Listening

A Extensive and intensive listening

Students can improve their listening skills- and gain valuable language input-
through a combination of extensive and intensive listening material and procedures.
Listening of both kinds is especially important since it provides the perfect
opportunity to hear voices other than the teacher's, enables students to acquire good
speaking habits as a result of the spoken English they absorb, and helps to improve
their own pronunciation.

A1 Extensive listening
Just as we can claim that extensive reading helps students to acquire vocabulary and
grammar and that, furthermore, it make students better readers (see Chapter 15, AI),
so extensive listening (where a teacher encourages students to choose for themselves
what they listen to and to do so for pleasure and general language improvement) can
also have a dramatic effect on a student's language learning.
Extensive listening will usually take place outside the classroom, in the students'
home, car, or on personal stereos as they travel from one place to another. The
motivational power of such an activity increases dramatically when students make
their own choices about what they are going to listen to.
Material for extensive listening can be found from a number of sources. A lot of
simplified readers are now published with an audio version on tape. These provide
ideal listening material. Many students will enjoy reading and listening at the same
time using both the reader and tape. Students can also have their own copies of
course book tapes, or tapes which accompany other books written especially at their
level. They can also listen to tapes of authentic material (see Chapter 14, Bl),
provided that it is comprehensible (see Chapter SB).
In order for extensive listening to work effectively with a group of students- or
with groups of students- we will need to make a collection of appropriate tapes
clearly marked for level, topic, and genre. These can be kept -like simplified readers
-in a permanent collection (such as in a self-access centre, or in some other
location), or be kept in a box or some other container which can be taken into
classrooms. We will then want to keep a record of which students have borrowed
which tapes; where possible we should involve students in the tasks of record-
keeping.
The keenest students will want to listen to English tapes outside the classroom
anyway, and will need little encouragement to do so. Many others, however, will

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profit from having the teacher give them reasons to make use of the resources
available. We need to explain the benefits oflistening extensively, and come to some
kind of agreement (see Chapter 9, Bt) about how much and what kind of listening
they should do. We can recommend certain tapes, and get other students to talk
about the ones which they have enjoyed the most.
In order to encourage extensive listening we can have students perform a
number of tasks. They can record their responses to what they have heard in a
personal journal (see Chapter 24, At), or fill in report forms which we have
prepared asking them to list the topic, assess the level of difficulty, and summarise
the contents of a tape. We can have them write comments on cards which are
kept in a separate 'comments' box, add their responses to a large class 'listening'
poster, or write comments on a student web site. The purpose of these or any
other tasks is to give students more and more reasons to listen. If they can then
share their information with colleagues they will feel they have contributed to the
progress of the whole group. The motivational power of such feelings should not
be underestimated.

A2 Intensive listening: using taped material

Many teachers use taped materials, and increasingly material on disk, when they
want their students to practise listening skills. This has a number of advantages and
disadvantages:
• Advantages: taped material allows students to hear a variety of different voices
apart from just their own teacher's. It gives them an opportunity to 'meet' a
range of different characters, especially where real people are talking. But even
when tapes contain written dialogues or extracts from plays, they offer a wide
variety of situations and voices.

,
Taped material is extremely portable and readily available. Tapes are
extremely cheap, and machines to play them are relatively inexpensive.
For all these reasons most coursebooks include tapes, and many teachers
rely on tapes to provide a significant source of language input.
• Disadvantages: in big classrooms with poor acoustics, the audibility of taped
and disk material often gives cause for concern. It is often difficult to ensure
that all students in a room can hear equally well.
Another problem with classroom tapes is that everyone has to listen at the
same speed, a speed dictated by the tape, not by the listeners. Although this
replicates the situation of radio, it is less satisfactory when students have to take
information from the tape. This is because they cannot, themselves, interact
with the taped speakers in any way. Nor can they see the speaking taking place.
Finally, having a group of people sit around listening to a tape recorder or
disk player is not an entirely natural occupation.
Despite the disadvantages, however, we still want to use taped material at various
stages in a sequence of lessons for the advantages mentioned above. In order to
counteract some of the potential problems described above, we need to check tape

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and machine quality before we take them into class. Where possible we need to
change the position of the playback machine or the students to offset poor acoustics
or, if this is feasible, take other measures such as using materials to deaden echoes
which interfere with good sound quality.
If it is possible we can have a number of machines for students to listen to tapes or
disks at their own speed, or we can take the group into the language laboratory (see
.Chapter lOE). In order to show students what speaking looks like we can use
videotapes (see Chapter 20 ). As an alternative to tapes we can also encourage
interaction by providing 'live' listening (see below).
An issue that also needs to be addressed is how often we are going to play the tapes
or disks we ask students to listen to. The methodologist Penny Ur points out that in
real-life discourse is rarely 'replayed' and suggests, therefore, that one of our tasks is to
encourage students to get as much information as is necessary/appropriate from a
single hearing (Ur 1996: 108).
It is certainly true that extracting general or specific information from one
listening is an important skill, so that the kind of task we give students for the first
time they hear a tape is absolutely critical in gradually training them to listen
effectively. However, we may also want to consider the fact that in face-to-face
conversation we do frequently have a chance to ask for clarification and repetition.
More importantly perhaps, as Penny Ur herself acknowledges, this 'one listening'
scenario conflicts with our wish to satisfy our students' desire to hear things over
and over again (see Chapter 6, Bt).
If students are to get the maximum benefit from a listening then we should
replay the tape two or more times, since with each listening they may feel more
secure, and with each listening (where we are helping appropriately) they will
understand more than they did previously. As the researcher John Field suggests,
students get far more benefit from a lot of listening than they do from a long pre-
listening phase followed by only one or two exposures to the listening text (Field
1998a). So even when we set prediction and gist tasks for first listenings, we can
return to the tape again for detailed comprehension, text interpretation, or
language analysis. Or we might play the tape again simply because our students
want us to. Whatever the reason, however, we do not want to bore our students by
playing them the same extract again and again, nor do we want to waste time on
useless repetition.

6.3 Intensive listening: 'live' listening

A popular way of ensuring genuine communication is live listening where the
teacher and/or visitors to the class talk to the students. This has obvious advantages
since students can interrupt speakers and ask for clarification (see Chapter 19, At).
They can, by their expressions and demeanour, indicate if the speaker is going too
slowly or too fast. Above all they can see who they are listening to.
Live listening can take the following forms:
• Reading aloud: an enjoyable activity, when done with conviction and style, is
the teacher reading aloud to a class (see Chapter 4 02 and Example 1 in Chapter

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15, Bl), This allows them to hear a dear spOken version of written text, and can
be extremely enjoyable if the teacher is prepared to make a big thing of it.
The teacher can also read/act out dialogues either by playing two parts or by
inviting a colleague into the classroom.
• Story-telling: teachers are ideally placed to tell stories which, in turn, provide
excellent listening material. At any stage of the story, th~ students can be asked
to predict what is coming next, or be asked to describe people in the story or
pass comment on it in some other way.

• Interviews: one of the most motivating listening activities is the live interview,
especially where students themselves dream up the questions (see Example 1 in
Bl below). In such situations, students really listen for answers they themselves
have asked for, rather than adopting other people's questions. Where possible
we should have strangers visit our class to be interviewed, but we can also be
the subject of interviews ourselves. In such circumstances we might want,
though, to set the subject and/or take on a different persona for the activity.
• Conversations: if we can persuade a colleague to come to our class we can
hold conversations with them- about English or any other subject. Students
then have the chance to watch the interaction as well as listen to it. We can also
extend story-telling possibilities by role-playing.
Live listening is not a substitute for audiotapes or disks- either in the classroom,
language laboratory, or self-access centre- but it does offer an extra dimension to
the listening experience over a series of lessons.

Intensive listening: the roles of the teacher

As with all activities, for listening we need to be active in creating student engagement
through the way we set up tasks. We need to build up students' confidence by helping
them listen better rather than by testing their listening abilities (see Chapter 14, BJ).
In particular we need to focus on the following roles:

• Organiser: we need to tell students exactly what their listening purpose is

(see Chapter 14, B4), and give them dear instructions about how to achieve it.
One of our chief responsibilities will be to build their confidence through
offering tasks that are achievable and texts that are comprehensible.

• Machine operator: when we use tape or disk material we need to be as

efficient as possible in the way we use the tape player. This means knowing
where the segment we wish to use is on the tape or disk, and knowing, through
the use of the playback machine counter, how to get back there. Above all it
means trying the material out before taking it into class so that we do not waste
time making things work when we get there. We should take decisions about
where we can stop the extract for particular questions and exercises, but, once
in class, we should be prepared to respond to the students' needs in the way we
stop and start the machine.

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If we involve'our students in live listening we need to observe them with

great care to see how easily they can understand us. We can then adjust the way
we use the 'machine' (in this case ourselves or a visitor) accordingly.
• Feedback organiscr: when our students have completed the task, we should
lead a feedback session to check that they have completed the task successfully.
We may start by having them compare their answers in pairs (see Chapter 8, A3)
and then ask for answers from the class in general or from pairs in particular.
Students often appreciate giving paired answers like this since, by sharing their
knowledge, they are also sharing their responsibility for the answers. Because
listening can be a tense experience, encouraging this kind of cooperation is
highly desirable.
'It is important to be supportive when organising feedback after listening
if we are to counter any negative expectations students might have (see
Chapter 14, B4) and if we wish to sustain their motivation (see Chapter 3, C}).
• Prompter: when students have listened to a tape or disk for comprehension
purposes we can have them listen to it again for them to notice a variety of
language and spoken features. Sometimes we can offer them script dictations
(where some words in a transcript are blanked out) to.provoke their awareness
of certain language items.

8 Listening lesson sequences

Listening can occur at a number of points in a teaching sequence. Sometimes it
forms the jumping-off point for the activities which follow. Sometimes it may be the
first stage of a 'listening and acting out' sequence where students role-play the
situation they have heard on the tape. Sometimes live listening may be a prelude to a
piece of writing which is the main focus of a lesson. Other lessons, however, have
listening training as their central focus.
However much we have planned a lesson, we need to be flexible in what we do
(see Chapter 22, Cl). Nowhere is this more acute than in the provision oflive
listening, where we may, on the spur of the moment, feel the need to tell a story, or
act out some role. Sometimes this will be for content reasons- because a topic
comes up- and sometimes it may be a way of refocusing our students' attention.
Most listening sequences involve a mixture of language skills- though one, in
particular, is often the main focus of the sequence. Frequently students listen for gist
on first hearing before moving on to different task skills; at other times they may
listen for specific information straight away.
In general we should aim to use listening material for as many purposes as
possible- both for practising a variety of skills and as source material for other
activities- before students finally become tired with it.

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B1 Examples of listening sequences

In the following examples the listening activity is specified. The skills which are
involved are detailed, and the way that the listening text can be used within a lesson
is explained.

"Example 1: Interviewing a stranger Activity: live listening

Skills: predicting, listening for specific
information, listening for detailed
~:rmation •
Age:
level: beginner and above •

Where possible, teachers can bring strangers into the class to talk to the students or
be interviewed by them (see A3 above). A] though students will be especially
interested in them if they are native speakers of the language, there is no reason why
they should not include any competent English speakers.
The teacher briefs the visitor about the students' language level, pointing out that
they should be sensitive about the level of language they use, but not speak to the
students in a very unnatural way. They should probably not go off into lengthy
explanations, and they may want to consider speaking especially dearly.
The teacher takes the visitor into the classroom without telling the students who
or what the visitor is. In pairs and groups they try to guess as much as they can
about the visitor. Based on their guesses about who has come into the room, they
write questions that they wish to ask.
The visitor is now interviewed with the questions the students have written. As the
interview proceeds, the teacher encourages them to seek clarification where things
are said that they do not understand (see Chapter 19, Al). The teacher will also
prompt the students to ask 'follow-up' questions, so that if a student asks Where are
you from? and the visitor says Scotland he or she is then asked Where in Scotland? or
What's Scotland like?
During the interview the students make notes, When the interviewee has gone
these notes form the basis of a written follow-up. The students can write a short
biographical piece about the person, or write the encounter up as a profile page
from a magazine, They can discuss the interview with their teacher, asking for help
with any points they are still unclear about. They can role-play similar interviews
amongst themselves.
Pre-recorded interviews in coursebooks and other materials are also extremely
useful for giving students the chance to hear different voices talking about a variety
of subjects, It is often useful to give students the interviewer's questions first so that
they can predict what the interviewee will say.

Example 2: Sorry I'm late Activity: getting events in the right

Skills: predicting, listening for gist
Age: young adult and above
Level: lower intermediate

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A popular technique for having students understand the gist of a story- but which
also incorporates prediction and the creation of expectations- involves the students
in listening so that they can put pictures in the order in which they hear them.
In this example, students look at the following four pictures:

A c

B D

They are given a chance, in pairs or groups, to say what they think is happening in
each picture. The teacher will not confirm or deny their predictions.
Students are then told that they are going to listen to a tape and that they should
put the pictures in the correct chronological order (which is not the same as the
order of what they hear). This is what is on the tape:

Anna: Good morning Stuart. What time do you call this?

