Teaching listening: one way listening

Dr. Cecilia CHU

http://www.eltforward.com/

Introduction

One-way listening is a psycholingualistic process in which the listener receives,

interprets, reacts to the source of the aural input but does not respond communicatively.
The listener is engaged in listening but does not interact with the speaker such as
asking for clarification, slower speech or repetition. Listening to the radio, TV, films,
online recordings, and live lectures are some examples of one-way listening. This
type of listening is in contrast with two-way, reciprocal or interactive listening
situations such as face-to-face and telephone conversations. In daily life and work
place, language users sometimes listen and receive information without a need to make
responses. They do not have genuine needs to do so. This is because the purpose of
one-way listening is to understand messages in the input, e.g. a speaker, on TV, on the
radio, internet video clips, PA in the public places/ on the transport, in a meeting etc.
One-way listening has a role to play in English listening learning. Teachers and
material developers may arrange various one-way listening tasks to cater for the needs
and interests of learners.

What is one-way listening?

The table below lists the differences between one-way listening and interactive
listening:
Features One-way listening Interactive listening
Number of One (the listener) Two or more persons taking part in
Participants the interaction
Flow of One-direction: listening Dual direction: listener alternates as
communication only speaker and listener
Function of Transactional Transactional, interactional, and /or
language social
Goal of listening Receive information and Receive information and interpret
interpret meaning meaning, initiate, respond and/or
re-initiate, interpret and negotiate
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 meaning, establish social
relationship
Richards, J.C. (1990).Vandergrift, L. & Goh, C. C.M. (2012).

From the table, it is understood that one-way listening is transactional listening

and is used primarily to acquire information, e.g. news broadcasts and lectures. The
listener does not aim to seek clarification from an existing participant/ speaker in the
listening work. In contrast, Interactive listening is highly contextualized, involving
interaction with a participant/ speaker. Participants involved in interactional listening
seek to satisfy their social or work related needs, e.g. in casual conversations and
business meetings.

One-way listening should not be associated with any inference on the passive
attitude and low motivation of the listeners. Typical passive listeners have no motive
and no necessity to listen and act on input even if they are supposed to do so.
Listeners in one-way listening try actively to perceive and interpret the meaning of the
aural input. These listeners are involved in discriminating, identifying, guessing,
anticipating, interpreting, and organizing by making use of their prior knowledge and
language knowledge and the contextual clues.

In everyday life, people engage in one-way listening in various situations and they
react to the input, but not responding communicatively, in various ways taking into
consideration the nature and objectives of listening. Below is a categorization of the
one-way listening situations:

Domain Examples
On-site The audiences in a concert, in a cinema or TV studio do not
entertainment need to respond interactively. They just watch the show unless
the audiences want to cheer the performers.
‘Offshore’ The listener is not connected with the speaker while receiving
infotainment information in mass media for information (TV news, radio
interviews) or for entertainment (movies). However, online
video conferencing device has changed the nature of one-way
listening. A listener can listen and respond to the speaker at
the other end before the computer. Real time interaction is
possible.
Studying In the classroom, e.g. in a conventional lecture, the students do
not need to speak in response to the lecturer/ teacher in the
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 room.
Workplace Some jobs require one-way listening. For example, a staffer
listens to the voice mails of clients left on the hotline and
makes notes for follow-up. A secretary listens attentively in a
company meeting and takes notes of the discussion of other
people in the meeting.

One-way listening in language learning

As seen above, one-way listening takes place necessarily in daily living. In fact,
one-way listening may also be related to first language acquisition. Human beings
learn their mother tongue by modelling and examples, i.e. listening to parents, siblings,
relatives, neighbors speak. Infants cannot talk but during listening, they ‘save’ the
input in their brain, and at the right time, they will speak their first word (usually
‘mama’ or ‘papa’ (father or mother) in many languages).

One-way listening has an advantage of catering for special needs of some learners.
Total physical response is a typical approach to describe one way listening in both first
language acquisition and second language learning. Total physical response in
kindergarten language classes is non-threatening for children who are not ready to
express themselves in the language. Young children move around the classroom as
they follow the directions given to them by their teacher.

For learners of other age groups or proficiency levels, total physical response may
help these learners. They are not ready to produce the language with sufficient
confidence. But they may be active in listening and show their understanding by
performing some acts. For instance, new immigrants to a country may join language
proficiency classes. These students are not required to speak and interact verbally with
the teacher in the first few sessions or until they get used to the speaking environment
and have sufficient confidence to speak.

