Importance of Teaching Listening Skills

Importance of T apieceing auditory sense Skills perceive culture is an strategic spoken verbiage acquisition to develop. Language assimilators want to understand target nomenclature (L2) speakers and they want to be competent to access the rich variety of aural and visual L2 texts avai lable via net execute- pursed mul cadencedia. Further much, discover intelligence is at the heart of L2 outgrowth and the victimization of L2 earreach dexteritys has demonstrated a beneficial impact on the development of opposite skills (e.g. Dunkel 1991 Rost 2002). Therefore, it is important to develop L2 listen competence yet, in spite of its vastness, L2 savants be rarely taught how to listen potently (e.g. Mendelsohn 2001, 2006 Berne 2004 LeLoup Pontiero 2007).In addition, auditory modality is an essential skill which develops faster than oral presentation and often affects the development of reading and paper abilities in schooling a invigorated quarrel (Scarcella and Oxford, 1992 Oxford, 1993). According to them, the main reason is that unmatched receives input through perceive to instructions or explanations prior to responding unwrittenly or in writing. Listening is not an easy skill to acquire beca commit it requires listeners to make substance from the oral exam input by drawing upon their background companionship of the world and of the bite voice communication (Byrnes, 1984 Nagle Sanders, 1986 Young, 1997) and produce information in their long term reposition board and make their accept recitals of the spoken passages (Murphy, 1985 Mendelsohn, 1994 Young, 1997). In separate terminology, listeners need to be active andtors of information (Young, 1997). Mean go, Vandergrift (1996, 1997, and 2003) asserts that audience is a complex, active movement of interpretation in which listeners try to suit what they hear with their prior knowledge. According to Richards (1983), this dish out is more complex for sulfur quarrel learners who gift limited memory capacity of the target phrase. Therefore, it is necessary for them to utilize various hearing strategies.As close English teachers Iran believe, although we fall in learned a lot al roughly the nature of audition and the power of perceive in communication, L2 sense of hearing has been considered to be the least researched of all four run-in skills. This whitethorn be payable to its implicit nature, the ephemeral nature of the acoustic input and the difficulty in accessing the mathematical operationes. In order to teach L2 listen more effectively, teachers need a richer understanding of the audition process. Research into L2 capture is important beca handling a violate understanding of the process will inform pedagogy. According to Vandergrift (2007), bookmans who learn to restrainer their hearing processes can provoke their intuition This, in turn, affects the development of other skills and overall success in L2 accomplishm ent.1.2. Statement of ProblemListening apprehension may expect relatively straightforward to indigenous language (L1) speakers but it is often a source of frustration for plunk for and remote language (L2) learners (e.g., Graham, 2006). Further, little attention has been foc habituated on systematic practice in L2 perceive (see DeKeyser, 2007) i.e. on the integrated instruction of a sequential repertory of strategies to help L2 learners develop lore skills for echt-life auditory modality (Berne, 2004 Mendelsohn, 1994 Vandergrift, 2004).A review on new-fashi aced research on second or foreign listening instruction suggested a need for an analysis of the effectiveness of metacognitive instruction for bring about L2 listening comprehension. Current approaches for effective L2 listening are toward real-life honest ample-input listening with more of top-d have approaches and process instruction. Most of the studies, support real-life listening with authorized materials ( one dollar bill, 2002 Goh, 2008 Richards, 2005 Vandergrift, 2007 Veenman et a1., 2006).Top-down approaches bugger off drawn more new favors than bottom-up approaches (Goh, 2008 Rost, 2002 Vandergrift, 2004). at escape listening was favored to product listening (Vandergrift, 2004 Field, 2003 Buck, 1995 Krashen, 2008). Interest was alike indicated in raising student awareness of the listening process (Vandergrift, 1999 Mendelsohn, as cited in Vandergrift, 2004). Among the approaches to L2 listening, metacognitive instruction for L2 listening was noted to be a most(prenominal) novel trend (Annevirta et al., 2007 Beasley et al., 2008 Chen, 2007 Derwing, 2008 Field, 2008 Goh, 2008 Graham et al., 2008 Lee Oxford, 2008 Vandergrift, 2007 Veenman et al., 2006 Zohar Peled, 2008).In general, comprehension historically has legitimate tho minimal treatment in the instruction of English as a Second Language (ESL), but it is, in fact, one of the most important skills a second language ( L2) learner mustiness crucify to succeed in schoolman studies (Jung, 2003, Thompson Rubin, 1996). For learners to become proficient in listening comprehension, they must receive understandable input (Vandergrift, 1997, p. 495) as healthy as subscribe ample opportunity to practice using, or producing, the language. In second language acquisition, listening comprehension used to be considered a motionless activity thence, it did not merit researchers attention (Jung, 2003 Thompson Rubin, 1996 Vandergrift, 2004). It had been simulated that a learners skill to adopt spoken language would develop entirely on its own in an inductive way through repetition and imitation. As lately as the 1970s there were no textbooks devoted to teaching the skill of listening in a second language. It was assumed that the ability to comprehend spoken language would automatically remediate because learners with exposure to the oral intervention would learn through practice.Listening texts a re a relatively recent addition to the ESL or ESL curricula the focus of earlier second or foreign language learning texts which included a focus on listening comprehension was primarily on testing students ability to listen to oral plow and then answer comprehension questions based upon the information (Carrier, 2003 Field, 1998). Today, however, a growing body of research indicates that the focus has shifted to actively and intentionally teaching strategies for learning how to process, comprehend, and respond to spoken language with greater facility, competence, and confidence (Rost, 2007).Despite, recognizing the grandness of listening strategies for the development of foreign language technique, very limited studies perk up been comeed in Iran concerning the strategies employed by Iranian EFL learners in relation to listening proficiency levels. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to determine how strategies training may pull ahead L2 learners in their development of li stening comprehension.1.3. Significance of the StudyThe current force field addresses the need for get on research in the area of systematic teaching of listening strategies. Accoding to Carrier (2003), for L2 learners, the ability to use strategies effectively in their academic listening is crucial (Carrier, 2003). He believed that learners need to be able to actively and selectively choose the strategies most applicable for a given listening situation and evaluate dodging effectiveness in their everyday learning tasks. As Carrier (ibid) indicated in her domain, students can benefit from instruction in strategies for academic listening in a variety of wadtings and incorporating legion(predicate) types of media.This find out adds to the growing body of research of how adult EFL students pursuing academic study may benefit from comprehensible, systematic teaching of listening strategies. Doing this research contributes a method acting to introduce and sham L2 listening stra tegies. Results of the study provide sixth sense into histrions self-perceptions of their use of listening strategies both in front and after(prenominal)ward systematic schoolroom instruction.1.4. Research QuestionsThe chase research questions formed the basis of the study1. Does explicit listening comprehension strategy training based on calla instructional standard increase Iranian EFL learners listening comprehension2. What metacognitive listening strategies, based on Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ), do Iranian EFL learners compensate before and after metacognitive training program?1.5. Research HypothesesBased on the above questions, the following hypotheses will be estimated1. Explicit listening comprehension strategy training based on CALLA instructional model cannot play any role in increasing Iranian EFL learners listening comprehension.2. There is no significant difference in using metacognitive listening strategies, based on Metacognitive A wareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ) by Iranian EFL learners before and after metacognitive training program.1.6. Limitations of the StudyOne limitation of this study relates to the endurance of participants. It was anticipated that the body of participants was likely to be of predominantly one language and cultural background. season this could provide insights into the strategy use of that particular language group, it dexterity preclude broader multicultural generalizations of the study. In addition, it was impossible to randomize the excerption of participants because of the structure of the research. The study needed to be conducted as a lot of regularly scheduled EFL coursework. Limited randomization was provided in the anonymity of participant responses on the research instrument questionnaires as well as with proficiency leveling.Participants prior exposure to listening strategies instruction or to the manner in which such instruction may have taken place is some ot her area that was impossible to determine. Indeed, students may certainly or unconsciously use strategies transferred from their learning and listening experiences in their primary language. In addition, instructors may leave strategies instruction without intentionally planning to do so. If students have friends who are native speakers of English, spend much time watching American movies or listening to news broadcasts, or in other slipway have a lot of exposure to English outside of class time, they may have adopted a variety of listening strategies that their classmates who do not suck up in such activities have not.1.7. Definition of Key TermsThe following terms are used throughout this study and are specify as think to use in this research.Listening an active process in which listeners select and interpret information that comes from auditory and visual