Stuart: Oh dear. Yes, sorry I'm late.
Anna: Well? What happened to you?
Stuart: I woke up late, I'm afraid. I didn't hear the alarm.
Anna: Were you out late last night?
Stuart: Yes. I'm afraid I was.
Anna: So what happened?
Stuart: Well, when I saw the time I jumped out of bed, had a quick shower,
and ran out of the house. But then, when I got to the car I realised
I'd forgotten my keys.
Anna: Oh really!
Stuart: But the door to my house was shut.
Anna: What did you do?
Stuart: I ran round to the garden at the back and climbed in through the
window.
Anna: And?
Stuart: Well someone saw me and called the police.
Anna: What happened then?
Stuart: Well, I told them it was my house and at first they wouldn't believe
me. It took a long time!
Anna: I can imagine.
Stuart: And you see that's why I'm late!

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The students check their answers with each other and then, if necessary, listen again
to ensure that they have the sequence correct (B,A, D, C).
The teacher can now get students to listenflook at the tapescript again, noting
phrases of interest- such as those that Stuart uses to express regret and apology
(sorry I'm late; I woke up late, I'm afraid; I'm afraid I was), Anna's insistent
questioning (What time do you call this? Well? What happened to you? And?), and
her reactions (Oh really!; I can imagine). The class can then go on to role-play
similar scenes in which they have to come up with stories and excuses for being late
at school or work.

Example 3: Telephone messages Activity: taking messages

Skills: predicting, listening for specific
information
Age: teenager
Level: elementary

Although most textbooks have taped material to accompany their various lessons,
there is no reason why teachers should not record their own tapes with the help of
colleagues and other competent speakers of the language provided that they take
care to use a decent mkropl)one and to record the voices as naturally as possible.
This will allow them freedoin to create material which is relevant to their own
students' special needs.
This sequence shows the kind of thing that teachers might have their col1eagues
help them with- they can get them to play the parts of the occupant of the house
and the three callers.
The sequence starts when the teacher asks students the kind of short messages
people might leave for members of their family if and when they take phone calls
while they are out. The messages are often quite simple, for example:

Tim -Phone
~ - ?ad""" "''(t ik 4t
Richard
t4e ~ <:r.t Hille Cl 'dtl.d.

Naomi ... lte.le.n t:..al/e.J

Students are told that they are going to hear three phone conversations in which the
callers leave messages for people who are not in. They are told that Mrs Galloway has
three daughters, Lyn (19), Eryn (17), and Kate {13). They are all out at the cinema,
but three of their friends ring up and leave messages. All the students have to do is to
write the messages which Mrs Galloway leaves for her daughters.
This is what the students hear:
Mrs Galloway: Hello.
Adam: Hello. Is Lyn there?

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Mrs Galloway: No, she's out at the moment. Who's that?

Adam: This is Adam. Do you know when she'Ll be back?
Mrs Galloway: About ten, I think. Can I give her a message?
Adam: No ... er yes. Can you tell her Adam rang?
Mrs Galloway: Sure, Adam.
Adam: Thanks. Bye.

Mrs Galloway: Hello.

Ruth: Can I speak to Eryn?
Mrs Galloway: Is that Ruth?
Ruth: Yes. Hello Mrs Galloway. Is Eryn there?
Mrs Galloway: No, Ruth, sorry. She's at the cinema with her sisters.
Ruth: Oh. Well could you ask her to bring my copy of Romeo and
Juliet to college tomorrow?
Mrs Galloway: Your copy?
Ruth: Yes.. She borrowed it.
Mrs Galloway: So you want her to take it in tomorrow? To college?
Ruth: Yes. That's it. Thanks. Bye.
Mrs Galloway: Oh ... bye.

Mrs Galloway: Hello.

Jane Metcalfe: Can I speak to Kate?
Mrs Galloway: I'm afraid she's not here. Can I take a message?
Jane Metcalfe: Yes. please. This is Jane Metcalfe, the drama teacher.
Can you tell Kate that the next rehearsal is at three-thirty on
Friday?
Mrs Galloway: The next rehearsal?
Jane Metcalfe: Yes, for the school play.
Mrs Galloway: Kate's in a play?
Jane Metcalfe: Yes. Didn't she tell you?
Mrs Galloway: No ... I mean yes, of course she did.
Jane Metcalfe: OK, then. We'll see her on Friday afternoon.
Mrs Galloway: Er ... yes.
When they have written messages for the three girls they compare their versions
with each other to see if they have written the same thing. They listen to the tape
again to clear up any problems they might have had.
This sequence naturally lends itself to a progression where students 'ring' each
other to leave messages. Perhaps they do this after they look at the language of the
three phone calls so that they can use phrases like I'm afraid she's not here/Can I take
a message?
Message taking from phone calls is a genuinely communicative act. Where
possible students will be involved in the phone calls themselves, if possible taking
messages from someone speaking from another room, or from another booth I

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in a language laboratory (see Chapter lOE), or at least working in pairs to

role-play calls.

Example 4: UFO Activity: jigsaw listening

Skills: listening for detailed information
Age: adult
Level: upper intermediate

This listening sequence also involves filling in a form, but it has a jigsaw element
built into it, so that to complete the task, students who have listened to one tape have
to share their information with students who have listened to another.
The effect of having to gather and share detailed information to complete the
forms is that the students in different groups end up with a good general
understanding of the whole text.
The students have been working on a unit in their textbook called 'Anyone out
there?' about space. In this class they are given the following 'UFO report form':
'"''llll
UFO REPORT FORM
I Name and address:
2 Place: Date: Time:
3 Other witnesses
(names and addresses):
4 Weather conditions:
5 Description of sighting
(where seen and for how long):
6 Appearance (indicate size, shape, colour,
distinguishing features- draw a sketch):
7 Sound and movement:
8 Description of any aliens (appearance, manner,
behaviour, speech, purpose for being here):
9 Conclusions:

From Upper Intermediate Matters by J Bell and R Gower (Pearson Education Ltd)

One group {group A) listen to the following taped extract and fill in all the
-
information they can on the form:
E:rtra;:t A' Whitley Strieber ;md the aliens
And then there was the story of the home-loving dad who claims be was experimented on by space alien scientists.
Human guinea pig Whitley Strieber suffered a terrifying brain examination as he lay naked inside the hi-tech surgery of
the cruel creatures' spocecraft. The writer of the best-selling book Commumon wants the world to know
enraterrestrials are out there- and they're not friendly. Whitley trembled as he recolled his operation millions of light
Ymrs from Earth.
'I had been captured like a wild animal and it was like they were trying to tame me,' said the 41-year-old.
'They performed bizarre medical procedures on me and inserted a thin metal instrument into my brain.'
Whitley claims his outer •race tQfmentors were like gtant·sized insects.
They were bald, with massive liquid-like narrow eyes, yellowish-brown skin that felt like leather, two holes for
..mils and big, floppy lips.
And to prove his chilling time with the beings actually took place, he agreed to take a lie detector test - and passed!
The New Yorker says hi& nightmare began when an army of aliens invaded his home while he slept.
He was unable to move as they ripJ'<'d off his pyjamas, poked lum with their wrinkled hands, then took him off to

were going to do an operation ... '

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The other group (group B) fill in as much of the form as they can based on the
particular tape extract that they listen to:
Extract B: Mrs Coe and !he aliens
Yes, the al1ens have landed Only yesterday they stepped out of then spaceslup and went for a walk m the park Three
pant creatures twdve feet tall With tmy heads and wearmg bluJSh metaUtc clothmg chose RusSJa for a very dose
encounter wnh the human race
The1r arnval was heralded by asbmmg baU seen hovenngover the local park by reSJdents of Voronezh, 300 mlles
east of Moscow
The UFO landed and out came the gtants, SJm!lar to humans and accompamed by a small robot
'They went for a walk neM theu spao:esh1p,' sa1d the officJa[ news agency Tass 'Then thqd1sappeared back ms1de
Onlookers were overwhdmed w1th fear that lasted several days'
The landmg was authenttcated by staff from the Voronezh Geophys1cal Laboratory, whose head, Genrikh SJ!anov,"
a respected scoentJSt
Tass satd 'Sc1enl!sts wnfirmed that a UFO landed m the park They also Jdenufied the landmg SJte and found traces
of alJens'
SJ!anov's men dJS<.overed a twenty· yard depressiOn m the park w!th four deep dents and two pte'"s of rock
'They loohed hke deep red sandstone But analysiS showed that the substance cannot be found on Earth'
There was speculatton among UFO experts m Bntam that the ahens could have been those that Mrs Coe sa1d
landed m her garden last month tn a spacecrafrwhtcll was surrounded by bubbles of hght Accordmg to her amazmg
story the altens grabbed her by the arms and hfted her up" beam ofhght tnto a kmd of room Mrs Coe was reported a!
sa)'lngshe felt they meant her no harm ~nd that when she cJme round she was m her garden and not hurt tn any w~y

Now students from group A interview students from group B (and vice versa) using
the form as a basis for making notes about their partner's story.
All students now have both UFO stories. They discuss which one they found the
most believable, and say why they think this. The sequence ends when the students
either write a diary entry by Whitley Strieber for the day he saw the aliens, or as Mrs
Coe, write a letter to the newspaper about her experiences.
Using jigsaw techniques in listening presents greater logistical difficulties than it
does in reading. It requires different tape machines in different places. However, if
these difficulties can be overcome such tasks are well worth doing since they involve
both listening and speaking in a thoroughly attractive way.

Example 5: We had a n1ce t1me. Act1vJty· analys1ng conversations

b"' Sk1lls pred1ctmg, hsten1ng for detailed
1nformat1on, hstemng for text
construction
Age young adult and above
Level 1ntermed1ate

In the following sequence, students are working on a unit called 'Regrets: The lesson
starts with the teacher leading a discussion about the kinds of things that can go
wrong on holiday, and helps the students to come up with sentences like You might
be ill or Perhaps you'lltmss your fltght, etc. If any of the students have a holiday
'horror story' they can tell it to their partner, their group, or to the class.
The students are told that they are going to listen to three people talking about
things going wrong on holiday. They look at the photographs on the next page and
try to predict what the problem is likely to be in each case. They can discuss this in
pairs and groups to think of all the possibilities they can.

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From Lifelines Intermediate by T Hutchinson (Oxford University Press)
They now listen to the tape to see if they were right This is what they hear:
A Hello. Did you have a good holiday?
B Well, yes and no.
A \1/hy' What was the problem!
B My wallet was stolen.
A No! Tlut's a bit rough. How did that bapJ"'n?
B Oh, we stopped at this market and I was just
sitting in the car when some people - a man and
a woman, it was - came up. I thought they were
selling things. Well, like a fool, I'd put my wallet
on the dashboard. Anyway, these p<'Ople came up
to the car, and while 1 was talking to the man, the
woman put her hand in and grabbed the wallet
A Goodness me! What did you dQ?
B There wasn't much I could do. I was stunned.
They just ran dfinto the crowd. Well, I reported
it to the police, but they weren't much help.
A Was there much money in it?
B Yes,qutte a bit, and my credlt cards. But it was my
own fault. 1 shouldn't have put it on the
dashboard where people eQuid see it. Ifl'd left it
in my pocket, as I usually do, it wouldn't have
happ<'ned.
A Well, I hope it didn't spoil your holiday too
much. Actually it reminds me of when we were
on holiday~ couple of years ago and ...
' A
B
Hello, I haven't seen you around for a while. Have
you been away?
Yes, we'"<' been skiing in the States.
A Oh yes, I remember you telling me you were
going. Was it good?
B Well, it was until the last few days.
A Why? What happened?
B Well, Tina dectded that she wanted to have a go at
snowboarding. You know this thing where }'{'U
stand on, like a board.
A Yes,! know.
B Well, I thought it was a bit dodgy. but she wanted
to do it. You know what kids are like. So she did.
Well, anyway, she fell off and broke her arm.
A Oh no. Poor Tina. Was she all right?
B Yes, she was OK. The ambulance took her to the
and then in a subsequent listening (or listenings), they fill in the following chart:
1 2
Problem
Cause
Result(s)
Whose fault?
Why?
hospital and they dealt with it. But then when I
came to pay, I found that our insurance didn't
cover us for snowboarding- only for skiing.
A Blimey' So what did you do?
B Well, what rould I do? I had to pay for everything
myself. it cost me an arm and a leg! You know
what medkal costs are like in the States.
A I hear they're rather expensive.
B You're telling me! Well, I suppose I should haW'
checked the insurance policy before she went
snQwboarding, but 1 blame the insurance
wmpany. I mean lot> of people go snowboarding
these days.
A Well, funnily enough, something similar
happened to a friend Qf mine. His son wanted to
go snowboarding and
3 A Hi. Welcome back. Have you had a good time?
B Well, we dtd when we finally got there.
A What do you mean?
B Well, we only missed the Uight,didn't we?
A No! How did you manage that?
B We got stuck in a traffic jam on the way to the
airport and by the time we got there the flight
had already left.
A Ohdear.
B It was all John's fault. We should have set off
earlier. But you know what he's like -everything
at the last minute.! mean, it would have been all
right if the road had been dear, but it wasn't,
00.
A So what happened?
B Well, the tour wmpany got us on another flight
later in the day. So we had to wait for 12 hours at
the airport and then when we arrived it was too
late to get to our hotel, so we had to book uno
another hotel at the airport for the night.
A But you got there in the end?
B Yes, but I was not in too good a mood by then, I
~an tell you.
A I'm not surprised. We missed a flight once, but it
wasn't becau"' of the traffic. We .
3
.jl
239
CHAPTER 16 ---------------------------------------------------------

Students now listen to the extracts again, but this time they are listening out for
exactly how the speakers construct their discourse, as the following exercise shows:

rTalldng about a holiday .$

~ a Listen to the conversations again. How do people

·.
• ask about holidays?
<- • indicate that there was a problem?

b • ask what happened?

