MODULE 1 IN TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT OF MACRO SKILLS

Chapter 1: From Listening as Comprehension to Listening as Acquisition

How to Teach and Assess Listening Skill

As the world embraces English as the international lunguage, there is also a growing demand for its
fluency. Thus, teachers continuously revisit language learning assumptions and recalibrate teaching
practices to respond to the needs of the time.

As a future English teacher, you must master the pillars of effective communication, namely listening,
speaking, reading, writing, and viewing.

Moreover, much is expected of you considering that you will also have to teach these skills to your
students.

For your students to be competitive, they should be able to communicate effectively in varied situations
be it in their future workplace or their personal life.

A good English teacher ensures that students are provided with the necessary conditions to acquire this
skill set needed for academic and personal SUCCESS.

Listening

- is primarily viewed us the foundation for language acquisition process. Since communication is
basically oral, people mostly learn, understand, and respond effectively by listening to what
others have to say, Studies pointed out that many people spent 70 to 80 percent communicating
and from that, 45 percent is spent on listening.

Nation and Newton (2009) in Nemtchinova, 2013,

- Litening it has been "the least understood and the most overlooked of the four skills (listening,
speaking, reading, writing),

Field (2008)

- states that "in the early days of English Language Teaching (ELT), listening chiefly served as a
means
of introducing new grammar through. model dialogues."

Listening

- is as important as the rest of the macro skills yet it is not explicitly taught in language classes.
- Listening skills in language classrooms are more often tested through students’ ability to respond
effectively to what has been heard. However, this skill is seldom taught.

Therefore, this Chapter will guide you on how to teach your students to become active listeners by
providing them with relevant and comprehensible input.

- It will introduce you to the concepts of the listening process and listening and viewing
comprehension skills in order to find some strategies that can enhance your ability to
communicate effectively.

- It will also provide strategies in teaching and assessing listening skills, as well as activities that
you can use in your classrooms.

- These activities will help your students acquire and develop active listening which is essential for
target language competence.

THE CONCEPT AND IMPORTANCE OF LISTENING

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Hearing and Listening

What do you know of listening? How is it different from hearing'?

- You heard, but you didn’t listen. You might have heard someone say this line and have perfectly
understood what the pension meant.

- Although hearing and listening are most of the time regarded as synonyms, the two terms are
quite

distinct. The former is passive and the litter is active.

From the dictionary

- Hearing is "the process, function of power of perceiving a sound."" Listening is to hear something
with thoughtful attention,""

From the book Stand up, Speak out: The Practice and Ethics of Public Speaking,

- hearing is "an accidental and automatic brain response to sound that requires no effort." Listening
is "purposeful and focused to understand the meanings expressed by a speaker."

According to Kline (1996),

- "hearing is the reception of sound, listening is the that the speak attachment of meaning to the
sound.

According to Rost (2002),

- "hearing is a form of perception. Listening is an active and intentional process. Although both
hearing and listening involve sound perception, the difference in terms reflects a degree of
intention".

Vandergrift (1999) in Yildirim (2016)

- defines listening as "a complex, active process in which the listener must discriminate between
sounds, understand vocabulary and grammatical structures, interpret stress and intonation, retain
what was gathered in all of the above, and interpret it within the immediate as well as the larger
sociocultural context of the utterance"

According to Maureen (2017),

- hearing is the "act of perceiving sound and receiving sound waves or vibrations through your
ear". Listening is the "act of hearing a sound and understanding what you hear"

According to Surbhi (2017),

- "the natural ability or an inborn trait that allows us to recognize sound through cars by catching
vibrations is called the hearing." Listening is defined "as the learned skill, in which we can receive
sounds through ears, and transform them into meaningful messages".

As they say, "hearing is through the ears, but listening is through the mind and the heart. "

Flowerdew and Miller (2005)

- claimed that most children are born with the ability to hear Children first listen and then start to
speak. They speak before they read, and finally, writing comes after reading. That is, among all
the other language skills, listening is the first one to appear (Lundsteen, 1979).

