Ce) Vm GEOGRAPHIC LEARNING esa ag (Ome crear ‘Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language NNR MARIANNE CELCE-MURCIA - DONNA M. BRINTON - MARGUERITE ANN SNOW EDITORS PEER ier PR Pe Sag BOR Bin EAS LE Bice AN en le eae eg ee eaNATIONAL, 2%, HEIN! CORP |e TELE ing ‘Teaching English asa Second or Foreign Copyright © 2014, 2003, 1991 National Geographic Learning, a part of Language, ath Edition Marianne Celce-Murcia Donna M. Brinton Marguerite Ann Snow Publisher: Sherrise Roehe Acquisitions Editor: Tom Jefferies Director of Global Marketing: lan Martin Senior Product Manager: Barbara Quincer Coulter Director, Content and Media Production: ‘Michael Burggren Content Project Manager: Andrea Bobotas Print Buyer: Mary Beth Hennebury Cover Designer: Gina Petti Cover Image: Joel Sartore/National Geographic image Collection CCompositor: MPS Limited Printed in the United States of America 12345678910 15141312 Cengage Learning ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 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SBN: 978-117-35169-4 National Geographic Learning 20 Channel Center Street Boston, MA 02210, USA Cengage Learning is a leading provider of customized learning solutions with ofice locations around the globe, including Singapore, the United Kingdom, Australia, Mexico, Brazil and Japan Cengage Learning products are represented in Canada by Nelson Education, Ld, Visit National Geographic Learning online st nghcengage.com Visit our corporate website at wwrw.cengage.com6 | Second Language Listening Comprehension: Process and Pedagogy CHRISTINE C. M. GOH KEY QUESTIONS > What is the state of listening pedagogy? > What should teachers know about the listening process? > How can teachers help English as a second or foreign language learners improve their listening comprehension and long-term listening development? EXPERIENCE Listening is a demanding skill for many language learners, and it is also a skill that many teachers, find challenging to teach. The following excerpts from the reflections of a leamer and a teacher illustrate some of the challenges with listening. Learner A We heard a talk from the librarian about how to do research work on the computer. I could not keep up with her because of the speed and some academic words, especially some words used in computer language. .. . I have a routine listening plan. Usually I can't catch what is said the first time. I have to repeat it again until I can make most sentenc- ¢s clear, On an average, the recording should be repeated 4 or 5 times. Of course, I'm not pleased with the result. I hope that one day 1 can understand something as soon as I hear it. I find the target is so hard to achieve that I sometimes lose hope. No matter how hard I practise my listening, I still stay at the original level. Teacher Z Back in my country, teaching listening isa sim- ple affair. We just play the recording and ask the students to choose the correct answers to the accompanying listening comprehension 72 questions. Looking back, there was hardly any real teaching because there wasn’t much that we could teach. We just corrected their answers in class, We just hoped that the repeated exercises would help them become better eventually. ... Sometimes we prepared them by telling them the title of a listening passage and to guess what it was about. We didn’t know how to teach listening because we didn’t know how to help our students like the way we helped them with pronunciation, grammar or writing, The challenges facing learners and teachers are due partly to a lack of understanding of what listening entails and how comprehension is achieved. As a result, the learners may have unrealistic expectations of their listening devel- ‘opment and the teachers may think that there is litle they can do to teach listening because the processes that learners engage in during listening cannot be directly observed and controlled. It is not surprising therefore that for a long time listening activities in the classroom focused on the product of comprehension. Lessons typically involved listening to passages, answering ques tions, and checking answers. As G. Brown (1987) observes, listening pedagogy was heavily influ- enced by practices in the teaching of reading, wi little allowance made for the complex nature of the listening process and the unique features ofspoken language. Listening activities were also often a disguised form of testing because learners were expected to demonstrate their comprehen- sion without receiving any real support (Sheerin, 1987). To help learners develop their listening, teachers need to understand how comprehension is achieved and recognize factors that can influence its outcome for language learners. Like other areas of language learning, learning to listen can benefit from curricula and ac that are planned in a theoretically principled manner and delivered sys- tematically. This chapter assists teachers to acquire important theoretical perspectives about the lis- tening process and to consider their implications for teaching listening. It also offers practical ideas for designing listening tasks to enhance learners’ cognitive processes and ability to manage their overall listening development. WHAT IS INVOLVED IN LISTENING? Listening is not just hearing. It is an active process that may begin even before the first speech signal is recognized, and it may go on long after the input or spoken information has stopped. Meaning cannot be simply extracted from the sound signals, and understanding is the result of active construc tion occurring at all levels of text (sounds, gram- mar, lexis, and discourse structure) and context (the topic, the participants, the communication purpose, and the place or setting for the interac- tion). An. active listener, according to G. Brown (1990), “is someone who constructs reasonable interpretations on the basis ofan underspeci fied input and recognises when more specific information is required. The active listener asks for the needed information” (p. 172). This defi- nition captures learners’ limitations in listening where input is often incomplete because of their inability to recognize every word they hear. It also underscores the contribution that learners them- selves can potentially bring to their comprehen- sion process. In face-to-face interactions, meaning construction can be facilitated by cooperative processes between listeners and speakers (c.g. asking questions and offering clarifications). Where direct interaction is absent, listeners have to resort to other means of completing the gaps in their understanding. Like all language communication skills, listening is goal-directed and purposeful. As Rost (1990) notes: “people listen for a purpose and it is this purpose that, drives the understanding process” (p. 7). This is an important principle to bear in mind when planning lessons and activities for listenin, Active listening can therefore take place in oneway (nonparticipatory) or two-way (inter- active and participatory) listening contexts. In one-way listening, listeners have few or no oppor tunities to interact directly with the speaker and have to rely almost exclusively on their linguistic knowledge, experience, and factual knowledge to make sense of what they hear. Examples include listening to and/or viewing recorded materials in a textbook, radio programs and songs, films, television programs, large lectures, and to some extent live speeches and presentations. In two-way listening, listeners are participants in an interac- tion where they alternate between the role of the listener and the speaker. Examples include casual conversations, telephone conversations, videocon- ferencing, formal or semi-formal interviews, one- to-one and group discussions, and some speeches and presentations where there are spontaneous interactions between speakers and the audien Listening skills and strategies Language learners who are active listeners use a range of skills and strategies to direct and manage their