TOWARDS ACQUIRING

COMMUNICATIVE
COMPETENCE THROUGH
LISTENING
Alicia Martinez-Flor
Esther Uso-Juan

A presentation by: Hannaneh Abbasi - Sepideh Torabi - Zeinab Mohseni

Professor Seifori
April 2023
WHY IS LISTENING ONE OF
THE MOST IMPORTANT SKILLS?
• We use it in our normal and daily life
• If your listening skill is in the appropriate
level, then you can comprehend your
interlocutor.
• Trough listening, we can learn new
information and be aware of people’s idea.
• What can you add?
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APPROACHES TO LEARNING
AND TEACHING LISTENING.

1.Listening within an environmental approach.

➢ Up to the end of the 1960’s , reading and listening had no special role in
teaching and language learning.
➢ Learning a language was a mechanical process based on stimulus-
response pattern.
➢ Listeners’ stimulus consisted in hearing L2 words and the response
involved identifying and organizing those words into sentences.

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• Listeners’ main role → recognition and

discrimination of sound rather than
understanding.
• Listening comprehension → took place through
repeating, imitating and memorizing.
• Series of exercise → focused on pronunciation
drills, memorization and imitation dialogue.
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QUESTIONS
1. What is Oral-aura?
2. What is the purpose of training learners through oral-aura drills?
3. Can we use this teaching method (Oral-aura) for high- level learners?

Response :

Language learning through hearing and speaking is oral-aura and the purpose of
training learners through oral-aura !
Drills help learners to improve their hearing or listening habits but we cannot
use this technique for higher level learners.

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2. LISTENING WITHIN AN INNATIST APPROACH

Listening → mechanical process of habit formation→ more dynamic
and mentalistic process.

ALSO…
Comprehension was a necessary step for language learning and
listening was viewed as the primary channel that helped to access to L2.

Learner’s role → from recognizing sounds to understanding. So for

listening comprehension the primary condition was --------- language
rather than repeat,-------- and memorizing it.
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• Initial listening (listening first) →Rost developed a touching

methodology based on initial listening.
It means that, in our classroom first we have to pay attention
to the listening aspects.
• Peterson → reception should precede production.
• Asher → when listeners hear a verbal command, they have
to understand this spoken language through non-verbal act.
• Tip → By the late 1960’s and early 1970’s listening was seen
as the promoter of language learning.

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 3.LISTENING WITHIN AN
INTERACTIONIST APPROACH
Purposeful listening → listening should focus on a whole piece of discourse
rather than listening to single words or short phrases. Also, learners’ rle changed
from paying attention to the formal structures being heard towards listening
for content and meaning.

TIP : importance of listening

Environmental approach < innatist approach < interactionist approach

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THE MAIN VIEWS OF COMPREHENSION

1. Information processing → 1.Input

2. Perception
3. Recognition
4. Understand
It claimed that comprehension occurred when it was reproduced in the learners’ mind.

2.Constructive view of listening → Constructed meaning according to their own

purpose and their own prior knowledge.

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SCHEMA THEORY =
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Learner’s prior knowledge , background and experience is significant in the process of comprehension.

1. Content schema = topic familiarity, cultured knowledge

2. Formal schema = academic lectures.

Prior knowledge is helpful

Q = How cultured and social aspects have an influence on listening comprehension?

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• 1980’s →listening has been

considered as a primary vehicle for
language learning , achieving a
status of significant and central
importance in both learning and
language teaching.
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TEACHING LISTENING WITH A COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE FRAMEWORK

In the 1970s, and under the influential work of Hymes (1971,1972) significant
changes in L2 language teaching took place.

Chomsky→1965→view of language as a mere formal system governed by a

series of rules.
Hymes → (1971 – 1972) argued the need to pay attention to language use in
social practice, he introduced the term
communicative competence.
In this communicative competence constructed and given the primary of listening for
language learning.
Figure 1. shows the diagram representing this framework with listening positioned
in its core.
Figure1 . Integrating listening within the communicative competence framework.
Communicative
Linguistic Competence
competence

Discourse
Strategic listening Pragmatic
competence competence competence

Intercultural
competence
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3.1 DISCOURSE COMPETENCE:

Communicative competence is the listening skill.
Discourse competence implies and understanding of how language operates at a level. It involves
knowledge of discourse features such as markers, coherence and cohesion. Listeners have to
recognize and interpret what is heard in longer or interactive discourse. they need first to understand
which discourse features have been used and why?

3.2 linguistic competence

Linguistic competence includes 1.grammar
2.phonology
3.vocabulary
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Knowledge of these features set at the bottom level of the listening process
is necessary for listeners.
Listeners need to know not only how words are segmented into various
sounds but must also understand aspects such as:
1. rhythm 2.stress 3.intonation

Essential parts of Linguistic

listeners competence Lexicon or vocabulary

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3.3. PRAGMATIC 3.4. Intercultural 16

COMPETENCE
Pragmatic competence involves an understanding of the function or
illocutionary force of a spoken utterance in a given situation. The
importance of this component and its interrelationship with discourse
competence is also evident if the purpose is to make listeners achieve a
full understanding of a given spoken text at the discourse level.
competence
Intercultural competence implies having knowledge of
both cultural and non-verbal communicative factors.
The presence of cultural references is something
inherent in any piece of discourse.

