The Nature of Listening

Listening takes up as much as 50% of our everyday communication time.

It is the main channel of classroom instruction and the most used language skill
at work and at home. Many learners want to develop effective listening
comprehension because it is crucial to their academic, professional, and
personal success.

When we teach listening we consider what the object of our instruction is.
We look at ideas that have influenced thinking on learner listening in English
language teaching.

Kinds of Listening
Teachers can help students become effective listeners by making them
aware of the different kinds of listening, the different purposes for listening, and
the qualities of good listeners. Wolvin and Coakley (1992) identify four different
kinds of listening:

• Comprehensive (Informational) Listening--Students listen for the content

of the message.

• Critical (Evaluative) Listening--Students judge the message.

• Appreciative (Aesthetic) Listening--Students listen for enjoyment.

• Therapeutic (Empathetic) Listening--Students listen to support others but

not judge them.

Traditionally, secondary schools have concentrated on the comprehensive

and critical kinds of listening. Teachers need to provide experiences in all four
kinds. For example, listening to literature read, listening to radio plays, and
watching films develop appreciative in addition to comprehensive and critical
listening. When students provide supportive communication in collaborative
groups, they are promoting therapeutic listening. For example, the listening
behavior can show understanding, acceptance, and trust, all of which facilitate
communication. Students benefit from exposure to all four types of listening.

Listening is a general purpose in most learning situations. To be effective

listeners, however, students need a more specific focus than just attending to
what is
said. See the following chart which contrasts effective and ineffective listening
habits.

2
The Purposes for Listening
Listening requires conscious mental effort and specific purpose. The
purposes for listening relate to "types" of listening:
• Are you listening to receive information?
• Are you listening to follow instructions?
• Are you listening to evaluate information?
• Are you listening for pleasure?
• Are you listening to empathize?

Students should be able to determine what their purpose should be in any given
listening situation (see figure below).

Listening Comprehension skills or Enabling skills

 Listening for detail—involves listening for specific information

 Listening for gist—listen for main ideas
 Drawing inferences—ability to fill in gaps in the input
 Listening selectively—listen only to specific parts of the input.
 Making predictions—ability to anticipate before and during listening what
one is going to hear.

Listening as a PRODUCT
It shows what listeners do in order to demonstrate their understanding. It is
described in terms of outcomes which are stated either verbally or non-verbally.

Examples of listening outcomes:

 Follow instructions
 Organize and classify information
 Take effective notes
 Take dictation
 Transfer information into graphic forms
 Reconstruct original text

3
 Make appropriate oral respon

Listening as a PROCESS
Students do not have an innate understanding of what effective listeners
do; therefore, it is the responsibility of teachers to share that knowledge with
them. Perhaps the most valuable way to teach listening skills is for teachers to
model them themselves, creating an environment which encourages listening.
Teachers can create such an environment by positive interaction, actively
listening to all students and responding in an open and appropriate manner.
Teachers should avoid responding either condescendingly or sarcastically. As
much as possible, they should minimize distractions and interruptions. It is
important for the teacher to provide numerous opportunities for students to
practice listening skills and to become actively engaged in the listening process.

Listening is a mental process. Our brain processes linguistic information in

three
ways:
1. Attend to signals (sounds or print) and identify them as words.
2. Process information in the most efficient way.
3. Draw on knowledge stored in the long- term memory.

Anderson proposed a three-phase language comprehension model:

 Perception is the encoding of sound signals
 Parsing is the process by which an utterance is segmented according to
syntactic structures or meaning cues to create a mental representation of
the combined meaning of the words.
 Utilization occurs when listeners relate mental representations of the input
to existing knowledge in long- term memory

Bottom–up Listening

This refers to a process by which sounds are used to build up units of

information, such as words, phrases, clauses and sentences before the aural
input is understood.

Top-down processing
This refers to the application of background knowledge to facilitate
comprehension.
It is generally believed now that both top-down and bottom-up processing
occur at the same time in what is known as parallel processing (Eysenck,1993).
In some instances, one type of processing might take precedence over the other,
depending on the amount of practice an individual has had on a specific task.