To sum up, listening is more than just hearing sounds and words. It is an active process wherein language
learners receive, construct meaning from, and respond to both verbal and non-verbal messages.

Sadiku, 2015

- states that listening is "a state of receptivity that permits an understanding of what is heard and
grants the listener full partnership in the communication process".

Listening is an integral part of communication; thus, we need to develop keen interest in improving our
listening skills. As you listen, you interpret the sounds and get the important words and construct

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meaning. As you do this you also simultaneously check the new information against your prior knowledge
and experiences.

A good listener shows readiness and possesses an ability to manipulate the sound into words and their
contextual meaning. But how does one listen actively?

Active Listening

- In various interactions (face-to-face or virtual), listeners show their understanding and response
to the speakers through verbal utterances like "ok", "uh-huh"", or "oh", and non-verbal gestures
like nodding and pressing the emoticon buttons in Zoom.

- They can also make comments, ask questions, and take turns participating in the conversation.
This proves that listening is active and not a passive skill.

- "If the listener takes part actively in the process of listening the linguistically and uses his/her non-
linguistic knowledge to follow up the message that the speaker intends in a conversation, if s/he
listens, replies, and asks/answers questions, it is active listening" (Lindslay & Knight, 2006.
Littlewood, 1981 in Yildirim (2016).

Anderson and Lynch (2003)

- added that "understanding is not something that happens because of what speaker says, the
listener needs to make connections between what s/he hears and what s/he already knows and
at the same time, he/she tries to comprehend the meaning negotiated by the speaker."

What is active listening?

- Although the previous paragraphs have established that listening is an active skill, not all listening
is the same. This skill may not come naturally for many of us.

- You have to understand that there is a line that separates passive listening and active listening.

Passive listening

- is a little more than hearing, It is regarded as one-way communication wherein the receiver does
not respond not give feedback to the speaker in any way.

- Imagine yourself listening to the one hour and a half lecture of your teacher via Google Meet (for
example).

- Your teacher keeps talking, and while you claim that you are "listening" you didn't show any
feedback in the form of clicking the emojis for a response, or using the chat box for questions, or
raising your hand to answer questions.

- You may not be doing anything else, yet, you are also not paying attention to what's being said.

Active listening

- includes responding and providing feedback at the right time. It is paying attention not only to the
speaker, or to the message but even to the verbal and non-verbal messages.
- It is listening accurately, effectively, and responding appropriately to the various communicative
context. It is gaining information. learning, and understanding things. It is a key to effective
communications.

The importance of active listening

- The importance of active listening in people's everyday life cannot be argued Guo and Wills
(2006) mentioned that "it is the medium through which people gain a large proportion of their
education, their information, their understanding of the world and human affairs, their ideals,
sense of values".

Peterson (2001) in Yildirim (2016)

- states that "no other type of language input is easy to process as a spoken language is the
received through listening ... through listening, learners can build an awareness of the

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 interworking of language systems at various levels and thus establish a base for more fluent
productive skills"

In an English Language Teaching (ELT) classroom, listening is considered a basic skill.

Nunan (1998)

- stated that over 50% of the time that students spend functioning in a foreign language will be
devoted to listening (Nunan, 1998).

Moreover, the importance of listening (activities) in language classrooms are listed below based
on Rost (1994) in Yildirim (2016):

1. Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learner. Without
understanding input at the right level, any learning simply cannot begin.

2. Spoken language provides a means of interaction for the learner. Because learners must interact
to achieve understanding. Access to speakers of the language is essential. Moreover, learners'
failure to understand the language they hear is an impetus, not an obstacle, to interaction and
learning.

3. Authentic spoken language presents a challenge for the learner to understand language as native
speakers use it.

4. Listening exercises provide teachers with a means for drawing learners' attention to new forms
(vocabulary, grammar, new interaction patterns) in the language.

Barriers to active listening

- Sometimes even if it is one's intention to stay focused while listening, some may have difficulty
staying attentive due to several factors like noise, attention span, receiver biases, and listening or
receiver apprehension.

