cultural knowledge and thinking differences between languages affect listening comprenhension
   • It is essential to encourage ss to be autonomous.
   • Discrimination in English pronunciation, intonation and language flow are the most important fro beginners.
   • Predictive ability is an important micro skill.
   • The ability to guess the meaning is also an important lmicro skills.