Sam Gledhill
Sam has been teaching as an ALT in Japan's public school system since 2007. Since 2014 he has been working in a town taking part in a national study leading up to the planned 2020 formalization of English as a subject in Elementary schools. He administers ALTWiki.net which welcomes contributions from all.
Contents
1.0 Objectives
2.0 Recommended Reading 3.0 Introduction 4.0 Listening Fundamentals - Auditory Discrimination 4.1 Perception of Sounds 4.2 Connected Speech 5.0 Listening Activities 5.1 What is a Listening Activity? 5.2 Pre-Listening 5.3 While-Listening 5.4 Post-Listening 5.5 When to do a listening Activity 6.0 Listening in Communicative Activities 6.1 Awareness of Cultural Communication Norms 6.2 Listener Responsibilities 6.3 Teaching Listening in Communication 6.3.1 Attention, Eye Contact, and Facial Expressions 6.3.2 Backchanneling 6.3.3 Follow-up Questions 6.3.4 Requesting Repetition 7.0 Cognition and Knowledge 7.1 Top-Down and an Bottom-Up Processing 7.1.1 Top-Down Processing 7.1.2 Bottom-Up Processing 7.2 Working Memory 7.3 Metacognition 7.4 Language Knowledge |
Objectives
The goal of this module is to provide ALTs with a theoretical foundation for teaching listening that will lead to practical improvements in planning lessons and teaching English.
2.0 Recommended Reading
Al-Batal, M. (2010) Foreign Language Teaching Methods - Listening. Retrieved from https://coerll.utexas.edu/methods/modules/listening/
Blyth, A. (2011). How teachers teach listening in Japan: Part 1. KOTESOL Proceedings 2010: Advancing ELT in the Global Context. Seoul, Korea: KOTESOL. Retrieved from http://www.winjeel.com/Research/Documents/HowTeachersTeachListening_Handout_2010.pdf
Brown, J. (2006) Authentic communication: Whyzit importan' ta teach reduced forms?
Retrieved from https://jalt.org/pansig/2006/HTML/Brown.htm
Miller, T. (1995) Japanese Learners' Reactions To Communicative English Lesson
JALT Journal, 17 (1) 31-52. Retrieved from https://jalt-publications.org/files/pdf-article/jj-17.1-art2.pdf
Rost, Michael. (2002). Listening Tasks and Language Acquisition. JALT Post Conference Proceedings. Retrieved from http://jalt-publications.org/proceedings/articles/220-jalt2002-proceedings-contents-listing
Blyth, A. (2011). How teachers teach listening in Japan: Part 1. KOTESOL Proceedings 2010: Advancing ELT in the Global Context. Seoul, Korea: KOTESOL. Retrieved from http://www.winjeel.com/Research/Documents/HowTeachersTeachListening_Handout_2010.pdf
Brown, J. (2006) Authentic communication: Whyzit importan' ta teach reduced forms?
Retrieved from https://jalt.org/pansig/2006/HTML/Brown.htm
Miller, T. (1995) Japanese Learners' Reactions To Communicative English Lesson
JALT Journal, 17 (1) 31-52. Retrieved from https://jalt-publications.org/files/pdf-article/jj-17.1-art2.pdf
Rost, Michael. (2002). Listening Tasks and Language Acquisition. JALT Post Conference Proceedings. Retrieved from http://jalt-publications.org/proceedings/articles/220-jalt2002-proceedings-contents-listing
3.0 Introduction
This module is written within a specific context and should be read with that in mind. It’s written for ALTs teaching English in Japan. You can read more about the context of teachers and the classroom in the Contextual modules. For context in this module: a few definitions:
In the next four sections of this module, we’ll look at the sounds students are hearing, the content they’re listening to, how they listen when communicating, and how the brain can affect listening. The first of the next four sections, section 4, covers the sounds of spoken English and how they differ to the sounds of spoken Japanese. This difference can make listening difficult for students so it’s good for ALTs to have an understanding of where these difficulties might pop up. When we provide something for students to listen to, whether it’s something we read aloud for them or some media we play for them, we should be mindful of how we ask students to listen to it. A good listening activity guides students through a growing understanding of the listening passage. That’s what is covered in section 5. Listening is also an integral part of communication and so section 6 looks at what listeners should be doing when they are involved in dialog. Finally, section 7 briefly covers the listener’s brain. We’ll look at how the brain listens, how much it can listen to, why listening in a second language is so much more difficult than a native one, and a couple more things that can be used to improve students’ listening abilities. Listening has grown in importance in the classroom since 2006 when a listening section was added to the Japanese national university entrance test. But that’s just washback. Listening is also important in its own right. Research tells us that we gain around 45% of language competence from listening (30% from speaking, 15% from reading and 10% from writing) (Renukadevi, 2014). Ignoring listening as a language learning method will negatively affect your students’ learning potential. But where should you start? A good place is the fundamentals - auditory discrimination of sound. |
4.0 Listening Fundamentals - Auditory Discrimination
Auditory discrimination (or perception) is the ability to receive, differentiate and process information through the ear (Vandergrift and Baker, 2015). It is the first challenge students in Japan will have to overcome to be able to listen to and understand spoken English. Sometimes, as you may have noticed, even when students can read and understand a passage with their current vocabulary and grammar knowledge, they may have difficulty understanding that same passage in spoken English.