listening processes according to their communi- cation goals. (See Purpura, this volume, for a general discussion of leamer styles and strategies.) Listening, skills are acquired abilities that enable a person to listen without a great deal of deliberate effort or con- scious planning. They are the result of actions that, have been practiced frequently in varied situations, and through prolonged experience, the actions have become automatized. For example, decoding skills, for perception and parsing can become automatized as language learners become increasingly sensitized to the phonological patterns of English through fre- quent exposure and develop greater awareness of its, linguistic features through noticing. Listening strategies, on the other hand, are ways of listening that are planned and consciously adopted to improve comprehension and commu- nication as well as cope with listening difficulties, Strategies that direct attention to the input and coordinate various cognitive processes are often known as metacognitive strategies. They broadly Chapter 6 73consist of strategies for planning, monitoring, and evaluation, and they can be used before, during, or after listening. During face-to-face interactions, learners can use strategies to manage the communication and discourse. Strategies can have a social dimension and are used to enhance the interaction process through eliciting the speakers’ cooperation. Following the conceptualization of reading skills and reading strategies by Aflerbach, Pearson, and Paris (2008), listening strategies can also be expected to develop into automatized, listening skills with time. More critically, learners will also constantly move between skills and strate- gies while listening to different kinds of discourse with different levels of challenge. This is something that even competent listeners have to do at times. CONCEPTUAL UNDERPINNINGS Historical overview Like other language skills, the teaching of listening has understandably been influenced by changes in approaches to language teaching methodology. A criticism of the audiolingual approach in the 1960s and 1970s was that the drills and dialogues did not, prepare learners to comprehend authentic speech by native speakers (Belasco, 1971, as cited in Morley, 2001). In the mid to late 1970s, when the commu- nicative and the related task-based approaches became popular, listening was given more system- atic attention and the teaching of listening focused on the understanding of spoken discourse for functional and interactional purposes (Flowerdew & Miller, 2005). (See chapters by Duff and Nunan, this volume, for discussions of the communicative and task-based approaches, respectively.) Rather than being restricted to drills and dialogues, listening was practiced in face-to-face communi- cation with native speakers or through communi- cative tasks (Morley, 2001). Materials were selected mainly from authentic communication instead of scripted for language learning, and learners used the information they processed for larger com- munication goals. Teachers were given guidelines ‘on developing materials and designing tasks for practice in authentic or simulated communication (e.g., Geddes, 1981). Lists of listening comprehen- sion skills were also proposed (J. C. Richards, 1983; Rixon, 1981). Although the psychological reality of dividing listening up into component skills has, 74 Unit tl been questioned, such descriptions continue to be useful references for teachers to plan and organize listening practice (Field, 2008) The place of listening was reinforced by second language acquisition (SLA) theories that foregrounded the role of input (Gass & Madden, 1985; Krashen 1981) and evidence that supported the claim that listening comprehension, coupled with delayed speaking, could facilitate language acquisition (Gary & Gary, 1981; Postovsky 1974). Discussions about listening pedagogy were fur- ther informed by theories in cognitive psychology concerning the constructive nature of text com- prehension. Text comprehension, it was shown, did not result from a linear sequence of sounds being decoded and interpreted in an additive manner; instead, it was the outcome of interactions between prior knowledge retrieved from long-term memory and the sounds that are processed in working memory. Informed by cognitive theo- ries, predlistening activities were proposed to help learners anticipate words that they might hear and make appropriate inferences (Anderson & Lynch, 1988; Underwood, 1989; Ur, 1984). Research into learner listening also made significant gains, with Dunkel (1991) calling for a closer examination of the role of listening comprehension skill develop- ment in the beginning stages of language learning, the roles of participatory and nonparticipatory lis- tening in second language acquisition, factors that affect comprehension, dynamic processes involved in L2 listening, and specific instructional tasks and activities that could enhance listening skill development. The last two decades have seen further developments in listening instruction through the strategy approach (Mendelsohn, 1995). This approach focused on helping learners use strategies to enhance their listening processes and develop their metacognitive awareness about listening. Italso aimed to empower learners to take control of thei comprehension process in various listening contexts. Teachers were advised to model the metacognitive strategies of planning, monitoring, and evaluating comprehension (Chamot, 1995), along with cogni- tive strategies for verifying informed guesses (Field, 1998). Teacher modeling was assumed to help demystify the seemingly complex processes that listening involved and make the hidden processes of skillful listening explicit to language learne Precommunication activities were recommended forraising learners’ awareness about listening processes (G. Buck, 1995). These activities introduce learners to strategies for coping with listening difficulties and for using long-term memory resources to construct, their understanding. Learners are also encouraged to develop their metacognitive knowledge about listening with the help of reflection tools such as listening diaries (Goh, 1997) and prompts for group dialogues (Cross, 2010). Some aspects of this know edge could also be developed by sensitizing learners to the phonological features of speech and prac: ticing their abilities to perceive sounds and segment a steam of speech into meaningful words or lexical items (Field, 2008). Vandergrift (2004) made the teaching of cog- nitive processes during listening more direct by pro- posing the use of a metacognitive sequence whereby metacognitive processes such as verification and evaluation are integrated with listening at spe stages. This helps to raise metacognitive aware- ness and, at the same time, give learners the much needed scaffolding (i.e. support) while working with listening texts. According to the research con- ducted, learners who were successfully taught to use strategies through such a lesson sequence also experienced greater motivation to learn listening skills (Lin & Goh 2006; Mareschal, 2007), better awareness of effective strategies (Cross, 2010), and improvement in their performance (Vandergrift & Tafaghodtari, 2010). Vandergrift and Goh (2012) built on the strengths of the strategy approach by proposing a pedagogical framework underpinned bya theory of metacognition. They propose a peda- gogy that combines metacognitive development with communicative taskbased learning. In this approach, learners get plenty of listening practice to develop their listening skills and also engage in meta- cognitive processes such as planning, monitoring, and evaluation to be more selfregulated in their listening development. A metacognitive approach is particularly relevant for listening instruction because teachers need a way of making visible to learners the processes of comprehension and learning to scaffold these processes more effectively for the