• show sympathy?

1 • relate the story back to their own experience?

Look at tapescript 13.3 and check your answers.

When they have done this exercise in pairs or groups they check through the language
with the teacher before moving on to use the results of their enquiries in a 'making
conversations' activity which encourages them to try out the language for themselves.
•
Make more conversations about holiday disasters.
a Work with a partner and make conversations about the situations below,
following the diagram.
A 8
Greet and ask about
the holiday
Indicate a problem
iAsk what happened
Describe what happened
Sympathize
Express blame or regrets

t
k about results
Describe results
mpare the prob!em
your own expenence
1 lose passports/leave bag on beach/have to get new ones at the embassy/wife's
fault/didn't leave passports at hotel
2 injured/walk into glass door/go to hospital/hotel's fault/couldn't see door
3 get lost/car runs out of petrol/spend night in car/own fault/didn't check the
•• petrol gauge
holiday cancelled/tour company goes bust/have to go home/husband's
fault/choose cheap holiday
5 house burgled while away/door not lockedffV and video stolen/neighbour's
fault/came in to feed pets and forgot to lock door

t arrested/smuggling money out of the country/taken to police station/own

_ fault/didn't declare it on immigration form
b Think of a similar experience that might have happened to you. Make more
conversations with your partner.

From Lifelines Intermediate by T Hutchinson (Oxford University Press)

240
 ---------------------------LISTENING

This sequence shows how listening extracts can be used for a variety of different
purposes- from training in (and practice of) language skills, to language analysis
and as a stimulus for language production (see Chapter 17 ).

Example 6: At the post office Activity: analysing language exchanges

Age: adult
Level: upper intermediate/advamced

Any spoken language can be studied for information about how the text is constructed
and in what order certain functions can occur within an exchange. This can be
useful at any level- with both simplified and authentic text. To collect the latter type
speakers can wear voice-activated microphones as they go about their normal lives
so that the recordings which are obtained are a record of everyday spoken reality.
The following extract was collected in just such a way. A male customer <S 01>
has gone to the post office and is talking to a female post office clerk <S 02>:

<SOl> Right, send that first class please. 1

<S02> That one wants to go first class, right we'll see if it is, 2
it's not it's not 41, it's a 60, I thought it would be, I'd 3
be in the ... 60 pence [6 sees] there we are 4

..
<SOl> Lovely thank you 5
<S02> Okay 70 80 whoops 90 100 6
<SOl> Thanks very much 7
<S02> Thank you 8

From Exploring Spoken English by R Carter and M McCarthy (Cambridge University Press)

Students looking at this transcript will notice how apparently messy and arbitrary
• real language is. However, closer inspection- taking into account the false starts,
thinking aloud, etc.- shows that the extract above contains the bare essentials of what
the customer needs to complete his business. The pattern, according to the authors of
the book, seems to be: l a request for service {line l), 2 an acknowledgement of the
request and a statement of the price (lines 2-3), 3 the handing over of the goods (line
4), 4 the giving of money and receiving the change (lines 5-6), and 5 a closure of the
encounter (lines 7-8) (Carter and McCarthy 1997= 93).
There is much more to notice here, too. For example, Right is a common way of
opening transactions. Send that first class may be an imperative, but because it is
almost certainly an ellipsis of a sentence like I'd like to send that first class or Can I
send that first class?it is not considered rude; the clerk almost certainly understands
it to be a request, not an order.
In their commentary on the extract Ronald Carter and Michael McCarthy note
how That one wants to go first class only makes sense when we realise that wants is
here used to mean needs or should- a common use of the verb in spoken English.
And soon.
Examination of real informal spoken exchanges like the one above yields a
fantastic amount about the way we speak to each other, yet it is problematic too. It is

241
 CHAPTER16 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

extremely culture-bound, for one thing, and while it may make us aware of exactly
how conversations are constructed it is difficult to see how we might translate that
into active use. Do we teach students to hesitate and change their minds for
example? Should we promote ellipsis and the use of informal conversation markers
which might sound strange coming from a foreign language student's lips when
used to a native language speaker? What level is this kind of study suitable for? These
questions have formed the focus for a lively debate so that it is still unclear what
teachers and students might do with such extracts beyond having students 'notice'
certain features of speech.
However, for anyone interested in how native speakers really communicate, such
dose attention to the construction of informal encounters of this kind gives
invaluable insights into the way the language works.

C The sound of music

/ Music is a powerful stimulus for student engagement precisely because it speaks
(_ directly to our emotions while still allowing us to use our brains to analyse it and its
" effects if we so wish. A piece of music can change the atmosphere in a classroom or
prepare students for a new activity. It can amuse and entertain, and it can make a
satisfactory connection between the world of leisure and the world of learning.
Because the appreciation of music is not a complex skill, and because many different
patterns of music from a variety of cultures have become popular all over the globe
through satellite television and the Internet, most students have little trouble
perceiving clear changes of mood and style. In class, therefore, we can play film
music and get students to say what kind of film they think it comes from. We can get
them to listen to music which describes people and say what kind of people they are.
They can write stories based on the mood of the music they hear, or listen to more
than one piece of music and discuss with each other what mood the music
describes, what 'colour' it is, where they would like to hear it, and who with.
Even those who are sceptical about their ability to respond to music often end up
being convinced despite themselves; as one of David Cranmer and Clement Laroy's
students wrote after hearing Honegger's 'Pacific 231 ':

I am really puzzled by people's ability to see things in music. I can't.

Take this music for example ... if you ask me, I would visualise a train
steaming through the prairie and Indians attacking it ... while some
people are desperately trying to defend it.
From D Cranmer and C Laroy (1992: 57)

Example 7: Ironic Activity: understanding song lyrics

Skills: listening, reading for general and
detailed comprehenSIOn
Age: young adult and above
Level: intermediate
..
"""-~~--~~-='""""""-__..,_, r~-.-~----

242
 - - LISTENING

One of the most useful kinds of text for students to work with is song lyrics, especially
where the song in question is one which the students are very keen on. However,
songs can present a problem, particularly with teenage students, precisely because it
is often difficult to know exactly which songs the students like at a particular time
and which songs, very popular last week, have suddenly gone out of favour!
There are two ways of dealing with this problem: the first is to have students bring
their own favourite songs to class. If they do this, however, the teacher may want to
have time (a day or two) to listen to the song and try and understand the lyrics.
Some of the songs may deal with issues and language which the teacher is not keen
to work with. Another solution is to use older songs, and to ask students whether
they think they still have merit- whether they like them, despite their antiquity.
Teachers can then choose songs which they like, or which are appropriate in terms of
topic and subject matter, and which they themselves think pass the test of time.
The following example takes a song released in the mid-I990s. Students are told
that they are going to hear the singer Alanis Morrissette perform her track 'Ironic'.
Do any of them know it? What do they think it is going to be about?
They are then given the following worksheet and told that when they listen to the
song, all they have to do is put the verses in the correct order- even if they do not
understand all of the words.

Listen to 1ron(c', Match the numbers on the left with the verses on the right.
1 _________________ _
a A traffic jam when you're already late
CHORUS
A no-smoking sign on your cigarette
It's like rain on your wedding day break
It's a free ride when you've already It's like 10,000 spoons when all you
paid. need is a knife
It's the good advice that you just It's meeting the man of my dreams
didn't take and then meeting his beautiful wife
And who would have thought it? ... And isn't it ironic, don't you think?
it figures. A tittle too ironic, yeah, I realty do
think.

2 _________________ _ b Mr Play-It-Safe, was afraid to fly

He packed a suitcase and kissed his
kids goodbye
CHORUS He waited his whole damn life to
take that flight
3 _________________ _
And as the plane crashed down he
thought 'well, isn't this nice!'
4 _________________ _ And isn't it ironic, don't you think?

243
CHAPTER16 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

CHORUS c An old man turned ninety-eight

Life has a funny way of sneaking up He won the lottery and died the next
on you day
Life has a funny way of helping It's a black fly on your Chardonnay
you out. It's a death row pardon two minutes
too late
And isn't it iwnk, don't you tnink?
d Life has a funny way of sneaking up
on you
When you think everything is OK and
everything's going right.
And life has a funny way of helping
you out
When you think you've gone wrong
and everything blows up in your
face.

I
Students compare their answers and the teacher checks that they have the verses in
the right place. They can now listen to the song again, and this time they should read
each verse as it is sung. At the end of this procedure the teacher asks them what the
song is about, and what the tone of it is, to elicit the information that it is about
things always turning out the opposite to what you want. It is half bitter, half jokey.
The teacher can then take the students through the lyrics, explaining phrases they
did not understand, asking questions to check their comprehension of various
words and expressions (e.g. It figures, sneaking up on you, everything blows up in
your face). Although this kind of text study is somewhat cumbersome, a detailed
look at song lyrics, if the students are interested in them, will really help some of
them to remember some of the expressions, especially when they are combined
with catchy music.
There are many other ways of using songs lyrics, of course. Teachers can give
students lyrics with various words blanked out; the teacher can give students a list of
words and ask them to listen to the song to see which of the words are used_ The
teacher can ask students to put lines in order, or complete half-finished lines, Or the
teacher can simply have students listen to a song and say what they think the title
might be- or say where they would most like to hear it.

244
16 Language Teaching Methodology

language learning and use, and inciude chapters on listening, speaking and oral Chapter Two
interaction, the development of literacy, vocabulary and pronunctatwn, the role of
grammar within language teaching methodology, and learning strategies and styles.
In Chapter 10 the focus of attention is the context in which language learnmg and Communicative Approaches to Listening
teaching take place: and here we shall address issues related to classroom m~nage­
ment and organisation. Chapter lllooks at resources for teaching, particularly the comprehension
development of teaching materials. Chapter 12 provides a critical analysis of a
number of prominent methods, along with an evaluation of the place of methods
within language teaching methodology. The final chapter summarises the major
issues which have emerged in the book, and points the way to future developments.
This book differs in several significaot ways from other texts on language teach~
ing methodology. I have already indicated some of these, including the empirical
approach based on research and real classroom data, and the active involvement of 2.1 Introduction
the reader. In concluding, I should like to highlight other important distinguishing
features of this book. This book is not intended as a book of recipes for tired In this chapter we address issues relating to listening comprehension. In the first
teachers. Nor is it a prescription for practice. Rather, readers are invited, through section, we shall exam'ine different views on the nature of listening comprehension
the critical reading, evaluation and informed application of the research and ideas set and look at recent research into listening. This is followed by a section in which we
out here, to discover and develop their own philosophy of teaching, and to create shall see how views on the nature of listening and the results of research into listening
their own methodological practices. have been applied to listening programmes, materials and pedagogical tasks. This
will provide a basis for you to explore listening processes in your own context. The
chapter addresses the foiiowing questions:
1. What is meant by bottom-up and top-down approaches to listening?
2. How can we characterise different types of listening task?
3. What is it that distinguishes texts from non-texts?
4. What makes listening difficult for language learners?
5. How can insights from theory and research be incorporated into listening materials
and pedagogical tasks?

2.2 Bottom-up and top-down views of listening

What happens when we comprehend aural messages? What is it that good listeners
do to derive meaning from the texts they hear? According to one view, they segment
the stream of speech into its constituent sounds, link these together to form words,
chain the words together to form clauses and sentences and so on. This view is known
as the bottom-up approach to listening, and its inadequacy can be easily demon-
strated. Consider the following text from Bransford and Johnson (1972):

Text l
The procedure is actually quite simple. First you arrange things into different groups. Of
course, one pile may be sufficient, depending on how much there is to do. If you have to go
somewhere else due to lack of facilities that is the next step, otherwise you are pretty well set:
18 Language Teaching Methodology Communicative Approaches to Listening Comprehension 19