For Japanese students learning English, auditory discrimination can be difficult because of unfamiliarity with the sounds of natural, spoken English. An example from my own teaching experience is students hearing “forty” when I say “thirty”. The same students are perfectly able to understand “30” when it is katakanized and spoken in a Japanese accent. This is because the “th” sound does not exist in Japanese and with no exposure to this sound, students will hear it and mishear it as an “f” sound. After “th” is the “ir” sound. Again, there is no sound like this in Japanese. Consequently, it will be misheard as an “or” sound and students naturally hear “forty”. |
4.1 Perception of Sound
Perception can be affected by hearing deficits or by listener (in)ability to discriminate sounds that may not be salient in the student’s first language sound system (Vandergrift, Baker, 2015). When testing Japanese undergraduate students from Aizu University, Wilson et al. (2011) found that vowels were more difficult to discriminate than consonants.
To understand why these undergraduates might have had more trouble discriminating vowel sounds compared to consonants, let’s look at table 1. |
Table 1 - Comparing Japanese and English phoneme count
* |
Vowel Sounds |
Consonant Sounds |
Japanese (hyojungo) |
5 |
16 |
American English |
14-16 |
24 |
Australian English |
20-21 |
24 |
We can see that for both vowel and consonant sounds, Japanese has fewer sounds (or phonemes). Compared to English, standard Japanese (hyojungo) has only 67% the number of consonant sounds. An even greater contrast is the number of vowel sounds, with Japanese having only 25% the number of vowels sounds as Australian English. These differences would only be exacerbated by the varied accents of English.
This much larger difference may explain why the students in the study found vowel sounds so much more difficult to hear. They simply had no (or not enough) experience hearing all those different sounds and were unable to hear the difference. They had poor auditory discrimination abilities for these English sounds. |
“Auditory discrimination ability (perception) is fairly strongly correlated with the student’s second language listening proficiency and improving a student’s ability to perceive different sounds may have a significant effect on their listening proficiency, especially for learners at lower levels.”
(Wilson et al., 2011)
The significant role of auditory discrimination was confirmed in another study by Vandergrift and Baker (2015). Being able to hear or correctly perceive the sounds is important, but it’s a point of weakness for our students. What can we do? One way to build sound perception can be by learning how to pronounce the sounds. As Penny Ur (1984) points out, if students learn to pronounce sounds accurately themselves, it will be much easier for them to hear those sounds correctly when said by someone else.
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Activity 1 |
You can assist students by giving clear, slow, and where helpful, over-emphasised spoken examples to imitate. It can also help to point out lip, teeth, and tongue positions for each sound so students can imitate and produce the sounds. Try doing this once or twice when learning a group of new words. |
Vowels can be quite tricky using the above method. If you find a student mispronouncing, for example, “cat” as “cut” or something similar, demonstrate the two vowel sounds next to each other. This can be a fun listening perception challenge (see below) with both vowel and consonant sounds.
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Activity 2 |
Present two similar sounding words in either image or text format on the board, one to your left and one to your right. Some examples might be vest vs best or cut vs cat. After you say one of the words students should point either to the left or right. Doing this multiple times can help students learn to perceive the difference between the two sounds. |
Activity 3 |
A more advanced version of the activity above which challenges students with a varied set of words is to put up sounds instead of words. You could write these using phonemic notation (e.g. /l/ and /r/) or just use the letter denoting the sound (e.g. l and r). From there teachers are free to say any word starting with the stated sounds and students are challenged to point at the correct sounds they just heard. This activity suits different age groups from elementary through to high school, depending on the sounds and words used. To challenge higher level students, instead of targeting the first sound, you could target a sound as part of a consonant cluster (e.g. cr vs cl, saying words like create or close), or vowels in the middle of words (e.g. ur vs ar, saying words like purse or tart). When you notice students having trouble with particular sounds, make a note and try this activity as a warm-up in the following class targeting those sounds. |
Share your experiences using these activities in the Facebook group.