clues in order to define what is going on and what the speakers are trying to show up (Thompson Rubin, 1996, p. 331). For this study, the focus is on listening for academic purposes. That mightiness include listening during academic lectures, seminars, group work, or any other aural discourse that is likely to occur in an academic classroom setting.Metacognition Metacognition refers to the learners knowledge of some(prenominal) strategies s/he might use for specific tasks and under what conditions those strategies will be most effective (Pintrich, 2002).Strategy training teaching explicitly how, when, and why to apply language learning and language use strategies to enhance students efforts to reach language program endings (Carrell, 1996 Cohen, 1998 Ellis Sinclair, 1989, as cited in Chen, 2005, p. 5).CHAPTER TWO analyze OF THE LITERATURE2.1. OverviewThis chapter presents a brief historical timeline of the teaching of listening comprehension in EFL and ESL condition. Of note is that listening research and teaching has a relatively short history as compared to that of reading, writing, grammar , and speaking. Certainly, the process of learning how to listen in a second language shares features with learning to listen in ones drive tongue however, some features are varied. The literature provides insight into these correspondentities and differences. Within this section, top-down and bottom-up processing as they function in the L2 listening process are explained, as is the interaction surrounded by the two processes. Finally, learning strategies, in particular, those used in the L2 listening process are presented. In most of the research accomplished to date, strategies have been classified in a descriptive manner. Researchers agree to the dearth of studies showing what types of intervention-or instruction-of listening strategies will help L2 students to improve their listening comprehension. It is to this end that the current study was undertaken.2.2. History of Teaching Listening inclusionThough one of the most important but also most difficult skills a second langua ge (L2) learner must master to succeed in academic studies, L2 listening comprehension has not received the research attention it deserves (Jung, 2003, Thompson Rubin, 1996). Though the focus in teaching today is on presenting listening as an active receptive skill which needs special attention in language study (Morley, 2001, p. 72.), listening was traditionally considered to be a passive skill, unlike speaking or grammar (Vandergrift, 2004). Even as recently as the 1970s there were no textbooks devoted to teaching the skill of listening in a second language.One hundred and fifty years ago, it was apprehension that speaking and writing in a second language were productive, or active skills, while listening and reading were receptive, and so passive. In some of the early preserve language classes, listening was not taught at all. In one of the earliest of the language teaching approaches, Grammar Translation (Felder Enriquez, 1995 Flowerdew, Miller, 2005), teaching was conduc ted in the learners native tongue, and only the grammar, sentence structure and vocabulary of the foreign language, by and large Greek or Latin, were taught so that learners could translate texts.The first of the language teaching methods that touched upon the importance of listening comprehension is known as the Direct set out (Felder Enriquez, 1995), in which learners were immersed in the target language, with the L2 being the language of instruction (Flowerdew Miller, 2005). Taught inductively, learners mastered the grammar by creating rules based on their ever-growing experience with the language. Correctness in all aspects of the language was emphasized. In the Direct Approach, by necessity, listening comprehension played a major(ip) role. However, the development of listening comprehension was not actively taught it was assumed that learners would pick up this skill in an inductive way, through repetition and use. Certainly, with its focus on inductive learning, no listeni ng strategies were actively taught in the Direct Approach.Although listening comprehension was a component of the Grammar Approach also, students were invariably tested on their listening ability only as it related to their ability to simultaneously read and listen to a recorded install of discourse and make sense of the grammatical and lexical rules of the language. One major drawback of this method was that the classroom activities did not relate in any pregnant way to everyday listening activities outside of the classroom (Flowerdew Miller, 2005). Students using this method were called upon to fill in missing words, a task they could advantageously perform without having any idea of the actual meaning of the discourse.The Audiolingual Approach (Larsen-Freeman, 2000), which became popular in the 1960s and 1970s, required the listener to recognize and practice utterances and then create similar utterances patterned after the ones they had heard in a dialogue. It was during thi s time and with this approach to teaching languages that the audio-cassette language labs became widely used (Ross, 2003). The language lab focus was based on drill and practice, requiring much repetition and hallucination correction with the goal of instilling in students correct patterns of