It is important not to overdo things. That is, it is better to do too few things at once than too used and the purposes to which it is put will play a large part in shaping language.
many. In the short run this may not seem important, but complications can easily arise. A Given this view, a logical place to start in our investigation of listening is to consider
mistake can be expensive as well. At firs~ the whole procedure will seem complicated. Soon, the different purposes for listening and attempting to come up with a taxonomy of
however, it will become just another faCet of life. It iS difficult to see any end to the necessity listening tasks. As a preliminary exercise, you might like to examine the following
for this task in the immediate future, but then one can never tell. After the procedure is texts and consider the ways in which they might be grouped together.
completed, one arranges the materials into different groups 3.gain. Then they can be put into
their appropriate places. Eventually they can be used once more, and the whole cycle will then Text 2
have to be repeated. However, that is a part of life.
Weatherwise for the city, continuing mild to warm conditions. Cloudy at times. There's the
slight chance of a late shower or thunderstorm. Local overnight fogs inland. The predicted
While most native speakers of English would have little trouble in comprehending temperature ranges: 17-26 near the coast; 15-29 inland. Currently it is 25 degrees in town.
the sounds, words and clauses in this messages, it is unlikely that they would be able That's 3 degrees above the average. Further outlook, sunny and warm on Friday, a cool
to demonstrate comprehension by listenlng to the text and writing a precis or provid- change with showers on Saturday, and rain on Sunday.
ing a verbal account. However, if they are provided with a context for making sense
ofthe text then the task becomes relatively simple. For example, ifthe listener is told Text 3
that text 1 is about 'washing clothes', then the individual constituents are much more Helga: Er, excuse me.
readily interpretable, and the task of recalling the information in it is much easier. Receptionist: Yes?
In effect the title 'Washing Clothes' enables the listener to bring knowledge from Helga: --· Can you tell me how to get from the Youth Hostel to the Zoo?
outside the text to the task of interpreting and comprehending the text itself, and this Receptionist: Are you going by public transport or what?
illustrates an important point: that meaning dOes not reside exclusively within the Helga: Yes, I want to go by public transport.
words on the tape recorder or on the page. It also exists in the head of the listener Receptionist: Your best bet is just to walk out to Paramatta Road.
or reader. Successful listeners and readers are those who can utilise both 'inside the Helga: Yes.
head' knowledge and 'outside the head' knowledge to interpret what they hear and Receptionist: Turn left.
Helga: Mmm.
see. The use of inside the head knowledge, that is, knowledge which is not directly
Receptionist: Get the bus to Circular Quay.
encoded in words, is known as the top-down view of listening. Helga: Yes.
In their book on listening, Anderson and Lynch (1988) contrast the bottom-up view Receptionist: Then get a ferry straight over to the Zoo.
of 'listener as tape recorder' with the top-down view of 'listener as model builder'. Helga: Great! Good! What number bus would that be?
The view of listener as tape recorder suggests that the listener takes in and stores aural Receptionist: Oh, they've got it on the front- 'Circular Quay'. There're about half a dozen
messages in much the same way as a tape recorder. However, research shows that this buses that go through on Paramatta Road, so you've got no problems.
is not the way that listening works. If you ask someone to listen to a message and write Helga: Right! Great! Thanks a lot. Oh, and, er, how much is it?
down as much of the message as they can recall, you will generally find that they have Receptionist: Let's see- it's three sections. That's $1.20.
remembered some bits of the message, they have forgotten other bits, and they have Helga: Okay.
added in bits which were not in fact in the message at all. In addition, those bits which Receptionist: Bye.
are successfullv recalled will not be in the exact words of the original message. It seems
that when we -comprehend messages, we store the meanings but not the linguistic Text 4
forms. The alternative to the listener as tape recorder view, that of listener as active Oh, anything- I'm terrible, you know- EastEnders- I'm terrible for the soapies. I'll watch
model builder, accords a much more active role to listeners as they constr.uct an real rubbish -Sale of the Century-anything like that ... I should be saying the News, and all
interpretation of a message by utilising both bottom-up and top,dow[\ knowledge. the current affairs programmes, documentaries and that kind of thing, but I've got to be in the
mood for them, 'cause they take more effort. I use the TV to relaX, you know, after work. I
just want to put my feet up and watch a load of rubbish. I feel ashamed but it's true ... But at
least I don't watch the video clips until4 am!
2.3 Identifying different types of listening
Text 5
One of the underlying themes of this book is that langllage exists to fulfil A forty-year-old fisherman has died after being swept off the rocks at Malabar this afternoon.
communicative and functional purposes, and that these purposes will be reflected in He and a friend were both swept into the sea. The friend struggled to safety, but the victim died
language structures themselves. In other words, the context in which language is after being airlifted from the water to the Prince Henry Hospital.
20 Language Teaching Methodology
Communicative Approaches to Ustening Comprehension 21

Text6 Texts 3, 6 and 7 can also be subdivided. In this case, texts 6 and 7 seem to have
Sue: Hang on [yell] .- .. more in common than text 3. Texts 6 and 7 seem to be basically social in their
[Door opens]Sorry. Ah, you must be Yumiko ...... We ... .
purpose, while the purpose of text 3 is to obtain and provide information. This
Yumiko: Hello, yes. And you are Sue.
Sue: Yes, yes. And this is Dave, my husband.
reflects the broad distinction between 'interactional' talk and 'transactional' talk
Dave: How do you ·do? (Brown and Yule 1983b; Richards 1990). Of course, both interactional and trans-
Sue: And the kids are in watching TV. Come in, come in ... Let me help you with your actional functions can coexist in any given interaction, and interactions themselves
cases- Is that all? are more-or-less interactional and more-or-less transactional (in fact, many utter-
Yumiko: Thank you. ances have both an interactional and a transactional function). In a sense, all three
Sue: Here, Dave, take these to Yumiko's room. Your i"ooin's downstairs- first on the texts are interactional, and it might be better to use the term 'interpersonal' for the
right. I'll show you later. Come on into the kitchen and we'll have a drink. socially oriented talk.
[footsteps] Kids, this "is Yumiko from Japan. Texts 6 and 7 can be further subdivided. Text 6 is created by people who are
Kids: Hi! strangers to each other, Whereas the interactions in text 7 are between people who
Sue: Come on, turn off the telly. Come on and have a drink, Yumiko. Are you tired? The know each other. This is reflected in the level of formality in the language used and
flight was late wasn't it?
the shared knowledge of the interactants in text 7. This can be schematised as in
Figure 2.1.
Text 7
Alice: Hi there .... hi!
Bruce: Oh, Alice, hi- slaving over a hot barbecue.-The wood's wet- not burning [coughs]. Aural texts
All this rain. Come in- yeah- I nearly thought we'd have to ... you know, call the
party off.
Alice: Yes, I almost rang yesterday. But the weather looks okay. I almost got stranded on the
Monologue Dialogue
Gladesville Bridge- I could hardly see anything.
Bruce: Alice- you know Alex and Jan, don't you?
Alice: Well, no- I know you both by sight ...
Alex: ... yes ... Planned Unplanned Interpersonal Transactional
Alice: You live next door to Jerry and Sharon, don't you?
Jan: Yes- hi- it's awful-we've all been here for years but ...
Alex: ... and this is David, our three year old.
(Texts 2-7 adapted from Nunan and Lockwood 1989) Unfamiliar Familiar

The first thing to notice is that some texts are monologues, being produced by only
one speaker, while others are created by the joint endeavour of two o~ more
speakers. Obviously, comprehendi ng monologues involves different listening skills
from those required to take part in interactional tasks involving speaking as well as
listening. This suggests that we can classify listening tasks into those which involve
only listening and those which demand some form of oral interaction.
In considering the three monologues (that is, texts 2, 4 and 5), most people would
agree that that texts 2 and 5 seem to have more characteristics in common than
text 4. They are more carefully structured and planned than text 3 which consists
of fragmentary utterances and which seems to have been created on the spot in
response to an initial question. Texts 2 and 5, in contrast, look as though they were
written out beforehand. Notice also the clipped, elided language of text 2 which is
designed to convey the maximum amount of information in the shortest possible
time.
FIGURE 2.1 A classification of aural texts.
2.4 Textual connectivi ty
Since the 1960s, there has been a broadening of focus from linguistic analysis at the
level of the sentence, to analysis at the level of discourse: that is, to an analysis of
sentences in combination. A major problem confronting discourse analysts is that of
defining discourse and determining what it is that distinguishes coherent discourse
from random sentences. (Coherence refers to the sense in which the individual
sentences or utterances of a text 'hang together'.) In some instances, it seems fairly
obvious that a piece of language forms a coherent text. Consider, for example, texts
8 and 9.
22 Language Teaching Methodology . ·,; ·.
TextS
A fortnight ago, I walked into a gloomy isolation shelter constructed of black plastic stretched
over eucalyptus poles. Sprawled on the dirt. floor was a young lad we had nicknamed
Snakebite. He was brought in by one of the nurses early in the morning, after being bitten on
the foot by a snake which had slithered into his shelter. Snakebite survived that incident, but
he looked close to death through shock and hunger.
Text9
The offspring born, some say, of a marriage of convenience, died in infancy last Sunday. Walk
into any office and you are likely to be offered a cup of Chinese tea or a cup of coffee. It is
becoming acceptable for women to visit- either in ·groups or alone- discos and lounges for an
enjoyable night out. · run as follows:
Most people immediately, and correctly, identify that the sentences which make up
text 8 seem to cohere, whereas those in text 9 do not. What is it that gives text 8 its
coherence? A cursory inspection indicates that there are certain expressions within
the text which help to bind the sentences together. Some of these expressions, and
the way they provide vertical integration are illustrated below.
Sentence 1: I ............ shelter
I I
Sentence 2: we ......... floor ......... Snakebite
I r
Sentence 3: He ........... . bitten
I I
Sentence 4: Snakebite/he ... incident
In text 9, however, there are no such devices. From this, it would seem that texts
are given their coherence, that is, their sense of unity, by certain relationships
between the different sentences or utterances in the text which are marked by
particular words and expressions. This view is proposed by Halliday and Hasan
(1976), who define texts, as opposed to random sentences, in terms of the linguistic
elements which serve to bind the texts together. These linguistic elements and ex-
pressions are referred to as cohesive devices.
The notion that the coherence or sense of unity of a text is created by cohesion is
challenged by Widdowson (1978, 1979) among others. He provides the following
(invented) example to support his case.
A: That's the telephone.
B: I'm in the bath.
A: Okay.
Most people recognise the utterances in this text as somehow 'going together' even
though there are no explicit cohesive links between the utterances. Widdowson
suggests that we are able to create our own coherence for the sample by recognising
the function that each utterance fulfils within a given context or situation. He
CommunicaUve Approaches to Ustening Comprehension 23
suggests that most native speakers of English would create a domestic context in
~I which the following functions are assigned to each utterance:
~~
---~ Utterance Function
A: That's the telephone. Request
K
i B: I'm in the bath.
A: Okay.
Excuse
Acceptance of excuse
l'i In creating a meaningful context and attributing functional intent, coherence (that
i'
I
is, a sense that the three utterances form a meaningful whole) is established.
Widdowson suggests that as a result the missing bits of the conversation, which would
make it cohesive as well as coherent, could be restored. Such a conversation might
A: That's the telephone. Could you answer it, please?
B: No, I'm sorry, I can't answer it because I'm in the bath.
A: Okay, I'll answer it.
Jt Edmonson (1981) also asks what distinguishes text from non-text. He points out
t that it is difficult to fabricate non-text because some sort of context can generally be
!f' created within which a given set of sentences can be accorded some sort of meaning.
In illustrating his argument, he borrows the following text from van Dijk (who
I asserted that the two sentences were a non-text because there was nothing to bind
them together).
i' We will have guests for lunch.
Calderon was a great writer.
I! According to Edmonson (1981: 13), any native speaker will immediately see a
causal link between these two sentences. His own interpretation is as follows:
Did you know Calderon died exactly 100 years ago today? Good heavens! I'd forgotten.
The occasion shall not pass unnoticed. We will have guests for lunch. Calderon was a great
Spanish writer. I shall invite Professor Wilson and Seflor Castellano right away .
It is worth noting that in order to illustrate their point, both Widdowson and
Edmonson provide fictitious and very curtailed examples - three utterances in the
case of one text and two in the other. It is extremely difficult to find natural texts of
any duration which do not contain any form of cohesion. The other point with which
one might want to take issue is Edmonson's claim that any native speaker wi11
immediately be able to see that van Dijk's sentences are (or can be) coherent. In fact,
coming up with a context such as his requires considerable ingenuity.
2.5 Listening purpose
Another important consideration in listening concerns the listener's purpose. Course-
books for teaching listening sometimes seem to imply that listeners grimly focus on
 Teachit1!l Methodology
every ·~ord. This is, of course, simply not true. {When listening to television or radio
news broadcnsts, we usually tune in to certain items and exclude Others: The exclusion
can be due to a lapse in concentration or to a lack of interest in certain topics, or to
efficiency in listeni~ _ ··
An important factor in interactive listening is whether or not we are taking part in
the interaction. Eavesdropping on a conversation is very different from actually
participating in one. Because ofthis, it may seem a waste of tim~ to i~volve learners
in classroom tasks in which they are involved in listening to conversations among
other people. However, such taskscari be justified on at leasttwci grounds. In the first
instap.ce,'providing the conversations are authentic (that is, they were· not specifically
created for the purpose of illustrating or teaching features of the language), they can
provide learners with insights into ways in which conversations work. They can also
provide learners with strategies for comprehen_ding conversation outside the class-
room in which they are not actively invQlved, but which may provide them with input
to feed their learning processes.
2.6 What makes listening difficult?
Determining difficulty is a major problem confronting syllabus designers and
curriculum specialists who choose to adopt the notion of 'task' as a central planning
tool (see Nunan 1989a, for an extended discussion on this point). Fortunately, there
has been considerable work done in recent years on the factors which create difficulty
f~listeners and speakers._(An excellent book on listening is Rost 1990.)
[tlrown and Yule (1983b) suggest that there are four clusters of factors which can
affect thy--d1fflcult)1lof oral language tasks: these relate to the speaker (how many
there are:'ild'wquickly they speak, what types of accent they have); the listener (the
role of the listener -whether a participant or eavesdropper' the level of response
required, the individual interest in the subject); the content (grammar, vocabulary,
information structure, background knowledge assumed); support (whether there are
pictures, diagrams or other visual aids to support the text)) _.·
Anderson and Lynch (1988) present a graded language program in which they
systematically varied aspects of the text which the learners heard and the tasks they
were to perform. Anderson and Lynch suggest that, while a large number of factors
are involved these fall into three principal categories: (1) the type of language; (2) the
purpose in listening; (3) the context in which the listening takes place. We have to
consider not only the number of factors involved but also the relationships between
them. By holding the text constant (for example, a parliamentary debate) and vary-
ing the purpo.se (e.g. keeping an ear out for the end of the broadcast as opposed to
making a mental note of the main points in the debate)~ one can alter the difficulty
level of the task.
In a series of experiments Anderson and Lynch found that the difficulty oflistening
tasks was particularly influenced by the following:
r Communicative Approaches to Ustening Comprehension 25
I !. The organisation of information (texts in which the order in which the information
was presented matched its chronological sequence in real life were easier than
texts in whic!J. the information was presented out of sequence).
~ 2. The familiarity of the topic.
~
3. The explicitness and sufficiency of the information.
4. The type of referring expressions used (for example, use of pronouns rather than
complete noun phrase referents made texts more-difficult).
5. Whether the text described 'static' relationships (for example, geometric figures)
or dynamic relationship (for example, a road accident).
The way these features were manipulated to produce texts which were similar
generically but which were graded for difficulty can be illustrated by the task of 'trace
the route'. In this task, students listen to a description of a journey, route or tour and
have to trace this route on a map. The task designers systematically varied the type of
map, the completeness of information, whether the start or end is given, the number
of features and the congruence or otherwise of the information presented in the text
r and that displayed on the map. These variations changed the difficulty level of the
task. It was found that maps which were laid out in a rectangular fashion with all
If roads marked were easier than those in which the roads and paths were irregular;
these were in turn easier than maps consisting of natural landmarks. In terms of
completeness of information, tasks became increasingly difficult according to the
I number of items mentioned in the text which were missing from the map. Those in
which the start and end of the route were indicated on the map were easier than those
in which they were omitted. As the number of features (buildings, natural land-
marks, etc.) increased, so too did the difficulty. Lastly, in terms of referring expres-
sions, it was found that reiterations were easier than synonyms. The most difficult
tasks were those in which there was contradictory information in the text and on the
map. In the next section we look in detail at the construction of a listeninu0 task which
exploits these features.
2.7 Listening texts and tasks
Thus far, we have noted that successful listening involves the integration of in-
formation encoded in the message itself with broader knowledge of the world. In
other words, successful listeners use both bottom-up and top-down strategies in
reconstructing messages. We have also seen that listening texts and tasks differ, and
can be classified in several different ways. In the first instance, we have listening tasks
which involve the comprehension of aural texts in which there is only one speaker, as
opposed to two or more speakers. The task of comprehending interactive language
will be quite different according to whether the listener is eavesdropping or taking
part in the conversation. Interactive listening can also be classified according to
whether its function is primarily social or transactionaL Purpose is also a crucial
26 Language Teaching Methodology Communicative Approaches to Ustening Comprehension 27