(Start your comment with 'Listening module activity ...(number)...)
(Start your comment with 'Listening module activity ...(number)...)
Younger students (such as early elementary students) who love to play with sounds will enjoy the following sound perception building when learning new vocabulary.
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Activity 4 |
You can build younger students’ sound awareness by playfully repeating key sounds, for example, “Red, red, r-r-red.” Add to this some fun movements (a.k.a. nonsensical dancing) that are so important for the young students (who are still learning to control their growing bodies) and your kids will be having a great time while learning! Try this anytime you are learning new words. |
ALTs should make sure to include these types of activities and this type of learning early in a student’s learning career. This is important because if a student learns the words “light” and “right” as having the same pronunciation, this can be corrected or re-learnt later in their learning career. If the student however, never learns to differentiate “l” and “r” sounds, there are potentially thousands of words the student will need to re-learn. Teaching students to perceive (and produce) the difference earlier is better.
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4.2 Connected Speech
In natural spoken English, individual words are rarely enunciated clearly and discretely. Instead, they tend to blend together with the end of one word merging with the start of the next (this is commonly referred to as blending). This is quite different from how students at a junior high level and above tend to be taught new words. (In my experience they tend to be taught new words as single words, generally shown as text with a verbal example for students to repeat, alone and perfectly enunciated). To help students develop their listening ability, teachers need to give students exposure to more than just this sanitized and isolated version of a word.
Below is a list of features of natural (connected) speech with brief definitions and examples. Knowledge of these features can help ALTs understand why students may have some trouble when listening, even when the students would have understood the written form. It may help guide an ALTs modification of pace, enunciation, etc. Features of connected speech, from Brown (2002):
All the technical terms above are included to bring them to the attention of ALTs as normal parts of natural, connected speech. Not that these features need to be taught specifically, but neither should they be treated as if they don’t exist. If teachers ignore all the natural imperfections and provide students with only unrealistically clear and discretely enunciated examples, students will be ill-equipped to listen and comprehend natural spoken English. As an ALT in junior high schools, I’m often asked to introduce new vocabulary by having students repeat after me. In an effort to give students a glimpse as to how each word might sound within the context of natural speech, I often try to give them three versions of the word. First, clearly enunciated, syllable by syllable. Second, spoken more naturally. Third, said within a short phrase. This is done with the hope and expectation that hearing it and attempting to say it with a more natural pronunciation will lead to easier perception when listening. |
Recommended Reading |
The features of connected speech listed above all come from Brown (2006), Whyzit importan' ta teach reduced forms? The full article is an interesting read. |
5.0 Listening Activities
In section 4, we talked about the sound perception skills students need in order to correctly hear and understand spoken English. With the ability to correctly decode sound for meaning, students can more competently take part in listening activities. So let’s now talk about how to plan and execute an effective listening activity.
One point of caution I’d like to bring up here is that listening activities are generally done by checking student’ comprehension. This can lead one to think of listening activities as tests. Listening activities should be learning experiences as opposed to tests, with the difference being that you try to work towards a correct understanding of the content rather than testing it (and assigning an evaluation). |
5.1 What is a Listening Activity?
A listening activity is one where students complete various tasks while listening to a passage (of verbally delivered text). To the students, the tasks may seem to be checking comprehension but they should also be guiding student’s attention from broader to more focused ideas and assisting comprehension.
Successful listening activities are often planned in three parts. The three parts are known as pre-listening, while-listening, and post-listening (and are outlined below in subsections 5.2 through 5.4). Listening passages could be monologue or dialogue and maybe recorded audio, read by a teacher, or shown in video format. There are many sources of content online (see links in shared resources below) although it can be time-consuming to find something appropriate. Creating your own content is also a great option. Learning through listening is largely incidental learning because the listeners’ attention should be focused on comprehending what is being listened to. |
Shared Resources |
English Central and News in Levels are a couple of places you can get listening content to use in class. Share your experiences using these resource in the Facebook group. Can you add to these resources? Email: - [email protected] to add your resources to this module - [email protected] to add them to our sister site altopedia.org |
5.2 Pre-Listening
Pre-listening activities prepare students for a listening activity by building context and activating student’s current knowledge of the topic. Other important but less direct goals of pre-listening tasks include reducing apprehension and building interest in the topic. The following paragraph describes the goals of a pre-listening activity.