discourse. Developing listening comprehension strategies, again, was not the focus of this approach rather listening skill was taught only as it pertained to the manipulation of newly learned grammatical and lexical structures. An unfortunate result was that in their learning process, students interacted much more with machines than with other adult male. Then focus shifted toward student interaction in authentic language situations so that students could have exposure to comprehensible input as well as practice using the target language in real life situations. While cassette language laboratories are still in use today, many of these have been replaced or supplemented with computer laborato ries and digital language laboratories. fury on authentic tasks and projects, specially those using the Internet, has become highly regarded (Ross, 2004).In the 1980s and nineties, the Communicative Approach (Oxford et al., 1989)-one in which error was tolerated, provided the learners intended subject could be conveyed and understoodbecame popular. The Communicative Approach, in which the focus is on use of authentic language, places the learner in a real exchange of meaning the learner must process input and produce output such that each participant can understand the other. Once again, we see that listening strategies are assumed but not actively taught. Within this method, two schools developedthose who deal the cognitive Approach (Ellis, 1999) and those who embrace the Sociocognitive Approach (Warschauer Meskill, 2000).Another approach which came into existance was Cognitive Approach, the first of the two schools, which focuses on the view that all language learning is a u nique psycholinguistic process (Warschauer Meskill, 2000, p. 3). Learners are said to have a built-in cognitive ability to interact with and communicate in language that is both meaningful and comprehensible to them and manufacture their own meaning. fashioning errors is seen as a positive learning process through which learners construct the rules of the target language based upon input/output. Technologies that support this learning scheme/style include text-reconstruction software, concordancing software, telecommunications, and multimedia simulation software (p. 4). Teachers can easily manipulate authentic text to create meaningful exercises (cloze-type), and students can use all sorts of software and Internet access to discover computer microworlds that, at their best, simulate an immersion or a linguistic bath environs (p. 5). They can experience the target language by conducting searches, interacting with and manipulating their findings. In many cases, students need not truly interact with other humans at all.The other school within the Communicative Approach embraces Sociocognitive Approaches. This school of thought contends that learners benefit greatly from interaction with people. Students need to interact with other humans in authentic language situations so that they can have comprehensible input as well as exposure and practice in the types of speech acts in real life outside the classroom. Authentic tasks and projects, in particular those utilizing the Internet, are highly regarded in this approach. Teaching methods that exploit computer-assisted discussion have become accepted. We see synchronous and asynchronous chat becoming a major component of language learning. While this mean(a) is seen as slightly artificial, it is still said to give students authentic practice in elongated discourse and to provide an extra layer of language practice for students, one that is democratic. Students who are hesitant to use oral language in the cla ssroom have greater opportunity to use language without fear of do mistakes and thus losing face. The result can be class discussions that are both highly democratic and collaborative.Next in the progression of accepted language teaching approaches is one known as the Task-Based Approach (Brown, 1987 Bruton, 2005). This approach requires the learner to listen and, based on the input, complete some sort of task, by chance note-taking or filling in a chart or form. The tasks tend to be oriented to real-world needs of the learner but are much based upon discourse (lectures or passages) that is at least partially contrived. While not exactly authentic, these types of activities provide practice in completing the types of tasks students might be called upon to use in real life, such as noting information or completing forms.In current language learning approaches, we have the Learner-Strategy Approach (Floweredew Miller, 2005 Mendelsohn, 1994). This approach accounts for learners nee ds to initiate and recognize their own listening strategies what deeds for each individual learner. The Learner-Strategy approach examines listening comprehension from the sentiment of individual learners and their independent learning with activities created to help learners discover what particular strategy works for them, including foci on schema activation, authentic tasks, presentation of many types of activities in many different contexts, and total interaction with the task. It is in this approach that metacognitive actualization plays a significant role. Metacognition refers to the learners knowledge of whatever strategies s/he might use for specific tasks and under what conditions those strategies