IMPROVING LISTENING COMPREHENSION FOR BETTER ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING

By : Syahrul

Philosophically, Why does the God Give Us Two Ears and one tongue ?

“The God gives us two ears and only one

tongue in order that we may hear more and

speak less.” (Diogenes Laertius)

“we can expect to listen twice as much as

we speak, four times more than we read,

and five times more than we write."

(Morley, 1991: 82)

Listening is the first language skills that

human get and master after coming to the

world ( George Martin, 2004)

What is listening ?

4. creating meaning through involvement, imagination and empathy (transformative orientation).

M. Rost (2002: 43) defines as the process of:

1. receiving what the speaker actually says (receptive orientation);

2. constructing and representing meaning (constructive orientation);

3. negotiating meaning with the speaker and responding (collaborative orientation);

Howatt and Dakin (1995) describes Listening comprehension as:

“how well one understands what is being conveyed orally. It involves the understanding of a speaker’s accent and pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary and meaning “

Intentional Incidental

Listening Hearing

Conscious Unconscious

Used interchangably

The Objective of Listening

• To enjoy

• To communicate

• To learn

• To obtain information

• To understand

interferes with listening comprehension

• Unfamiliar vocabulary

• Grammar

• Text too long

• Several people talking

• Unfamiliar Context

• Topic not interesting

• Theme not clear

• Accent

• Speed

• Idiomatic speech

• A lack of background information

How you improve your listening skill

• Do you clean your ear with cotton bud?

• Do you rely on your two ears and take position as close as the source of the sound?

• Do you often try to understand every word in listening activity?

Good Ear Strategy Practice

Good earStrategyPractice

1. Types of Listening

• Listening for gist: you listen in order to understand the main idea of the text.

• Listening for specific information: you want to find out specific details, for example key words.

• Listening for detailed understanding: you want to understand all the information the text provides

2. Strategies in Listening Comprehension

Top-down Strategies

Bottom-up Strategies

Bottom-up Strategies

Top-Down Strategy

3. Practice

There are 3 steps

• Pre Listening

• While Listening

• Post Listening

1. Sample pre-listening activities:

♠ Looking at pictures, maps, diagrams, or graphs

♠ Reviewing vocabulary or grammatical structures

♠ Reading something relevant

♠ Predicting the content of the listening text

♠ Going over the directions or instructions for the activity

♠ Doing guided practice

2. Sample while-listening activities

♠ Listening with visuals

♠ Filling in graphs and charts

♠ Following a route on a map

♠ Checking off items in a list

♠ Searching for specific clues to meaning

♠ Completing cloze (fill-in) exercises

♠ Note taking

3. Sample post-listening activities

♠ Problem-solving and decision-making:

♠ Interpreting

♠ Role-play

♠ Form/ chart completion

♠ Extending lists

♠ Sequencing/ grading

♠ Matching with a reading text

Some Ideas

• Listening should receive attention in the early stage

of instruction

• Maximize the use of authentic language.

• Vary the materials

Some sites for Listening Materials

• www.manythings.org www.BBC.com

• www.ebookee.com www.voa.com

• www.Ebook3000.com www.eslfast.com

• www.soehaarrr.com. www.talkenglish.com

• http://www.dailyesl.com and so on