10. There are a number of special
characteristics of spoken language that
need to be taken into consideration.
Brown cites 8 factors that can make the
listening process difficult. They are
adapted from several sources (Dunkel,
1991; Flowerdew & Miller, 2005;
Richards, 1983; Ur, 1984).
INTRODUCTION
11. CLUSTERING
In spoken language, due to memory
limitations and our predisposition for
“chunking,” or clustering, we break
down speech into smaller groups of
words. In teaching listening
comprehension, therefore, you need to
help students to pick out manageable
clusters of words …
12. REDUNDANCY
Spoken language has a good deal of
redundancy (rephrasing, repetition,
elaboration, and insertions of “I
mean” and “you know.”). Learners
can train themselves to profit from it
by first becoming aware of it and by
looking for the its signals.
13. REDUCED FORMS
Spoken language has many reduced
forms and sentence fragments.
Reduction can be phonological (didju?),
morphological (I’ll), syntactic, or
pragmatic (Mom! Phone!).
14. PERFORMANCE VARIABLES
In spoken language, hesitations,
false starts, pauses, and
corrections are common. There
are also many ungrammatical
forms and dialect differences.
15. COLLOQUIAL LANGUAGE
Idioms, slang, reduced forms, and
shared cultural knowledge are all
part of spoken language. Learners
are usually exposed to “textbook
English” and need help.
16. RATE OF DELIVERY
The number and length of pauses
are more crucial to comprehension
than sheer speed (Richards 1983).
Still, learners need to be able to
comprehend language delivered at
varying rates of speed and, at times,
delivered with few pauses.
17. STRESS, RHYTHM, AND
INTONATION
English is a stress-timed language.
Also, intonation patterns are
significant for interpreting
questions, statements, emphasis,
sarcasm, endearment, insult,
solicitation, praise, etc.
18. INTERACTION
The spoken word is subject to rules
of interaction: negotiation,
clarification, attending signals, turn-
taking, and topic nomination,
maintenance, and termination. To
learn to listen is also to learn to
respond and to continue a chain of
listening and responding.
19. It is essential for language
teachers to help our students
become effective active
listeners.
How can we do so?
By modeling listening
strategies
By providing active listening
practice
20. What are listening strategies?
are techniques or activities that
contribute directly to the comprehension
and recall of listening input.
can be classified by how the listener
processes the input.
These are: Top down, Bottom up and
Metacognitive
21. Top - Down Listening Strategies
Refers to the use of background
knowledge in understanding the
meaning of the message.
Background knowledge Consists of
context, the situation and topic, and
co-text(what came before and after).
22. Top - Down Listening Strategies
are listener based; the listener taps into
background knowledge of the topic, the
situation or context, the type of text, and the
language. This background knowledge
activates a set of expectations that help the
listener to interpret what is heard and
anticipate what will come next.
23. Top-down strategies include:
Listening for the main idea
Predicting
Drawing inferences
Summarizing
Top - Down Listening Strategies
Top down strategy focuses on content.
Students can predict the content of
listening activity beforehand and use
various materials such as pictures and
key words to understand the meaning.
24. This strategy is more broad approach than bottom-
up and related with daily lives. When we watch
drama or movie, we usually focus on whole
meaning, not structure or forms. Likewise, we
listen to news programs to grasp overall content
and music by understanding the whole meaning.
Some people do these activities by using bottom-
up strategy, but this is rare case. The materials that
can be used in top- down are prevalent. Teachers
can use authentic information. When students
listen to real-life story, it can increase their interest
and make them think about main idea more
seriously.
25. Top-Down Listening Activities
Putting a series of pictures or sequence of
events in order.
Listening to a conversation and identify
where they take place
Reading information about a topic then
listening to find whether or not the same
points are mentioned.
Inferring the relationship between the
people involved.
26. Bottom – up Listening Strategies
They are text based. The listener relies on
the language in the message (sounds, words,
and grammar that creates meaning)
Bottom-up strategies include:
Listening for specific details
Recognizing cognates
Recognizing word-order patterns
27. Bottom – up Listening Strategies
Bottom up strategy is to know about details
and segments. It concentrates on forms and
structure. Thus, this activity is more related
with academic study. English learning
students use this activity to enhance their
listening ability. Dictation and listening tests
are included in this. In class, ‘fill in the
blank/s’ activity can increase students’
awareness of forms.
28. However, bottom-up strategy doesn’t
mean that it excludes all authentic
things. When we need deep
concentration on details, we use this
activity. For example, weather forecast,
phone number and advertisement having
implied meaning need special focus on
details to understand. Besides, tongue
twists can be a good exercise for students
to notice subtle difference in various
English forms and pronunciation.
29. Metacognitive Listening Strategies
In general, metacognition is thinking about
thinking. More specifically, Taylor (1999)
defines metacognition as “an appreciation of
what one already knows, together with a
correct apprehension of the learning task and
what knowledge and skills it requires,
combined with the agility to make correct
inferences about how to apply one’s strategic
knowledge
30. to a particular situation, and to do so efficiently and
reliably.
Meta cognitive Listening Strategies
Used to plan, monitor, and evaluate their listening.
They plan deciding which listening strategies will
serve best in particular situation
They monitor their comprehension and the
effectiveness of the selected strategies
They evaluate by determining whether they have
achieved their listening comprehension goals and
whether the
31. Meta cognitive Listening Strategies
Actions that the learner deliberately
takes to enhance comprehension and
oversee and regulate the listening
process. They include actions such as:
planning, monitoring, evaluation and
problem solving.