will be most effective (Pintrich, 2002). Pintrich pointed out that metacognition refers to knowledge of strategies having the knowledge doesnt necessarily mean that the learner actually uses the strategies. It is important, however, for learners to identify which of their own l istening strategies produce success, and it is helpful for them to share their strategies. non only does the sharing help them to activate schemata and to recognize how the strategy works for them, their sharing may also serve to activate other learners schemata and be instructive for fellow learners. Both learner and fellow students become more autonomous and develop more control over their own learning, the goal of this particular approach. The more aware learners are of the learning process, more specifically, their own learning process, the greater the chance they can influence conscious learning (Nakatani, 2005, p. 77) and enhance their own strategic competence.According to Osada (2002), with the development of research, new theories, and development of second language curriculum, researchers interest in listening comprehension has grown. The 1990s showed a far greater interest in this skill than had previously been realized. Today, it is a widely accepted belief (Flowerdew Miller, 2005 Jung, 2003 Savignon, 2001 Wilson, 2003) that all skills, certainly including listening comprehension, require active negotiation with the language. Savignon (2001) likened the collaborative process convolute in oral/aural communication to the game of football. The different strategies players use and the different moves they make as they avoid, block, or tackle the opposing teams players are similar to the strategies language learners use to negotiate meaning with their interlocutors in the new language. not only do learners need to know the rifle system, grammar, and syntax of the new language, but they also need to understand the pragmatic, or discourse meanings of the language.A final learning approach that is worth mentioning here is the Integrated Approach (Flowerdew Miller, 2005). Teachers of today recognize readily the need to actively teach strategies for create accuracy in listening comprehension. The goal is to make students able to listen for and identify main ideas as well as details, to develop their tiny listening and thinking skills, and to enable them to manipulate the language and show that they comprehend and can use what they have heard. An expected outcome is for students to be able to use heard information and present it in an intelligent and intelligible way. In the Integrated Approach, we see complementary strategies at play as students use aspects of the various approaches to language teaching and learning to comprehend, manipulate, and produce language in authentic, meaningful language tasks.2.3. Different perspectives toward listening2.3.1. Listening as Negotiation of MeaningThat most peoples daily experiences are often not linked to reading and writing- but to situations where the spoken word is the dominant medium has already been noted in the context of first language (LI) listening (see, for example, Bohlken, 1999 Frest, 1999 Furnis, 2004). In academic contexts, for example, research on LI listening has shown tha t listening comprises more than 50% of college students total average communication day followed by reading (17%), speaking (16%) and writing (11%) (Emanuel et al, 2008). With the significant role that listening plays in our lives, therefore, it would be worthwhile to examine what facilitates and/or occludes listening.Changes in listening demeanour have been associated with different factors including purpose for listening (Wolvin Coakley, 1996), types of interaction possible or required in a listening situation (Rost, 1990 2002), personal dispositions (Sargent, Fitch-Hauser, Weaver, 1997), sexual practice (Sargent Weaver, 2003), and cultural context (Keiwitz, Weaver, Brosius, Weiman, 1997). Imhof (2004) posits that, while listening, individuals tend to adjust swiftly to perceived characteristics of the listening situation (p. 43) such as the status they hold as compared to their speaking partner. In a study of listeners and speakers with English as a first language (ELI), H arms (1961) found that listeners comprehension was highest when listeners held the same status as the speakers. These findings deal out with the results of the Varonis and Gass (1985) study on EL1-ESL and ESL-ESL interlocutor dyads, which demonstrated that meaning negotiations occurred less much between EL1-ESL interlocutors than ESL-ESL. Varonis and Gass (1985) concluded that ESL speakers recognize the inequality of the conversation situation (p. 85) and thus are reluctant to attempt any further negotiation of meaning. In a critique of the cognitively-oriented L2 listening studies that have ignored the fond context in which conversation occurs, Carrier (1999) argued that unequal status between ELI and ESL interlocutors hinders negotiations of meanings and thus has an adverse effect on comprehension. Carrier also suggested that status unequals may perceive their relationship as sharing no common base socially, occupationally, and economically (p. 74). In the context of L2 classro om settings, Pica (1992) reported that social relationships between teachers and students give them unequal status as interlocutors, which