4
Factors that Influence Learners’ Listening
Three sources of information are crucial to how language learners listen:
1. Background knowledge (schematic)
2. Knowledge of the situation and co-text (contextual)
3. Knowledge of the language system (systemic)

Listening can be best understood as a combination of low and high inferences

(Rost, 1990) Listeners make low-level inferences when they use their knowledge
of linguistic features to infer (decode) the sounds in an utterance. To understand
what a message means, they engage in higher level inferences by using on their
knowledge of both linguistic and pragmatic nature.

Another cognitive perspective on learner listening is the use of listening

comprehension strategies. These are mental mechanisms used to process and
manage information. The three categories of listening strategies are:

 Cognitive : process, interpret, store and recall information. This involves

strategies such as inferencing and prediction.
 Metacognitive : manage and facilitate mental process; cope with difficulties
during listening. Examples of such strategies include comprehension
monitoring and visualizing.

 Social-affective : ask the help of others to facilitate comprehension;

manage one’s emotions when listening such as confidence building and
cooperation.

Stages in a Listening Lesson

The Phases of Listening
The three phases of the listening process are: pre-listening, during
listening, and after listening.

Pre-listening
During the pre-listening phase, teachers need to recognize that all
students bring different backgrounds to the listening experience. Beliefs,
attitudes, and biases of the listeners will affect the understanding of the
message. In addition to being aware of these factors, teachers should show
students how their backgrounds affect the messages they receive.
Before listening, students need assistance to activate what they already
know about the ideas they are going to hear. Simply being told the topic is not
enough. Pre-listening activities are required to establish what is already known

5
about the topic, to build necessary background, and to set purpose(s) for
listening. Students need to understand that the “…act of listening requires not
just hearing but thinking, as well as a good deal of interest and information which
both speaker and listener must have in common. Speaking and listening entail ...
three components: the speaker, the listener, and the meaning to be shared;
speaker, listener, and meaning form a unique triangle (King, 1984).”

The teacher allows the learner to ‘tune in’ to the context or to the topic of a
given text. The students may perhaps express their views about the text to be
listened to; they may predict content from the title of a selection, answer a set of
questions, study and examine pictures, and sing a song or a chant. Each of
these helps students to focus on a topic, activate their schemata or prior
knowledge and allows them to use the words which they will shortly hear in the
text.

There are several strategies that students and their teachers can use to
prepare for a listening experience. They can:
1. Activate Existing Knowledge. Students should be encouraged to ask the
question: What do I already know about this topic? From this teachers and
students can determine what information they need in order to get the
most from the message. Students can brainstorm, discuss, read, view
films or photos, and write and share journal entries.

2. Build Prior Knowledge. Teachers can provide the appropriate

background information including information about the speaker, topic of
the presentation, purpose of the presentation, and the concepts and
vocabulary that are likely to be embedded in the presentation. Teachers
may rely upon the oral interpretation to convey the meanings of unfamiliar
words, leaving the discussion of these words until after the presentation.
At this stage, teachers need to point out the role that oral punctuation,
body language, and tone play in an oral presentation.

3. Review Standards for Listening. Teachers should stress the importance

of the audience's role in a listening situation. There is an interactive
relationship between audience and speaker, each affecting the other.
Teachers can outline the following considerations to students:

o Students have to be physically prepared for listening. They

need to see and hear the speaker. If notes are to be taken, they
should have paper and pencil at hand.

o Students need to be attentive. In many cultures, though not all, it

is expected that the listener look directly at the speaker and indicate
attention and interest by body language. The listener should never
talk when a speaker is talking. Listeners should put distractions and

6
 problems aside.

o "Listen to others as you would have them listen to you."