Noise

- It is the most common distraction when listening. Noise does not only refer to something physical,
but also psychological (internal thoughts). physiological (basic needs), semantic noise, and
(word meanings and interpretation).

Attention span

- As future teachers, you should know that your students can only maintain focused attention for a
finite length of time.

- Thus, classroom lectures should be short, interesting, and engaging.

- If you are a speaker, on any occasion-formal of informal, you need to apply certain strategies to
prevent this interference.

Receiver biases

- One's preconceived Ideas and opinions, whether about the speaker or the message/topic, can
be considered as noise and may interfere in the listening process.

- It may hinder one from receiving new points of view and information. Even with these biases, it is
important to withhold judgment all the time and promote open-minded listening.

Listening or receiver apprehension

- Listening or receiver apprehension is the fear that you might be unable to understand the
message or process the information correctly or be able to adapt your thinking to include the new

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 information coherently (Wheeless, 1975 in Stand up. Speak out The Practice and Ethics of Public
Speaking, 2011).

- It is important to address this by identifying your audience's (students') current understanding of

the topic.

- You should not underestimate or overestimate your audience's knowledge of a subject.

6 Key Active Listening Skills

1. Pay Attention

- In active listening, we give the speaker our undivided attention. It Is concentrating on the
speaker's message while integrating one's own prior knowledge and experiences.

- It also involves paying attention not just to the speaker's message but also to the non-verbal
gestures.

- It is also being aware of one's frame of mind when engaging in the communication process. It is
letting the speaker finish first (without interrupting) before responding and giving feedback.

2. Withhold Judgment

- As we engage in conversations, it is but normal to sometimes have opposing ideas from those of
other people.

- In active listening, it is important to stay open- minded and to welcome varied ideas, new
perspectives, and different opinion.

- Good listener know how to respond appropriately without criticizing, judging, and insisting on their
point of view.

3. Reflect

- Reflecting during the communication process allows you to understand the speaker's experiences
and the emotions that come with them.

- Reflecting in this context refers to rephrasing and repeating or reaffirming both the words and the
feelings of the speaker.

- The purposes of this are as follows(https://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/reflecting.html):

1. to allow the speakers to 'hear' their thoughts and to focus on what they say and feel;

2. to show the speakers that you are trying to perceive the world as they and maintain on see it
and that you are doing your best to understand their messages, and

3. to encourage them to continue talking.

If you have noticed, this technique in active listening focuses more on the speaker rather than on
the listener. The listener in this case will not ask questions nor give his/her own opinion of the
topic, rather, helps the speaker direct his/her thoughts and encourage him/her to continue
speaking.

4. Clarity

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 - In active listening, feedbacking is very important. However, to be able to provide accurate and
relevant feedback, the listener has to clarify information that has not been clearly understood; or
to ask for more information or details about the topic.

- Moreover, the listener may ask questions. You may also clarify by asking. "What do you mean by
.? " Or summarize by saying, "So, you mean that…”

- This provides an opportunity for the speaker to fill in any missing pieces of the information or to
correct misconceptions.

- Use this technique when you want to understand what is being communicated in context.

5. Summarize

- In addition to clarifying, you can also summarize or restate key points in the conversation to
ensure that you have the same understanding of the intention and message of the speaker.

- When you summarize, you are not "stating a fact" about what was said. Rather, the main goal is
to clarify with the speaker whether the information and feelings shared have been heard correctly.
It is also one way for the speaker to "listen to himself/herself" and to review his/her thoughts and
feelings.

- There may also be instances when we have not fully understood the speaker clarifying and
summarizing show that you're taking the conversation "seriously".

6. Share

- In the previous discussion, you've learned to withhold judgment and not to insist and impose your
ideas.

- However, it also doesn't mean that you will not provide relevant, accurate, and needed feedback
to the speaker.

- Active listening in having to understand and be understood. As you listen intently to the other
person and maintain open-mindedness, you will also begin to understand 'where the person is
coming from'.

