Listening is an important skill to develop in the language learners because they need it to obtain information, to learn and to communicate, etc. However, learning listening is the most difficult skill for English learners, especially non-major students. In fact, some major students or some non-major students even have been studying English for a long time but they cannot over the hindrance of listening part in the test. The questions why students found learning listening is difficult and what problems they can meet when they listen to English. Underwood (1989 cited by Chen, 2005) gave some problems were:
- "lack of control over the speed at which speakers speak;
- not being able to get things repeated;
- the listener's limited vocabulary;
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However, in practice, their students use "top-down" process to guess theme and then adopt "bottom-up" process to check their understanding. Therefore, English teachers should use both processes in listening activities to help their students can practice both of them: "bottom-up" and "top-down". Furthermore, the combination of "bottom-up" processing and "top-down" processing is also called "interactive" processing (Peterson, 2001). In the classrooms, all pre-listening activities are one of good methods to help students integrate "bottom-up" processing and "top-down" processing when listening. For example, before listening, teachers should provide a lesson on the specific topic to bring students' level of content schema which help students can better comprehend the target text. In the other hand, the teachers should also use "bottom-up" exercises such as recognize vocabulary and pronunciation features to help students to pay attention to language. However, in fact, many teachers tend to choose "top-down" processing in pre-listening activities such as predicting, comprehension questions, listing, etc. Teachers only use "bottom-up" processing for lower level students who need to improve and to expand their language …show more content…
For instance, at University of Technology in Ho Chi Minh city, many teachers usually use three pre-listening tasks to help their students, especially non-major students. The first task is the "word association" which helps teachers assess students' knowledge about the new topic before they listen to the target text. First of all, teachers ask their students to respond to a key word such as "photosynthesis". Then, in five minutes' time, students need to brainstorm vocabulary and write down many words or phrases related to this topic. While they write, the teachers can write down the main ideas related the target text on the board. This process will help students to connect what they listen with what they have already know. The second task is "pre-listening questioning", especially, teachers can give some questions before students listen to the target text. By giving the questions related to the topic, students may build up their own expectations about the coming information, and they also try to find answers to these questions. It is clear that students' prior knowledge on the topic can be activated. For instance, after students listen to the target text, they are expected to answer the following questions: What is photosynthesis?, What is the benefits of photosynthesis for plants?, etc. The third task is "looking at pictures before listening".
Elvis Wagner investigated the use of video texts in testing the listening of ESL students within the experiment exhibited in his article, “The effect of the use of video texts on ESL listening test-taker performance.” While the article itself was based heavily around the experiment conducted to test the effectiveness of video texts in testing listening, Wagner posed very interesting questions which he hoped his findings would portray. Wagner’s first question was the most interesting and asked,
Brainstorming, teacher guide students through activities in which they aim to get students, first, to activate any background information they have on a topic and second to extend their already existing background knowledge on the topic.
Listening is an important part of education. In order to gain knowledge of a subject, a student must carefully listen to their mentor and
At the beginning of the semester our class was introduced to a new term, listenability. The level of listenability is at the mercy of the speaker, not of the audience. During our semester, we were taught to harness the listenability keys of strategy, structure, support, and style in order to achieve a high level of listenability. Examples of listenability include when a speaker engages the audience by asking questions, using narratives or stories that people can relate to, and has stimulating visual support and content. These are only a couple of keys used to create a listener centered speech.
For example, the student learn various vocabulary words by introduction (word 3 is insane), questioning (what does the word insane mean?), and a connection signal (what another way to say, ‘He had a crazy desire for wealth?’). Through this repetition, the students are able to experience a vocabulary word in various academic setting in order to imprint the word to memory and build background knowledge.
Within this paper we will take a brief look at the Language Acquisition Principles and how they work on the behalf of ELL students. We will see how these principles can be applied within our own learning environment. There is much information from Walqui article that gives a brief overview of ELL students and how things looked in the past for these students. Now that times has change we will see how educators can make the requirements for ELL students better and more effective for teacher and students. Hopefully, as we look at ways of changing learning for our ELL students we must remember that every student learns differently. Even if you follow the principles from 1-8 we must keep in mind that everyone is unique and process things within their own time table.
