5630-Article Text-7550-1-10-20181129

IJELLH Volume 6, Issue 11, November 2018 1677
Payal Dixit
Research Scholar, Dept. of English,
Andhra University, Visakhapatnam
Prof.T.Narayana
Research Scholar, Dept. of English,
Andhra University, Visakhapatnam
Email: payaldixit8888@gmail.com
“Importance of listening skillsin languageacquisition”
Abstract: Listening plays an essential role in language acquisition. It is the stepping stone for
further language skills such as speaking, reading and writing. The better the learner acquires the
listening skill the better will be the results delivered in successful language skills, i.e. speaking,
reading and writing. But, this particular skill is neglected in the classroom curriculum wise
because of giving more importance to grammar and vocabulary, as these two skills are tested in
written examination.
As listening skill plays a vital role in furthering language acquisition, teacher should stress the
importance and encourage the learner to acquire this skill by providing appropriate practice
Key Words:
Listening skills, myth, speech rate, authentic speech, spoken grammar, written grammar
Introduction:
Language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) are generally recognized as keys to
„knowing‟ a language. According to researchers “listening is the least understood, the least
researched and historically the least valued”. According to Nunan,D. (1989) listening is “the
Cinderella skill”, overshadowed by its big sister„speaking‟ .
It has been estimated that adults spend about half their communication time listening; and
students receive as much as 90% of their information at school listening to the teachers and to
one another. However, language learners do not recognize the level of effort that goes into
developing listening ability.
While learning the first language „listening‟ is the first skill that the child acquires. He listens,
repeats and then reads and writes. So, listening forms the basic step in first language acquisition.
But, this process is not the same when it applies to second language learning. While learning
second language the graphic skills (reading and writing) often precede the aural listening/oral
skills (presuming that students are learning in an environment where aural input is not readily
available). This often results in the listening skill being under-developed and this undermines the
student‟s confidence with respect to his competence in the target language.
There are numerous myths regarding „listening‟Wilson(2008),Richards et.al(2009).
1. Listening is a passive skill:
Listening is generally considered as a passive skill but it is not totally passive: it demands
the active participation of the listener, who is expected to be attentive and alert, and often
makes him guess what the speaker is communicating. So, listening becomes the stepping
stone for action.
Apart from passively receiving and recording the message (aural output) the listener
actively involves himself in decoding and interpreting what he hears, bringing his own
background and linguistic knowledge into play. This makes him knowledgeable and a
creative thinker.
2. Listening is a one-way process:
Listening can be a „one way process‟ where the main purpose is simply to listen for
meaning. It can be a „two (or more) way process‟ where the listener or listeners
contribute to the flow of the talk. Listening involves different kinds of roles, and listeners
may be in a communicative relationship with the speaker where the listener plays an
important part in helping to construct the ongoing speech.
3. Learners need to listen a lot:
It is true that listening plays a major role in language learning, especially in the early
stages, where learners are acquiring the sounds and meanings of the language. Recent
approaches encourage activities where learners become active participants and can decide
when to repeat listening, clarify, repeat, or amend what is being said.
4. Listening and speaking are separate skills:

They may be seen as separate components of the four “macro skills”:- listening,
speaking, reading and writing. Current teaching approaches aim to integrate these skills
to better understanding of what occurs in natural communication outside the classroom.
5. Listening practices should be on native-speaker models:
The view of many teachers and learners in aiming for a „native-speaker model‟ is both
unrealistic and irrelevant in today‟s world as English is now spoken by more non-natives
than native-speakers around the world. Learners do not need native-speaker-like
proficiency to understand and communicate in English as they do listen to a variety of
accents which are commonly accepted and hence is more helpful in language learning.
6. Learners should be able to understand everything in the text:
It is unrealistic to expect listeners to reproduce the entire text they listen to. Even native
speakers, in natural listening context, only understand or pay attention to a small
proportion of the talk and usually forget or misinterpret a large part of what they hear.
Recent approaches aim toprovide preparation for listening, to focus on certain skills or
content, and to select activities that are motivating and interesting to learners.
“In the past, foreign languages were learnt mainly by reading and translating rather than
listening. In the second half of the Twentieth century, serious research into how people learn
both first and second languages, as well as developments in Linguistics, Sociology and
Anthropology led to an understanding that listening is probably the key initial skill for Language
learners. After all, we cannot talk without listening first.”

