Teaching Listening - Essay Example

Running Head: TEACHING LISTENING Teaching Listening of the of the Teaching Listening Introduction Listening is a way of communication, which is used most frequently. This has been noted that majority of adults use up more or less half of their time of communication in listening, moreover students seek approximately 90% of in-school knowledge with the help of listening to their teachers and to other fellows. (OBryan & Hegelheimer, 2009, 23) But, learners of language do not usually be acquainted with the intensity of effort that is utilized in improving listening skills. Due to the great significance of listening skills in learning English as a foreign language, it is of crucial importance for English language teachers to provide full support to the students in becoming efficient listeners. (Field, 2000, 01) Hence, in order to fully train the learners the language teachers must develop modeling listening strategies and provide a lot of listening practice in real situations: which will be encountered by the learners in everyday life while using the language outside their classroom. Objectives and Techniques for Teaching Listening Language teachers aim to make students, even if they are unable to have full control on the language rules or a huge glossary, use English in a number of communication situations. As far as listening is concerned, teaching listening indicates to make students capable of utilizing various listening strategies in order to make the most of their understanding of auditory input, categorize appropriate and non-relevant information, and cope with less than verbatim understanding. Effective teaching of listening to English involves: Interpretation It involves understanding the implication of issues or understanding in order to elucidate meaning of a sentence. Analysis It involves dividing a given piece of information into small parts. Synthesis It involves recollection of ideas or information in a number of ways. Reasoning Reasoning involves building an argument in the course of coherent steps Evaluation It involves examining the value, reliability or potency of both the source material and approach of thinking. The Process of Listening Language teachers need to emphasize more on the understanding of listening processes and strategies for the students. This can be achieved by asking learners of English language to think and discuss, the way they listen to various things in their native language. Language Teachers need to allow learners to do a lot of practice of the full range of strategies of listening through effective listening tasks. (Flowerdew, 2005, 06) Some of such strategies are given below. The language teachers need to act like an authentic listener by giving answers to student communication in the class as a listener not as an instructor. While working on various tasks of listening in the class, teachers illustrate the ways and the style of text that will do best for listening purpose. They make clear how and why students can use such strategies of learning. They conduct various tasks of listening practice inside class and also encourage students to practice outside their class by giving them assignments of listening. They ask students to get fully aware of what they are doing while completing various assignments of listening tape. Students are asked to assess their comprehension and utilization of a particular strategy straight away after finishing an assignment. They develop checks of understanding for in-class and out-of-class tasks of listening, and from time to time evaluate when and where a particular strategy should be used. (Alene, Moyer, 2008, 258) They support the improvement of listening skills and utilization of various strategies of listening by utilizing English language to carry out classroom business: making announcements, giving away homework, explaining the format and outcome of a particular task. Language teachers do not encourage students to make usage of a particular strategy for all the given tasks. (Christine, 2008, 190) They clearly state how a particular approach can be used to carry out a particular type of listening task. There are 2 most important aspects of improving effective listening that are: The meaning of Comprehension is that, the listener is able to understand the meaning of speaker. It is a three-step process to perk up student’s ability to understand English and improve English listening skills. The primary step in improving listening comprehension is to give more concentration. Concentration means to focus the narrator and his/her matter and to maintain the concentration. (OBryan, 2009, 12) By showing ample concentration students will retain such verbal and nonverbal expressions into their long-term remembrance. After that, they will be able to evaluate the given information with latest and old materials. Or else, information will not remain stored in long-term memory and will be forgotten after some time and the learner will not be able to understand the matter since they will not memorize it. It is possible for every individual to increase concentration by realizing significance, it is important to keep away from general tendency to day dream, to combat with outside and inside distractions, get rid of distractions if possible. One must not forget that we humans possess the capability of listening to and comprehend speech even in presence of lot of distraction. The next step for developing ability of understanding a speaker is to comprehend the character of non-verbal communication. Nonverbal communication is not usually expressed in words but by gestures or body motion, the way something is being said, or the utilization of space, using various objects while talking, or surroundings. Improving Listening English Skills The final step of more effectual listening is to enhance one’s aptitude to understand spoken symbols, or message. Even if it is the responsibility of a speaker to remain understandable and meaningful, but the communication is a process where listener holds the same liability to recognize speakers materials. Such targets can achieved by: Improving the value and amount of experience, learning to use situation as a source to increase understanding, keeping away partiality, to stop fearing from failure, by improving vocabulary, and to get comment from others to assess one’s interpretation. Another important aspect is to perk up effective listening through justified analysis and evaluation. After communicating with the speaker, next thing will be to analyze and evaluate the message. Analysis is the evaluation of the message to help learn exact meanings of the communication. Evaluation is the delivery of decision on communication to make a decision regarding importance of the message. Conclusion To achieve the desired goals, language teachers need to concentrate on the listening process instead of concentrating on the product. The efficient teaching of Listening involves improvement of perceiving, assessing and at last responding to a particular spoken message. Efficient listening benefits individuals and others around them. It brings individuals closed to one another and help them to understand each other more effectively. References Alene, Moyer. (2008) Language Contact and Confidence in Second Language Listening Comprehension: A Pilot Study of Advanced Learners of German. Foreign Language Annals, Volume 39 Issue 2, 240 - 275. Christine, Goh. (2008) Metacognitive Instruction for Second Language Listening Development. RELC Journal, 39, 179 - 213. Field, K. (2000) Issues in modern foreign languages teaching. London: Routledge. Flowerdew, J. (2005) Second language listening: theory and practice. New York: Cambridge University Press pg.1-10. OBryan, A., & Hegelheimer, V.. (2009). Using a mixed methods approach to explore strategies, metacognitive awareness and the effects of task design on listening development. The Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 12(1), 9-38. Read More