Listening Teaching Research Articles

On the Effect of the Application of Public Interest Ads in Korean Listening Teaching for Han nationality Learners

On the Effect of the Application of Public Interest Ads in Korean Listening Teaching for Han nationality Learners

Book Review: Learning to Listen/Listening to Learn: Teaching Listening Skills to Students with Visual Impairments

Book Review: Learning to Listen/Listening to Learn: Teaching Listening Skills to Students with Visual Impairments

Discourse Markers in College English Listening Instruction: An Empirical Study of Chinese Learners

Discourse markers can clearly indicate the organization of discourse, remind the hearer of the preceding and the following contents, and express clearly the concrete speech acts. The aims of this study are to explore the relationship between the discourse-marker-based model and listening comprehension as well as the different effects of such a kind of instruction on liberal arts and science students. 120 Chinese college students of non-English major, who are from two different departments of Xi’an University of Science and Technology, are the research subjects. An experiment has been carried out by applying the theory of discourse markers to enhance the English listening skill proficiency. Based on the results of the data analysis, the conclusion can be drawn that discourse-marker-based listening instruction can improve students’ listening comprehension of non-English major and liberal arts students benefit more from discourse-marker-based listening instruction.

The Application of Schema Theory in College English Listening Teaching

Listening was once believed to be a passive one-way comprehensive process. However, with the development of language teaching, listening comprehension is found to be an interactive process of two-way communication, during which listeners’ background knowledge play an important role. Schema theory lays theoretical foundation for this explanation. Based on this, the author designs a Schema Theory-based Teaching Mode of English Listening, which is a framework of pre-listening, during-listening and post-listening activities for classroom listening teaching. This mode aims to improve reasonably and effectively college English listening teaching and the students’ listening competence.

An Investigation of the Relationship between Motivation and Metacognitive Awareness Strategies in Listening Comprehension: The Case of Iranian EFL Learners

This study sets out to investigate the relationship between patterns of motivation and L2 listeners’ metacognitive awareness and perceived use of strategies. A total number of 3o upper intermediate students from two English language teaching Institutes in Isfahan took part in this study. They were asked to fill in two questionnaires: (a) a questionnaire on motivation, which was developed by Vallerand et al. (1992), and (b) a questionnaire on Metacognitive awareness strategies in listening developed by Vandergrift et al. (2006). The results of the study revealed that: 1) there is no significant difference in terms of type of motivation among Iranian upper intermediate EFL learners .2) In the category of mecognitive strategies, problem solving was the most frequently used strategy and planning and evaltuation was the least frequently used one. 3) Positive relationship was found between both types of motivation and use of metacognitive awareness strategies, except for mental translation and intrinsic motivation. 4) There was significant difference in mean scores of high and low motivation groups, for three categories of metacoginitive awareness strategies including planning and evaluation, directed attention, and person knowledge. This study suggested that listeners’ metacognitive awareness should be cultivated and strategy instruction should be integrated into the teaching of listening.

An Exploration on Designing College English Listening Class

Teaching listening, rather than “pushing button English” and testing later, involves a change in pattern, application of listening strategies, approaches application, and a variety of materials. Teaching listening will be going through three stages of classroom activities to help students to foster ability to understand and take notes on listening material—before, while and after listening. Extended post-listening after class autonomously is more fruitful in helping learners’ problems identified and tackled so as to improve students’ listening skill and strengthen students’ learning effect in listening class.

The Application of Input Hypothesis to the Teaching of Listening and Speaking of College English

Krashen’s Input Hypothesis develops from his earlier theory—the Monitor Model, which is one of the major Second Language Acquisition Theories. Based on this Hypothesis, an emphasized comprehensible input means significance to the effect of teaching of listening and speaking of college English as well as to the improvement of the communicative skill of the college students.