- You'll be able to understand his perspectives and feelings. As you take into account the context of
the speaker, you can begin to introduce (without imposing) your perspectives, ideas, and feelings
without judgments.

Ethical listening

- As you apply these key active listening skills, you are also promoting ethical listening. Ethical
listening highlights the importance of listening with honest intentions.

- Respect is the key to active listening. If you want to be heard and respected when it is your turn
to speak, you should also extend the same degree of respect to others whether you agree with
them or not.

- Remember the golden rule "In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you. - !!
(Golden Rule, precept in the Gospel of Matthew 7:12).

According to Coopman and Lull (2008)

- "the creation of a climate of caring and mutual understanding, observing that "respecting others'
perspectives is one hallmark of the effective listener".

Stages of Listening

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There are indeed several factors that can interfere with listening. Thus, DeVito (2000) has divided the
listening process into five mental tasks ar stages namely;

1. receiving
2. understanding
3. remembering
4. evaluating
5. Responding

Stage 1.Receiving

- The first stage of the listening process is receiving which involves two other activities like hearing
and attending.

- As the listener hears the message. he/she tries to isolate it from all the rest of the physical noise
heard The next important activity in this stage is for the listener to attend to the message by
identifying and interpreting the sounds heard as words.

- The sounds heard are merely sounds unless put. In this stage, you must pay attention to the
speaker and avoid accommodating other thoughts to ensure that you have not missed any
information, or messages both verbal and non-verbal.

Stage 2. Understanding

- In understanding or comprehending the messages that you have accommodated in the first
stage, the listener in this stage will have to determine the context and assign meaning to the
words and utterances heard.

- "Determining the context and meaning of individual words, as well as assigning meaning in
language, is essential to understanding sentences. This in turn, is essential to understanding a
speaker's message" (Lumen Boundles Communications, n.d.).

- In this stage, you should also be aware of some factors that may affect your understanding like
the choice of words, accent language fluency, physical noise, perceptions, experiences, and the
like. You may want to use the 'clarify' strategy you've learned in active listening to help you with
your mental reconstruction of the speaker's message.

Stage 3. Remembering

- According to Harvard Business Review, people usually forget up to half of what they've heard
within the first eight hours of listening to it.

- Edgar Dale's Cone of Experience says the same thing - students only retain at least 20% of what
they hear.

- In this stage, remembering all details is vital to be able to move forward in the conversation.

- Sometimes listening attentively is not enough since there might be a message that is too complex
and thus need highly developed listening skills.

- You also have to consider that "you can improve your memory of a message by processing it
meaningfully-that is, by applying it in ways that are meaningful to you" (Gluck, et al ., 2008).

- One way to do this is to "make associations to past remembered information. This can help a
listener understand what she is currently hearing in a wider context. (Lumen Boundless
Communication, n.d.).

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Stage 4. Evaluating

- In this stage, the listener assesses the information after making a reasonable objective
interpretation of the message. One strategy for active listening that you've learned in the previous
section is to "withhold judgment" while the speaker is still talking.

- However, this stage sometimes often starts too early in the listening process especially when
topies are sensitive, emotional, debatable, and conflicting.

- If this happens, the listener will just basically listen only to what he/she wants to hear. It is also in
this stage wherein the listener tries to review mentally and determine the veracity of the
information (with considerations of the speaker's context) against his/her knowledge and
experiences.

- Moreover, since each one has his her perspectives, experiences, and even biases, evaluation of
the same message may vary depending on the listener.

- To expect a positive acceptance of the

message and to ensure that both speaker and listener disagree agreeably, the speaker has to
speak clearly, present itens logically, and provide evidence to
his/her claims.

Stage 5. Responding

- The last stage which Is giving feedback is an important aspect of the communication process. It is
at this stage where you will signify your participation.

- Feedback can either be verbal and non-verbal reactions. For example, during virtual classes
students give their feedback through the emoticon buttons of the chat box.