learners. In spite of the many developments in second language listening pedagogy, therole of the listening teacher in some English as a second/foreign lan- guage (ESL/EFL) situations has remained largely that of the controller of the playback device and listening materials, as is the case with Teacher Z at the beginning of the chapter. For this reason, in some language programs teachers are deemed to be no longer needed for listening lessons and listening is taken out of curriculum time. Learners practice listening on their own by using selfaccess materials and online resources. Some commen- tators have suggested that, rather than teach learners how to listen strategically, it may be more beneficial simply to provide interesting materials for learners to practice their listening in class. Any kind of extensive listening is clearly useful, but leaving learners literally to their own devices may overlook an important principle about language teaching—namely that the teacher has an impor- tant role in scaffolding learning so that learners can achieve more than they can achieve on their own. To begin to do this well, teachers need to understand the different processes that take place during listening and how to support them in the process of learning to listen, Cognitive processes Much of our current understanding of how indi- viduals process spoken signals and construct mean- ing from them has been illuminated by theoretical perspectives from cognitive psychology. A. classic model of comprehension proposed by]. R. Anderson (1995) outlines three recurrent and overlapping phases—perception, parsing, and utilization—that can explain the function of cognitive processes dur- ing listening. Perception occurs as listeners match the sounds they hear to words they know. Als referred to as decoding and sound-script recogni- tion, this process focuses on recognizing words in a stream of speech. Decoded words are almost simul- taneously analyzed in larger units according to gram- mar or lexical cues in a process known as parsing. Comprehension is not achieved until a higher-level process known as utilization takes place; information processed at the phonological, grammatical, and lexical levels is related to the listeners’ prior knowk edge of the facts and listening context to enable them to interpret the meaning and functions of the utterances. If the constructed meaning is not needed immediately, it is transferred to long-term memory and stored there to be retrieved at an appropriate ime. In interactive listening, however, listeners gen- erally have to hold the meaning longer in thei working memory while they formulate a response. For first language speakers, perception and pars- ing typically occur in an automatized manner; Chapter 6 75that is, listeners need not exert any special effort in decoding the sounds of the words and analyzing the grammatical function of the utterances, Nevertheless, more effortful processing is usually needed during utilization for higher-level inferences and interpreta- tions to take place. Cognitive processes during listening are complex, but they can occur harmoniously as sound signals interact with learners’ prior knowl edge and as different knowledge sources are drawn on and connected throughout the process. The connectionist model, which posits the simul taneous processing of input, shows how this is done through the activation of interconnected or associative neural networks in the brain (Bechtel & Abrahamsen, 1991). In other words, when we receive input in the form of speech, our brain aris to match the sounds to words we know, as well as working toward an overall understanding of the spoken message by drawing on lexical and grammatical knowledge and on other stored, knowledge about facts and experiences. In these processes, the working memory plays a central role by attending to the aural inputs through the phonological or articulatory loop (Baddeley 2000). The phonological loop is a system that holds verbal information in our working memory long enough for it to be processed by reviving the memory traces of the information that has been perceived to prevent it from decaying too rapidly. Another working memory system that manages the processing of aural information is the central executive. This system is responsible for directing attention to the inputs, coordinating cognitive processes to ensure that they work harmoniously, and controlling them such that, when an indi- vidual’s attention starts to wander, his or her atten- tion is redirected back to the input. The working memory also integrates the processed informa- tion into a single mental representation through a system known as the episodic buffer so that the sound signals that are perceived and parsed. are also interpreted semantically, thus enabling the individual to arrive at an understanding of the overall message for utilization. In the information- processing literature the term botlom-up processing is often used to describe the way meaning is built up from the sounds that have been decoded, while top-down processing is used to describe the way meaning is inferred and constructed from the application of prior knowledge about language 76 Uniti and the world stored in long-term memory. All of these processes are directed by the listener's meta- cognition, which is the ability to think about these processes and manage them (see Figure 1). Representation of speech in memory UTILIZATION t | Parsed speech { ‘Top-down processing PARSING 1 ft Phonetic representation ft | PERCEPTION | Bottom-up processing Speech Figure I. Cognitive processes in L2 listenittg and their interrelationships (based on Vandergrift & Goh, 2012),An accumulation of literature over the decades strongly supports the theory that both bottom-up and top-down processes are needed for listening, comprehension and that successful listening in a second or foreign language depends to a large extent on a learners’ ability to engage in both sets of processes effectively. Many language learners, like Learner A at the beginning of the chapter, however, often experience difficulty because they may mishear key words due to inaccurate pronunciation and an inability to segment individual words in a stream of speech (S. Graham, 2006; Harada, 1997/8). They also have problems remembering key words long enough for meaning to be constructed or trans- ferred to longterm memory (Goh, 2000). Lower proficiency language learners’ working memory is often overloaded as they juggle low- and high- level processes. Information in their limited-capacity memory is constantly being replaced by new input that they need to attend to, and they may have to rely heavily on their prior knowledge to achieve some comprehension. The use of background knowledge has been shown to assist learner comprehension in a large number of listening studies (Macaro, Graham, & Vanderplank, 2007), but it sometimes distracts learners and leads them to ignore useful cues in the text (Field, 2004); it also limits their interpretations (Tsui & Fullilove, 1998) Types of knowledge that support listening comprehension Language learners rely on different kinds of knowl- edge to facilitate their comprehension. The most, common kind referred to in the literature on lis- tening is schema, or background knowledge about the world that is derived from personal experienc and learning. This type of knowledge allows listen ers to process information in a top-down manner, where gaps in comprehension are filled by what they know about the topic. To facilitate top-down as well as bottom-up processes, knowledge of the language system, discourse, and pragmatics are all equally important. Knowledge of language. Learners’ knowledge of the English language system is an important contributory factor for successful comprehen- sion. One aspect of this knowledge is phonologi- cal knowledge, or knowledge about the sounds of English, which facilitates perception. At the segmental level, that is, the level of discrete sound elements, learners need to know