Listening now plays a prominent role in second language learning. An early view of listening
saw it as mastery of discrete skills like:
 Discriminating sounds in words, especially phonemic contrasts;
 Deducing the meaning of unfamiliar words;
 Predicting content;
 Noting contradictions, inadequate information, ambiguities; and
 Differentiating between fact and opinion.
Current views of listening emphasize the role of the listener, who is seen as an active participant
in the process, employing strategies to facilitate, monitor and evaluate his or her listening. In
recent years, listening is considered not only for comprehension but for language learning also.
Listening plays a crucial role in language development. Listening has assumed greater
importance especially in second and foreign language classrooms.
(Jack C. Richards et.al.1987): “listening is a complex process and involves simultaneous
attention to several difficult aspects of discourse. The listener makes use of information from the
situation (the context, the participants, the activity, from the impact (words, sentences,
intonation) from the speaker (hand gestures, eye movement, facial expression) in arriving at an
understanding of the message.”
According to Richards(1987)the following sub skills contribute to listening.
1. Processing speech spoken at a normal speech rate.
2. Retaining chunks of language in short-term memory.
3. Discriminating the sounds of English.
4. Recognizing patterns of stress, rhythm and intonation and how they signal meaning.
5. Recognizing reduced forms in spoken language.
6. Recognizing core vocabulary.
7. Recognizing core grammatical patterns.
8. Recognizing the communicative function of utterances.
9. Processing different speech styles.
10. Inferring meanings based on context, topic, and prior knowledge.
11. Choosing an appropriate strategy when choosing a text.
When the listener is engaged in a casual conversation with his friend he makes use of different
sources of information, engages in a number of different processes, and uses various skills
simultaneously. But this is not the same for his/her in second language context because the
following skills are involved in understanding an authentic discourse:-
I. Speech spoken at a normal speech rate:
 Second language learners need to be trained to be able to process different rates of
speech. They face difficulty when listening to fluent nature of speech, as they find the
speaker is too fast.
 The listener is unable to pick out individual words or to recognize features that might
guide him or her to the core meaning in the discourse.
 All interactions involve different rates of speech. Example: Speaker uses different speech
rate in a conversation with his/her teacher. But his speech rate differs when he is engaged
in a discussion with the teachers, because of the importance of exchange of information.

Listener‟s participation depends upon the demands of listening text types. For instance in
the classroom interaction with teacher involves his/her active participation by
concentrating on listening and interpreting the meanings.
Field, (2008) lists some different types of listening, their purposes, and the roles of a listener.
Types of Purpose Listeners' Role
Listening
Casual To exchange social and personal Listen and respond
Conversation information
Telephone To exchange information Listen and respond
Conversation To take a message Listen for specific details
To obtain goods and services Listen and give specific
details
Lectures To expand Knowledge Listen for important
themes or concepts
To learn about various topics Listen for main points
Listen and take notes
Class lessons To expand Knowledge Listen for instructions
To learn about various topics Listen for key content
and main points
To interact with others Listen and respond.

Movies,drama, To be entertained and to gain pleasure Listen to follow plot
songs Listen to get the gist
Listen to learn the words
of a song
Announcements To gain information Listen for specific items
To act on Information Listen to do something
Instructions To carry out a task Listen for steps in a task
Listen to do something
Important steps in teaching listening skills: It is important to plan activities that allow learners to
increase their ability to process speech over time.According to second language learners, native
speakers of a language speak too fast. Though it may be true, speech rate varies from person to
person.According to Tauroz and Allison (1990) speech rate in words per minute:
Lectures 140 WPM
Radio Monologues 160 WPM
Interviews 190 WPM
Conversations 210 WPM
According to research the average speech rate is about 170 WPM. Conversation reflects fast
speech rate. The speech rate is slower in lectures (instruction language) and interviews etc.The
rate is much slower in classroom language and commercial listening material than that occurs in
normal conversation.
According to Griffith (1992) low intermediate learners had difficulty following text spoken at
200 WPM, but not much difficulty in understanding texts spoken at 100 WPM and 150 WPM.
According to him (Griffith-1992) lower intermediate learners benefit from a slower rate of
classroom speech.
According to Bejaret. al. (2000) rate of speech is one of the linguistic dimensions of listening
difficulties along with accent, infrequent vocabulary, syntactic complexity and discourse
complexity.
Considering the rate of speech, while helping learnersto follow faster rate of speech, the teacher
also should consider that:
1. Learners are familiar with the accents and intonation patterns of the speakers;
2. They are already familiar with grammatical structures and vocabulary;
3. The intonation contained in the discourse is clearly and logically ordered so that
learners can follow it easily.
Though second language learners can benefit from slower speech rate, it is advisable for learners
to have a chance to listen to speech spoken at faster rates so that they can be prepared for a time
context outside the classroom.Usingmedia (TV, Radio, movies etc.) play a vital role in
introducing the listeners to a faster rate of speech.
Content words :Content words (words carrying meaning such as nouns, verbs, adjectives) are
pronounced longer, louder, and often higher in pitch and are stressed. Learners will find listening
for main ideas a lot easier. Listening for stressed content words helps second language learners to
be able to process different rates of speech.

