Ch.1 Challenges and Opportunities in Listening Instruction

Presentation: Chaewon Lim

Listening Comprehension

It is generally recognized that both bottom-up and top-down strategies are necessary.

The bottom-up processing

a process of decoding the sounds that one hears in a linear fashion

The top-down processing

a reconstruction process; the listener actively constructs the original meaning of the speaker using incoming sounds as clues

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Challenges and DilemmasIn L2 listening Instruction

Introduction: Dilemma I Listening skill = Cinderella skill?

Speaking/ Writing

Listening

Introduction: Dilemma II

We still tend to test

listening rather than

teach it!!

The key to solving the problem Metacognition: the act of thinking about

thinking; the ability of learners’ controlling their thoughts and regulating their own learning

Learners are seldom taught how to listen, how to manage the listening input.Pre-listening

- More than Background knowledge!- Learners are just “primed” to listen to a specific piece of text

While-listening

- No guidance on strategic listening

Listening instruction: overview Text-oriented instruction (Dilemma I & II)

Recognizing and understanding different components of a listening input

Communication-oriented instruction (Dilemma I & II)

Listening in the service of something other than itself

Learner-oriented instruction (Solution)Developing learners’ awareness of the process

Text-oriented instruction

A heavy emphasis on decoding skills (1950s~1960s)

the accuracy of learners’ comprehension A “quiz show” format (Morley, 1999)

discriminating sounds

taking dictation of the written passage

comprehension questions (multiple-choice)

testing rather than teaching listening

The dominance of the written language

heavy cognitive demands made on working memory

relevant to corpus studies

Communication-oriented instruction

Complex communicative skills

Taxonomies of listening skills

Munby’s (1978) communicative syllabus design

Richards’ (1983) taxonomyAuthentic listening materialsA variety of classroom interaction/ learner response

“Sleeping partner” in CLT methodology

emphasis on the speaking component

information gap activity

Learner-oriented Instruction Research on good language learners (GLL)

Instructions on listening strategies Mendelsohn’s socio-cognitive paradigm (1998)

Developing learners’ awareness of the process (O’Malley & Chamot, 1990)

Strategy type Strategy

Metacognitive strategies

Selective attention, Self-monitoring, problem identification

Cognitive strategies Note taking, summarizing, elaboration, inferencing, transfer

Social/affective strategies

Cooperation

Strategies-based Instruction

Teacher Modeling

Think-aloud (Chamot, 1995)

Demonstration (Field, 1998) Pre-communication activities (Buck, 1995)

Strategy use in L2 listening Vandergrift and Goh (2012)

Planning Focusing

attention

Contexualization Monitoring

Evaluation Inferencing

Reorganizing Using linguistic and learning

resources

Cooperation Managing emotions

Prediction

Elaboration

Challenges in the three instructions Text-oriented instruction

Current course textbooks which requires learners’ comprehension-based techniques alone (a “quiz show” mode)

Communication-oriented instructionA focus on the product of listeningA disguised form of testing (Sheerin, 1987)

Learner-oriented instructionIntangible!A lack in a variety of structural support

Conclusion The intrinsic challenges within the three types

of listening instruction can be addressed by teaching within a metacognitive framework.

No testing any more!! Better learners? Or More effective learners?