EVENT 11 - The importance of listening in language learning

EVENT 11 The Importance of Listening 

Listening

• establishes a base for the development of oral language;
• is a vehicle for learning new vocabulary, idioms and grammatical structures;
• is used far more than any other single language skill in normal daily life;
• is the primary channel for language input and acquisition;
• successful academic study requires a mastery of listening demands in formal lectures;
• improves pronunciation.

When listening: 

 

• Focus on the content, not the delivery: Do not be distracted by the lecturer’s presentation style; focus on the flow of the material;
• Avoid distractions;
• Anticipate what you will hear: You can think faster than the lecturer can speak. Begin to anticipate what the professor is going to say. Stay focused.
• Ask mental questions: This is called active listening. Ask questions to yourself as you listen. For example: What key pointing is the professor making? How does this fit with what the professor said in previous lectures? How is this lecture organized?

 

Is listening a passive skill?

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. 
• 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 short-term memory in order to recognize it.  

Adapted from: CELSE-MURCIA (ed.), Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language,3rd Edition,Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 2001.