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“During this critical phase of the listening process, teachers prepare students for what they will hear and what they are expected to do. First, students need to bring to consciousness their knowledge of the topic, their knowledge of how information is organized in different texts, and any relevant cultural information. Second, a purpose for listening must be established so that students know the specific information they need to listen for and/or the degree of detail required. Using all the available information, students can make predictions to anticipate what they might hear. Pre-listening activities help students make decisions about what to listen for, and subsequently, what to focus attention on while-listening.”
(Vandergrift, 1999)
When students “bring to consciousness” their knowledge on the current topic, they start thinking about what they already know on the topic, which helps them understand the speaker better. (This is a simplified explanation of top-down processing which we’ll cover in section 7.1 below.)
When a “purpose for listening” is established, perhaps by previewing/discussing the listening tasks, students know what to listen for and are much more likely to actively listen. If you’ve ever had a teacher ask you to read a passage aloud for students without having given them a task (reason to listen) prior, you’ll know what I mean. A personal example of context, knowledge, and purpose assisting with comprehension was when I was cooking some gnocchi. I turned to the cooking instructions on the package and struggled through the Japanese. Feeling quite proud of being able to understand the gist of the instructions and a few specifics even while encountering many kanji I didn’t precisely know, I realised I would have had a lot more trouble if I hadn’t known I was looking at cooking instruction (context), if I didn’t already have a basic idea of how to cook pasta (current knowledge) and didn’t know I was looking out for specific information like cooking time (purpose). Though this is an example of reading comprehension, the concept of context, current knowledge, and purpose assisting with comprehension is the same. Pre-listening activities can give students this advantage in listening comprehension activities. It might seem like some aspects of pre-listening activities are helping students too much, almost like giving them the answers before the test, but we must remember that listening for comprehension is a learning activity (rather than a test) and is only effective when students can understand the meaning. When students are unknowledgeable about the listening topic, pre-listening activities can help to build topic knowledge; introduce new vocabulary; help students predict possible content; and preview listening tasks. Below are some examples from Housten (2016) and Rees (2003) of different pre-listening activities. To activate current knowledge and vocabulary:
Though included above, there is some uncertainty over whether introducing new vocabulary or vocabulary review are effective as a pre-listening activity. A study by Berne (1995) showed no significant benefit to vocabulary preview as a pre-listening activity and if students were given only one chance to listen, vocabulary preview seemed to reduce listening comprehension. This may be as a result of students trying to pick out the new vocabulary words rather than listen to the message. al-Batal (2010) comments that many teachers provide a list of new vocabulary prior to listening, effectively making it a vocabulary lesson. One or two key vocabulary words are ok but if students need more than that to understand then the listening passage is above their level. Listening in a new language is already a heavy mental workload without the additional burden of trying to recall the meaning of newly learned vocabulary mid-listening. (You can read more about vocabulary in the Vocabulary module.) Regarding the effectiveness of pre-listening activities, in that same study, Berne (1995) showed that students who completed a question preview activity received significantly higher scores in the following listening comprehension activity. |
5.3 While-Listening
While-listening activities are to help students focus their attention on the listening passage and guide the development of their understanding of it (Peachey, 2010).