If some learners are not ready to express themselves or interact with others, e.g. a
new student to a school, or a student with special learning needs, they will feel insecure
and need more time to adapt to the class, and to digest the language content. These
learners may benefit from one way listening. The suitable content for one-way
listening practice tasks are phonics skills, songs, and oral language arts. Learners will
become more confident when they read aloud, sing or perform verses to themselves,

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which is a step to interactional listening and other forms of communication.

When teaching English to students, it is important to accommodate the learning

styles of the students when planning instructions. The auditory learners are apt to a
strong auditory orientation in processing information. They can learn better or faster
with aids such as lectures, tapes, films, or online /e- learning resources without a need
for partners in practice tasks. One-way listening may help these learners achieve
particular learning objectives through the listening modality. Teachers should provide
such type of learners with opportunities to process information aloud themselves
through individualized learning activities in audio lingual programs.

Self-directed learning is promoted in school and further education. Some learners

especially adult learners choose to learn in a self-directed way. These learners identify
their professional enhancement needs or would like to start a new hobby or interest and
prefer to learn the skills at their pace. In many cases, self-directed learners do not have
a learning partner and they do not need to attend classes except for occasional tutorials
and seminars. One-way listening is a choice for these learners and they rely on audio
lingual methods to improve their listening and read aloud skills.

Resources and activities

Teachers may integrate one-way listening in their second language learning

programs. By doing so, they can help students overcome anxiety in second language
learning. There are many one-way listening methods and activities, which can be
conducted in intensive listening and extensive listening modes.

For intensive listening, students are supposed to understand what they hear
completely including every word, sentence, paragraph and the meaning in the text
(bottom-up processing). Intensive listening aims at developing a range of listening
skills. Students do not need to make responses to the speakers. The problem with
‘intensive listening’ is that the students work at all levels of the language (sounds,
words, sentences, paragraphs) and this draws on cognitive demand and time.

As for the tools of one-way listening tasks, teachers tend to use audio lingual
methods for drilling and repetition, focusing almost solely on accuracy over fluency.
Students are arranged to work on listening tasks to tackle comprehension questions in
multi-media learning room. Audio lingual methods are chosen as a convenient way to

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manage a class of large size. Students listen and repeat the words, or the input they
hear. And they may also work with audio clips and learning materials only. One-way
listening task types may be assigned by teachers as in-class tasks or self-learning
one-way listening tasks with use of multi-media and websites.

Samples of one-way listening task types:

One way listening Intensive listening Intensive
comprehension tasks (in classroom) (self-directed learning)

 Listing The learners complete a The learner downloads

 Restoration blank filling exercise (the online audio recordings
aural input is a dialogue, a (with a tape script).
 Reconstructing
poem, a recount, a Without reading the tape
biography, or a report with script, the learner listens
omitted words) and writes down the text
and checks the work later
with the tape script for
accuracy.

The learner listens to songs

on music or song websites
and focuses on the gist.
Then the listener
summarizes the themes
from memory and produces
a check list of ‘my favorite
songs’.

 Sorting The learners are given a set The learner listens, and
 Matching of sentence strips from a takes short notes during
story. After listening, they live presentations or
 Categorizing
put the sentences in the speeches on some
correct order to reflect the occasions or on TV. Then
plot. The content may the learner restores the
contain physical attributes, content based on the notes
features, genres, themes, in a complete text.
facts & opinions, etc.

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 The learner gets a movie
genre list (e.g. comedy,
sci-fi, romance) from any
movie websites and
watches and listens to
some trailers. After
listening, the learner
matches the movie with the
appropriate genres, and
marks rating on the movie.

 Comparison/ In a detective game, The learner listens to two

contrast learners listen to the TV commercials on the
description of a criminal same type of products, e.g.
 for similarities and
and then choose from a set washing powder, and notes
differences
of photos of suspects for down the information and
the most possible match. compares the special
features of the brands and
chooses the one he or she
would like to buy.

The learner listens to the

same news item on a radio
channel and on TV and
finds out the similarities
and differences in the two
reports.
 Ranking Learners listen tothe The learner listens or
 Evaluation presentations in a speech watches any interviews on
radio or TV and writes
contest in their school and
down three good points
cast votes for the best
made by the presenters.
speaker.

Learners listen to the

speeches of some
candidates for the
Chair of an academic
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 society in school, then they
choose a candidate and
give reasons.
 Diagrams or Teachers collect some floor The learner targets at
pictures plans, sketches of people or authentic situations such as
objects, mind maps, maps airport announcement,
 Routes on maps
and routes, all which are promotional messages
 flow charts
accompanied with broadcast in shopping
video/audio explanations malls. Then the learner
by the organizations. notes down the gist or
Learners listen to the clips details. This practice will
and complete the texts be counted into the entries
according to the of a listening diary.
instructions.