II. To be able to process authentic speech:
Second language learners may be able to process classroom listening but they may find it
difficult to understand authentic spoken English outside the classroom due to lack of exposure to
idioms, difficult vocabulary, casual language, unfamiliar structure and syntax.
Though commercial material used for classroom listening often does not reflect the
characteristics of authentic speech because they are generally scripted dialogues. Though the
material is useful at beginner‟s level, it is not normally useful and understood beyond the
classroom as it is actually spoken language.
Burns and De Silva Joyce, (1997); Carter and McCarthy, (1997):
The spoken discourse is often unplanned. The process of construction contains hesitations,
reduced grammatical forms, filters and repeats.
Spoken discourse has also been described as having linear structure (Thornbury, 2005) as
compared to a hierarchical structure for written discourse in the sentence, but spoken language is
usually organized in clauses, one clause at a time – longer utterances in conversation generally
consists of several clauses that are linked by conjunctions such as and, so, and but.
In the following example, notice how the speaker links the clauses together as he speaks:
“So I went in there, it was full of people, and I tried on the shoes that I liked, so I decided to buy
them. So I bought them. I went home after that, but it was almost the end of the day, the
shopping day, so it wasn‟t left a long time for the shops to close, so when I went home and
decided to try on the shoes again, I saw that in the bag there were two left shoes. So I had, well,
it was quite an expensive pair of shoes, so I tried to go back to the shop and exchange them, so,
although I knew that they will exchange them, I was a bit worried. But I was late, and the shop
was closed already, and I had to go, next day on Sunday to get the proper pair of
shoes.”(Thornbury, 2005, p.35; emphasis added)
Spoken text mostly depends on the context and personal knowledge and it is usually assumed
that the speaker stores some background knowledge. Spoken interactions may involve two or
more speakers, with many different accents: standard, non-standard, regional, non-native etc. In
conversations, speakers usually take turns by being listeners. According to McCarthy (1991)
Listeners in a spoken interaction need to develop the ability to recognize the spoken forms of
words, follow speech containing hesitation and loosely organized syntax and follow different
varieties of English spoken by non-native speakers.
Teachers can develop the listening skills by using scripted and authentic listening texts. The
scripted texts found in many commercial materials will often be specially prepared to follow
specific listening skills, but authentic listening materials can also be used as long as they are
carefully chosen and used according to the learning level of the listener.Teachers can use text
book activities that include features of authentic discourse rather than just scripted dialogues.
(a) Comparing spoken and written texts:-
Difference between spoken grammar and written grammar:
The nature of speaking process means that the grammar of spoken language differs in a number
of significant ways from the grammar of written language.
 Features of spoken grammar; “ellipsis, heads, tails, repetitions

 The demands of producing speech in real time with minimal planning opportunities place
considerable constraints on the kind of complexity speakers can achieve.
 Spoken grammar follows less rules
 Direct speech is preferred to reported speech
 Vague expressions are used to reduce the assertiveness of statements and to fill pauses.
 Spoken language tolerates ellipsis.
 Distribution of particular items: Personal pronouns and determiners “(such as I , you, my
our …)” are more frequent in spoken language than in written language.
 The distribution and frequency of verb forms in spoken language:
Features of spoken grammar and written grammar:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Written grammar Spoken grammar
Sentence is the basic unit Clause is the basic unit of constructionof construction
Clauses are often embedded Clauses are usually added (coordination)(subordination)
Subject + verb + object Head + body + tail constructionconstruction
Reported speech favoured Direct speech favoured
Precision favoured Vagueness tolerated
Little ellipsis A lot of ellipsis
No question tags Many question tags