factor, and listening tasks will differ according to the listener's purpose. In this Adam: Yes, please.
section, we shall look at some of the ways in which these ideas have been applied in Receptionist: When would you like the appointment?
practice. In addition to the sources cited here, Rost (1990) provides probably the best Adam: Urn, what about mid-afternoon? Would that be all right?
practical set of ideas on teaching listening currently available. Receptionist: Urn, well, Doctor only starts his clinic at four o'clock.
In pedagogical terms, it is possible to draw a distinction between bottom-up and Adam: Four o'clock ... Okay, well, could we make it for 4.30, please.
top-doWn approa-CheS to listening comprehension. !!~!QJ!I_:_l_l_p _}~~~-l)J!lg activ_ities Receptionist: Yes, certainly. What's the name, please?
focus learners on the individual elements and building blocks of theJanguage. Adam: The name is Walker, W-A-L-K-E-R. Adam Walker.
Receptionist: Okay, we'll see you then.
Dec?diitg -_oral_ utterclri~~-s,~ discriminati~g__ ~etween--IlldlVidu3I_sOuflds, particulafiy Adam: Urn, I haven't been there before.
f&.ose.with minimal contrasts, and identifying diffefentsrress, rhythm and intonation Receptionist: That's okay, I'll take all your details when you come in then.
patterns feature prominently in the early stages oflearning, and the student is only Adam: Okay, fine, bye.
gradually moved from sound to word to_ sentence to text. Receptionist: Bye.
In a listening comprehension course which was widely used in the 1970s, the
assumption that learning is a gradual, linear and additive process is evident in the way x'With low-le\'ellearners who would clearly be challenged by such input, the difficulty
the input is staged. can be eased by letting them hear the text as often as necessary and providing a range
of activities of increasing complexity. The first time they hear the text, they might be
Book 1 gives a practical introduction to the main features of pronunciation practice, with
asked to Ldentify how many speakers they hear. The second time they hear the text,
exercises in sound (phoneme) contrasts, stress and rhythm, and intonation patterns. It is
they can be given a list of key word~ and asked to nominate how often they hear the
divided into three parts: the first deals with individual sounds, the second with stress,
rhythm and intonation, while the third contains tests. words. Next, they can be given phrase to identify._ Lastly, they can be asked to
Identify the number of questions they hear. !hese activities are -exemplified below.
Book 2 tests aural comprehension of short pieces of spoken English, longer than just a
single sentence. It often uses anecdotes for this purpose, and again there are numerous 1. Listen to the tape. How many speakers can you hear?
exercises.
2. Listen to the tape a second time. How many times can you hear these words? (Tick the
Book 3 contains short lectures on a variety of subjects, in styles ranging from quite formal column.)
to informal. This book exposes students to longer stretches of speech, and tests their ability Clinic
both to make written notes and to reproduce these notes either orally or in writing. Doctor
(Byrne 1973: vii)
Appointment
With the development of communicative approaches to language teaching, and Surgery
particularly with the increasing popularity of authentic materials, classroom activities Name
have become more closely related to the sorts of thing learners are likely to want or
3. Listen again and circle the words you hear.
need to do outside the classroomfWith low-level learners, the activity rather than the
1. (a) Hold the phone, please.
listening text is modified to make the task easier. Instead of being expected to-extract (b) Hold the line, please.
the full meaning of the text, the listener might only be required to determine the 2. (a) With Dr Cullen?
number of speakers or to identify the number of key words 1The following shows how (b) With Dr Mullen?
the activity rather than the text can be adapted. ~ 3. (a) What about the afternoon?
{b) \\'hat about mid-afternoon?
Tapescript 4. (a) Could we make it for four-thirtv?
(b) Could we make it for half-past four?
Part 1 5. (a) I haven't been there before.
Receptionist: Good morning. Burwood Clinic. Hold the line, please. (b) I haven't seen him before.
[music]
Sorry to keep you waiting. Can I help you? 4. Listen to the tape one more time. How many questions can you hear?
Adam: Yes, I'm wondering if I can make a doctor's appointment sometime today? 0506070809
Receptionist: Yes, certainly. With Dr Cullen? (Adapted from Nunan and Lockwood 1989)
 28 Language Teaching Methodology
Another technique, this time one which encourages learners to utilise both bottom-
up and top-down listening strategies is the 'dictbgloss'. Here •._!_he teacher reads a
passage at normal speed t.o learners,who__~i-~~~!1- ~n.Q..~r~~~-~~~p_as_m.~~y words as they
can tdenhf)Ciney"!hencol liiliorate-fn small grol\ps t2.i§SQ!'J'.!f!!.£t)he text on the
nasis-onhe-ffagments which they have written down. wl:iife-flie technique .bears a
passing resemblance to the traditional dictati?n te~t, the resemblance is only super-
ficial. In the words of the author:
[The method requires learners in the classroom to interact with each other in small groups
n
o as to reconstruct the text as a co-operative endea~ Learners working in self-study are
required to bring their own grammatical resources intq play with the notes taken during the
dictation so as to cre~.t.e a te.xt. Bot~ in th~ classropm and in se~f-stu_~y ~Jearner~ are activelt
engaged in th!..Le_<!.toJOg_process. It ts beheved tha~ through thts acttye learner mvolvement
, students cOffie to confront their own strengths and weaknesses in English language use. In
L so doing, they find out what theY don't lfnow, then they find Out what they need to know and
this is the process by which they improve their language .skills. (Wajnryb 1986: 6)
There are four stages in the dictogloss approach.
1. Preparation. At this stage, teachers prep~re students for the text they will be
hearing by asking questions and discussing a stimulus picture, by discussing
vocabulary, by ensuring that students know what they are suppos~d to do, and by
ensuring that the students are in the appropriate groups.
2. Dictation. Learners hear the dictation twice. The first time, they listen only and
v· get a general feeling for the text. The second time they take down notes, being
encouraged to listen for content words which will assist them in reconstructing the
text. For reasons of consistency, it is preferable that students listen to a cassette
recording rather than teacher-read text.
3. Reconstruction. At the conclusion of the dictation, Jearners. pool notes and
v· producetheirversion ofthe.text During this stage it is important that the teacher
does not -proVide any language input.
4. Analysis and correction. There are various ways of dealing with this stage. The
s..malLgroup.versions .can-be-reproduced_on_theJ?.~~-~<! or o~_~_rh~~? projector, th_e
texts can be photocopied and distributed, or the stu-aents can compare thetr
vefSi.on wfth the Original~ se~tence by sentence.
The dictogloss technique provides a useful bridge between bottom-up and top-
1 preceding section we saw that in the 'trace the route' task, in which students listen to
down listening. In the first instance, learn~r_~ar~ pxjmarily concerned-with 1dent1fymg
individual el~f!l~!Jt~jg_ the ~ex~=. a bottom-up strategy. However, du~~.!._~e--~-~all
~2~ij_i~i~ssions, some-or alfof the following..!_qp:<J9~.'!-~'!J§gies might ,be em·
played. In all of these, the listener will in~!:?_l~bac'>gro)lnd, m~td_e_th.~hiO~d know-
leage-with th~cl11es picked up.duringthe.<lictatiqn_.__
------~--~·--·· . ,
1. Listeners will make predictions.
2. Listeners will make inferences about things not directly stated in the text.
3. Listeners will identify the topic of the text.
Communicative Approaches to Ustening Comprehension 29
4. Listeners will identify the text type (whether it is a narrative, description, anec-
dote etc.).
5. Listeners will identify various sorts of semantic relationships in the text.
The following texts give some idea of the length and complexity of the texts
provided in the books on dictogloss. I have chosen the first text in book 1 and the final
text in book 2.
EARTHQUAKE
In 1985 there was an earthquake in Mexico City. Many thousands of people died in the
disaster. People searched the city for missing relatives and friends. Rescuers worked
without rest for many days. There was a great deal of suffering and enormous destruction.
(Wajnryb 1986: 16)
HATS ARE BACK
Australia has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world and moves are now under way to
cut down its incidence. One means of combating skin cancer is to wear a hat. Pressured by
parent committees, many schools are now introducing hats as part of the standard uniform.
The committees are made up of parents who went through school when hats were rarely
worn and they are the ones who have suffered badly from skin cancer. Designed by the
parent committees, the hats are tested by the Cancer Council authorities before being
accepted as part of the uniform. After being out of vogue for years, hats are now beginning
to reappear. (Wajnryb 1988: 80)
Dictogloss exploits the principle that t_wo_heads are better than one~-'Students are
abl.~ to pool t_heir resources, and ~v(:!n _low-level learners are. able,.__ H:troug_!l: __
collaboratiVe action, ~o 'outperform th.e_ii-.compe_tence:. ____ _
-AildefSO"ii 3nd Lynch (1988) have also developed a technique for making listening
task~JJlQr'e iliteracttv~. They have done this by changing the roles of the teacher and
learrlers.=The-teacher,plays a recorded,text to which the students listen and complete
an activity such as tracing a route on a map. The teacher _eau~es at certain ~ey _
points, and the students are able to discuss the task. The students -Can-a'fso r~_gue~si
ihit 'the teacher~!_Qp)the tape afar-Jy-pOiriCSO. they Can discuss the task. The teaCher-
only pr_qvides_ information on demand from_the" stud~n!s- A number of 'problem
pointS; are bllii"t-ril"io -the. task_which are deSigned to increase the processing demands
on the learners and to encourage students to interact.
The selection of problem points was guided by research into task difficulty. In the
a description and trace the route being described, the type of map, the completeness
of information, whether the start or end is given, the number of features and the
compatibility or otherwise of the information presented in the text and that displayed
in the map can all be varied to affect the difficulty level of the task. The trace the
route task is illustrated by the Tai Tu City Tour task (mustration 1). Listeners were
given the map and listened to the accompanying text.
Language Teaching Methodology Communicative Approaches to Ustening Comprehension 31

The Tai Tu City Tour is the first (and easiest) of three trace the route tasks. You
ILLUSTRATION 1 will note that the roads are set out in a rectangular fashion, that it is complete (that is,
all the places the tourists are to visit appear on the map) and that the start and end of
Tai Tu City Tour: Introduction the journey are indicated. There are six features in this task (some of the more
<Ute map you have in front of you shows part of the city centre ofTai
Tu, in the Far East. As you listen, mark in the route that your tour challenging tasks contain ten to fifteen features.) In terms of expressions referring to
will take. You are staying at the hotel in the centre of the map and these six features, one is identical, three are synonymous and two are compatible.
your tour will begin and end there. These are the intended problem points in the task as can be seen from the following:
If you are not sure Of the route as the guide explains it, ask for the
tape to be stopped. You can then hear that part of the tape replayed,
or you can ask for more information to help you.' Tapescript Decision
we turn into the Beijing Road turn right not left
the White Cloud Pagoda identified simply as 'pagoda'
the National Monument identified as 'statue' on map
the market there are two markets- correct one is fish market
the Nations Museum identified simply as ·museum'

The following extracts are taken from Anderson and Lynch (1988). Students are
working in small groups. The extracts illustrate the 'active listening' approach used
by the authors, in which learners are encouraged to stop the tape and work
collaboratively to solve the various problems associated with the task. It is worth
noting that one group seems to have more success than the other, and it is instructive
to note why this is so. Apart from the obvious advantages of collaborative listening,
tasks such as this are an effective antidote to the 'listener as tape recorder' view of
listening which learners themselves often have.