Listening in the language classroom

This book challenges the orthodox approach to the teaching of second language listening, which is based upon the asking and answering of comprehension questions. The book's central argument is that a preoccupation with the notion of 'comprehension' has led teachers to focus upon the product of listening, in the form of answers to questions, ignoring the listening process itself. The author provides an informed account of the psychological processes which make up the skill of listening, and analyses the characteristics of the speech signal from which listeners have to construct a message. Drawing upon this information, the book proposes a radical alternative to the comprehension approach and provides for intensive small-scale practice in aspects of listening that are perceptually or cognitively demanding for the learner. Listening in the Language Classroom was winner of the Ben Warren International Trust House Prize in 2008.

How to Teach Listening

How to Teach Listening

The effect of the use of video texts on ESL listening test-taker performance

Video is widely used in the teaching of L2 listening, and SLA researchers have argued that the visual components of spoken texts are useful for the listener in comprehending aural information. Yet video texts are rarely used on tests of L2 listening ability, perhaps in part due to the belief that including the visual channel involves assessing something beyond listening ability. In this study, a quasi-experimental design was used to compare the performance of two groups of learners on an ESL listening test. The control group took a listening test with audio-only texts. The experimental group took the same listening test, except that test-takers received the input through the use of video texts. Multi-variate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) was used to compare the two groups’ performance, and it was found that the video (experimental) group scored 6.5% higher than the audio-only (control) group on the overall post-test, and this difference was statistically significant. The results of the study suggest that the non-verbal information in the video texts contributed to the video group’s superior performance.

Integrating listening and speaking skills to facilitate English language learners’ communicative competence

Listening and speaking skills co-occur in real-life discourse and they are not mutually exclusive. Within this framework, this study is conducted to prove that teaching listening and speaking skills in integration improves oral communicative competence of the students. In order to collect data for the study, a pre-post test and various tasks were designed for 180 students from the preparatory school of Hacettepe University, Turkey. The collected data was analyzed through t-test. At the end of the study, the group practicing the skills in integration was found to be more successful than the group practicing the skills separately.

A Study of Metacognitive Strategies Employed by English Listeners in an EFL Setting

This paper presents a study on the metacognitive strategies employed by English listeners in an EFL setting. The results of the study reveal that the subjects used directed attention most frequently and they used monitoring least frequently. Besides, there are differences in the use of metacognitive strategies between successful and unsuccessful listeners. The differences exist in the use of directed attention, functional planning and self-management strategies. The study proposes that listeners’ metacognitive awareness should be cultivated and strategy instruction should be integrated into the teaching of listening.

Applying Audio/Video Data Processing Programs for the Improvement of English Listening Proficiency of Adult EFL Learners

Early development of listening ability has been viewed as vital in the field of teaching English as a Foreign/Second Language (EFL/ESL). Both researchers and teachers have thus been greatly concerned with finding some ways to improve the learner’s listening competence, or better ideas to help learners acquire listening skills in the formal classroom setting. As one way of achieving this goal, this study spells out advantages of using technologically up-to-date audio/video data processing softwares over traditional audio/video players or CD/DVD players. These traditional language teaching aids have been of use and still can be to some extent. But they have been somewhat limited in terms of easier retrieval of necessary language input at the teacher’s will. For instance, when teachers try to use some specific parts of audio-video tapes for test construction, they have to spend a lot of time and energy cutting and pasting them. In addition, the audio/video quality often decreases in the process due to some technical problems. This study shows that both Digital Sound Processors (DSP) like Adobe Audition and Visual Data Processors (VDP) like Virtual Dub can be used so as to overcome those ever-existing limitations and thus to enhance ways of teaching listening. As a case study, this study comes up with a few practical ideas of how to apply language teaching materials made by using audio/video data processing programs to teaching listening, particularly for adult EFL learners.

An Emqirical Study on Teaching Listening in CLT

In the traditional ELT in China, much emphasis has been put on the students’ mastering vocabulary and grammar. Language form was regarded as the content of teaching. And listening skill has been ever neglected for a fairly long time in ELT in China. Recent years, more and more attention has been drawn to learners’ listening ability. This paper introduces teaching listening course at college level in communicative approach, which involves background knowledge introduction and into which various skills: speaking, reading and writing are integrated. It discusses the task design, strategy training, possible teaching plan, classroom arrangement; and presents an empirical study in this approach.

