Better listeners versus more

listening: rethinking the

Comprehension Approach
John Field
Universities of Reading and Cambridge, UK
The Comprehension Approach
 Pre-listening: motivation, mental set
 Extensive listening: general questions
 Pre-set task or questions
 Intensive listening
 Checking answers (? with replay?)
 [Language review]
 [Listen with tapescript]
Teaching not testing
‘Until we have some diagnostic procedures, the teacher [of
L2 listening] can only continue to test comprehension, not
to teach it. We need to move into a position where the
teacher is able to recognise particular patterns of behaviour
in listening manifested by an unsuccessful listener and to
provide exercises for the student which will promote
superior patterns of behaviour (superior strategies)’.
(Brown, 1986: 286)
 Concerns about the Comprehension
Approach
• Teacher-centred; isolation of learners
• The notion of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ answers
• Origins in L2 reading methods; consequent
misconceptions about the nature of listening
• Heavy emphasis on meaning building at the
expense of decoding
• Emphasis on the products of listening in the form
of correct answers, and not the process
 A partial solution: a diagnostic approach
• a. Teacher adopts a non-interventionist stance
Who thinks the answer is A? Who thinks it is B? Shall we
hear it again?
• b. Teacher follows up both right and wrong
answers.
Why do you think answer A is right? Why do you think
answer B is right?
 A more radical solution (Field 1998)
• An approach based upon intensive small-scale
exercises that practise the various sub-skills that
contribute to skilled listening.
• A distinction between
– sub-skills (part of the behaviour of a skilled listener)
– strategies used to compensate short-term for problems
of understanding.
 Field (2008):A process approach
• Listening is a form of expertise. We acquire it like other
skills such as playing chess or driving.
• Achieving any type of expertise requires the novice to
adjust slowly to the way in which an expert behaves…
Teachers need to understand expert behaviour if they are
to induce it in novices.
• Becoming an expert of any kind requires:
– Intensive practice in important processes so that they
become more and more automatic
– Combining the processes into larger operations
– Exposure to real-life experiences, where taught
processes have to be used appropriately and under the
pressure of time.
 A process approach assumes:

Language instruction is not the solution:

knowledge  recognition
 A process approach distinguishes …
• Decoding: matching groups of sounds in the
speech stream to words in the listener's vocabulary
• Meaning building: constructing a larger-scale
meaning on the basis of the words that have been
decoded.
• Both are critical to successful listening
 A process approach: 3 strands
• 1. Expose …
Teachers need greater understanding of the nature of
the input, and its problems for learners;
• 2. Model…
Teachers need a methodology that trains better listeners
instead of just providing practice;
• 3. Enable…
Learners must be helped to crack the code of speech at
an early stage, despite their lack of a) language
knowledge b) experience of L2 listening.
1. Expose: Understand the input (Brown, 1990)
* Much variation in the signal
* No consistent boundaries between words
* No physical evidence: the listener needs to
carry meaning forward in the mind.
* Time pressures
– On-line processing
– Timing is largely controlled by speaker
 Variability of speech
• Phoneme variation
• Word variation
assimilation – elision
pressures inside the intonation group
• Speaker variation
voice – speech rate – context – accent
 Implications for teaching
• Examples of the same words / phrases in different
voices and contexts
• Repetition and recycling. The importance of
replay.
• Attention to chunks and to rhythm (esp. as a
means of decoding function words)
 Focused practice in L2 input
• Identify aspects of the input that are likely to
cause problems of decoding
• Practise each one intensively by means of small-
scale micro-listening exercises
• Use simple exercise types such as transcribing
short sentences
Weak form decoding exercise
Write down what you hear. [samples of authentic
or naturalistic speech]
– I should have [ə] done.
– Just wait a [ə] moment.
– A box of [ə] cigars.
– The buses are [ə] late.

– I’m looking for a [frə] photo.

– I’m looking at a [ətə] key.
– I’m talking to [tə] the meeting.
– I’m talking at [ət] the meeting.
 2. Model: Emulate expert processing
• L1 processes provide a model for the L2 instructor

• L1 processes provide a benchmark that enables us to

understand better where L2 problems lie.

Rationale: long exposure has enabled L1 listeners to adopt

routines which are more effective and more highly
automatic than those of L2 listeners.
 Questions about L1 processes
• How do expert listeners process syllables?
L1: [ˡspɔ:t]  L2: [eˡspɔ:t] [sɪˡpɔ:t]
• How do expert listeners recognise words by association
with words heard earlier?
DOCTOR – nurse
• How do expert listeners deal with unfamiliar words?
• How do expert listeners make use of intonation patterns
and pauses in the input?
• How do expert listeners recognise words in connected
speech?
 An approximate process
• Listening, even in L1, is an approximate process
• The listener decodes the input, about a syllable
behind the speaker
• But listeners often cannot identify words
accurately until several syllables afterwards.
• So, at both word and syntax level, a listener has to
construct a provisional message which may have
to be revised.
• ð • æ
• ə • b
• k • ɪ
• æ • n
• p • s
• t • ɪ
• ɪ • k
• n • s
• z • t
• ɪ • i:
• ŋ • n
• k
 The expert listener versus the novice
• [maɪˈtreɪn]  my train / might rain /
(might train)
• + or  might rain > might train > my
train
• + snow  might rain or snow