No performance effects Performance effects, including:
. hesitations
. repeats
. false starts
. incompletion
. syntactic blends
Teachers can give an example of spoken text and ask learners to compare it with written
text, by explaining some of the features of spoken English text, and then have the
students listen to a segment of spoken text and asking them to find examples of some of
the features discussed.
(b) Even texts from radio, TV etc. can be taken and used, according to the interest of the
learners, which are unscripted and contain features of natural speech, and allowing them
to find some of the features of spoken text.
GENRE GENERAL BENEFITS LINGUISTIC FEATURES AND THE
BENEFITS OF THESE
Television
or radio topical, interesting, sometimes stories run vocabulary-rich, lexical sets based
news and over a period of time and in different on
weather modes(eg. Newspaper), evenly paced topic, formal discourse – good for
reports delivery, clear cut off points for pausing, highlevels
headlines given first – good for prediction
Film clips entertaining, dynamic, dramatic, cultural various, depending on the film genre
content, story line  inbuilt task (guess and
the clipwhat happens next), easy to
extend(show another clip)
Film entertaining, dynamic, dramatic, story line short turns - good for low levels
trailers Inbuilt task (guess what happens),
Preview is „taster‟ for students to watch
whole film
Television entertaining, cultural content, springboard use few words – good for low levels,
advertisem for critical thinking (loaded language, bias, use persuasive language  spring-
ents etc.) – good for high levels, variety good for board for critical thinking  good
comparisons between ads – some have for high levels
humour, ambiguity and short story lines
Television in-depth look at real issues, interesting, planned and unplanned (narrative
document- lexical sets based on topic, mix of and „live‟) discourse – good for
aries impact (stunning visuals?), cultural content, awareness-raising of formal

lend themselves to personalization(give versusInformal features
your opinion)
Episodes entertaining (humour), known characters(?), different tones of voice – irony,
in a cultural content – recognizable settings sarcasm, remorse – good for
comedy usually (hotel, office, home) teaching intonation patterns,
series puns/word Play – good for high
levels
Animation entertaining (especially for children), usually contains long dialogue-free
Imaginative, story line good for prediction, pauses (The Simpsons excepted) -
Unambiguous characters and relationships good for low levels/children,
oftensimple language
Television entertaining (celebrities), few (or no) visual structured turns (question
or radio distractions, model for student task (peer extended
talk interviews) answer), dynamic and unscripted,
shows/ good source of discourse markers,
interviews eg. turn-taking, topic-shifting
Television entertaining, built-in interactive short turns (question  answer
or radio participation(answering questions), clear structure)
cut-off points
game for pausing, cultural content, model for
shows/ student task (quiz)
quiz
shows
(c) Teacher can record and collect own listening texts:-
Recording short unscripted segments for classroom use such as discussions, interviews,
anecdotes and narratives and these can be used for developing listening skills. Listener should be
exposed to real time listening such as new items, radio broadcast, popular songs, stories and quiz
etc.
AUTHENTIC VERSUS SCRIPTED
AUTHENTIC SCRIPTED
1. Overlaps and interruptions Little overlap between speakers
between speakers
2. Normal rate of speech delivery Slower (may be monotonous) delivery
3. Relatively unstructured language Structured language, more like written English
4. Incomplete sentences, with false Complete sentences
starts, hesitation, etc.
5. Background noise and voices No background noise
6. Natural stops and starts that Artificial stops and starts that reflect an idealized
reflect the speaker’s train of version of communication (in which misunderstand-
thought and the listener’s ings, false starts, etc. never occur)
ongoing response
7. Loosely packed information, Densely packed information
Padded out with fillers
(d)In second language classroom teacher can discuss with students how their first language
differs from English using fillers:-
Listening is an “interactive” activity: When speaker narrates or describes an incident he
expects some response from the listener as listener makes use of fillers such as sounds
like „uh, huh, mmm …‟ etc. asking questions, may express their reaction as the listener.
Response is essential in telephone conversation.