4. Establish Purpose. Teachers should encourage students to ask: "Why

am I listening?" "What is my purpose?" Students should be encouraged to
articulate their purpose.

o Am I listening to understand? Students should approach the

speech with an open mind. If they have strong personal opinions,
they should be encouraged to recognize their own biases.

o Am I listening to remember? Students should look for the main

ideas and how the speech is organized. They can fill in the
secondary details later.

o Am I listening to evaluate? Students should ask themselves if the

speaker is qualified and if the message is legitimate. They should
be alert to errors in the speaker's thinking processes, particularly
bias, sweeping generalizations, propaganda devices, and charged
words that may attempt to sway by prejudice or deceit rather than
fact.

o Am I listening to be entertained? Students should listen for those

elements that make for an enjoyable experience (e.g., emotive
language, imagery, mood, humor, presentation skills).

o Am I listening to support? Students should listen closely to

determine how other individuals are feeling and respond
appropriately (e.g., clarify, paraphrase, sympathize, encourage).

Before a speaker's presentation, teachers also can have students

formulate questions that they predict will be answered during the presentation. If
the questions are not answered, students may pose the questions to the
speaker. Students should as well be encouraged to jot down questions during
listening.

An additional strategy is called TQLR. It consists of the following steps:

T – Tune-in
(The listener must tune-in to the speaker and the subject, mentally calling
up everything known about the subject and shutting out all distractions.)

Q -- Question
(The listener should mentally formulate questions. What will this speaker

7
 say about this topic? What is the speaker's background? I wonder if the
speaker will talk about...?)

L -- Listen
(The listener should organize the information as it is received, anticipating
what the speaker will say next and reacting mentally to everything heard.)

R -- Review
(The listener should go over what has been said, summarize, and evaluate
constantly. Main ideas should be separated from subordinate ones.)

5. Use a Listening Guide. A guide may provide an overview of the

presentation, its main ideas, questions to be answered while listening, a
summary of the presentation, or an outline. For example, a guide such as
the following could be used by students during a presentation in class.

1. Situation:
Speaker's name:
Date:
Occasion:

2. What is the general subject of this talk?

3. What is the main point or message of this talk?

4. What is the speaker's organizational plan?

5. What transitional expressions (e.g., firstly,

secondly, in contrast, in conclusion) does the
speaker use?

6. Does the speaker digress from the main point?

7. Write the speaker's main point in no more than

three sentences.

What is your personal reaction to the talk?

While- Listening Stage

While-listening tasks are what students are asked to do during listening

time. The listening tasks should be enjoyable and meaningful to the students. It
should be simple and easy to handle. It should provide opportunities for students
to succeed.

Students need to understand the implications of rate in the listening process.

Nichols (1948) found that people listen and think at four times the normal
conversation rate. Students have to be encouraged to use the "rate gap" to
actively process the message. In order to use that extra time wisely.

8
Effective listeners:

• connect—make connections with people, places, situations, and ideas

they know
• find meaning—determine what the speaker is saying about people,
places, and ideas
• question—pay attention to those words and ideas that are unclear
• make and confirm predictions—try to determine what will be said next
• make inferences—determine speaker's intent by "listening between the
lines"; infer what the speaker does not actually say
• reflect and evaluate—respond to what has been heard and pass
judgment.

"Comprehension is enormously improved when the speaker's schema or

organizational pattern is perceived by the listener" (Devine, 1982). Teach
students the various structures (e.g., short story, essay, poetry, play),
organizational patterns (e.g., logical, chronological, spatial), and transitional
devices. Effective listeners can follow spoken discourse when they recognize
key signal expressions such as the following:

• Example words: for example, for instance, thus, in other words, as an

illustration
Usually found in: generalization plus example (but may be found in
enumeration and argumentation)
• Time words: first, second, third, meanwhile, next, finally, at last, today,
tomorrow, soon
Usually found in: narration, chronological patterns, directions (and
whenever events or examples are presented in a time sequence)
• Addition words: in addition, also, furthermore, moreover, another
example
Usually found in: Enumeration, description, and sometimes in
generalization plus example
• Result words: as a result, so, accordingly, therefore, thus
Usually found in: Cause and effect
• Contrast words: however, but, in contrast, on the other hand,
nevertheless
Usually found in: comparison and contrast (and whenever speaker makes
a comparison or contrast in another pattern) (Devine, 1982).

