What is listening and why is important in the acquisition of a second language?

Listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying. This involves
understanding a speaker’s accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary, and grasping
his meaning (Howatt and Dakin 1974). An able listener is capable of doing these four things
simultaneously. Listening places a far greater load on the memory because the listeners cannot go
back to the previous text in order to check or revise comprehension.

Listening comprehension is important not only for maintaining effective communication but also
for obtaining information. As pointed out by Hunsaker (1990), “An estimated 80% of what we
know is acquired through listening” (cited by Swaine, Friehe, & Harrington,

It is believed that listening helps to internalize the language system and thereby acquire language.
In other words, by listening to a language a learner not only will learn to comprehend listening
inputs but also will be able to improve his/her reading, writing and speaking skills.1 ene 2015

According to Rivers (1968) there are two basic levels while learning to listen, they are the levels of
recognition and selection and the levels of selection. When the learners begin to hear a second
language, they hear only meaningless sounds but when a person is continuously exposed to a
language, he/she may begin to recognise elements and patterns of the phonological, syntactic and
semantic codes of the language automatically.

Listening comprehension attained the signpost of a wide range of theories of second language
acquisition (SLA) and classroom teaching, which focus on the beginning levels of second language
proficiency.

Further, in L2 teaching classrooms, not only English but also other L2 learning situations, the
centrality of listening comprehension in L2 learning process has been exceptionally established
with appropriate theories and practices. For e.g., Rost (1994) summarizes the importance of
listening comprehension in L2 learning process as follows:

Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learner. Without
understanding input at the right level, any learning simply cannot begin.
Spoken language provides a means interaction for the learner. Because learners must interact to
achieve understanding, access to the speakers of the language is essential. Moreover, learners’
failure to understand the language they hear is an impetus, not an obstacle, to interaction and
learning.

Authentic spoken language presents a challenge for the learner to attempt to understand the
language as native speakers actually use it.

Listening exercises provide teachers with a means for drawing learners’ attention to new forms
(vocabulary, grammar, new interaction patterns) in the language.

(Rost, 1994. 141)

Place of Listening Skills in Second Language Acquisition

In the sixties, behaviourists influenced language teaching. Language learning was understood as
basically habit formation. The audio-lingual and audio-visual teaching methods were based on the
above view. Moreover, in this approach, teaching of listening comprehension in second language
profession was viewed as only mastering discrete skills and the main focus was on teaching and
testing those discrete skills; listening was considered a passive skill and the learner a passive
receiver of information.

In the early 70’s, listening comprehension was given importance in learning a language. For e.g. in
Total Physical Response (TPR) approach and in The Natural approach this trend can be seen.
Krashen and Terrell (1983) brought awareness about the role listening as an instrument for
understanding and insisted that listening skills play an important role in facilitating language
learning. Thus, listening has emerged as a significant component in the process of second language
acquisition (Feyten, 1991). It is believed that listening helps to internalize the language system and
thereby acquire language. In other words, by listening to a language a learner not only will learn to
comprehend listening inputs but also will be able to improve his/her reading, writing and speaking
skills.

Listening Comprehension Process

Listening comprehension has been realized as high-level active process and the listener has an
important role by way of interacting with the text interpreting the text based on several other
factors such as his/her background knowledge, the context and the purpose of listening. This is
evident from some of the recent definitions of listening comprehension.

“Listening comprehension is an inferential process in which the listener constructs meaning

through this interaction and the interpretation of the text is guided and influenced by the context
of situation listener’s purpose for listening (Buck, 1997. 28).

Lynch & Mendelsohn, 2002. 193) defines listening, ” listening involves making sense of spoken
language, normally accompanied by other sounds and visual input, with the help of our (listeners’)
relevant prior knowledge and the context in which we (listeners) are listening.”

Rost (2005. 503) opines, listening refers to a complex cognitive process that allows a person to
understand spoken language.

From the above definitions, one may conclude that, listening comprehension is not a simple
process and the processes cannot be overtly observed. Buck (1997) claims that, listening
comprehension is an “inferential process” and through that operation listeners take the
responsibility of ‘constructing meaning’. Listeners interact with the text, which is supported by the
context. And listener’s purpose also plays a key role in making meaning. According to Lynch and
Mendelson (2002) , listening comprehension a bundle of related processes such as recognition of
sounds uttered by the speaker, perception of intonation patterns, interpretation of the relevance
of what is being said to the current topic and so on. Rost (2005) precisely says that, listening
comprehension is a ‘complex process’ and this process is carried out by the listener to construct
meaning of ‘spoken language (P. 503).

The Process of Encoding and Decoding

An act of communication requires encodes- the speaker and decoder- the listener. The speaker
encodes the concept or message through a set of code. The listener decodes the concept or
message from the set of code used by the speaker. That is, on the one hand, the act of encoding
involves cheering the sounds into words, words into sentences, sentences into discourses. On the
other hand, the act of decoding involves identifying the sounds, understanding the utterances and
their meanings, and recognizing the prosodic features like tone, intonation, pitch, stress etc. used
by the speaker.

Learner Factors
Learner factors also play an important role in L2 learning process in general and specifically
listening comprehension. In a very recent study, Kumaravadivelu (2006) presents a continuum to
demonstrate different learner factors. He names it “intake factors continuum’ and interprets using
acronym, INTAKE: individual factors, Negotiation factors, Tactical factors, Affective factors,
Knowledge factors, and Environmental factors. He categorizes learner factors into two: learner
internal factors and learner external factors.

Learner internal Intake factors continuum

Factors Individual ——– Age, anxiety

Affective ——– Attitude, motivation

Tactical ——– Learning strategies

Communicative strategies

Knowledge ——– Language knowledge

Metalanguage knowledge

Negotiation ——– Interaction, interpretation

Environmental ——— Social context

Educational context

Learner external

Factors

(Kumaravadivelu, 2000