III. To be able to recognize the sound patterns of spoken english:-
This is one of the problems second language learners face, due to lack of listening skills
as they areunable to produce and process spoken language sounds and patterns. Speech
involves streams of connected sounds. Listeners must be able to recognize individual
sounds, combination of sounds and patterns of stress and rhythm in order to process and
understand the spoken text that is being exchanged. They must also be able to deal with
the fact that the speech is composed in real time and so includes shifts of topic,
hesitations, pauses, and repetitions. Listening skills play a vital role in order to meet these
challenges. Teachers are expected to providelisteners with plenty of practice in
recognizing sounds and sound patterns that occur in natural and sometimes rapidly
spoken speech.
(Graddol, 1997; Kachura and Nelson, 2001): As English is now world‟s second language, the
ability to understand speakers from a wide variety of second language backgrounds is an
important aspect of second language listening.
As English has become an International language, it is essential for second language learners to
equip themselves with good listening skills to be in a position to understand and process
meaning, exchange information, to follow the native / non-native speakers‟ accents.According to
Crystal (1997), Graddol (1997) non-native speakers are more in number than the native speakers.
This type of situation demands second language learners‟listening skills because he/she is not
only acquiring native speaker‟s English but different accents of second language learners.
Kachuraand Nelson (2001) suggest three features for effective communication irrespective of the
speaker‟s nativity.
i) Listener must find the speech intelligible in terms of recognizing the
sound patterns of English.
ii) Listener must find the speaker comprehensible in terms of decoding the
sounds into meanings.
iii) Listener must be able to interpret the speech i.e. infer the purpose of what
is being said from the meanings.
Speech needs to be intelligible to the listener for effective communication and to understand
what is being said, with intonation and stress.
It is only through careful study and practice that second language learner can learn correct
intonation in English speech. Listening skills play vital role in recognizing intonation pattern of
spoken language.
Though the speaker lacks in vocabulary and grammar the listener may be able to understand if
the speaker has the effective pronunciation as the listener depends on the sound clues.Field,
(2008): Listeners must “match” what they hear by weighing different pieces of information at
different levels, from single sound to word syllables to clues from the surrounding text; and they
must also learn over time to retain in memory the way the speakers with different accents vary in
their pronunciation.
Particular features of spoken English that prove difficult for students will depend on their mother
tongue, and students with some language backgrounds may take more time to recognize how the
sounds and sound patterns of English affect meaning.

Raising awareness of primary stress in words helps second language learners to recognize the
sound patterns of spoken English. Stress is the force with which we utter a sound or a syllable. It
is the process of giving prominence to a syllable in a word or a word in a sentence. The stress
pattern in English may be very different from the student‟s first language. Raising awareness of
how stress patterns work within English words can be extremely helpful in assisting learners to
produce intelligible speech.Stress patterns can be demonstrated by clapping or tapping a desk
loudly and softly while saying a word. This technique allows the listener to concentrate on the
stress patterns.
Eliciting from students the days of a week, or the months of a year and names of the seasons and
testing students‟ stress pattern of same word etc. will help second language learners‟ listening
skill for stress pattern of the words in spoken English.
IV. Recognizing key words in spoken discourse:-
This skill helps the listener to focus on important information instead of each and every word. It
plays a vital role in improving the listening skill of the second language learner. If the listener
happensto missany word in the spoken discourse the key words guide him towards the topic and
meaning.
Teacher must ensure that the learners are able to access the message and key words and other
expressions that occur.
Key words: (content words – verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs.) key words play an important
role in understanding what is being said. If the listener makes a mistake in differentiating
between words like „effective – affective, week – weak‟ it gets difficult for him/her in
understanding what is being said.