Cognitive Apprenticeship --- An Effective Learning Mode in the College English Listening Teaching

An analysis has been made on the existing problems in the traditional process of foreign language teaching in China; and with the help of the theory of cognitive apprenticeship, a further study has been conducted on the effective learning mode in the process of college English listening teaching. An empirical study on the graded English teaching, conducted in the university where the author works, has been made to indicate that the use of multi-media and network technology in the English listening teaching can, to a large extent, improve the language learning environment, develop the student language competence and boost college English teaching in China.

Metacognitive Instruction for Second Language Listening Development

There has been a growing interest in and concern for the teaching of listening in the last 40 years. Looking back over the years, we can see how the emphases on teaching listening and the focus of listening instruction have changed. Although instructional practices were initially heavily influenced by models of the written language and a behaviourist approach, the focus has since moved to developing listening as a skill needed for constructing and communicating meaning. More recently, discussions about listening instruction have emphasized the role of strategy training and learner metacognition in facilitating comprehension. In this paper I discuss a metacognitive approach, drawing on understandings from educational research as well as second language listening studies. I explain its theoretical rationale and identify principles for carrying out metacognitive instruction, as well as outline general instructional objectives and learning activities for this purpose. Finally, I suggest possible research directions for examining the role of metacognition in second language listening and the relevance of metacognitive instruction to listening development.

The impact of vocabulary preparation on L2 listening comprehension, confidence and strategy use

Building on previous studies of the effects of planning on second language learners’ (L2) oral narratives and writing, this research reports an investigation of the effects of vocabulary preparation prior to a listening comprehension test on L2 learners’ vocabulary performance, listening comprehension, confidence levels and strategy use. The participants were given three different lengths of preparation time to study new vocabulary that would be heard in a listening text. The instruments involved a vocabulary test, a listening comprehension test, and a questionnaire to elicit their confidence levels and strategy use. A semi-structured interview was conducted immediately after the test. The results show that though a consistent pattern was found for the tests of vocabulary and listening comprehension (the more preparation time they had, the higher score they achieved) significant differences between groups were detected only in the vocabulary test but not in the listening comprehension test. In relation to the level of confidence and strategy use, the group with 30-min preparation showed the highest levels of confidence and more strategy use, followed by the group given 1-week preparation. It is concluded that allowing students to study vocabulary before a test could improve their vocabulary knowledge and confidence but not their listening comprehension. In the light of students’ responses in the questionnaire and reports in their interviews, the paper discusses a few problems participants had studying the vocabulary and suggestions are made for the teaching of listening.

The Analysis of Patterns of Contextualization in Speaking & Listening Instruction

The Analysis of Patterns of Contextualization in Speaking & Listening Instruction

EFL Teachers’ Attitudes Towards Teaching Listening

This paper investigates listening teachers’ attitudes towards the teaching of listening at the tertiary level in the Tunisian context. An eclectic methodology is adopted based on quantitative and qualitative analyses as well as on the triangulation of several research instruments. The disclosure of the data indicates a product approach reflected in terms of three tendencies: the listening for speaking, the listening to develop listening skills, and the listening to understand..

Metacognitive instruction in listening for young learners

This article outlines a small-scale study of metacognitive instruction for young second language listeners and discusses the value of lessons that highlight the listening process. Ten primary school pupils participated in eight specially designed listening lessons that included traditional listening exercises, individual post-listening reflections on their listening experience, and teacher-facilitated discussions that focused on specific aspects of metacognitive knowledge about listening. During the eight lessons, the learners demonstrated some knowledge about factors that influenced their listening and strategy use. After the eight lessons, all the students reported a deeper understanding of the nature and the demands of listening, increased confidence in completing listening tasks, and better strategic knowledge for coping with comprehension difficulties. On the whole, the weaker learners have benefited the most from such a process-based approach to listening instruction.