The IELTS test is designed to assess students’ competence in English language in an integrated skills; reading, speaking, writing and listening. It is an obligatory exam for registration in many universities as well as it is a certificate to raise their luck in gaining a job. The listening test is particularly aimed at measuring the ability of students understanding of English. In most cases Universities offer preparation course for the students to develop their skills further, in order to prepare them, the exam centres are well equipped with computers, microphones and other recording devices. This paper will accentuate on evaluating an IELTS listening test in relation to its reliability, validity, authenticity, instructiveness, fairness, impact and wash back. The particular test to be evaluated was taken from IELTS official practice material updated in March 2009.
The intervention involves the teacher taking information from a book or a passage before actually reading it. They provide a basic overview of what the passage entails and then ask questions to bring about the students’ prior knowledge. That knowledge is used to predict future information. “For each key idea, present one question requiring that readers tap their own prior knowledge of the topic and another that prompts them to predict how the article or story might deal with the topic (Prior Knowledge, n.d.)”.
The use of bottom-up and top-down processing is context-dependent. In some cases, individual words need attention (bottom-up) whereas in other cases, the entire context requires focus (top-down). Bottom – up uses pieces and breaks words down individually to comprehend word meaning before combining the entire piece being read. This sometimes will cause comprehension breakdown because contextual awareness is used.
Nichols, R. G. (1961, March). Do we know how to listen? Practical helps in a modern age. The Speech Teacher, 10(2), 118-124.
The common view on listening often does not even involve true listening. People often mistake hearing for listening. Just because you heard something does not necessarily mean that you were listening. While others do not even realize that listening is one step of a four-part process. While two people are involved in communication, the one receiving the message while “listening” formulates the next phase within their head. They miss a large percentage of what the person involved in speaking is saying (Tubbs and Moss 141). The reasons [for ineffective listening] are so obvious that they are sometimes overlooked. First, listening is mistakenly equated with hearing and since most of us can hear, no academic priority is given to this subject in college. Second, we perceive power in speech. We put a value on those who have the gift of gab. How often have you heard the compliment, “He/she can talk to anyone?” Additionally, we equate speaking with controlling both the conversation and the situation. The third and last reason we don’t listen, is that we are in an ear of information overload. We are bombarded with the relevant and the irrelevant and it is easy to confuse them. Often it is all jus...
For Foreign language learners, reading is a crucial skill that can improve their language especially with literary works, which have different intentions, styles, and special use of techniques and devices. The process of reading can occur easily if the text carries the same culture values ,customs or beliefs of the reader. In contrast, the reader may encounter some difficulties in comprehending this kind of text when the writer has a different culture “this lack of common cultural schema between writers and readers is likely to cause varying degrees of misunderstandings or misperceptions in cross-cultural communication” (Carrell & Eisterhold, 1983; Boxer, 2002). For this reason students have to get engaged more in those cultures. Thus, schemata
Nowadays, many people think reading is not necessary, since there are so many sources of information and types of entertainment, such as TV, cinema and the Internet. I believe they are wrong because reading is very beneficial in many ways.
Listening is one of the most powerful tools of communication and is a process that is used to receive, convey a meaning, and respond to both verbal and nonverbal messages. It is what we choose to do and it requires more work than speaking. Oftentimes, people simply misunderstand the difference between listening and hearing. Hearing is a passive process that takes in sounds and noises and listening is what you choose to do. This selective process includes 5 phases that can be acquired for us to become effective listeners in the future. The 5 phases are attending, understanding, remembering, critically evaluating (listening), and responding. Once the 5 different areas are understood, we will become aware of what needs to change and how we can change them. This will also allow us to improve our listening skills in the workplace, school, at home, etc.
Zhang and Tan (2010) explored the relationship between the application of listening strategies and listening effects or profermance in standard dictation for English majors. The outcome showed that systemic, successful training on listening strategies would facilitate the improvement in listening performance.