how vowels and consonants combine to produce words. At the suprasegmental level, that is, the level beyond indi- vidual sounds, learners need to know that words in English have different stress patterns. Knowing a word in the written form does not guarantee that learners will recognize it in speech. If the learners’ own pronunciation of certain words is inaccurate, perception of these words will be affected. For example, someone who pronounces hostel with the same stress pattern as hotel may not recognize hostel when it is spoken. In addition, if learners are unfa- miliar with the stress-timed rhythm and intonation of spoken English, where only some words are stressed in continuous utterances, they may expect, to hear every word. (See Goodwin, this volume, for a discussion of rhythm and intonation.) For effective parsing to occur, leamers must rely on their knowledge of how meaning is repre- sented syntactically. Grammatical knowledge, how- ever, goes beyond the written language. Spoken language, particularly casual and informal speech, is organized differently from written prose; it is orga- nized through spoken grammar, which includes features such as ellipsis (Lemonade? Instead of Would you like a lemonade?) and question tags (That cant be right, can if) (Carter & McCarthy, 1997) Furthermore, natural speech is messy, with incom- plete utterances, repetitions, and redundancies. Learners’ knowledge of the grammar and features of spoken language will facilitate their listening comprehension of authentic speech. Vocabulary knowledge also has a significant impact on listening comprehension, a factor that many language learners recognize themselves, In addition to individual words, learners may also be unfamiliar with formulaic expressions or prefabri- cated lexical “chunks” (e.g., the long and short of it or over the hill) that are commonly used by native or competent speakers of English. Thus even when learners are able to decode individual words cor rectly, they may still have problem processing the meaning of colloquial expressions and idioms, and this can affect their overall understanding of what they hear. Knowledge of discourse and language use. Listening is carried out in a wide variety of places, such as schools, colleges, shops, clinics, and work- places. In each of these contexts, learners can Chapter 6 77expect to encounter different kinds of discourse, or extended pieces of language created during an interaction. Each type of discourse is patterned differently, and knowledge about how specific discourses are structured can enhance listening comprehension. For example, in short exchanges, there will usually be three conversational turns, as the next example illustrates: A: Going to the party this Saturday B: Nope. Got to hand in my term paper on Monday. A: Too bad, but the paper's more important, T guess. Leamers’ discourse knowledge about short exchang- €s will lead them to expect at least two turns or adja- cency pairs (i.c., where one speaker asks a question or makes a comment and the listener responds). They may also know that when someone answers a question with a negative response, the response is typically accompanied by a reason. In addition, learners will expect to hear a third utterance, where the person who asks the questions rounds off the exchange with a comment. In one-way listening contexts, such as lectures, learners will find it helpful to know how lecture typically begins, develops, and ends; they also need to understand the role of dis- course markers such as next and on the other hand in signaling the way a lecture unfolds. (See also Flowerdew & Miller, this volume.) Knowledge about the structure of other common kinds of genres or communicative events (e.g., news reports, announcements, interviews, and jokes) will also help learners during listening. Rost (2011) observes that listeners have “an intention to complete a communication process to some degree” (p. 79). Not only do listeners aim to understand the words that are said, but they also want to grasp the function of an utterance and its intended effect (e.g., whether the speaker is disagreeing politely or expressing disbelief), Knowledge of language use or pragmatic knowl edge is particularly crucial during the utiliza- tion phase of comprehension, where the listener interprets what is said or formulates appropriate responses. Pragmatic knowledge enables learners to go beyond the literal meaning drawn from successful decoding and parsing of the input to draw conclusions about the speaker's intention Because English is spoken by people from different 78 Unit Il sociocultural backgrounds, listeners will also have to know the sociocultural rules of use that are appropriate for the people that they are inter- acting with. This is perhaps the most challenging aspect of pragmatic knowledge development, and earners may have to rely on resources beyond the language classroom. CLASSROOM APPLICATIONS Listening skills and strategies As mentioned, the literature on second/foreign language listening contains long lists of listening skills and subskills. J. C. Richards (1983) presents cover 30 subskills, ranging from ones for decoding words (¢.g., the ability to distinguish word bound- aries) to those needed for understanding of dis- course (e.g., the ability to detect causes and effects from events). (See Appendix A.) Field’s (2008) lists of decoding and meaning-building processes bear some similarities to many of these listening subskills, but by calling them processes, Field highlights the cognitive complexities involved in listening. G. Buck (2001) emphasizes different abilities for understanding both literal meanings and implied meanings in spoken input Asa guide for teachers to plan listening tasks, Vandergrift and Goh (2012) identify six core skills, that are integral to the listening process: 1. Listen for details. Identify specific information that is relevant to the listening goal, such as key words, numbers, names, dates, and places. 2. Listen selectively. Pay attention to particular parts of the listening text and ignore others that are not relevant to listening goals or that contain too much information to attend to at the same time. 3. Listen for global understanding. Understand the overall general idea, such as the theme, topic, and purpose. 4, Listen for main ideas. Understand the key points or propositions in a text, such as points in support of an argument, directions for doing something, and important events in a story. 5. Listen and infer. Make up for information that is missing, unclear, or ambiguous in the listening text by using different resources, such as background knowledge, Visual clues, and speaker's tone. Listen and predict, Anticipate what is going to be said before or during listening by using clues from the context, from background knowl edge, or knowledge about the speaker. Competent listeners typically use these skills to direct and adjust their attention productively to the spoken input according to their listening purpose. Each skill is operationalized by the activa- tion of the cognitive processes discussed earlier, The use of the core listening skills is influenced by the purpose for listening. It determines which skill or skills are more relevant at a specific point in the listening event. Because listening purposes may change throughout the duration of a communica- tive event, listeners too will modify the skills they use. For example, someone who listens to the news on the radio or television does not use all six skills, equally. At the start of the broadcast, the listener may try to get all the details in the headlines. The person may then listen selectively and pay atten- tion to only those items that are of interest. Ifa news item is something he or she is not interested in. the person may go to the kitchen to get some- thing to drink but return to catch another news item, The person may miss hearing some words because the phone rings or there is some distrac- tion. To fill in the gaps, he or she