32. PLANNING
Advanced Organization:
Anticipating to the listening task , predicting , clarifying objects for
listening
Directed Attention :
Deciding to maintain attention to the listening task, avoiding
distractors.
Selective Attention:
Planning to pay attention or language situational aspects that may
facilitate comprehension
33. Monitoring
Comprehension Monitoring
Checking ,verifying or correcting one’s
understanding
Double Check Monitoring
Check one’s understanding during second
listening or across the task.
34. Evaluation
Performance Education:
Judging one’s performance in the
execution of the listening task .
Strategy Evaluation :
Evaluating the strategies used and their
effectiveness
35. Problem Solving
Identifying what needs a resolution
in a listening task, or an aspect that
interferes with its accomplishment.
Then, using cognitive strategy to solve
the problem
36. Tips for Helping our Students Become Active
Listeners
Activate your students’ prior knowledge
before any listening activity in order to
predict or anticipate content.
Assess your students' background
knowledge on the topic and linguistic
content of the text.
If students are to complete a written task
during or immediately after listening, allow
them to read through it before listening.
37. Tips for Helping our Students Become Active
Listeners
Activate your students’ prior knowledge
before any listening activity in order to
predict or anticipate content.
Assess your students' background knowledge
on the topic and linguistic content of the text.
If students are to complete a written task
during or immediately after listening, allow
them to read through it before listening.
38. Listening for Meaning
Figure out the purpose for
listening. Activate
background knowledge of
the topic in order to
predict or anticipate
content and identify
appropriate listening
strategies.
39. Attend to the parts
of the listening input
that are relevant to
the identified
purpose and ignore
the rest. This
selectivity enables
students to focus on
specific items in the
input and reduces
the amount of
information they
have to hold in
40. Select top-down and bottom-up
strategies that are appropriate to the
listening task and use them flexibly
and interactively. Students'
comprehension improves and their
confidence increases when they use
top-down and bottom-up strategies
simultaneously to construct meaning.
41. Developing Listening Activities
Construct the listening activity around a
contextualized task.
Contextualized listening activities approximate real-
life tasks and give the listener an idea of the type of
information to expect and what to do with it in
advance of the actual listening. A beginning level
task would be locating places on a map or
exchanging name and address information. At an
intermediate level students could follow directions
for assembling something or work in pairs to create
a story to tell to the rest of the class.
42. Define the activity's instructional
goal and type of response.
Each activity should have as its goal the
improvement of one or more specific
listening skills. A listening activity may
have more than one goal or outcome, but
be careful not to overburden the attention
of beginning or intermediate listeners.
43. • Identification: Recognizing or discriminating
specific aspects of the message, such as
sounds, categories of words, morphological
distinctions
• Orientation: Determining the major facts
about a message, such as topic, text type,
setting
• Main idea comprehension: Identifying the
higher-order ideas
• Detail comprehension: Identifying supporting
details
• Replication: Reproducing the message orally
44. Check the level of difficulty of the
listening text.
Use pre-listening activities to
prepare students for what they are
going to hear or view.
45. Sample pre-listening activities:
looking at pictures, maps, diagrams, or graphs
reviewing vocabulary or grammaticalstructures
reading something relevant
constructing semantic webs (a graphic arrangement of concepts or words
showing how theyare related)
predicting the content of the listening text
going over the directions or instructions for the activity
doing guided practice
47. Sample while-listening activities:
listeningwith visuals
filling in graphsandcharts
following a route on a map
checking off items in a list
listeningfor the gist
searchingfor specific clues tomeaning
completing cloze (fill-in) exercises
distinguishingbetween formal andinformal registers
49. Before-Listening Strategies
1. Connect
Help yourself better understand a
listening assignment by thinking of
things you already know about a
topic. This helps your mind build
connections between what you know
and new information you will hear.
50. 2. Predict
Make guesses about what you may learn
as you listen. Guessing helps your brain
focus on the assignment. It doesn’t matter
if your guesses are right or wrong.
51. 3. Talk about New Words
If there is a list of preselected
vocabulary words from the assignment,
go through the list and think about
what you know about them. If you
don’t know the words, talk about them
with a friend or use a free audio
dictionary. If there isn’t a preselected
list of words, make sure you understand
words in the title and in any
introductory material. Have a brief
conversation in your head to clarify key
words.
52. During-Listening Strategies
1. Listen for Answers
As you listen, be listening for answers to
questions you have. To identify questions
to ask, preview activities you need to
complete after you listen or turn the title
of an assignment into a question. Looking
for answers to questions gives you a reason
to listen and keeps your mind active and
alert.
53. 2.TakeNotes
Write notes thathelp you remember ideas. Outliningand
layering informationis alwaysa good idea, buttryother
imaginativewaysof takingnotes: Use connected circles and
shapes,create a chart,or draw a map.Useabbreviations and
symbolsthat help you keep up withthespeaker’srate of
speech. Speakers alsoconvey ideas in nonverbalways.Pay
attention tointonation,facial expressions,totakenotes on a
speaker’sopinionsand outlooks.
54. After-Listening Strategies
1. Respond
What do you agree and disagree with?
What parts do you like best? What
parts are confusing? Use symbols, such
an exclamation mark (!) before an idea
you like or an “X” next to something
you disagree with, that help you
quickly write your reactions so you
won’t forget them.
55. 2. Summarize
Read your lecture notes several times
before and after class all week. In your
head, summarize what the assignment
was about and test yourself on your
notes. Occasionally, you will be asked
to write a formal summary. You will
read your summary aloud or make a
recording of it.
56. 3. Extend
Read and listen to other sources
for more information about the
topic. Learning more information
makes a topic more meaningful
and interesting, especially if you
share these ideas with others.