Listening skill has often been called the Cinderella skill of language teaching because it involves a number of variables that are too difficult to be operationalized within the allotted class time. A comprehensive model of L2 listening comprehension cannot be developed without a full account of the parameters dominating the process.
Hi Reza,
I understand your perspective regarding listening comprehension but I do disagree with you. Taking an atomistic approach to trying to deal with any human symbolic/cognitive skill so that you feel the need to identify subcomponents and then find ways to work on them or to account for these parameters as they are operationalized during the actual ability/skill is only one way to approach the problem. And one that I believe to be a non-starter. Language and most (I would suspect all) such symbolic/cognitive skills should be approached as holistic and be treated as such. The idea of synergy that states that the whole of the skill/ability is greater than the components should carry the day and you should try to figure out ways to address listening comprehension within authentic and meaningful contexts using various strategies to enhance the comprehension of the actual skill rather than focus on splinter skills. This is what J.B. Carroll and Jerome Bruner and (especially) theorists like Lev Vygotsky suggested. There are many people that are oriented to this approach in second language acquisition and that focus on the whole of a skill and its enhancement within meaningful and authentic contexts. Steve Krashen, Merrill Swain, Firth & Wagner, Fred Genesee are some of these. I think you should look at the issue in a more holistic orientation. Good luck with your work!
Attached you will find a rubric I use for speaking proficiency. If I were to create a similar rubric for listening comprehension, I might include the following sub-areas:
These are some ideas that come to mind for me about the factors influencing listening comprehension.
Data Oral Proficiency Rubric
Hi Reza,
This article "What makes listening difficult? Factors affecting second language listening comprehension" may be helpful. It is a publicly available article from the University of Maryland Center for Advanced Study of Language.
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a550176.pdf
I hope it is useful.
Don
Please read this article.
http://www.tesl-ej.org/wordpress/issues/volume20/ej78/ej78a5/
I think there are many factors, to name some one can mention (the nature of the listening topic, the speed of the speaker and the environmental conditions that may include technical factors)
Regarding the listener, his psychological situation does affect listening of course, the length of that period when he is alert and attention, his attitude towards the language and many other factors.
Hi,
Based on my own experience, I´d include factors such as stress, rhythm, and intonation. Besides these features I´d mention colloquial language, reduced forms and rate delivery., not to mention idioms and slang.
You'll find a lot of interesting insights in 'Teaching and Learning Second Language Listening' by Vandergrift and Goh. They tried to summarise all the latest research projects in this field. Also, Imhof and Janusik in their research (2006) proposed a detailed scheme of factors influencing oral comprehension, which include: Personal Factors spit into Cognitive: linguistic knowledge, pragmatic knowledge, prior knowledge, metacognitive knowledge, working memory capacity etc and Affective: Anxiety, self-efficacy, motivation.
My personal work was focused on the use of contextual clues, non-verbal communication and socio-cultural awareness which can considerably facilitate listening comprehension (or have the opposite effect).
Level of difficulty of the language, Pronunciation and Methodology used to teach listening comprehension will affect listening comprehension
I think there is a difference between listening comprehension when one is involved in an interaction and when one is not. My Spanish is good (Level 4 on ILR). However, I find myself sometimes unable to listen in or eavesdrop with near 100% comprehension when people are talking in bar, bus or whatever. Yet if I myself were part of that conversation with those same people I know I would have near 100% comprehension. I have a few ideas about what is going on, but will wait to see if anyone shares my experience.
David -- Although the topic is listening comprehension, non-verbal communication is a significant part of inter-personal communication.
My expectation is that when "eavesdropping" you do not have access to the non-verbal messages that enhance the spoken communication.
Factors are many, but according to my little experience, I think the most influential one is that psychological one. When L2ers tend to catch the sounds and comprehend the meaning at the same time. Due to the strangeness of the segments, they doubtlessly catch neither sounds nor understand meanings. Hence, it will be better if we clearly state the certain goals of the listening lessons. Whether to be for meaning or getting familiar with such sounds.
A comparative analysis and raising awareness of the differences between the native language and the target language might be a good solution in some cases. In my context I always tell my learners that Mexicans only produce 19 sounds. And with that limited numbers of identifiable sounds we tend to generalize the idea that English has only those 19 sounds. That is a common misconception. English learners have to comprehend, understand and learn the different sounds that the target language has. Then, get used to identifying them.
Cross-translation is the main barrier to listening skills since during normal speech there is no time for translation. Unfortunately, traditional methods do not provide a tool for automatically turning off this habit of thinking in native language when learning or listening to a foreign language.
Most adults, when learning a foreign language, subconsciously revert to cross-translation to and from their mother tongue. Cross-translation is the main barrier most teachers ignore. When you cross-translate, you think in your native language while trying to speak in a foreign language. Even if the teaching is in the target language exclusively and formally, with no translation drills in class sessions, most adults (about 95%) still revert to subconscious cross-translation.
Visit my website to learn how you may eliminate cross-translation and start thinking in English from the first lesson.
Active Learning of English skills is described on my website www.lbtechnology.net
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