may use the film footage to get an overall idea of what is being presented. The core skills are also applied similarly in face-to-face listening. Listeners may find it is cither too tiring or just unnecessary to focus on all the details in a conversation and may decide to listen for global understanding. They may also tune in and tune out selectively depending on attention span or interest. If they are engaged in a discussion, however, they may want to listen closely to the points that the speaker is presenting and use cues from the speaker's body language and suprasegmental features (e.g,, intonation and stress) to infer information that is not conveyed explicitly through languag Second/foreign language learners will find it useful to develop the core listening skills so that they can vary their level of attention and not expect to hear all the details in every utter- ance. However, the process will still largely be effortful and deliberate, and the learners need to use appropriate listening strategies. For example, when they realize that they do not recognize many words in a message, they may consciously listen for global understanding. Learners may also decide to listen for key words and use the words to construct, their understanding of the message in a largely top-down manner. Where possible, some language learners may also do some forward planning before they start listening. Research has shown that there are differences in the quality and the frequency of strategies used by successful and less successful listeners, with some studies suggesting that strategy struction may improve listening performance (Macaro, Graham, & Vanderplank, 2007). There is also evidence that the better listeners not only used strategies that were more appropriate and effec- tive but were also better at orchestrating the use of several strategies and substrategies or tactics 10 construct reasonable interpretations of what they heard (Vandergrift, 2003). Research on strategy use in second language listening has produced a number of strategy tax- onomies. Vandergrift and Goh (2012) identify 12 strategies that occur across many of these taxonomies: 1. Planning: developing an awareness of what needs to be done and an action plan to over- come possible difficulties 2. Focusing attention: heeding the spoken input in different ways and avoiding distractions 3. Monitoring: checking, confirming, or correc ing one’s comprehension during the task Evaluation: checking the outcomes of listening and listening plans Inferencing: using different kinds of prior knowledge to guess unfamiliar words and fill in missing information 6. Elaboration: using different kinds of prior knowledge to extend and embellish an inter- pretation 7. Prediction: anticipating the contents of what one is going to hear 8, Contextualization: placing what is heard in a spe- cific context to assist further comprehension 9. Reorganizing: wansferring what is understood into another form to facilitate further under- standing, storage, and retrieval 10. Using linguistic and learning resources: relying on knowledge of first language or additional languages, and referring to available resources that support listening and learning Cooperation: working with others to get their assistance in comprehension and learning a 5. L Chapter 6 7912. Managing emotions: being aware of one's nega- tive emotions and finding ways to prevent them from affecting comprehension and learning A process-oriented listening pedagogy Learners’ knowledge of the language, discourse, and language use will enable them to decode speech signals as well as make predictions or inferences to construct reasonable interpreta- tions, Cognitive and social processes, however, are complex and can be problematic for learners, but teachers can provide appropriate kinds of guidance and scaffolding to help them manage their process, of learning to listen. Valuable proposals have been. made regarding ways to teach listening that develop bottom-up and top-down processes (see Field 2008; Lynch, 2009; Rost, 2011) and that also address complex dimensions of authentic listening, such as individualvariation, cross-cultural, social, inter- textual, strategic, affective, and critical dimensions (Flowerdew & Miller, 2005).(See also Flowerdew & Miller, this volume.) There are two complementary methods for planning lessons to teach listening: (1) task- based metacognitive instruction, which combines one- and two-way communicative listening tasks with metacognitive development activities; and (2) metacognitive pedagogical sequence, which inte- grates strategy-based instruction to guide le through metacognitive processes of listening as they listen to a text. As shown in Figure 2, both methods aim to develop learners’ metacognitive awareness about listening while offering them plenty of listening practice at the same time. The tasks and lessons allow learners to practice the core listening skills, develop their explicit knowledge of second language listening, and adopt strategies mers Process-oriented [Task-based metacognitive instruction instruction for proficiency and metacognitive development for managing their listening comprehension and overall development of listening skills. ‘Task-based metacognitive instruction. This instruc- tional strategy integrates taskbased learning with metacognitive instruction. It builds on the strengths of communicative task-based learning, which encourages learners to listen and respond actively to texts that have a high degree of authenticity. In this section, I first describe two types of listening tasks— one-way (nonparticipatory) listening tasks and two-way (interactive and participatory) listening tasks—and then explain how metacognitive activi- ties can be integrated into these tasks. ‘Task-based instruction for listening emphasizes the importance of communication goals between speakers and listeners, and focuses on the compre- hension of meaning according to learners’ purpose for listening. For example, if the learners’ purpose is to identify times and dates from the text, they need to concentrate on attending to the details. If they need to get the gist of a long segment of discou learners can ignore the details and concentrate on using clues such as key words to construct a global understanding of the text. Listening tasks are seen as useful opportunities for learners to practice listening, to a variety of discourses and to use listening strategies whenever they are needed. Le told their purpose for listening or are given an opportunity to define the purpose and anticipated outcomes themselves. The specification of a com- municative purpose and an outcome are essential features of language learning tasks (J. R. Willis, 1996). One-way (nonparticipatory) and two-way (participatory) listening tasks are further integrated with appropriate metacognitive activities before and afier listening to guide learners in regulating and appraising their own listening comprehension pro- cesses and efforts at learning to listen (Goh, 2010). ners are ening Metacognitive pedagogical sequence Figure 2. Process-oriented instruction for listening fluency and metacognitive development. 