Jack C. Richards (et.al. 1987, P-29): “Listener builds up meaning from the words that are
recognized. For second language learner word recognition helps him/her to process the meaning:
i.e. Bank, Checque book, Cashier etc. larger units of meaning are constructed by identifying the
relationship among the key words that the listener identifies. These relationships help the learner
to identify the doer and the receiver, the affected or the action when an action occurs etc.”
(Rost, 1994; Flowerdew& Miller, 2005; Morley, 2001):
Recognizing key words helps the learner in the listening process. According to listeners all the
words acquire same prominence in the listening text. It is the teacher who can guide the student
towards recognizing key words by different approach such as top-down approach, in which
students practice distinguishing between meaning bearing words and those words that serve link
and bind meanings together.
Teacher can help the students in acquiring listening skills such as listening for key words in
spoken discourse with different teaching materials such as playing the recordings and asking
them to underline the stressed words. While guiding the students‟ attention towards the key
words teacher must pronounce these words with stronger stress and higher pitch. Second
language learners find words‟ stress in English is difficult from that of first language. So, teacher
can do more pre–listening work helping them to recognize word stress.
V. In making inferences:-
Even though the listener understands what is said from the text he/she can even understand what
is not said by using their background knowledge, the situation, and activity. Students should be
given practice in making inferences because it plays an important role in understanding and
assessing the meaning of what is said. Teacher can raise the awareness of the learner that
inferring involves using a number of different strategies.
According to research effective listening comprises of ability to comprehend, elaborate and infer.
An effective listener uses bothbottom-up and top-down approaches. Inference is an essential part
of effective listening as it involves in making connections between what is said, the situation in
which it is said, common sense, reasoning and expectations of normal behavior in everyday
situations.Example: „Best of luck‟; „Good luck‟. These two examples can be inferred as wishing
someone „Good‟. Inferring involves filling gaps of some missing details, assumptions about
causes, effects, participants, procedures, reasons etc.
According to Miller (2005) learners need different types of inferring strategies: involving
guessing based on the situation and the activity the speaker is engaged in, and the linguistic clues
such as intonation, stress and non-linguistic clues such as gesture, facial expressions and body
language.
While practicing inference of a context, learners should know how to, make use of information
which is not contained in the text and make up with their traits such as background information,
worldly knowledge, intelligent guessing, clues provided by the topic and by the key words in the
text. Learners must know the information they are looking to complete the listening
activitywhich will not be found in the text always.
Teacher should give sufficient practice in making inferences, such as listening for inferences,
encouraging students to attend guest lectures, seminars, and talk shows etc. and discussing
withthem about those they had attended. For example: their reaction and views should be sought
about how the lectures and the talk shows were and how was the speaker‟s voice.
How the Develop learners listening skill:
In order to develop learner‟s listening skills the teacher should encourage the learner in voluntary
informal talk in the classroom as it contains information like:
 Natural information,
 Unplanned talk,
 Variation in speed of delivery, often fast,
 Possibility of self-correction,
 Natural features of connected speech; eg. Elision,
 Variety of accents,
 Grammatical structures natural to incomplete utterances,
 Usage of colloquial language,
 Speakers either interrupting or speaking at the same time,
 In spite of background noise, it encourages speaker‟s spontaneity,
 Provides practice in restructuring in longer, more complex sentences,
 Learners‟ usage of ellipses (i.e. omission of a word or part of a sentence in speech or
writing is understood with the help of contextual clues.
By designing audio or video material with the help of his / her colleagues, the learner can be
guided for better language acquisition, as the recorded material also plays a very useful role in
learners‟ listening skills. They can guide the learner in terms of pronunciation and diction. It is
especially useful for second language learners. The benefits of recorded material may be
summarized as below:
 They provide carefully articulated pronunciation for the learners to correct
themselves.
 It contains received-pronunciation.
 It contains formal language.
 It contains complete utterances.
 Provides best practice to the learners as it contains regularly repeated structures.
 As the speakers take careful and regular turns it provides good practice to the
learners in terms of following the topic, diction and pronunciation.
 As there is no background noise present the learner can easily follow the
pronunciation and articulation of the speakers.
 It provides good practice to the learner in following and framing grammatically
correct sentences.
 It provides sufficient practice to the learners how to use correct intonation patterns,
how to understand the meaning for the intonation of the speaker.
 It is especially beneficial for second language learners as it is a recorded material
containing slow pace with little variations by the speaker for the benefit of the
learner.
 As it contains complete sentences it is easy for the learner to follow the speakers and
access the meaning without difficulty.
The teacher can develop learners‟ listening skills by designing appropriate learning material,
tasks, activities which consist of items that familiarize the student with natural language,
colloquial speech, variety of pace and accent, spoken discourse, discourse markers etc. With the
help of material so designed, the teacher can raise the learners‟ awareness about how to practice
listening for inference such as using background knowledge, the situation, the activity that goes
on from the speaker‟s tone of voice, body language etc.
Conclusion:
Listening skills play a vital role in language acquisition of the learner. In order to develop
learner‟s listening skills the teacher should:
 Plan listening activities which allow the learner to process natural rate of speech.
 Design an activity that provides an opportunity to listen to authentic speech.
 While planning listening activities teacher should consider whether these activities
involve varieties of speaker such as variety of spoken accents in terms of spoken text
or speaker‟s roles.
 Teacher should consider whether the activity provides the learner to practice:
1. To recognize sound patterns of spoken English,
2. Recognizing the key sound contents in English,
3. Using stress and intonation in processing meaning.
Example: ‟She sells oranges. (who sells?)
She ‟sells oranges. (what she does?)
She sells ‟oranges. (what she sells?)