Hearer's map
Pre-reading task
Instructions tapescript
•right + the tour starts off from the hotel + and we go up as far as the 1. What difficulties would you anticipate with a task such as this?
Beijing Road + we turn into the Beijing Road +and then we take the 2. How would you prepare learners for these potential difficulties (in other words,
first left and that's the first stop+ the White Cloud Pagoda (pause)
we have about half an hour or so at -the pagoda + than we what pre-teaching would you do)?
leave for the palace+ that's down to Palace Avenue and then along 3. As you read the extracts, make a note of the difficulties which seem to emerge.
(pause) after thnt we come out of the palace and go down the avenue
+ we go to visit the National Monument (pause) right + about Which group seems to be more successful?
tv.·enty minutes there for photographs + then the bus takes us on
down that road and first left to the market + and we go into the
market from round the back + that's the beach side {pause) you'll Classroom extract 2.1: An interactive listening task
ha\·e time to do some shopping + then back to the bus and we go
along Progress Street + and the next place we visit is the Nations Group 1
Museum + you 'II have plenty of time for a good look round and I'll
lx doing a guided walk for those who want it (pause) and then the Tape: ... we turn into Beijing Road and then take the first left and that's the first stop, the
last stop on the tour is the silk mill + that's along Progr~ss Street and White Cloud Pagoda.
tum right (pause) we have about an hour's tour at the mill+ then i:he Z: Sorry, is this some information? Is this explain? Only a name, not Pagoda- but it is not
bus brings us back to the hotel + left into Nations Road +round the
enough to directly explain direction. Is the man enter, uh, go out of hotels. It is not
comer+ and we're back at the hotel (pause) and that's the city tour
complete' enough- explain . . I think it must explain the go out the hotel and turn the right .
cross road and then palace behind you.
Source: A. Anderson andT. Lynch, Listening (Oxford University Press, 0: If he do that ..
l9S8),pp.l07-108. ©Oxford University Press. Reproduced by Z: . . . and then .
permission. 0: ... it will be clear.
Z: Beijing Road ... in Beijing Road you turn on the right.
32 Language Teaching Methodology Communicative Approaches to Ustening Comprehension 33

0: If he do that [ZJ excuse me, if you do that, why you need to listen and make it~ it's
clear, everybody know it. Pre-reading task
Z: Yes, yes, you are right. 1. As you read the text, see whether you can identify the language goal.
0: That is this exercise- try to think which one.
2. The second, a learning-how-to-learn goal. is to get learners to group new vocab-
(Adapted from Anderson and Lynch 1988: 112)
ulary items according to the semantic field to which they belong, rather than
alphabetically. How does the teacher attempt to do this?
Group2 3. As you study the extract, you might like to consider whether the teacher is
Tape: ... the silk mill + that's along Progress Street and turn right
focusing on top-down or bottom-up processing strategies.
Ss: Stop.
F: Where is silk mill?
B: Silk factory? Classroom extract 2.2: Listening to the news
A: Silk factory?
B: Maybe the factory- at the left side- in the middle. [The teacher stands at the front of the class and addresses the students who are sitting in small
F: Goback? groups of three to four.]
A: Oh no, she told to turn- they turn the first on the right T: Now we're going to listen to the news, and I'm
S: On the right, yeah. going to hand out a worksheet to you all, and
C: The right? we're going to do as we have done before. Just
A: Yeah, so if you come. listen and decide which category the news item
S: But this factory is on the left- the factory. we hear falls into. So I'll pass these around and
A: No, when you come back from the museum, it's the first on the right. you just read the instructions.
F: Goback? (She hands out the following worksheet.]
J: They turn back?
A: I think they return and turn, but I'm not sure. LISTENING TASK
F: Why don't we ask a question?
F: Is it the factory on Progress Street? Tick which category or categories each story belongs to.
(Adapted from Anderson and Lynch 1988: 113)
CATEGORIES

Political/Government
Post-reading task
1. What do you see as the benefits of such a task? Overseas
2. In the light of the difficulties experienced by students, what modifications might Disaster/Accidents
be made to the procedure?
Sports

The authors report that students, even the weakest ones, saw the benefit of such tasks Art/Culture
and wanted to do more of them. Students said such tasks made them more aware of: Religion
1. The need to cope with alternative descriptions of the same thing, rather than always Economics
expecting a single term. ·
2. The way in which one small piece of language can affect the interpretation of a text. Health
3. That some native speakers (i.e. not only these materials!) are hard to understand,
making it necessary to ask for something to be clarified or repeated. Education
(Anderson and Lynch 1988: 114)
Defence/Military
In the next extract, the teacher has two goals, a language goal and a 'learning how Judicial
to learn' goal.
34 Communicative Approaches to Ustening Comprehension 35
Language Teaching Methodology

T: Currency. Good. Okay. So two there -

T: The first time, I'll just play the main titles or
overseas and economics. Let's listen to the
the headlines once, and just get a general
next one.
idea .... Right? So don't ... you don't have
[The students listen to the next items completing them successfully until they reach the last
to tick the boxes· in now, you can just listen.
item.]
[She turns on a cassette player.] . . , . T: Medical. ... And ... ?
T ~·. Tht's is ABC national news read by Wilham Marga. Here re the headlmes. Overseas, a S: And,er, economics.
shake-up in the currency and stock markets. Syria getting re~dy to .mtervene 1D th e
T: And economics, yes, because they're talking
Beiruit fighting; and in Moscow the death of superspy Reg Smrth,- On t?e local scene, about the cost of it. Good. [She plays the last
financial cutting expected at today's premiers' conference. Other 1tems m the news a~e
student demonstrations, the cost oflVF babies, and aboriginal cricketers. The news m
item.]
Tape: And aboriginal cricketers.
detail after this break. . T: And Shaheed? [There is some confusion, and
{The teacher stops the tape, pushes the rewind button, and turns to one of the students.]
a number of students confer with each other.]
T: What're you going to do, Irene? [She points to What would you put it under?
the board on which are written some of the Ss: Er, political. .. political. .. judicial.
news categories. J Next time you listen, what S: Judicial.
will you be doing? T: What were the two words you heard?
S: I'm going to tick what categories they go in.
Ss: Culture,culture.
Different items . . . T: I'll just rewind those words. [She plays the
T: Good. segment again.]
[She replays the news item. The students listen to the news a second time, ticking the various Ss: Aboriginal cricketers, cricketers, sport.
categories on their handout as they do so.J T: You changed your mind, and decided ... ?
T: Now,just before we listen for the third time, Ss: Sport, sport.
check with a partner what they've ... how T: What sport? What was the word?
many they've ticked on theirs and see if you've S: Cricket.
got the same or if you can remember any of the T: Cricketers, that's right. Cricketers, so that
items. would be sport. [She consults her sheet. J
[The students work in their small groups, comparing their handouts. The teacher gives them Okay, so we'll just stop that activity for now.
three or four minutes to compare notes and then calls their attention to the front of the class.]
T: So this time listenjustto confirm whether what
Post-reading task
you heard was accurate or not. . . , .
Tape: This is ABC national news read by Wilham Marga. Here re the headlmes. Overseas, a 1. The language learning goal of this task was to get learners to extract key
shake-up in the currency and stock markets. information from an authentic listening text. Was the teacher successful in this?
T: Right. What did you ... would you tick for What, if anything, would you have done differently?
that? 2. Is there any evidence that the task was too easy? If so, how might it be made more
Ss: Overseas. Business.
challenging for learners at this level?
T: Overseas . . . and ...
Ss: Business ... business ... business ..
economical. Several interesting observations can be made about this extract. Perhaps one of the
T: Business ... and ... where is it? [She turns most obvious is the fact that in teaching and learning a great deal of interactive
and points at the board.] language work occurs. While this extract shows a teacher focusing on listening, there
S: Economic. is a significant amount of talking between teacher and students and among students.
T: Economics. 'Cause it talked about the word Like most samples of classroom interaction, it also reveals a great deal about the
... which wordgaveyou that clue? Beginning teacher's purposes. It shows, for example, that the teacher has twin goals, one focus-
with'C'. ing on the development of language skills, the other focusing of the development of
T: Stock market.
learning skills and strategies. She is focusing on top-down processing strategies
T: Stock market ... And ... ?
S: Currency. by encouraging learners to utilise their background knowledge. Students are also
36 Language Teaching Methodology
learning that they can utilise resources outside the classroom to practise their
listening, and that it is not necessary to understand every word for _listening to be
successful. Pedagogically, it could be argued that the task is too easy for the majority
of the learners because they only had difficulty with one news item -that dealing with
aboriginal cricketers. (Of course, we are forced to rely on the evidence from students
who speak out, and-It may well be that there are weaker students in the class for
whom the task is at an appropriate level of difficulty.) As recently-arrived, inter-
national students in Australia, it is doubtful that these learners would have content
knowledge relating to either aboriginals or cricket, and their difficulty with this
particular item can therefore be neatly accounted for by a top-down theory of
listening. However, in order to judge the difficulty or appropriateness of the task, we
would need to know the context of the lesson as a whole, and the range of ability
levels in the group.
The task is also tightly controlled by the teacher, and the students play a rather
passive role. With more advanced learners, a more active role could be encouraged
by getting students to choose unlikely categories and argue for these, or to rank
order the categor_ies from most to least likely. (In fact, at one s~age one of the
students does this by suggesting the 'death of-a superspy' item could be classified
under 'health'.)
2.8 Investigating listening comprehension
This section consists of a set of exploration tasks which are designed to encourage
you to experiment with and assess the ideas on listening contained in the body of the
chapter. If you are currently teaching, you will have ready access to students with
whom you might explore these ideas. If not, you should endeavour to get access to a
small group of non-native students who may or may not be undertaking formal
instruction. If this is not practicable, you can still create some of the listening tasks,
and may be able to find one or two individual non-native speakers who will agree to
take part in the activities. - Select several tasks from a listening coursebook. Analyse them and decide on their
Where possible it is a good idea to tape record any teaching/learning activities.
This makes it easier to review and evaluate the tasks.
Task 2.1
1. Select a text which you believe to be appropriate for a group of learners you are
teaching. or to whom you have access, and develop a unit of work based on the
dictogloss approach.
2. Teach the unit, and record, review and evaluate the approach.
3. Were the text and/or activities appropriate for the group?
4. What modifications would you make next time?
5. What do the students think of the technique?
Communicative Approaches to Ustening Comprehension 37
~
'· •.····· Task 2.2
Record a radio news broadcast and use it in the same way as the teacher in classroom
extract 2.2. Record and review the lesson. Were the patterns of interaction similar to
or different from those in extract 2.2?
Task 2.3
1. Study the 'trace the route' task and develop a similar one of your own. Teach the
task to a group of students and record the session. Review the discussion.
2. What does it tell you about the listening skills of the students?
3. What does it tell you about the appropriateness of the task?
4. Compare the discussion with those in extract 2.1.
5. What similarities and or differences are there between your students' discussion
and that in extract 2.1?
Task 2.4
Develop a parallel versions of the task using a different map and altering the
difficulty of the task. You could do this by increasing the number of elements and by
putting in contradictory information. Try this task on the same group of students,
and record the session. Did the students have more difficulty with the task, as
predicted by Anderson and Lynch?
Task 2.5
Develop different texts for three different maps. For example, text 1 might be a
tour guide explaining where the group wili be going; text 2 might be a set of instruc~
tions by an hotel employee to a guest, and text 3 might be a recount by one of the
tourists to a friend. Try and keep all other factors constant. (In effect, you are
investigating the difficulty of different text types on listening comprehension.) Try
the three tasks out on a group of students on three sepa.rate occasions, recording
the group interaction as before. Review and evaluate the recordings. Is there any
evidence that students had more difficulty with one text type rather than another?
Task 2.6
order of difficulty. Teach them over a period of time and evaluate whether your
predictions were correct. What factors seemed to be most significant in determining
difficulty? ~
Task 2.7
Select or create a listening text which has an accompanying visual (for example, a
description or set of instructions on how to make something). Write a set of compre-
hension questions. Administer the test to two groups of students who are at about the
f same level of proficiency. Let one group look at the picture, but not the other group.
. (Or, if you are doing the task in class, let one half of the class look at the picture but
• not the other half.) Evaluate the task by deciding whether the availability of the
i visual affected students' ability to complete the task.
38 Language Teaching Methodology
Chapter Three
I'
I
2.9 Conclusion
Speaking in a Second Language
In this chapter we have looked at the nature of listening comprehension. We haVe
seen that the notion of 'listener as tape recorder' is not a tenable one: that in
comprehending aural language listeners do a great deal of constructive and interpre-
tative work in which they integrate what they hear with what they know about the
world.
We also looked at some of the different ways of categorising listening texts and
tasks. It was suggested that there is a basic distinction between interactive and non~
interactive listening, and that interactive listening can be further categorised in 3.1 Introduction
various ways. In functional terms, we can distinguish between interactive listening
which has the interpersonal function of establishing and maintaining social relation-
ships, and listening which takes place in the course of transactional encounters where To most people, mastering the art of speaking is the single most important aspect of
the primary purpose is to obtain goods and services. learning a second or foreign language, and success is measured in terms of the ability
We also saw how these ideas have been applied at the level of pedagogy, both in to carry out a conversation in the language. In this chapter we look at what it means
terms of teaching materials and also in terms of classroom action. From a methodo- to speak and interact orally in a second language, and at how·data from theory and
logical perspective, theories, ideas and research are only as good as teachers and research into speaking can be translated into pedagogy. Some of the issues raised in
textbook writers make them. Interesting and unexpected things happen in the class- Chapter 2 are revisited, this time from the perspective of speaking. In this chapter, I
room, and in the final analysis, principles and ideas need to be tested in practice. It is explore the following questions:
to demonstrate the operation of principles and ideas at the level of classroom action 1. What are the different speaking tasks confronting learners and how might these
that the classroom extracts have been included. be classified?
2. Why is the predictability-unpredictability continuum important in understanding
speaking?
3. What is 'genre', and why is it an important concept in language learning and
teaching?
4. What are some of the factors to consider in determining the difficulty of speaking
f tasks?