Listening to the passage multiple times is advised because, as one might expect, multiple listenings have been shown to improve students listening comprehension (Lund, 1991; Cervantes & Gainer, 1992; Berne, 1995). While-listening activities generally follow a zooming-in progression that happens over each listening. By starting with a very zoomed-out view, the students develop a broad idea of what the passage or conversation is about. When they listen again, a different activity or question is used to zoom-in and focus students attention on more detailed information to help them develop a clearer understanding of the passage. For the first listening, you should guide students in trying to get a basic understanding of the passage. Higher level students may be able to describe what the passage is about on their own, lower level students may need options to choose from. For example, listening to an interview or speech about a new start-up in Japan, you might give students questions like:
After checking answers and making sure everyone is on the same page, proceed with the second listening. Ask questions that guide students to a more detailed understanding of the passage such as:
While-listening questions can focus on particular grammar points. But also note that they don’t have to be limited to question and answer format. Other examples of activities include word-fill dictation or providing incorrect text for students to correct (perhaps with corrections focusing on a particular grammar point). Certain activities that are slated as reading activities can be repurposed as while-listening activities. If you feel your students don’t get enough listening time in class, try asking the JTE if you can do the true or false section as a listening activity rather than a reading one (meaning students cannot refer the to the text). If the listening passage is quite long, while-listening activities can be used to break it up and reduce the burden on short-term memory (Brown & Hulme, 1992 cited in Rost, 2002). However al-Batal (2010) recommends listening to the whole passage the first time you listen because listening activities should also give students the chance to build their listening strategy skills. Generally, while-listening activities should be quick and easy to do because they are done while or immediately after the listening passage is read (or played, in the case of a recording). If the activity is too complex, students will be unable to both listen and complete the while-listening activity. A while-listening activity should help students understand the listening passage. |
Recommended Viewing |
For a great insight into this topic, I recommend watching Dr. Mahmoud al-Batal’s videos (specifically Lesson 2). |
Recommended Reading |
For a great example of a listening activity suitable for high school or university level students (though easily transferable to junior high level) see this presentation by Rost (2002). Can you add to these resources? Email: - [email protected] to add your resources to this module - [email protected] to add them to our sister site altopedia.org |
5.4 Post-Listening
After completing a listening activity, you may move on to a writing or speaking activity. These are termed post-listening activities when they build on the content or the understanding the students have developed in the while-listening part of the lesson. As they are usually writing or speaking activities, we won’t go into any further detail here.
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5.5 When to do a Listening Activity
Nation (1996) introduced the idea that a language course should consist of four roughly equal “strands”. Listening activities fall under the meaning-focused input strand which involves learning through listening and learning through reading. Being half of one of four strands means listening activities should make up about 1/8th of the course.
This is relevant to junior high ALTs because we are often “given” class time. The principle of the four strands can help us judge what activities we should elect to use to maintain a balance in the students’ curriculum. For other teachers who plan full lessons, it’s simply about being mindful that listening has its place. It’s also important for ALTs of all levels (and JTE/HRTs) to recognize that listening (input) is easier than speaking (output) and thus should be done earlier in the class or section of study. Once students are comfortable with input, they will more easily be able to attempt output. |
6.0 Listening in Communicative Activities
In a communicative activity, the speaking role is much easier to notice because it is the active role. Conversely, listening is easy to overlook but is an essential part of communication. In this section, we’ll look within communication at the role of a listener and consider how the role of a listener differs by culture. As English teachers, we want to build effective English communicators, so we’ll also look at how we can build the appropriate listening skills in our students.
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6.1 Awareness of Cultural Communication Norms
Between cultures, there are differences in the behaviour expected in social situations. This includes in communication. Ignoring the social rules of communication can lead to misunderstandings (or even offence).
Teachers in Japan need to be aware that the majority of their students live their daily lives with a different set of communication norms than the ones teachers from other cultural backgrounds might be used to. To understand how strongly culturally based communication norms affect us, imagine yourself in the following situation. You’re chatting with a friend. As you tell your friend about something that happened to you that day, your friend signals their understanding by saying “Uh-huh” every 1 to 2 seconds. Regardless of your friend’s intentions, this would feel rude to most of us. It’d likely make you feel hurried or as if your friend thinks your story is boring and wasting their time. Breaking social norms often seem like rudeness so try not to underestimate how difficult it can be for students when you ask them to behave outside their norms. ALTs cannot expect students to suddenly start behaving differently simply because they are in English class and learning/using a different language. However these social behaviour differences can be introduced to students, students can get used to them and eventually, adopt and use them more comfortably (and we’ll talk about them and how in the following sections 6.2 and 6.3). Until then, the differences will affect the role the listener plays in communicative situations. The following excerpt highlights some cultural differences in communication styles. (The full paper is linked below). |
“American students, therefore, generally ‘give feedback concerning content by rewording, amplifying, and asking questions’ (p. 19). Bowers says listeners in Japan, following Confucian and Buddhist traditions, are under a greater burden to interpret a message for themselves, to fill in the relationships between ideas when they are not explicitly stated. Anderson (1993) concurs, adding that Japanese students are unlikely to request clarification because of embarrassment about being unable to understand (p. 106). Bowers (1988) points out that feedback mechanisms used in the West, such as repetition or rephrasing, may be considered discourteous in Japanese contexts. The listener traits that the Japanese admire most, he says, are sasshi, the ability to glean messages from a minimum number of explicit cues, and enryo, which he defines as ‘self-restraint vis-a-vis explicit verbal responses out of consideration for the source and/or presence of other receivers’ (p. 19).”