can hinder L2 comprehension, production and ultimately acquisition (p. 4). In an interesting case study of an intermediate level learners progress in listening comprehension during and after a pre-sessional English for Academic Purposes course, Lynch (1997) reported the discrepancies between slaying within the sheltered setting of the language classroom and success in real interaction in the (non-sheltered) academic world. The study, which included evidence from surgical procedure (entry and exit listening tests), process (negotiation of meaning in the classroom) and perceptions (of listening difficulties after the course), pointed to the ways in which the listeners fears about being labeled as an ESL student hindered his negotiations of meaning in the classroom and ultimately his implementation. When asked to make a conscious effort in applyi ng meaning negotiation strategies (which he had learned in the sheltered language course) in his academic courses, the ESL listener replied, But I am the only foreign student and so I cannot disassemble very much (Lynch, 1997, 394). These results are in line with other work on first language listening, which demonstrate that inter-individual differences affect patterns of communication between listeners and speakers (Beatty, Marschal, Rudd, 2001 Imhof, 2004).2.3.2 Listening as ComprehensionListening has been demonstrated to be one of the essentials of language learning (Rost 2002 Tafaghodtari Vandergrift, 2008 Vandergrift, 2007). Yet, with the diffusion of new technologies, which have particularly changed the ways in which university students spend their time (Emanuel et al., 2008), listening has become one of the most challenging aspects of L2 development for adult learners (e.g. Hasan 2000 Graham, 2003 Kim, 2002 Vandergrift, 2007). In a review of the recent developments in L2 listening research, Vandergrift (2007) rightly points to the significance that listening has in todays existence of L2 learners lives Language learners want to understand target language (L2) and they want to be able to access the rich variety of aural and visual L2 texts visible(prenominal) today via network-based multimedia, such as online audio and video, YouTube, podcasts and blogs (p. 191).Given its central role in the new media age, listening has remained surprisingly underresearched in the field of L2 education, and those studies which seem to address this neglected aspect of language development have been generally concerned with listening as an end-point, rather than an active process of meaning making. Many, for example, reduce listening to finding the right answer to a set of comprehension questions at the end of a passage. This focus, which reflects the nature of commercial and high-stakes tests, ignores the processes involved in any meaning making situation, listening being no exception. This trend has also fallen short of providing a framework for adequately taking account of the variables which affect listening ability (Tafaghodtari Vandergrift, 2008).2.3.3 L2 Listening A Cognitive PerspectiveDrawing on a wide array of disciplines (e.g., cognitive psychology, LI speech education, language pathology and artificial intelligence), current L2 listening theorists recognize that L2 listening draws on multiple sources of information such as linguistic, contextual, and schematic knowledge (e.g., Buck, 2001 Lynch, 1994 Vandergrift, 2006). A consequence of such recognition has been a focus on different textual, cognitive and affective variables such as memory, discourse markers, prior knowledge and anxiety which are believed to affect performance in L2 listening. Based on earlier work by Buck (2001), at least three types of variables are posited to be critical to L2 listening success linguistic, strategic and learner variables. Linguistic variables e ntail knowledge of the sound system (phonological), grammar (syntactic), vocabulary (semantic) and contextual influences on interpretation (pragmatic) of the L2 (Flowerdew Miller, 2005). Listeners use L2 phonological knowledge to segment the stream of sound into meaningful sound units. This includes knowledge about phonemes, stress, intonation, assimilation and elision. Grammatical or syntactic L2 knowledge helps listeners to process or parse the sound stream for meaningful units of language and contributes to comprehension by pleading semantic roles to words (Rost, 2002). L2 semantic knowledge helps listeners assign meaning to word-level units as well as the relationship between those words at the discourse level. L2 pragmatic knowledge helps the listener to infer the speakers intention, particularly if there is any ambiguity in the literal meaning of the utterance. This is intimately related to sociolinguistic knowledge (e.g., formal/informal registers, idioms and slang) which listeners use to further interpret the utterance (Buck, 2001). These five elements of linguistic knowledge involved in speech perception are an essential part of any model of listening.Yet, research has shown that listening comprehension is more than speech perception (e.g., Rost, 2004 Schmidt-Rinehart, 1994). Comprehension includes matching what is heard with what is known. According to Rost (2004), the central component in the comprehension process is the activation of schemata in the listeners memory structures to anticipate and monitor,