Knowledge of nonverbal _ communication - Body language — facial expressions or eye contact .

Both cultural and non- verbal means of Communication

Would allow listeners to increase their overall
communicative competence .
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3.5. STRATEGIC
COMPETENCE

This competence involves the mastery of both communication and learning

strategies that will allow listeners to successfully construct meaning from
oral input.
Knowledge of different learning strategies :
1. Cognitive 2. Meta cognitive 3. Socio - affective
Strategic competence Can be reflected the following
Four chapters by :
I. Rost 2. Mendelsohn. 3. Lynch. 4. White
Rost → claims an important area of research in listening Has
been devoted to strategy instruction.
Mandel sohn→ provides a detailed account of the benefits of
implementing a strategy.
Lynch→ illustrates an example of a strategic approach to the
training of lecture listening skills .
White→ points out the importance of teaching listening skills
and strategies .
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QUESTIONS
• 1. explain what elements include the linguistic competence?
• 2. What is the relation between listening and Communicative
Competence ?
• 3. Explain about pragmatic competence and what is the purpose of the
listeners in this competence?
• 4. explain the all chapters include the strategic competence ?
• 5. what is the different between cultural and non - Verbal
Communicative factors in intercultural competence ?

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CONCLUSION
This chapter has illustrated how listening, the all-to-often neglected skill has
gained a status of significant and central importance in language learning
and teaching over the last decades. In fact, it is considered nowadays a
primary vehicle for L2 language learning which involves an interactive
process of meaning creation. In such a process, listeners' active participation
has been highlighted, and the influence of linguistic, psychological and
cultural factors has also been described. The complexity involved in how
these factors affect the listening comprehension act has made the teaching of
this particular skill an arduous task. However, the advances that have taken
place in communicative approaches to L2 language teaching since the 1980s
have opened new avenues to overcome this issue. To this respect, it has been
shown how the teaching of listening can be carried out as part of an overall
communicative construct. By adopting this perspective, learners'
communicative competence can be developed through the listening skill.

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SUGGESTED
ACTIVITIES
The activities presented in this section are included within the
implementation stage of the Cultural Awareness Project
described by Usó-Juan and Martínez-Flor (this volume). The
goal of these activities is to foster learners' communicative
competence through the listening skill, as well as to raise their
awareness of cultural differences or similarities in different
language communities.

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 ACTIVITY 1
Select a representative scene from a film,
brought in by the learners, which shows a
given cultural topic (see Williams 2001: 119
for the benefits of employing video to tackle
behavioral and cultural values in the
classroom).Prepare a series of questions
divided into three phases (i.e., pre-listening,
while-listening and post-listening) with the
aim of activating, developing and reflecting
on their cultural knowledge of such a topic
while practicing their listening skill. Figure 2
shows the worksheet that would be given to
the learners.
Figure 2. video worksheet with a
focus on cultural aspects
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Visual Listening
Pre-listening phase :
Do you think the topic of (.) is representative of the target culture and of
your own culture? Why or why not ? Which ideas come to your mind
when thinking about such a topic?
While-listening phase:
Can you identify elements such as pauses, changes of intonation, tone
of voice or periods of silence that involve cultural meaning ? Which is
the setting of the scene? Does it involve particular implications for the
development of the situation ? What is the participants' relationship in
terms of social status and power ? Does such a relationship affect their
communicative interaction? Would such interaction be different in your
own culture ? Which non-verbal means of communication can be
identified (i.e., body movement, facial expression, eye contact, etc.)?
Are they different in your own culture?
Post-listening phase:
Reflect on the scene you have just watched and in small groups discuss
the cultural differences that would arise if the same situation were to
take place in your own culture.
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The pre-listening phase attempts to engage learners in cross-cultural comparisons and activate their
background knowledge on the particular cultural topic the scene is going to cover. The while-listening
phase involves a series of questions designed to make learners analyze the scene in terms of how
linguistic, pragmatic and intercultural-related issues (i.e., non-verbal behavior) influence their
understanding of the cultural topic. Finally, the post-listening phase makes learners reflect on and discuss
the cultural differences that may arise if such a situation were to take place in their own culture.

Activity 2
Select representative audio extracts or video scenes with cultural incidents (Harmer 1998) or intercultural
misunderstandings (Lynch and Mendelsohn2002) that have been brought in by the learners (i.e., scenes
in which someone from a particular culture feels odd in a situation interacting with someone from a
different culture, or scenes that report an intercultural misunderstanding given the beliefs and attitudes
in the different cultures). Prepare a series of activities aimed at raising learners' cross-cultural awareness
by asking them, for example, to evaluate the behavior of the person involved in the situation by paying
attention to non-verbal features, such as body movement, eye contact or tone of voice (if video scenes are
employed), or to interpret and explain the misunderstanding (see Harmer 1998: 104 for an example of an
audio extract that involves a cultural incident).

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ACTIVITY 3
Classify all culture-specific listening materials brought in by
all learners (i.e., audio extracts, recorded conversations, video
scenes) according to the particular cultural topic covered (i.e.,
family, education, regional identity, etc.) and use them as
resources for a larger listening activity. Therefore, each learner
could take the material on a given topic home and return it to
class after a suitable period of time. To ensure that learners
listen to the material, they should prepare a short-written
report describing the content it dealt with as well as giving
their point of view about such a topic.

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 REFERENCES 25

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THANK YOU ☺

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