 Consider whether the activity provides the learner to practice word recognition such
as:
Recognizing key words,
ability to recognize known vocabulary (i.e. known words).
 Consider whether the material provides the learner to practice a variety of listening
skills, as the activity is designed to develop following simple to complex skills.
 Consider whether the activity makes the learner to practice the skill of prediction and
inference.
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IJELLH Volume 6, Issue 11, November 2018 1677

Research Scholar, Dept. of English,

Andhra University, Visakhapatnam

Research Scholar, Dept. of English,

Andhra University, Visakhapatnam

“Importance of listening skillsin languageacquisition”

Cinderella skill”, overshadowed by its big sister„speaking‟ .

developing listening ability.

student‟s confidence with respect to his competence in the target language.

There are numerous myths regarding „listening‟Wilson(2008),Richards et.al(2009).

1. Listening is a passive skill:

stone for action.

2. Listening is a one-way process:

important part in helping to construct the ongoing speech.

3. Learners need to listen a lot:

when to repeat listening, clarify, repeat, or amend what is being said.

4. Listening and speaking are separate skills:

to better understanding of what occurs in natural communication outside the classroom.

5. Listening practices should be on native-speaker models:

than native-speakers around the world. Learners do not need native-speaker-like

proficiency to understand and communicate in English as they do listen to a variety of

6. Learners should be able to understand everything in the text:

speakers, in natural listening context, only understand or pay attention to a small

learners. After all, we cannot talk without listening first.”

saw it as mastery of discrete skills like:

 Discriminating sounds in words, especially phonemic contrasts;

 Deducing the meaning of unfamiliar words;

 Noting contradictions, inadequate information, ambiguities; and

 Differentiating between fact and opinion.

importance especially in second and foreign language classrooms.

(Jack C. Richards et.al.1987): “listening is a complex process and involves simultaneous

understanding of the message.”

According to Richards(1987)the following sub skills contribute to listening.

1. Processing speech spoken at a normal speech rate.

2. Retaining chunks of language in short-term memory.

3. Discriminating the sounds of English.

5. Recognizing reduced forms in spoken language.

6. Recognizing core vocabulary.

7. Recognizing core grammatical patterns.

8. Recognizing the communicative function of utterances.

9. Processing different speech styles.

10. Inferring meanings based on context, topic, and prior knowledge.

11. Choosing an appropriate strategy when choosing a text.

following skills are involved in understanding an authentic discourse:-

I. Speech spoken at a normal speech rate:

 Second language learners need to be trained to be able to process different rates of

speaker is too fast.

guide him or her to the core meaning in the discourse.

in a discussion with the teachers, because of the importance of exchange of information.

the classroom interaction with teacher involves his/her active participation by

concentrating on listening and interpreting the meanings.

Types of Purpose Listeners' Role

Casual To exchange social and personal Listen and respond

Telephone To exchange information Listen and respond

Conversation To take a message Listen for specific details

To obtain goods and services Listen and give specific

Lectures To expand Knowledge Listen for important

To learn about various topics Listen for main points

Listen and take notes

Class lessons To expand Knowledge Listen for instructions

To learn about various topics Listen for key content

and main points

To interact with others Listen and respond.