80) Unit IOneway (nonparticipatory) listening tasks. The goal of one-way listening is for learners to obtain infor- mation front the listening text with minimal or no interaction with the speaker. One-way listening tasks require learners to understand the meaning of what is said without the need to give immediate respons- es. Learners listen to different kinds of spoken texts that are recorded or read aloud by the teacher They then use this information to achieve a vari ety of listening outcomes or products, such as lists, categorized information, edited texts, diagrams, pictures, summaries, notes, questions, and individ- ual or group responses. Table 1 presents examples ‘of one-way listening tasks that help learners practice different listening skills for a specific product. Each example outlines the procedures and forms the basis for developing a complete lesson where meta- cognitive activities are also incorporated. Two-way (interactive and participatory) listening tasks. ‘Two-way listening tasks engage learners in interactions where they alternate between the roles of listener and speaker. They usually have to respond directly to what they hear, either to provide the necessary information or to ask the speaker about what was said, Spoken interaction takes two forms: (1) conversations, which are interpersonal in purpose; and (2) encounters, which are transac- tional in purpose (Burns, Joyce, & Gollin, 1996). Applied to teaching listening, the tasks could involve learners in conversations of either an informal or a formal nature in which ideas, information, and thoughts are shared. Responses will also be affected by the perceived power relationships between learn- ers and other participants in the interaction, In listening tasks that involve transactional interactions, learners are asked to obtain information, goods, or services from other participants in the interaction, Listeners may seek further clarifications, and their use of language will be affected by the perceived degree of familiarity between them and the speaker. Unlike one-way listening tasks, which make use of monologic texts, two-way listening tasks require learners to listen to discourse of a dialogic nature, ‘one that is jointly constructed by them and other participants in an interaction. Listening outcomes may be similar to the ones in one-way listening, but the process of achieving those outcomes tends to be collaborative. Table 2 presents examples of two-way interactive listening tasks that give learners opportu- nities to practice different listening skills as well as discourse strategies that can enhance listening com- prehension during an interaction. In addition to practicing different ways of attending to the spoken input, learners should also learn to use cooperation strategies to help improve their comprehension, Teachers might find it useful to preteach some rel- evant questions or phrases that learners can use to seek help and clarification (e.g., Could you say that again, please?). Incorporating metacognitive activities Although listening tasks provide learners with valu- able listening practice, the learners’ experience is not complete without opportunities to step back from the activities to think about their learning. These opportunities are found in the use of meta- cognitive activities before, during, or after listening, as well as at appropriate times during a language course. By incorporating metacognitive activities into task-based instruction, teachers can develop learn- es’ knowledge about ESL/EFL listening processes and the contribution they themselves can make to enhance the comprehension and learning process. Metacognition is our ability to think about our own thinking and learning (Flavell, 1979). It enables us to move away from doing an activity to analyzing the way we do it, and it is central to the learning process (Alexander, 2008; Borkowski, 1996). Metacognition plays a key role in language learning as it enables learners to plan, monitor, and evaluate how they process information in a new language; it also directs the way they do ii (Wenden, 1991). The role of metacognition is cru- cial to the development of second and foreign lan- guage listening because listening comprehension, asa largely hidden process that happens inside the head of the learners, cannot be modified or corrected unless these processes are made visible. Not only are teachers unable to observe learners’ development and the problems the learners face; the learners themselves are often unclear about how they listen because they quickly forget the processes that they engage in unless there are opportunities for them to reflect on these pro- cesses, document them, and learn from these reflections. Metacognitive activities in class can raise learners’ awareness of the processes of com- prehension, encourage them to adopt appropriate strategies and skills and to evaluate and improve their learning processes. Through metacognitive Chapter 6 81Table ‘One-Way (Nonparticipatory) Listening Tasks Ce Listen and Listening for global_An amended restore understanding: text in print listening for details Listen and Listening for main. A rearranged sort ideas; listening for sequence details of text or pictures Listen and Listening for main A list of. compare ideas; listening for _ similarities deuals and differences Listen and Listening for global Texts match understanding matched to themes Listen and Listening for main. A combined combine ideas; listening summary selectively based on information from different Listen and Listening and ‘The beginning compose predicting; listening or conclusion and making inferences of a text Listen and Listening for details; A list of items evaluate listening for main based on their ideas; listening and relative merits ‘making inferences (depending on the criteria for evaluation) Listen and Listening for global A text that is reconstruct understanding; listening reconstructed for main ideas; listening based on the for details content of the original text 82 Unit It Different types of listening texts, such as narratives and information reports; the transcript of a text with incorrect details A text that describes a sequence, a procedure, a chronological event, Or items in ranked order; sets of jumbled up texts and/or pictures Several short texts that have a common theme or topic Several short texts that have different themes: theme cards (small cards with a single word written on each one, eg. recycling, marriage, health) Note: Teachers should prepare more theme ‘ards than the number of texts A fairly long text (eg. a news broadcast, narrative, or procedure) divided into. several parts A narrative text (eg.a shore story) with either the beginning or the ‘end missing Several short texts on a ‘common theme or topic. Ashore text (eg. an information report, procedures, or exposition ‘ofa viewpoint) 2. Students work individually or in pairs to read the printed text They discuss the gist of the text and listen to the text once. ‘When they listen again, they correct the details in the written texts by changing, adding, oF deleting words Students work in pairs to examine the jumbled texts or pictures. ‘They discuss what the text might be about and sort the texts/pictures according to their speculations. They listen to the text and use the information to sequence the texts/pictures. |. Students listen individually to the texts and Identify similarities and differences. ‘They compare their answers with another student to confirm what they have identified. The class listens to the texts again and students check their answers. ‘The teacher checks that students understand the meaning of the words in the theme cards, Students listen individually to the texts and identify the most appropriate theme for each text. Students listen to one part of the text individually. They make notes of what they hear. In small groups, they report to one another and reconstruct a summarized form of the original text. Students listen to the text in pairs or in a small group. ‘They discuss what the text is about and what the missing part should be like. “They write the missing part and a representative reads the part aloud to the rest ofthe dass. Students listen to the texts individually and assess the information or message based ‘on predetermined criteria, such as clarity, interest level, accuracy, and effectiveness. In groups or pairs, they explain their choices. Seudents listen individually to the text once. ‘They listen to it again and take notes of key content words or key points in a text (eg. problems, solutions,and recommendations). ‘They use their notes to produce a text that is close in meaning to the original one.Table 2. Two-Way (Participatory) Listening Tasks oo Dictate and Listening for Arrestored and Different types 1. Students read their version of the complete details, listening complete text _of listening texts incomplete text individually. selectively (eg, narratives and 2. They take turns dictating their information reports); versions A and B of the text with blanks inserted in different parts of the text 3, version without showing it to their partners. Listeners must ask for clarification and repetition where necessary. They write down the missing words in their version ofthe text. Describe and draw Listening for main ideas; listening for details Pictures, maps, sketches, and objects Pictures of scenery 1 and objects, plans, and maps ‘Students work in pairs, with one fof them describing the content of a picture. 