There are some tools and resources for use in one-way listening activities. With
advancement of information technology and numerous learning websites, self-directed
one-way listening is easy and practical. One way listening can be a very effective
way for a person to improve listening at his or her own pace.

Podcasts (i.e. a program (as of music or talk) made available in digital format for
automatic download over the Internet (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/podcast) ) can be
used for the purpose of motivating students in listening to English, and providing
them with an exposure to different accents of English speakers. Podcasts offer second
language learners a wide range of possibilities for extra listening. Learners can listen
to lots of recordings on a wide range of topics (e.g. culture-specific, career-related, or
academic subjects-based). They may download the recordings to an mp3 player.
Learners do not need to worry about not being able to catch up with fast speakers as
they can play the recording as many times as possible. For some podcasts, there are
speech speed choices of slower, slow, medium, fast and very fast.
Owing to the emphasis on target language focus in in-class intensive listening,
the materials tend to be scripted and stilted. Thus the wide range of options and the
authentic conversations in extensive listening provide fresh interest to learners. A
good design of second language learning podcast may contain the text, the audio tape,
pre-listening information, the script for follow up reading, questions to answer while
listening, answer key, relevant listening strategies. And some key /difficult
words/phrases may be underlined with links to online dictionary pages. Listeners may
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check the meaning and pronunciation readily. User friendly design and reliable and
speedy downloading device are essential to a helpful learning podcast. Some
examples of podcasts can be found in an e-journal website:
http://iteslj.org/links/ESL/Listening/Podcasts/

Whereas teachers should suggest different ways to make use of e-resources and
the real world situations for listening practice, adult learners may also plan their
learning in the same manner as far as they can identify the listening needs and skills
required. If a learner can plan the schedule of listening and reflect on his/her practice
including what has been achieved and what is yet to be improved, then there will be a
high possibility for the learner to sustain interest and effort in practice.

Listening diary is a tool for self- assessment and a continuous listening practice
task. First, a learner can set a period or schedule for one-way listening. The practice
may take the form of listening to the audio CDs or online radio, podcasts, TV or any
real life situations where target language spoken texts are available. Then the learner
listens and writes notes about what has been listened and keeps a diary to record the
practice. The reflective part of the entries helps the learner find ways to overcome
difficulties and set new goals of listening. The content of listening diary entries may
contain the following information: date and the duration of each listening practice, kind
of material and title, if available , any listening strategies, reactions and questions and
what the learner learned from the listening. Below is an extract of some entries of a
second language learner:
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 http://www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/dep/eigog/listening/DiarySample.html

October 23
11:30 p.m. - about 12:00?
Movie: Field of Dreams, Kevin Costner
I put in the video again after I took my bath. I listened a little as I was getting ready
for bed. I went to bed with the video on. I think I listened for about thirty minutes
before I fell asleep. I closed my eyes while I was listening. Even though I wasn't
watching the TV, I could imagine the scene in my mind. I like to listen with my eyes
closed because I can concentrate better.

October 25
8:00 a.m. - 8:45 a.m.
I listened to the tape I made yesterday while going to school. This time I was
concentrating a little. Yesterday I was reading a magazine as I was listening so I
didn't think so much about the words but today I am only listening. I tried to
understand the words of the chorus. I think I can understand some of the lines. When
I go home today I am going to check if my thoughts are correct. The words to the
songs are in the CD cover so I can look at the words.

On the whole, teachers should take into account the objectives of their language
learning program, the strengths and weaknesses of the students, and the resources
available for skills practice when choosing one-way listening as a part of practice for
the students. Teachers should arrange one-way listening and interactive listening to
help students develop listening skills. Self- directed one-way listening tasks should be
devised with built-in reflective elements so the students will monitor their progress in
listening skills and strategies and make improvement in listening.

References & bibliography

Facer, B.R & Abdous, M. (eds.) (2010). Academic podcasting and mobile assisted
language learning: applications and outcomes. Hersley, New York: Information
Science Reference.

Nation, I.S.P. & Newton, J. (2009). Teaching ESL/EFL listening and speaking. New
York and London: Routledge.
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Richards, J. C. (1990). The language teaching matrix. New York: Cambridge
University Press.

Vandergrift, L. & Goh, C. C.M. (2012). Teaching and learning second language
listening: metacognition in action. New York: Routledge.

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