(Miller, 1995)
Recommended Viewing |
Miller’s passage quoted above comes from an article that really helped me understand how strongly culture is reflected in language and communication. It helped me understand that asking a student to behave differently (to Japanese cultural normal) would be like someone asking me (as a child of western culture) to stop thinking of myself as an individual. |
6.2 Listener Responsibilities
During communication, the role of the listener comes with certain responsibilities. Far from being a passive role, listeners must actively show and communicate their understanding. As mentioned, these actions may differ by culture. Below is a list of behaviours that play an important part of listening in English speaking culture. We’ll expand on these list items and discuss how they can be promoted in class in the following section. These behaviours can all be pointed out to students and improved through practice.
They include:
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6.3 Teaching Listening in Communication
Let’s take a look at the list of a listener’s responsibilities from above (section 6.2) and think about how to bring these skills to the classroom.
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6.3.1 Attention, Eye Contact, and Facial Expressions
Eye contact is very important during communication in western culture. It’s might be impossible to teach what an appropriate amount of eye contact is, but students should at least be aware that eye contact is important when communicating in English. It also helps students stay focused on listening to the speaker.
Smiling and other facial expressions are also important but need to be appropriate to the situation and topic of discussion. Non-verbal forms of expression, using eye contact and smiling (or using other facial expressions) during communication can be introduced to students very early on, in elementary and promoted further in junior high. |
Activity 5 |
When explaining the goals at the beginning of each class or prior to a communication activity, remind students of their communication goals which for younger students should include nice smiles and good eye contact. After communication activities, praise students for achieving the goals. You can also have students volunteer to comment on other exemplary students. |
Do you have any listening activities to share?
Post them in our Facebook group.
Post them in our Facebook group.
6.3.2 Backchanneling
Backchanneling is something both English speakers (mmh, uh-huh, yeah, really!) and Japanese speakers (un, sou, majika, soudane) do. Correct usage is subtle and students will invariably cross the line into what feels patronizing or rude, but this is part of learning. The benefit of introducing backchanneling (which I refer to as reactions in the classroom) to the listener’s role is that it promotes more active listening amongst students. This is especially beneficial during a short question and answer practice activities. Reactions can be:
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Activity 6 |
During very simple communication activities (such as interviews), encourage students to react to the answers they get. You should provide the class with examples so lower level students can still do it. For example, students could react with “Nice.” to an affirmation or with “I see.” to a negative response. |
A: Do you play chess? B: Yes, I do. No, I don't A: Nice! I see. |
6.3.3 Follow-Up Questions
Follow-up questions are a step up from the reactions described above and require a slightly higher level of English. By the second grade of junior high, students should be capable of this in simple form. This can still be promoted during high school and even into university as it’s a universal conversation skill as part of being a great listener and communicator.
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Activity 7 |
In an interview activity, encourage the questioner to ask a follow-up question. Give students complete freedom with the follow-up questions but also provide a few examples. To illustrate how a conversation might go: |
A: How many brothers and sisters do you have? B: I have one sister. A: What’s her name? How old is she? Do you like her? |
If a communication activity is limited to a single question and answer, students may not even listen. They know all they have to do is wait for their turn to speak. Instead, encourage students to ask follow-up questions on their own. Perfect English is not the goal here; the goal is active listening and communication. To introduce the idea of follow-up questions being a free-form part of an activity, try brainstorming potential follow-up questions in groups or as a class.
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6.3.4 Requesting Repetition
A very important part of normal communication is asking for clarification or repetition. We ask for repetition or clarification when we didn’t quite hear or didn’t quite understand. Students should learn these skills early in their careers.