• [maɪˈtreɪn]  my train
• + or  my train or
• + snow  my train or snow
 How do expert listeners recognise grammar
patterns?
• The heavy fall…
clumsily
• The actor learnt the words…
had been written by Shakespeare
• The teachers taught by modern methods …
did better than their colleagues
• The rescuers discovered the plane …
had crashed
• The promise made…
was finally kept.
 Exercise types
(Field: Listening in Language Classroom, Chap 12)
• a. Teacher plays a sentence from a recording of natural speech.
Learners transcribe the words they understand. Teacher replays,
learners add more words. Learners compare answers, teacher replays.
• b. ‘Listen and fill in the missing words’. Teacher gives learners a
transcript, in which groups of words (not just single words) have been
omitted.
• c. ‘Write what you hear’. Teacher dictates ambiguous sequences to
the learners, adds an unexpected ending.
a nice cream … dress
the way to cut it … is like this
some boxes have … arrived
I want to drive a … train.
 Dealing with unknown words
I found out that the thud was the cat
the sound was the cat
I found out that the front was the cat
the thing was the cat
the fog of the cat
I found that the sun in the cat
I found out the frog and the cat
I found out that is a cat
I found that was the cat
I thought it was a cat
in the front was the cat
I found out where was the cat
what I thought that a cat
 Unfamiliar words
I found out that the thud was the cat.

• L2 listener in class
– ‘Can you work out the meaning from the context?’
• L2 listener in the real world
– the thought / front / sun was the cat
• L1 listener hearing a new word:
– Identify as new word rather than known
– Ignore – Generalise – Infer meaning from context
 New word or known? Exercise types
(Field: Listening in the Language Classroom, Chap 12)

• a. ‘Which word doesn’t belong? Write it.’

Teacher dictates sets of words, where the ‘odd
one out’ is an unfamiliar word that resembles a
familiar one.
summer – autumn – string – winter
purple – yellow – drown - green – orange
cousin – sister – nephew – ankle – daughter
• b.Teacher plays a short authentic passage.
Learners identify new words (e.g. count how
many, attempt to transcribe them).
3. Enable. Short term techniques
• We can design a long-term developmental
programme based upon:
Familiarising the listener with L2 input
Training the listener in L1 processes.
• But meanwhile the learner needs strategies for
making sense of what she hears despite limited
language knowledge
– a. to participate in L2 encounters
– b. to benefit from real-world sources
– c. to sustain motivation
 Explicit teaching of listening strategies
Raise awareness of strategy use.
Present the strategies one by one.
Practise the strategies individually.
Learners evaluate their own strategy use.
 Problems of explicit teaching
Many standard check-lists of L2 strategies were constructed
with speaking in mind.
The strategy that is chosen depends heavily upon the problem
of understanding that has occurred.
Effective strategy use is
• appropriate
• rapid
• a choice between alternatives.
A task-based approach to strategies (Field 2000)
• Intensive listening 1 (short section)
– Ss write down words they understand
– Ss form hypotheses linking the words
– Ss compare notes in pairs
• Intensive listening 2 (replay)
– Ss write down more words
– Ss revise guesses, discuss in pairs
– Ss present ideas to class. Teacher neutral
• Intensive listening 3 (replay)
– Ss revise guesses; discuss in pairs
– Class evaluates. T assists
• Final play.
A role for the comprehension approach

• Training in listening, like training in any form of

expertise, requires:
– Intensive micro-listening exercises that focus on a
particular process, combined with
– Exposure of the kind the comprehension approach
gives
[But we need to rethink the way in which we implement
the comprehension approach in the classroom]
Summary: A process approach to listening…
1. diagnoses why understanding fails
2. identifies phonetic features of the TL which are likely
to cause decoding problems for L2 listening;
3. recognises processes which characterise the
performance of the L1 listener;

Uses this information to build a programme of micro-

listening practice, with exercises that involve the
transcription or interpretation of short pieces of input.
Supports with larger-scale comprehension work to ensure that
the skills that are acquired become integrated into overall
competence.
 A long-term process programme must also allow
for strategy instruction
• Purpose: to equip the learner short-term to make
minimal sense of the input
• Strategy instruction needs to be mainly task-based
so that strategies can be used
a. in combination with each other
b. in ways that take account of:
the demands of the problem - the listener’s goals - the
listener’s own listening style
 References
• Brown, G. Investigating listening comprehension in
context. Applied Linguistics 7/3
• Field, J. 1998. Skills and strategies: towards a new
methodology for listening. ELT Journal 52/2
• Field, J. 2000. ‘Not waving but drowning’ ELT Journal
54/2
• Field, J. 2008. Listening in the Language Classroom.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
 j.c.field@ reading.ac.uk

Dr John Field,
Dept of Applied Linguistics,
University of Reading,
Whiteknights,
Reading RG6 6AA, UK