2. The other student draws it or completes a similar picture that is incomplete. 3. Listeners must ask for clarification and repetition where necessary. Cards with scenarios for simulations, roles, or statements of a problem andan issue 2. and the required outcome, such as a set of recommendations Views and recommendations Simulace and discuss Listening for main ideas; listening for details; listening and inferring: listening and predicting Students form small groups to discuss a problem or an issue in the simulation. ‘A moderator or the chairperson inthe simulation is assigned to ask questions, elicit views, challenge assumptions, and clarify Take notes and Listening for global A set of notes: a arity understanding: list of questions listening for main for clarifying ideas; listening for understanding of details; listening the content and making inferences instruction, learners become more self-directed ‘knowing what to do to develop their listening) and selfregulated (knowing how to manage challenges and opportunities). Metacognitive activities in the Estening classroom can include the use of one or more of the following: Self-directed listening guide. This is a set of ques- ons and prompts that learners respond to before and after they listen to materials selected for indi- vidual listening practice (see Appendix B). Listening diaries. Entries are made into a journal or specially prepared reflection sheets that learn- ‘ers complete individually by answering what, when, understanding. 3. Students in their respective roles listen to one another's views, make notes, respond to views, and seek clarifications. 4. They agree on a set of outcomes following the discussion, Presentations by 1 students or guest speakers 2 Students listen to a presentation and take notes. They review their notes and prepare some questions about the Content of the presentation to ask the presenter. how, why, and who questions about a specific listen- ing event. Process-based discussions. Students are given prompts similar to the ones for listening diaries. They can also be specific ones that refer to the listening skills that the lesson aimed to develop. Learners form pairs or small groups to discuss how they have approached a listening task and their goals, comprehension, achievement, problems, and strategies, Self-reportchecklist. Learnershaveasetof checklist questions that they consider at the end of every listen- ing lesson. They can also include short comments, Chapter 6 83Developing task-based metacognitive lessons. Teachers can select one or more of the listen- ing tasks described to develop complete listening lessons, This can be done by using a threestage lesson structure of preslistening, whilesistening, and postlistening. In the prelistening stage, teachers can prepare learners to listen by using activities that focus on the contentof the text and/or the language in the text. These activities may include brainstorm- ing, researching, reading, viewing pictures or photo- graphs, and discussing. Whilelistening activities can take the form of one-way and two-way listening tasks that develop listening skills and fluency. Post- listening activities should enable learners to make use of the meaning they have derived from listening to the text or participating in an interaction. For example, learners can write a letter or an email to someone to share their reactions to the text. Post- listening activities can also help learners focus on the language in the text to develop better decoding skills, For example, learners listen to the pronuncia- ion of unfamiliar words again or they listen to the whole text with the help of a transcript. ‘The types of pre- and postlistening activities mentioned so far will help learners engage with the content or meaning of the text before and after listening. These activities should also aim to develop learners’ metacognitive awareness, which, in turn can support and enhance both compre- hension and overall listening development. More specifically, pre- and postlistening activities can focus on learners’ metacognitive knowledge about themselves as ESL/EFL listeners, the nature and demands of ESL/EFL listening, and the strategies that can assist learners in coping with listening difficulties and enhancing comprehension. By incorporating task-based instruction with meta- cognitive activities, teachers will help learners practice their skills at comprehending listening texts while taking greater control over their listening development. Prelistening activities can also help learners to define what the task requires and set appropriate goals. Learners can plan what they are going to do when they listen and prepare for it by considering what strategies they may need and how they can, make use of their background knowledge appropri- ately. They can predict what they are going to hear and, in the process, learn words that the text might contain and how the words are pronounced. Pos listening activities can include a variety of guided 84 Unit Il reflections that can encourage learners to attend to implicit listening processes and consider what they have learned about listening. Students can also. share with one another their reflections and learn new ways of approaching the task of listening. Post- listening metacognitive activities need not be exclu- sively retrospective in nature. Learners can look ahead to the next task or lesson and do some for- ward planning. They can think back to the listening task or experience and then think about how they can enhance their listening performance in similar tasks in future, whether in class or on their own. ‘0 keep planning and reflection activities relevant and enjoyable, teachers can vary the ways in which they are done by selecting from the list of four metacognitive activities suggested earlier. These are also metacognitive tools that document the learners’ listening experience during and after, class, and the output can be developed into a lis- tening portfolio for self-assessment. Teachers can also learn about how their students are managing their outofclass listening development and, if appropriate, can use the completed guides as part of a formative assessment of the students’ listening, development. By including metacognitive activi- ties in a listening lesson, teachers can help direct learners’ efforts at planning, monitoring, and eval- uating their listening and learning experiences. Learners who have experienced a task-based meta- cognitive instruction approach in the classroom, are more likely to carry out extensive listening activities more independently and productive! Metacognitive pedagogical sequence for listening The metacognitive pedagogical sequence pro- posed by Vandergrift (2004) is a strategy-based instructional method that weaves metacogni- tive processes into a listening lesson to support learners’ listening. It works well with one-way listening, where learners listen to a text several times and go through selected processes with each listen. The teacher scaffolds learners’ individual use of strategies and at the same time provides opportunities for learners to collaborate with one another. The design of the sequence is based on the four metacognitive processes that are consid- ered to be crucial to successful listening develop- ment: (1) planning for the activity; (2) monitoringcomprehension; (3) solving comprehension