As mentioned in section 6.1, the listener’s role in Japanese culture can mean that some students will feel uncomfortable asking to hear something again. (It can also be plain old embarrassment.) To help reduce students’ anxiety, they should learn how to ask to hear something again and also that it is ok to ask. ALTs should be understanding of students’ hesitance. Praising those students that do ask can help show others it is ok. As mentioned in section 5, when doing elementary listening activities myself, I always encourage students to speak up if they want to listen to something “One more time, please.” During conversation, however, English speakers are more likely to say things like “Sorry?”, “What?”, “Huh?” or “I didn’t catch that.” Alternatively, we might repeat what we did hear, expecting our partner to understand we want them to repeat the rest. For example: “The other day I went to [muffled words].” “You went where?” The way you teach students how to request repetition will differ but the main thing is that students are able to do it. Students who are unable to do this will end up stranded in a conversation when they are eventually unable to hear something. |
Activity 8 |
Encourage students to request repetition during pair speaking activities by demonstrating how to do it. Plan for one of you to speak a little too quietly. Do this often and your students will pick up the skill and intuitively understand that “Sorry?” works well during communication and “One more time, please.” is better for listening activities. After these demonstrations, you (ALT or HRT) can ask students what went wrong. Once it has been established one of you was speaking too quietly and that speaking with a clear voice is important, ask if anyone heard what was said to elicit the repetition. Show students how “Sorry?” works well during conversations when you don’t quite hear something. Encourage students to speak clearly but when they didn’t hear something, use “Sorry?” (or similar) to ask for a repetition. |
Activity 9 |
Examples of requesting repetition can also be included in listening passages which students would have to note on an information gap worksheet. |
7.0 Cognition and Knowledge
This section is intended to introduce teachers to the cognitive processes of listening and comprehension.
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7.1 Top-Down and Bottom-Up Processing
Top-down and bottom-up processing in listening refers to the way we mentally process sound for meaning. Knowledge of top-down and bottom-up processing can help teachers understand, in part, how students come to a conclusion about what a listening passage means. It can also help us understand why pre-listening activities that build context (section 5.2) and the ability to hear English properly (section 4) are so important.
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7.1.1 Top-Down Processing
Top-down processing is when comprehension starts with what we already know. We use our knowledge to give sound context and help us understand what we’re hearing.
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“Contextual information can come from many different sources: from knowledge of the speaker/writer or from knowledge of the world; from analogy with a previous situation or from the meaning that has been built up so far.”
(Field, 1999)
Listeners can use knowledge to fill in information gaps (say, when background noise briefly obscures what is being listened to or when they don’t understand every single word) or to predict what might be heard next.
You can assist students’ top-down processing by reviewing current knowledge as part of a pre-listening activity. This could be language-based review, for example, grammar or vocabulary review. It could also be a review of the subject, for example brainstorming what students already know about Mother Teresa and bringing all that knowledge to the whole class before listening to an article about her. When students hear the word “mother” in this context, they will think “Theresa” and not family. |
7.1.2 Bottom-Up Processing
Bottom-up processing means starting with the senses. In listening, bottom-up processing can be thought of as starting with the smallest parts of sounds and building understanding from there.
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“Bottom-up processing occurs when listeners attend to linguistic features and decode each sound and word for semantic meaning.”
(Siegel, cited in Guan, 2015)
To build students’ bottom-up processing skills, ALTs should help build students’ auditory discrimination skills (as discussed in section 4.0). This will help them correctly identify sounds more often and progress to recognising words and understanding meaning.
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7.2 Working Memory
After sounds have been correctly identified and processed to identify a known word or phrase (bottom-up processing) and context has been considered (top-down processing), the conclusion is clumped up and set aside as the next portion of sound is dealt with. This is where working memory comes into play. Working memory is temporary storage and forms part of the cognitive listening comprehension process (Baddeley, 1992). Working memory can store a few chunks of information, around 3 to 5 (Cowan, 2010). As fluency increases, listeners can store more in a single chunk.
Compared to reading (which students can refer back to), students listening to longer passages or communicating verbally will have to hold more information in their working memory. They must apply phonological knowledge to often indistinct streams of sound (see connected speech, section 4.2) to extract meaning (Vandergrift, Baker, 2015). This shows that listening can be more challenging than reading and students may need to listen multiple times. As discussed in While-Listening (section 5.3), tasks can be given to students during listening activities to help target their listening attention (and help them ignore the superfluous). As native listeners, we can very quickly dismiss information that isn’t needed as we develop an understanding of what is being said. Until students develop this skill, and develop listening fluency, listening can quickly overwhelm their working memory. |
7.3 Metacognition
Metacognition is thinking about how we think; about how we process information and manage how we do it (Vandergrift, Goh, 2012). While the term metacognition might sound like a complex mental process, it is simply being aware of your own weaknesses or strengths in learning. It is consciously thinking about how you are learning, and how effective your learning approach is. With this awareness, students can address their weaknesses, either by learning how to work around their weaknesses or by strengthening their language skills in those areas.