Most students need practice in making inferences while listening. A

simple way to help students become aware that there is meaning between the
lines is to read a passage from literature which describes a character's actions,
appearance, or surroundings. From this information, students make inferences
about the character's personality. Teachers should keep in mind that the purpose
of an exercise such as this is not to elicit the exact answer, but to provide
opportunities for students to make various inferences. Students also need to be

9
aware of the inferences they can make from non-verbal cues. A speaker's tone
and body language can convey a message as well.

Teachers can also encourage guided imagery when students are

listening to presentations that have many visual images, details, or descriptive
words. Students can form mental pictures to help them remember while listening.

Although listeners need not capture on paper everything they hear, there
are times that students need to focus on the message and need to record certain
words and phrases. Such note-making ("listening with pen in hand") forces
students to attend to the message. Devine (1982) suggests strategies such as
the following:

• Give questions in advance and remind listeners to listen for possible

answers.
• Provide a rough outline, map, chart, or graph for students to complete as
they follow the lecture.
• Have students jot down "new-to-me" items (simple lists of facts or insights
that the listener has not heard before).
• Use a formal note-taking system.

Transcribing or writing down live or recorded speech can sharpen

students' listening, spelling, and punctuation skills.

• Teacher selects an interesting piece of writing.

• The selection is read aloud to the class (and perhaps discussed).
• The teacher then dictates the passage slowly to the class. The students
transcribe the form and conventions (i.e., spelling, punctuation, and
capitalization) as accurately as possible.
• Students compare their transcription with distributed copies of the original.

Critical thinking plays a major role in effective listening. Listening in order

to analyze and evaluate requires students to evaluate a speaker's arguments and
the value of the ideas, appropriateness of the evidence, and the persuasive
techniques employed. Effective listeners apply the principles of sound thinking
and reasoning to the messages they hear at home, in school, in the workplace,
or in the media.

Planning and structuring classroom activities to model and encourage

students to listen critically is important. Students should learn to:
• Analyze the message

Critical listeners are concerned first with understanding accurately and

completely what they hear (Brownell, 1996). Students should identify the

10
 speaker's topic, purpose, intended audience, and context. The most
frequent critical listening context is persuasion. They should keep an
open-minded and objective attitude as they strive to identify the main
idea(s)/thesis/claim and the supporting arguments/points/anecdotes. They
should ask relevant questions and restate perceptions to make sure they
have understood correctly. Taking notes will enhance their listening.

• Analyze the speaker

Critical listeners must understand the reliability of the speaker. Is the

speaker credible? Trustworthy? An expert? Dynamic?

• Analyze the speaker's evidence

Critical listeners must understand the nature and appropriateness of the

evidence and reasoning. What evidence is used? Expert testimony?
Facts? Statistics? Examples? Reasons? Opinions? Inappropriate
evidence might include untrustworthy testimony; inadequate, incorrect,
inappropriate, or irrelevant facts, statistics, or examples; or quotations out
of context or incomplete.

• Analyze the speaker's reasoning

Critical listeners must understand the logic and reasoning of the speaker.
Is this evidence developed in logical arguments such as deductive,
inductive, causal, or analogous? Faulty reasoning might include hasty or
over-inclusive generalization, either-or argument, causal fallacy (therefore,
because of this), non sequitur (confusion of cause and effect), reasoning
in a circle, begging or ignoring the question, false analogy, attacking the
person instead of the idea, or guilt by association.

• Analyze the speaker's emotional appeals

Critical listeners must understand that persuaders often rely on emotional

appeal as well as evidence and reasoning. Critical listeners, therefore,
must recognize effective persuasive appeals and propaganda devices. A
skilled critical listener identifies and discounts deceptive persuasive
appeals such as powerful connotative (loaded) words, doublespeak,
appeals to fears, prejudice, discontent, flattery, stereotype, or tradition.
The listener must also identify and discount propaganda techniques such
as bandwagon appeals, glittering generalities, inappropriate testimonials,
pseudo-scientific evidence, card-stacking, and name-calling.

11