- For verbal feedback, this may be in the form of questions, clarifying, requesting additional
information, repeating or summarizing what the speaker has said.

- Take note is well that not all feedback occurs at the end. The listener may offer non-verbal signals
like nodding while the speaker is talking to show involvement.

- This is referred to as formative feedback, Summative feedback on the other hand is given at the
end of the communication.

The Process of Iistening

- For the past years, listening played an important role in audio-lingual methods,
at least students only listened to repeat and develop a better pronunciation (for speaking).
- However, the work of Asher, Postovsky, Winitz, and, later, Krashen has paved the
way in putting more attention to the role of listening as a wool for understanding and a key factor
in facilitating language learning.

- Moreover, most literature would point out two common terms related to the process of listening -
top-down and bottom-up. Top-down and bottom up describe how a person processes a
listening text.

- In some literature, these are also regarded as strategies in processing and understanding
listening texts. In this context, we use both understandings of the terms as you will anchor your
listening activities (in thenext lessons) on these two perspectives.

- To perform real-life listening, you usually

combine the two processes depending on your reason for listening.

Bottom-up process

- the listener, at the onset, "uses the information she has about sounds, word meanings, and
discourse markers, then after, tries to assemble his/her understanding of what he/she reads or
hears one step at a time" (Brown, 2006).

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- The listener in this case looks for contextual clues from the text to better understand it. It is first
decoding the semantic, syntactic, and phonological aspects of the utterance as a means of
understanding the listening or spoken texts.

- Moreover, varied authors have also elaborated on this process.

According to Nunan (1998)

- this kind of processing linearly consists of

stage decoding sounds, starting from the smallest significant units to complete deriving meaning
as the last step of the process.

- He elaborates that this process includes decoding phonemic units that are linked together to form
words, which in turn combined to form phrases that later come together to form utterances which
are finally linked together to form meaningful texts.

Hinkel (2006)

- mentioned that bottom up processing constitutes a view of listening which is based on the
linguistic elements of comprehension and aims to develop the students' abilities in identifying
formal elements such is word sentence limits, contractions, individual sounds, and sound
combinations.

Brown (2000)

- bottom-up processing involves using our knowledge about sounds, word meanings, and
discourse markers to set up the understanding of what we hear.

- In this sense, he explains that it is important to hear some sounds and keep them long enough in
our working memory so that they can be connected to allow the interpretation of the message
before there is new incoming information to be processed.

Richards (2008)

- defines bottom-up processing as a process of decoding, where comprehension starts with the
analysis of the input data in successive levels of organization (sounds, words, clauses,
sentences, texts) to establish the relationship between the constituent elements of the sentences
and understand their meaning based on the listener's lexical and grammatical competence.

- Although recognizing that these syntactic elements are very important in language learning, it is
convenient to remember that these linguistic aspects are just temporary carriers of meanings
(Richards, 2008) and that the foreign language must be understood within specific social contexts
(Rost, 2011), which means that it is not enough for listeners to rely exclusively on their linguistic
knowledge to understand spoken texts.

- To achieve this goal successfully, they must be able to integrate contextual knowledge and
general knowledge about the world (Wing Treffer-Daller, 2017).

Yildirim (2016)

- explains that in a top-down process

message, "learners use their background knowledge to comprehend the meaning by considering
previous knowledge and schemata".

- It means using your knowledge and experiences of the world (schema) in comprehending a text.
The listener does not rely on understanding individual letters, words, phrases, sentences, or
sounds; rather, uses his/her existing information and knowledge that might come from outside the
text.

- The top-down process highlights that understanding starts from the listener's background
knowledge of the situation and of the world in general then works down towards the individual
sounds.

This process is further explained from the words of these authors:

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- Top-down processing includes a semantic dimension that emerges from listener's memory und
integrates the new information offered by the text with the previous knowledge that he or she
possesses. It also incorporates a pragmatic dimension, which allows the listener to make use of
his or her social knowledge to obtain and construct contextual meaning in coordination,
collaboration, and interaction with the speaker (Rost, 2011).