The three types of metacognition, with examples, from Vandergrift and Goh (2012) include:
Metacognition has a role in teaching listening. There is extensive evidence that learners’ metacognition can directly affect the process and the outcome of their learning (Rahimi and Katal, 2012). Other research indicates that increased metacognitive skills are generally associated with increases in L2 listening comprehension (Vandergrift and Baker, 2015). This indicates that ALTs can increase students’ listening comprehension ability by helping them become aware of their own strengths and weaknesses in listening (and learning in general - see the Learning Strategies module for more). One way to do this is with a questionnaire. For an example, see appendix B from Vandergrift & Goh (2012). |
Activity 10 |
After completing a listening activity, try reviewing the content as a class by checking answers and then follow up by talking about how students knew that was the correct answer. This can help less successful students understand the listening strategies the successful students used. |
Activity 11 |
Another way to increase student self-awareness is to discuss with students whether a listening activity was easy or not and why. Let them discuss the answer with their peers in groups. This can be done in the students’ first language. Alternatively, solo self-reviews can also be used, for example, by giving students 5 minutes at the end of each class to write a short reflection on the English class and what they enjoyed, what they did well, what they found difficult, and where they want to improve. This (asking the students) also gives you an opportunity to understand how the students are learning, what teaching techniques are working and what needs further consideration. |
(Such discussions obviously require a certain level of language ability in the student’s L1’s (namely Japanese, Tagalog, Spanish etc.)).
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Recommended Reading |
7.4 Language Knowledge
Language knowledge is the understanding of a language’s sounds (see perception of sounds in section 4.1), the rules for combining sounds, knowing words, knowing the meaning of words, grammatical knowledge, and more. Some of this we know without explicitly learning it (unconscious knowledge), for example, being able to say whether certain grammar is correct or not without knowing exactly why.
In this section we’ll talk specifically about grammatical knowledge and word (vocabulary) knowledge and whether they can help listening comprehension. MeCartty (2000) looked at both grammar and vocabulary knowledge as predictors of listening comprehension ability and found strong relationships. Higher grammar knowledge related to higher listening comprehension ability. Higher vocabulary knowledge also related to higher listening comprehension ability. However, only vocabulary knowledge was found to be a predictor (accounting for 14%) of listening comprehension ability. This indicates that, of the two, only building students vocabulary knowledge will lead to improvements in listening comprehension. (Note: this doesn’t mean there’s no benefit to studying grammar in other areas). |
Activity 12 |
To bring vocabulary review into the classroom you can use simple activities like:
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(For more, please see the teaching vocabulary module).
8.0 Summary
Listening is a great way to receive information but for students to be able to do this, they must first be able to decode what they are hearing into meaning. To build sound perception skills language teachers need to give students real language to hear, with all its imperfections. I hope that with an understanding of the difficulties Japanese speaking students face with English sounds, ALTs will realise the importance of teaching these skills to younger (or lower level) students.
Listening activities focus on comprehension as well as help add to a student’s intuitive understanding of grammar and the way English works. ALTs can use the three stages described in section 5 as a guide when planning listening activities. Listening is also, and obviously, an indispensable part of verbal communication. In section 6, there were two important points for you to consider; that the listener has active responsibilities, and that these are cultural. ALTs, especially those new to Japan, should be aware that their expectations of how a listener should behave may clash with how the students will behave and that it isn’t necessarily because the student is misbehaving or rebelling. It may be because what is being asked of them goes against their core (culture-based) behavioural model. Despite these cultural differences, (English culture-based) communication skills can be learned, ALTs just need to understand it’s a gradual process. I hope this module has brought some new ideas to you and allows you to look at your role in the classroom and in the activity preparation stages a little differently. I hope it has reinforced for you the importance of listening and how essential it is to integrate the development of listening skills when teaching English. |
9.0 References
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- Alqahtani, M. (2015) The Importance of Vocabulary in Language Learning and How to be Taught
International Journal of Teaching and Education 3(3), 21-34. Retrieved from http://www.iises.net/international-journal-of-teaching-education/publication-detail-213
- Amaki, Y. (2008) Perspectives on English Education in the Japanese Public School System: The Views of Foreign Assistant Language Teachers (ALTs) Educational Studies in Japan: International Yearbook 3, 53-63. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ842867.pdf
- Baddeley, A. (1992). Working memory
Science 255, 556–559. Retrieved from https://www.tamu.edu/faculty/takashi/psyc689/Irrelevant%20speech/Baddeley%20(working%20memory)%201992.pdf
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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. 31. 82–89. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042811029491
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JALT Conference Proceedings. Retrieved from http://jalt-publications.org/archive/proceedings/2002/018.pdf
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