I 5. How can second language acquisition research inform the selection, development
and adaptation of speaking tasks?
l 6. How can we stimulate oral interaction in the classroom?

l 7. What can we learn by recording and analysing student-student interaction in the

classroom?

3.2 Identifying different types of speaking

I
t.
In Chapter 2 we saw that listening texts and tasks can be classified in functional
terms. For example, we saw that weather forecasts fulfil a different function from
r transactional encounters, and that this difference is reflected in the type of language
which is used. Similar functional considerations help inform our analyses of texts
I
3
LISTENING

Goals
At the end of this chapter you should be able to:

• define the following key terms: comprehensible input, background knowl-

edge, scaffolding
• differentiate between receptive and productive language skills
• identify the learning strategies of classifying and listening for key words
• describe the difference between top-down and bottom-up listening
• discuss four key principles for teaching listening

Introduction
Some years ago at a conference, I was asked to describe the place of listening in
second language learning. My reply, which seemed somewhat glib at the time, was
that listening is the gasoline in the engine of second language acquisition. Later,
when I reflected on my answer, I thought that it was reasonably accurate. The
engine in a car doesn’t run without gasoline (or, these days, electricity or some
other form of power). It simply won’t happen. Without access to comprehensible
input in the form of aural or written messages, a second language won’t happen.
You may sometimes hear about the ‘four skills’ approach to language learning.
In this context, ‘skills’ refers to listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Listening
and reading are receptive skills. Through them we receive target language input.
Speaking and writing are productive skills. Of the four, listening is fundamental.
It is even more important than reading, although, as I argue in Chapter 5, reading
is also an extremely important, and sometimes overlooked, skill. The Canadian
 Listening 35

educator and applied linguist David Mendelsohn once described listening as the
‘Cinderella Skill.’ He wrote, “despite a gradually increasing acceptance of the
importance of listening comprehension for second language learners, the teaching
of listening comprehension remains a somewhat neglected and poorly taught
aspect of English in many ESL programs – the ‘Cinderella’ skill of ESL” (1994: 9).
While listening and reading provide input, they are quite different. When we
listen, we have to snatch sounds from the air before they evaporate. With reading,
we can pause, ponder, and reread.
For many second language learners, listening is more fundamental than reading
in the initial stages of learning because they may not understand the written script.
As I mentioned in the previous chapter, years ago, I lived in Thailand. Because I
was living in a neighborhood of Bangkok where not a single person understood
or spoke English, I had to pick up Thai pretty quickly. I couldn’t do this by reading
because the Thai script was totally different from the Roman alphabet. To gain
access to the language, I had to rely exclusively on the sounds that surrounded me.
This was quite a challenge, because I am a visual learner: I learn better by seeing
rather than hearing. (For comprehensive book-length treatments of listening in
second language learning, see Field [2008] and Rost [2011].)

Vignette
This class takes place in an immigrant language center in Australia. The class
consists of a group of adult immigrants of different ages and nationalities. It’s the
beginning of the class, and the students sit in a large semi-circle chatting to each
other until the teacher calls them to order by saying, “Now we’re going to listen
to the news, and I’m going to hand out a worksheet to you all, and we’re going
to do, as we have done before. Just listen and decide which category the news
item you hear falls into. So, I’ll pass these around, and you just read the
instructions.”
The teacher then distributes the following worksheet.

LISTENING TASK

Put a tick next to the category or categories each news item belongs to.

Categories
Political/Government
Overseas
36 Listening

Disaster/Accident
Sports
Art/Culture
Religion
Economics
Health
Education
Defense/Military
Judiciary

Once all students have a copy of the worksheet, she says, “I’ll just play the main
titles, or headlines, and I want you just to get a general idea of the topics. Right?
So, you don’t have to tick the boxes in now, you can just listen.” She then plays the
extract, which has been recorded from a radio news bulletin.

This is ABC national news read by Tony Jones. Here are the headlines. Overseas, a
shake-up in the currency and stock markets. More fighting in the Middle East, and
in Moscow, the death of superspy Reg Smith. On the local scene, financial cutting
expected at today’s state government leaders’ conference. Other items in the news are
student demonstrations, the cost of IVF babies, and aboriginal cricketers. The news in
detail after this break.

The teacher pauses the broadcast and turns to a student sitting on her left. She
says, “What’re you going to do, Irene?” She points to the whiteboard on which she
has written some of the news categories. “Next time you listen, what will you be
doing?”
“I’m going to tick what categories they go in. Different items,” replies Irene.
“Good.” The teacher plays the headlines again. The students listen a second
time and tick the different categories on the handout as they do so.
“Now,” says the teacher, “just before we listen for the third time, check with a
partner what they’ve . . . how many they’ve ticked on theirs and see if you’ve got
the same or if you can remember any of the items.”
The students work in small groups comparing their handouts. The teacher
gives them three or four minutes to complete this phase of the lesson and then
draws their attention to the front of the class. “So this time listen just to confirm
whether what you heard was accurate or not,” she says, and then plays the first part
of the broadcast again.
 Listening 37

This is ABC national news read by Tony Jones. Here are the headlines. Overseas, a
shake-up in the currency and stock markets.

“Right, what did you . . . would you tick for that?”

“Overseas. Business,” say several of the students.
“Overseas, and . . .?”
“Business . . . business . . . business and economical.’
“Business and . . . where is it?” The teacher points to the words on the board.
“Economic,” says a student.
“Economics, because the reader says the word . . . which word gave you that
clue? Beginning with ‘C’?”
“Stock market,” says a student.
The teacher nods. “Stock market. And . . .?”
“Currency.”
“Currency. Good. OK, so, two categories there – overseas and economics. Let’s
listen to the next one.”
The students listen to the next few items, completing them with few problems
until they reach the last item. The teacher says, “Medical . . . and . . .?”
“And, er, economics,” says a student.
“And economics, yes, because they’re talking about the cost of it. Good.” She
then plays the last item in the bulletin.

. . . and aboriginal cricketers . . .

“And . . . Shaheed?”
There is some confusion. Shaheed, the nominated student, confers with a num-
ber of other students.
“What would you put it under?” asks the teacher.
“Er, political . . . political . . . political,” says Shaheed.
“Judicial,” says another student.
“What were the two words you heard?”
“Culture, culture.”
“I’ll just play that bit again.”
She replays the item, and this time several of the students get it. “Aboriginal
cricketers. Aboriginal cricket. Sport,” they call out.
“You changed your minds and decided . . .?”
“Sport. Sport.”
“What sport? What was the word?”
“Cricket.”
“Cricketers, that’s right. Cricketers, so that would be sport.” She consults her
lesson notes. “OK, so we’ll just stop that activity for now.”
(Adapted from Nunan, 2000: 33–35)
38 Listening

REFLECT

A. What three things did you notice in the vignette? Write them down in
note form.

1.
2.
3.

B. Write down 3–5 questions you would like to ask the teacher about the
lesson.

My Observations on the Vignette

There are several interesting things going on in this vignette. Here are my notes.

1. The aim of the lesson is to get the students to categorize the news items by
listening for key words. She doesn’t want them to try to understand every
word. Even though she doesn’t spell it out explicitly in this lesson, she is
teaching the learners that there are different ways of listening. We don’t listen
to everything in the same way. Successful listeners listen in different ways
according to their purpose for listening.
2. Classifying and listening for key words are strategies. The teacher thus has
two complementary goals. She wants to improve the learners’ listening skills
and she is also working on their learning skills and strategies.
3. The one item that caused confusion was ‘aboriginal cricketers.’ Cricket is a
game played in England and former English colonies such as Australia, South
Africa, New Zealand, the West Indies and India (Although, interestingly, it
never caught on in Canada in a big way.) Some people believe that you have
to have been born and raised in a cricket-playing country in order to under-
stand the game fully. Certainly, for these learners, the item was unexpected,
and caused some confusion. The idea of having a cricket team composed
of aboriginal players was probably also culturally unfamiliar to them. They
therefore didn’t have the background knowledge that would help them to
make sense of what they were hearing.
4. The instructor encourages students to make inferences, that is, ‘listening
between the lines’ and coming up with information that is not explicitly
stated in the text. The issue of aboriginal cricketers is a good example of
where the ability to make an inference breaks down because the students do
not have the necessary background knowledge to make the inference.
 Listening 39

Issue in Focus: Top-Down and Bottom-Up Processing

In the following quote, Richards draws a distinction between two different ways
in which we process spoken language. He refers to these as bottom-up and top-
down processing. Don’t worry too much about words and phrases that may be
unfamiliar to you such as ‘lexical items’ and ‘phonological cues.’ These will become
familiar as you get further into the book. The important thing to understand is
that there are two different processes going on: deciphering the ‘bits’ of language –
individual sounds and words – on the one hand, and, on the other, using what we
already know about the context of the message – the subject matter, the relation-
ship between speakers, and so on – to make sense of what we are listening to.

Two distinct kinds of processes are involved in listening comprehension

which are sometimes referred to as “bottom-up” and “top-down” process-
ing. Bottom-up processing refers to the use of incoming data as a source of
information about the meaning of a message. From this perspective, the
process of comprehension begins with the message received, which is ana-
lyzed at successive levels of organization – sounds, words, clauses and
sentences – until the intended meaning is arrived at. Comprehension is thus
viewed as a process of decoding. Examples of bottom-up processing in lis-
tening include the following:
1. scanning the input to identify familiar lexical items
2. segmenting the stream of speech into grammatical constituents
3. using phonological cues to identify the information focus in an
utterance
4. using grammatical cues to organize the input into constituents – for
example, in order to recognize that in “the book which I lent you”
Top-down processing, on the other hand, refers to the use of background
knowledge in understanding the meaning of a message. Background knowl-
edge may take several forms. It may be previous knowledge about the topic
of discourse, it may be situational or contextual knowledge, or it may be
knowledge stored in long-term memory in the form of “schemata” or
“scripts” – plans about the overall structure of events and the relationship
between them.
For example, if an adult was seated on a park bench reading aloud from
a book to a group of enthralled young children, an observer would probably
assume that the adult was reading a story – rather than, say, a recipe or a set
of instructions on how to assemble a computer. The set of expectations for
a particular kind of discourse is generated from the situation, from knowl-
edge of a world populated by adults and children, and typical interactions
between them.
(Richards, 1990: 50–51)
40 Listening

When I began teaching, listening and reading were referred to as ‘passive’ skills,
in contrast to the ‘active’ skills of speaking and writing. However, it is clear from
the Richards extract that listening is an active process. When we listen, we do a
great deal more than decode the sounds that strike our eardrums into words,
phrases, and sentences. Rather, we use contextual knowledge to construct a reason-
able interpretation of what a speaker has said. Contextual knowledge will include
the situation, the topic of the conversation, the relationships between the speakers
taking part in the conversation, as well as other factors. As Goh says:

Listening is not just hearing. It is an active process that may begin even
before the first speech signal is recognized and it may go on long after the
input or spoken information has stopped. Meaning cannot be simply
extracted from the sound signals, and understanding is the result of active
construction occurring at all levels of text (sounds, grammar, lexis and dis-
course structure) and context (the topic, the participants, the communicative
purpose, and the place or setting for the interaction).
(Goh, 2014: 73)

Key Principles

1. Teach Students to Use Both Bottom-Up

and Top-Down Processing
We have seen that successful listeners use both bottom-up and top-down processing.
Top-down processing involves drawing on background knowledge to help make
sense of what we are listening to. How do we do this? Psychologists say that we do it
by drawing on schemata. Schemata are like mental movie scripts that we build up
from early childhood. For example we have sets of schemata or schemas for ‘going to
a restaurant.’ In a Western context, think how different your schema is for ‘Fine dining
in a French restaurant’ and ‘Grabbing a burger from McDonald’s.’ Those of you who
are familiar with Japanese culture and cuisine will have very different expectations
when eating in a kaiseki restaurant as opposed to eating at a tempura bar. When we
learn, we constantly adjust our pre-existing schemata or add new ones. In doing so,
we are living out the answer that celebrated educational psychologist David Pearson
gave when he was asked to define learning. He said that learning is a process of build-
ing bridges between the known and the new, between what we already know, and
what we have to learn. For me, the bridge metaphor captures the very essence of
learning. Grafting new knowledge to pre-existing knowledge is also a fundamental
principle in the model of learning proposed by the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget.