- This process demands the listener's active reconstruction of the speaker’s original meaning, with
the help of incoming sounds and clues, the use of their prior knowledge of the context and
communicative situation, to be able to understand what is being said (Nunan, 1998; Brown, 2006;
Richards, 2008).

top-down processing

- aural comprehension depends on the listener's ability to activate his knowledge-based

schemata based on his cultural constructs, familiarity with the topic as well as the use of
discourse clues and pragmatic conventions (Hinkel, 2006).

- While bottom-up processing goes from language to meaning, top-down processing moves from
meaning to language (Richards, 2008).

- Moreover, based on their knowledge of the context, listeners can predict the message and
confirm their predictions through inference (Nation; Newton 2009).

- This requires the use of the context and the listeners' previous experiential, cultural, textual,
linguistic, and pragmatic knowledge for the activation of their conceptual framework to interpret
the incoming message, which may be in principle incomprehensible to them (Vandergrift, 2011).

Lopez, et. al. (2020)

- summarize these ideas as "top-down processing demands listeners' background knowledge

activation, which may include their knowledge of the world, of the social and cultural context,
along with their knowledge of speech events and particular text types, to understand the meaning
of spoken text.

- On the other hand, bottom-up processing implies relying on their knowledge of the linguistic code
to achieve progressive meaning construction, starting from the phonetic level up to the discursive
level."

- These two processes are considered correlated although they involve very distinct listening
activities. These two are both used to construct meaning.

Buck (1994) in Nihei, (2002)

- explains that "to arrive at an understanding of the message, listeners must understand the
phonetic input, vocabulary, and syntax (bottom-up processing), and, at the same time, use the
context of a situation, general knowledge, and past experiences (top-down processing)". Thus,
leads to an integrative approach in teaching listening (Lopez et.al ., 2020).

Skills for Listening

- Based on the listening process discussed, there are specific listening skills or competencies that
students need to acquire to develop their listening ability.

- As a teacher, you have to provide instruction as to how your students will acquire such skills.
Skills are "competencies which native listeners possess and which non-natives need to acquire
concerning the language they are learning" (Field, 1998 in Nihei, 2002).

- Moreover, you have to inform your students that acquiring these specific competencies for
listening would require work and practice just like how they exert effort when trying to master
speaking, reading, writing.

- Thus, language teachers have to be able to identify which particular competencies are needed
for effective listening and provide opportunities and relevant activities that would help students
acquire such.

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 The following skull classification is adopted by Nihei (2002) from an article by Richards
(1987):

1. ability to recognize reduced forms of words;

2. ability to distinguish word boundaries;
3. ability to. Detect keywords (those which identify topics and propositions);
4. ability to guess the meanings of words from the contexts in which they concur;
5. ability to recognize cohesive devices in spoken discourse;
6. ability to distinguish between major and minor constituents;
7. ability to recognize the communicative functions of utterances, according to situations ,
participants, goals;
8. ability to reconstruct or infer situations, goals, participants, procedures;
9. ability to use real-world knowledge and experience to work out purposes, goals, settings,
procedures;
10. ability to predict outcomes from events described;
11. ability to infer links and connections between events;
12. ability to distinguish between literal and implied meanings;
13. ability to recognize markers of coherence in discourse, and to detect such relations as
the main idea, supporting the idea, given Information, new information, generalization,
exemplification;
14. ability to process speech containing pauses, errors, corrections;
15. ability to make use of facial, paralinguistic, and other clues to work out meanings, and
16. ability to adjust listening strategies to different kinds of listener purpose or goals.

- So maybe your question now is how will these be taught side by side with the listing of
competencies as reflected in the curriculum guide.
Rost (1990)

- Purported that these competencies are "better learned when aspects of the skill are practiced in
"clusters' rather than in minimal units". It means that "it is not until several skills are involved and
practiced in one lesson that they can be effectively developed and improved.