prob- lems; and (4) evaluating the approach and out- comes. The sequence has five stages in which teachers guide students to apply strategies such as making inferences, elaboration, predicting, moni- toring, evaluation, directed attention, and selective attention, Learners listen to the text three times in all. Each time, learners verify their understand- ing of the text, thereby increasing their under- standing of the text content and awareness of the metacognitive processes involved. An intend- €d outcome of the metacognitive pedagogical sequence is for learners to increase their control over their listening processes gradually. Figure 3 shows how these stages are organized. ‘© Planning and predicting Pre- listening ‘# Monitoring, evaluation, and planning Fr | Firs verification listen ‘¢ Monitoring, evaluation, and problem solving Second | Second verification listen | P27" | aonteciggant prem satiny — | | Third verification Third listen @ Reflection © Goal-setting Evaluation & planning Figure 3. A metacognitive pedagogical sequence for stening (based on Vandergrift, 2004). The sequence provides a framework for plan- ing listening lessons that offers teachers the flexibility to vary the activities according to the strategics that they intend to focus on, The next example shows how the metacognitive pedagogical sequence proposed by Vandergrift (2004) can be used so that it includes peer discussions and teacher modeling. It allows teachers to give just- in-time input on strategy use and learners to prac- tice all appropriate strategies to process the input on their own, It also includes support for devel- oping sound-script recognition to develop the students’ decoding skills after listening. Planning. Students define their listening goals and share with others what they know about the topic. Together they predict the information and words/phrases in the text. They write this down in English; however, the teacher can also allow them to include some words in their first language if they are unable to think of the English words. In addition to the text, they also try to anticipate potential difficulties and prepare themselves to use some coping strategies First listen. As they are listening to the text, stu- dents write down words that they have predicted and recognized. With a partner, they compare what they have understood so far and describe the strategies they have used. They identify problems and tell each other what they need to pay special attention to when they listen again. The teacher models thinking aloud of how he or she would listen selectively to problematic parts of the text Second listen. Students listen selectively to those parts they found problematic. They make notes of any new information they hear. The teacher leads a discussion to check students’ comprehension. He or she elicits from students the strategies that they used and models some selected ones. Third listen. Students decide individually what strategy or strategies they would like to use and try them out when they listen again. Asa follow-up activ- ity, students listen to the text one more time and follow along with a transcript, paying attention to how some problematic words and utterances sound, Evaluation and planning. Students write their reflections on the lesson in their listening diaries. ‘They also summarize what they have learned and understood from the listening text. FUTURE TRENDS The teaching of listening has gone through several paradigm shifts in the last five decades. In the pro- cess, the types of listening materials used have also Chapter 6 85changed from long written passages recorded or read aloud to a wide range of authentic materials from the media and the Internet. Special activi- ties are now planned so that teachers can scaffold leamers as they engage in various kinds of cogni tive and social processes during listening. The systematic use of metacognitive activities is a rela- tively new development, and we can expect to see an expanded role for such activities in instructional tasks and activities. We are likely to see a better balance between the emphasis given to the devel- opment of top-down and bottom-up processes. Listening instruction will continue to highlight the role that learners’ metacognition plays in the learning process. In research, we can expect to see furthe work that investigates the eflicacy of metacogni- tive approaches through experimental studies and in-depth case studies of second language listenersin different learning and cultural contexts. Research is also likely to examine more closely the role of discourse knowledge on listening. performance, an area that has hitherto received little attention. ‘The teaching of listening to young learners is also an area of interest, but research on it is likely to be done in the context of two-way participatory listening, such as the types of listening (and inter- action) that occur in English-medium classrooms. In academic contexts, a focus on more demanding listening skills such as critical listening will be useful, CONCLUSION Listening can take place independently of speak- ing or in conjunction with speaking. To be an effective listener, learners have to adapt to the dif- ferent roles that they play and apply various types of knowledge to facilitate the processing of the text in different contexts. Because listening profi- ciency depends on the speed and accuracy of the processing of spoken input, an important aim of listening instruction is to help learners enhance the interconnected networks of their cognitive processes through better linguistic knowledge and effective use of skills and strategies. While teachers cannot directly manipulate these pro- cesses, they can provide the necessary conditions for learners to learn about these processes and practice them frequently so that their perfor- mance can improve with time. Learning activities 86 Unie II should direct learners’ attention to the input and provide the conditions where learners can engage successfully in at least some amount of decoding and analysis of the signals. It should also enable learners to make use of different kinds of prior knowledge to act on the information as it is being processed. Being supported to find small successes can be immensely motivating to learn- ers, particularly to less able listeners. Last but not least, metacognitive activities are needed to help learners develop self-knowledge as ESL/EFL listeners, understand the nature and demands of the listening process, and become familiar with using strategies to support their own listening. Finally, it is hoped that from the discussion in this chapter, we can see that, far from being redun- dant, teachers are needed more than ever to help learners develop their listening skills. SUMMARY > — Over the past five decades, the focus of listen- ing lessons has shifted from a demonstration of the product of listening (accurate compre- hension of listening texts) to a development of knowledge, skills, and strategies that can facilitate the cognitive and social processes of comprehension. > Listening involves complex cognitive pro- cesses of perception, parsing, and utilization, which can be controlled and modified by learners through an enhancement of their knowledge of the language system, discourse, and how language is used; it can also be enhanced through the application of their prior knowledge of the text and context. > Social processes of listening require the coop- eration between learners and speakers to clarify meaning and intentions during an interaction, and the processes can provide valuable support to learners who experience the pressure to for- mulate appropriate responses. > — Process-oriented pedagogy for listening com- bines the strengths of task-based learning and a metacognitive approach to develop learners’ listening fluency and accuracy and promote greater metacognitive aware them about the nature and demands of L2 listening and their individual contribution to their overall listening development. ss in