2. Incorporate a Range of Text Types into Your Listening Lessons

Learners need to be exposed to a wide range of text types from monologues to
dialogues, from casual conversations in which people are socializing, to interactions
 Listening 41

in which the speaker is trying to obtain goods and services. They should have the
opportunity to watch all types television shows, from sitcoms to the news. Public
announcements, recorded telephone messages, advertisements, and so on should
also be incorporated into the listening lesson. Out of class, learners can work on
their listening through the enormous range of texts available through the Internet:
YouTube clips, TED talks, and also the specially modified news broadcasts from
services such as the BBC and Voice of America. These have been specially recorded
to be more comprehensible to second language speakers.
A much discussed concept in communicative language teaching is that of
authenticity. There are two types of authenticity: text authenticity and task authen-
ticity. Authentic listening texts are those that originally emerged in the course of
some type of communication outside of the classroom – a casual conversation in
a coffee shop, a news broadcast, a train announcement, and so on – and are subse-
quently imported into the classroom for teaching purposes. I believe there is a
place in the classroom for both authentic and non-authentic texts. Both have dif-
ferent purposes. I have used authentic listening texts with absolute beginners. This
often scares them to start with, but they become more comfortable when they
realize that they don’t have to understand every word. I get them to do things such
as identify how many speakers there are in the conversation, or listen to several
short conversations and identify which are English and which are other languages.
From these experiences, my learners realize that they can benefit, and learn some-
thing; from authentic listening texts from the very beginning of the learning
process. The trick is to adjust the task – what learners have to do in response to
the listening – rather than the listening text itself.

3. Incorporate a Range of Pedagogical and

Real-World Tasks into Your Lesson
In addition to text authenticity, there is task authenticity. Again, in deciding
whether or not a task is authentic, we need to take our bearings from the world
outside the classroom and ask ourselves “Is this something that people do outside
the classroom?” Generally, in the real world, people don’t listen to an answering
machine message and complete a set of true/false questions. They listen and take
a message for a third party, or make a note to themselves about where and when
to meet the person leaving the message. I have already made the point that I see a
place for non-authentic listening tests in the language classroom, and the same
point applies to tasks. There may well be a place for true/false questions in the
classroom, but there should also be tasks that enable learners to rehearse in class the
sorts of things that they need to do outside the classroom.
Listening will involve production (speaking and writing tasks). The focus of a
listening lesson, or a listening segment within a lesson that includes other skills, should
be mainly on listening, not on speaking or writing. However, we can only evaluate
whether a learner has understood a listening text by getting them to do something,
that is, through production of one kind or another. This might involve answering
42 Listening

questions, either orally or in writing, taking a telephone message, and so on. Or the
response might be non-verbal: listening to a set of instructions and assembling a toy
or a game, listening and drawing a picture, etc. The richer the variety of tasks the more
interesting the listening lesson will be for the students, and for you, the teacher.

4. Incorporate Strategy Training into Your Teaching

Earlier in the chapter I stressed the importance of matching up our purpose for
listening, with the type of aural text we’re listening to, and then selecting the appro-
priate strategy – listening for gist, listening for key information, and so on. Purpose
is paramount. As one of my favorite listening teachers, Marc Helgesen, says, “It’s
not just what you’re listening to, it’s what you’re listening for” (Helgesen, 2003: 30).
I have already spoken about the centrality of learner strategy training to my
own philosophy of language teaching, and I have lots more to say during the
course of this book. Mike Rost (2002: 155), another ‘guru’ in the language listening
area, identified the following strategies of successful listeners.

• Predicting: effective listeners think about what they will hear.

• Inferring: It is useful for learners to “listen between the lines.”
• Monitoring: Good listeners notice what they do and don’t understand.
• Clarifying: Efficient learners ask questions (What does _____ mean? You mean
_____?) and give feedback (I don’t understand yet) to the speaker.
• Responding: Learners react to what they hear.
• Evaluating: They check on how well they have understood.

(For additional discussion of these and other principles, see Helgesen [2003].)

What Teachers Want to Know

The teachers posting these questions want to clarify some of the technical terms
associated with listening including ‘comprehensible input’ and ‘i+1.’ They also
want some practical strategies that teachers can use to make listening more com-
prehensible for learners.

Question: I’m still not clear about comprehensible input. I read that without access
to comprehensible input second language acquisition won’t happen. Can you say a
bit more about comprehensible input – what exactly is it, and why is it important?
Response: Comprehensible input is language that a learner hears and can make
sense of, although they may not understand every word. It’s the central feature
of Krashen’s (1981) input hypothesis. This hypothesis suggests that in order for
language learning to happen, learners must encounter language that is new and
slightly beyond their current proficiency.
 Listening 43

As instructors, we need to be aware of comprehensible input because we should

strive for a balance between using language that our students are comfortable with,
and introducing new words and phrases with adequate contextual cues. With too
many new words, grammar will be incomprehensible. Not enough new language
will limit learning opportunities for our students.
In my experience of studying Italian, it was helpful to hear my instructors use
words and phrases that were not in the book but were appropriate to the subject
or to the activity. For example, if we were playing a game to learn new vocabulary,
the teacher might use the Italian phrase for “It’s your turn.” The first time I hear
it, I may not remember the phrase well enough to repeat it, but I understand the
basic meaning through the context in which it is used. Then, over time, after hear-
ing the same phrase in the same context, I understand it immediately, and can even
use it myself.

Question: What is i+1?

Response: Comprehensible input is a means of learning through listening to input
that is challenging and slightly more difficult than one’s current level of profi-
ciency. This is known as i+1 – input plus 1. This doesn’t mean that the language
presented to the students is incomprehensible. Most of the language is compre-
hensible, but some isn’t. For example, when a student comes across a conversa-
tion (or listening text in a lesson) that is slightly above their level, they can use
cues given by the speaker to figure out the meaning of unknown parts. The cues
can be anything from body language to pictures, or the students themselves can
be encouraged to ask for a more simplified version of what is being discussed.
Encouraging the students to do so will make them more comfortable using the
language; thus, increasing their confidence.

This is important because if the language presented to us is too easy, then we

get bored and stop listening. This doesn’t only happen with second language
learning, but with other subjects as well. If the content is not challenging, the
learners will turn off. Likewise, when something is too difficult, learners will have
a tendency to tune out. Furthermore, the students will become less motivated
because they may see the language as being too difficult to learn. However, if we
present language in a comprehensible way, the students’ own learning can be
enhanced.

Question: What can teachers do to make listening texts more comprehensible for
learners?
Response: One way to make listening comprehensible is by scaffolding the learning
process. As we have learned, it is important to have pre-tasks that prepare learners
for the task of listening. After doing these pre-tasks, it is important to give learners
a purpose for listening by requiring them to use different strategies each time they
44 Listening

listen. Here is a procedure based on a dialogue from Interchange by Jack Richards

to demonstrate the idea of scaffolding.

ROD: Hello.
JANA: Hi, Rod. This is Jana.
ROD: Oh, hi, Jana. What’s up?
JANA: I’m going to my best friend’s wedding this weekend. I’d love to take
some pictures for his website. Would you mind if I borrowed your new
digital camera?
ROD: Um, no. That’s OK, I guess. I don’t think I’ll need it for anything.
JANA: Thanks a million.
ROD: Sure. Uh, have you used a digital camera before? It’s sort of complicated.
JANA: Uh-huh, sure, a couple of times. Would it be OK if I picked it up on
Friday night?
ROD: Yeah, I guess so.
(Richards et al., 2005: 16)

Before listening, the teacher could ask a question such as, “Listen to the con-
versation between Jana and Rod. What are they talking about? Don’t try and
understand every word – just try and get the general idea.” This practices the
strategy known as listening for gist, or global listening, which requires students to
catch key words and to connect the words to understand the main topic.
After listening to the text the first time, the teacher could ask a question such
as, “Whose wedding is this weekend?” or “When will Jana pick up the digital
camera?” In answering these questions, the students are practicing a strategy called
listening for specific information. Listening for specific information means that
learners identify information such as a number, a name, and so on.
The third time they listen, the teacher might require learners to use a different
strategy by asking them to make inferences about what they have listened to. Infer-
ring requires students to “read between the lines” and information is not stated
explicitly in the text but conclusions can be drawn based on the content provided.
For the example above, the teacher could ask a question such as “How does Rod
feel about Jana borrowing his digital camera?” Depending on Rod’s intonation, he
could sound a little irritated or concerned about Jana borrowing his camera.

TASK

Total Physical Response (TPR) is a technique for providing comprehensible

input. In this technique, the teacher gives a series of instructions which stu-
dents listen to and follow. If possible, in groups of 2–5, come up with an
instructional sequence for providing comprehensible input through TPR.
 Listening 45

Small Group Discussion

In the vignette presented earlier in the chapter, we saw the benefits of background
knowledge, as well as the drawbacks of lack of background knowledge. In this
discussion thread, the teacher and students discuss the importance of background
knowledge and schemata to comprehension.

TEACHER: I’d like to begin this thread by posing two questions: Why is back-
ground knowledge important in the comprehension process? Is using back-
ground knowledge a top-down or bottom-up process?
MARI: Bottom-up processing is where you start with the smallest elements of the
language and work toward the larger elements. Think, for instance, about
the sounds used to make words “ship” and “sheep.” Top-down processing is
where you use what you already know to make sense of what you are listen-
ing to. “The president is on the ship/sheep.” Using top-down processing, it
makes much more sense that the president is on a ship and not on a sheep.
ROBERTO: Let’s think a bit more about schema theory and background knowledge.
We function on an everyday basis because we have an interior film script
about how the world should behave and we use this to make sense about what
is going on. We have a script for going to a restaurant. The script is different
for fast food versus traditional restaurants. We always develop and modify our
schema. These schemata are important in language learning, in particular lis-
tening. This sometimes can lead us into trouble when we interact with differ-
ent cultures which have different schemata. And it can lead to embarrassment.
We have to modify schemata according to the culture we are in.
TEACHER: There have been a number of investigations into the relationship
between background knowledge and listening comprehension. These stud-
ies show that students with relevant background knowledge perform sig-
nificantly better on listening tests than students who don’t have the relevant
background knowledge.
What other examples or experiences can you add to demonstrate that we
often use background knowledge to comprehend a message?
LISA: In top-down processing, learners start from their background knowledge to
understand the topic. My daughter is two years old and she usually talks by
imitation. Sometimes she repeats bad words. I guess that she just listens to bad
words from her friends or someone in nursery, so I don’t care about it because
I know that she doesn’t know the meaning of those bad words. I think that’s
just a kind of bottom-up process. I want to ask my daughter many things and
I want to communicate with her. For example, last Sunday we went to the
zoo and then I asked my daughter. “Do you like tigers?” She said, “No, I’m
scared of tigers.” I asked again, “Why?” She replied, “The tiger bared its teeth
in a snarl.” Maybe she saw that in the zoo. She already knew about tigers by
reading a book before that and always replied “I like tigers” to the same ques-
tion. “The tiger bared its teeth in a snarl” is the possible answer after the real
46 Listening

experience. The individual experience builds background knowledge and

the background knowledge is helpful to understand something (the compre-
hension process). So I think background knowledge is very important in the
comprehension process and is a top-down process.
TRACY: I think that using background knowledge is a top-down process. It can
encourage the learners to discuss what they already know about a topic. Gen-
eral knowledge and life experience could help us to understand the topic.
Without background knowledge, we wouldn’t have a basis for making sense
of the listening or reading texts that we are trying to understand.

REFLECT

Make a note of three ideas from this discussion that you would like to try out
in your own teaching.

Commentary
From the discussions above, the teachers and students articulate their understand-
ing of how background knowledge and experiences help in making sense of spo-
ken and written messages. There are also several interesting anecdotes from their
own personal experiences on the effect of background knowledge on comprehen-
sion. Students often know more than they think they do, but fail to apply that
knowledge to a listening task. As teachers, it is important to remind learners of
what they already know about a particular topic prior to listening to or reading a
given text. If students don’t have relevant knowledge, it is often possible to supply
this through schema-building tasks of various kinds.

Summary

Content focus Listening in a second language

Vignette Listening for specific information; inferencing;
authentic listening text
Issue in focus Top-down and bottom-up processing
Key principles 1. Expose learners to different ways of processing
information.
2. Expose students to different types of listening text.
3. Teach a variety of tasks.
4. Consider text difficulty and authenticity.
5. Teach listening strategies.
What teachers want to know Comprehensible input, i+1
Small group discussion Background knowledge, scaffolding
 Listening 47

Further Reading
Rost, M. (2011) Teaching and Researching Listening. 2nd Edition. London: Pearson.
This state-of-the-art introduction to teaching and researching second language listening is
thoroughly revised from the original edition which was published ten years previously.
While it deals with the complexities of the linguistic, psycholinguistic, and pragmatic pro-
cesses involved in the comprehension of a second language, it does so in a comprehensible
and readable style. In addition to reviewing the relevant theories that have been developed,
and the research that has informed the teaching of listening, the book contains many practi-
cal illustrations and examples.

References
Field, J. (2008) Listening in the Language Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Goh, C. (2014) Second language listening comprehension: Process and pedagogy. In
M. Celce-Murcia, D. Brinton, and M.A. Snow (eds.) Teaching English as a Second or
Foreign Language. 4th Edition. Boston: National Geographic Learning.
Helgesen, M. (2003) Listening. In D. Nunan (ed.) Practical English Language Teaching. New
York: McGraw-Hill.
Krashen, S. (1981) Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning. Oxford: Per-
gamon Press.
Mendelsohn, D. (1994) Learning to Listen. San Diego: Domine Press.
Nunan, D. (2000) Language Teaching Methodology. London: Pearson Education.
Richards, J.C. (1990) The Language Teaching Matrix. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Richards, J.C. (with J. Hull and S. Proctor) (2005) Interchange. Students’ Book 3. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rost, M. (2002) Teaching and Researching Listening. London: Pearson.
Rost, M. (2011) Teaching and Researching Listening. 2nd Edition. London: Pearson.