- In Lesson 2, you will be introduced to specific methods and activities that you
can use in the classroom to help your students become effective active listeners.

Listening to Comprehend and Listening to Acquire the Target Language

- The LSRW (listening-speaking-reading-writing) method suggests that students

learning a new language will first be taught how to Iisten.

- This is because listening provides much aural input and data and enables the language learner to
interact in spoken communication.

- To understand the nuances in a particular language, one must be able to listen.

Schmidt (1990)

- highlighted the role of listening in facilitating second language acquisition.

- He argues that a learner will not comprehend and learn anything from the input he hears unless
he will notice something about the input.

- He remarked, "The only linguistic materials that can figure in language-making are stretches of
speech that attract the child's attention to a sufficient degree to be noticed and held in memory."

- Likewise, Stephen Krashen's input hypothesis suggests that "The best methods are therefore
those that supply "comprehensible input' in low anxiety situations, containing messages that
students want to hear."

- The importance of listening as a language skill has been highlighted in the

studies of Rost (2001) and Vandergrift (2011).

- They considered it is "a critical means of acquiring the second language and a channel through
which we process language in real-time since it internalizes language rules and favors the
development of other language skills".

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- The K to 12 Curriculum Guide in English has reflected "listening comprehension' as one of the
language domains identified that "students need to learn and that teachers need to teach in
greater detail".

- Acknowledging that indeed listening skill is a fundamental tool in the language teaching and
learning process, the curriculum guide specifically stipulates the competencies, under the
listening comprehension domain, that students need to acquire.

- Consequently, you might have observed in language classes that usually the teacher gives
students samples of oral texts and passages to listen to, then asks them about what they have
understood.

Richards (2016)

- states that the "view of listening is based on the assumption that the main function of listening in
second language learning is to facilitate understanding of spoken discourse".

- He added that language teachers also need to "consider how listening can provide input that
triggers the further development of second-language proficiency".

- As observed, in most English language classrooms, teachers give students

a listening activity and then evaluate how well they understand what was heard.

Nemtchinova (2013) elaborates this as:

"When teachers ask students to make predictions, discuss the main the idea of the text, or
summarize it, the primary concern is how well they understand what they hear. Teachers teach
students strategies to facilitate comprehension and tell them not to cling to every word but in try to
derive meaning from what they recognize. This approach encourages learners to rely on a
familiar language and provides little opportunity to boost linguistic development. It equates
listening with listening comprehension, overlooking the important role listening plays in language
acquisition. "
- He further pointed out that teachers have to supplement comprehension goals with acquisition
goals. There is nothing wrong with the current practice, however, teachers are encouraged to
move from listening as comprehension to listening as acquisition.

- This can be done by providing students activities that require "accurate recognition and recall of
words, syntax, and expressions that occurred in the input" such as "dictation, cloze exercises,
and identifying differences between spoken and written text" (Richards, 2008 in Nemtchinova,
2013)

- The learner has to try to incorporate new linguistic items inio his or her language repertoire, that
is, to use them in oral production (Richards, 2016).

- In the introduction of this Chapter, you have been acquainted with Schmidt who introduced the
role of listening in facilitating language acquisition. He highlighted that teachers also have to
introduce the nuances of the language
through "accurate recognition and recall of words, syntax, and expressions that
occurred in the input".

- Activities may include dictation in dictocomp, cloze tests, and the like (Activities will be further
discussed in the next lesson).

Richards (2016)

- further elaborates that "learners need to take part in activities that require them to try out and
experiment in using newly noticed language forms for now learning items to become incorporated
into their linguistic repertoire".

As Nemtchinova (2013) suggested:

"Students could perform more productive activities requiring the use of target forms from the text,
such as reading transcripts aloud, sentence completion, dialogue practice, and role-playing.

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- As learners work with transcripts and use the language in speaking activities, they master the
forms they have heard.

- Extending listening instruction to develop students’ abilities to understand oral speech and to
acquire sound patterns, vocabulary, and grammar reflects the multifaceted nature of the listening
process."

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