Andijon davlat chet tillar instituti

Lecture-3
Teaching listening
Plan
1.Listening comprehension and its role in the process of learning a foreign language from the practical point of view.
2.Listening comprehension as an educational goal and as a means.
3.The main mechanisms of forming and developing listening comprehension. 4.Typological difficulties in teaching listening comprehension.
Key words: listening, hearing, comprehension, listening skills, extensive, intensive, listening text, understanding, CEFR requirements.

Listening is one of the types of speech and used most frequently. People usually get much information by listening. Listening is receptive form of speech that involves listening understanding .We usually receive speaker’s speech from radio tape-recorder and during conversation. It is also called auding. We would like to distinguish hearing from auding because in most eases teachers don’t distinguish it. While listening we usually focus our attention on the information being received and try to understand it. But while hearing we just hear and may not focus our attention on the sounds and just let them go.Listening requires mental activity which involves differentiating speech sounds, tempo, intonation and speakers attitude expressed by them. Listening is a complicated type of speech and demands ear training especially teaching foreign language. Hearing is just acoustic comprehension of sounds but also all sounds in nature.

Listening is a skill that requires active engagement directed to form communicative competence in the new language. In foreign issues the term “Listening comprehension” is used.
There are different factors which cause difficulties in auding. They are outside noises, hindrances, bad acoustics. For example, in the street, during the wedding parties one cannot understand even the speech in mother tongue. Because in such situations it is difficult to understand the meaning of the information. The absence of the sources of speech also causes difficulties. If a person sees the source of speech it is easy to understand. For example, during face to face talk partners can understand each other better than when they speak on the phone or listen to the radio. During face to face talk mimes, gestures, moves of the lips and eye contact makes it easy to understand.


Difficulties in listening
When auding a FL pupils should be very attentive and think hard. They should strain their memory and will power to keep the sequence of sounds they hear and to decode it. Not all the pupils can cope with the difficulties entailed. The teacher should help them by making this work easier and more interesting. This is possible on condition that he will take into consideration the following three main factors which can ensure success in developing listening skills.

1. 
   Linguistic material
   
2. 
   The content of the material suggested for listening
   
3. 
   Conditions in which the material is presented.
   

Listening comprehension can be ensured when the teacher uses the material which has already been assimilated by pupils. However this does not completely eliminate the difficulties in auding. Three kinds of difficulties should be overcome: phonetic, lexical, and grammatical: the horse is slipping (sleeping); they worked (walked) till night; phrasal verbs put on, put off, put down; grammatical homonyms Past Indefinite, Past Participle.
The content of the material also influences comprehension. The topic of communication should be within the ability of the pupils to understand. Difficulties should be explained (proper names, geographical names, terminology etc.)
Description is more difficult than narration. The pupils’ readiness to listen and comprehend is very important. The title of the story may be helpful in comprehending the main idea of the text. Monologic speech is easier.
Conditions of the presenting are of great importance: the speed of the speech, the number of times of presenting the material. Pupils should be taught to listen to the text once. However they sometimes can grasp only 50% of the information and even less, so a second presentation may be helpful. The presence or the absence of the speaker is also an important factor.
Hashimov U. A. and Yaqubov I.Ya differentiates two types of difficulties:

1. 
   Linguistic
   
2. 
   Extralinguistic
   

1. Linguistic difficulties include the followings:

1. 
   The form of the speech (monolog, dialogue);
   
2. 
   Phonetic difficulties (pronunciation of words and sentences);
   
3. 
   Grammatical difficulties(grammatical forms, tenses and sentences structures)
   
4. 
   Stylistic difficulties(dialectical forms of speech)
   

2. Extralinguistic (or paralinguistic) difficulties are:

1. 
   Listening to phonogram or videophonogram
   
2. 
   Listening to the speakers (in face to face talk)
   
3. 
   Tempo of speech ( it may be too fast)
   
4. 
   Tembre of speech ( it may be mellow or harsh);
   
5. 
   Speech should be addressed to smb. (speaking by looking at somebody);
   
6. 
   Condition for speech (noisy room, street etc.);
   
7. 
   Motivation for auding (lack of motivation, interest);
   
8. 
   Attention of the listener (if the listener is inattentive he/she cannot understand the audio text);
   
9. 
   Existence or availability of supporting means ( pictures, key words etc.);
   
10. 
    Amount of listening (it is important how many times the learners listened to the text).
    

A well-known Russian methodologist G.V.Rogova suggests the classification of auditive difficulties bases on phonetics, lexics and grammar.

1. 
   Phonetic difficulties: opposition of phonemes [ s- 0, t-d, w-v,]
   

worked-walked, first-fast, line- lion, tired- tide etc.

2. 
   Lexical difficulties
   

Failure in identifying the words :
“The horse is sleeping. –The horse is slipping.”

3. 
   While improving listing skills act as a listener rather than a teacher.
   
4. 
   Explain the learners listening purpose and show them strategies that will work best with the type of text.
   
5. 
   Encourage the learners to practice listening tape assignments.
   
6. 
   Periodically check comprehension of the learners and review how and when to use particular strategies .
   

Integrating Strategies.
It is essential integrate listening strategies of before listening, while listening and after listening.
Before listening
-Set up purpose of listening;
-decide or define what knowledge is needed.
-determine the strategy of listening
While listening
-verify predictions
-decide what is important to decide.
-check comprehension
After listening
-evaluate comprehension in a particular task
-evaluate overall progress in listening
-define if the strategies used were appropriate for the given task and purpose of listening.

Authentic materials that can be used in improving listening skills.

-radio and TV
-Announcements at the airports, hotels, train, bus, station
-Lectures and public speeches
-telephone customer service recordings

Teachers should help the learners to identify the listen goal and also help them to outline predictable sequences.

Listening process is two way communication process in which listener focuses his/her attention to the speakers language.
Listening is not only the goal but also a means of language learning. Teachers should help the learners to develop listening strategies.
One of such strategies is “top down strategy “ which include the following activities;
-listen with the purpose of clarifying the main ides,
-predicting
-making conclusions
-summarizing
The second strategy is “bottom up strategies” which include the following activities;
-listening for specific details
-to specify the details of information
-to specify word order patterns
The third strategy is metacognitive strategies which include the following activities;
-planning listening activities [ to decide which strategy is to useful]
- monitoring the selected strategy,
-evaluating listening comprehension and effectivity.
The question of developing listening activities should always be on the focus of both: the teachers and the listeners .
This can be done by the help of auditive exercises.
G.V.Rogova suggests two types of exercises in teaching auding:
1. drill exercises
2.speech exercises

1. 
   Drill exercises include phonetic, lexic, grammar exercises
   

1. 
   Phonetic exercises: listen to the words and define the phoneme
   
2. 
   Lexic exercises: listen to the word and find the word ,,toy’’ (or raise your hand, when you listen the word ,,toy’’
   
3. 
   Grammar exercises: listen to the words and define the words in plural form (or raise your hands when you listen plural form of the words)
   

Speech exercises include the following types of auditive exercises;

1. 
   Listen to the text and define the main idea:
   
2. 
   Listen to the text and compile the plan of retelling;
   
3. 
   Listen to the text and put questions;
   
4. 
   Listen to the text and translate (or interpret )
   
5. 
   Listen to the text and tell your ideas on it
   

Solovova E.A suggests the following auditive exercises

1. 
   Repeat the text (words sentences phrases ) after the teacher.
   
2. 
   Exercises aimed to drill memory
   

1. 
   Listen and agree or reject:
   
2. 
   Listen to the text and then compare it with its printed copy.
   
3. 
   Listen to the text and try to keep in your memory the date, names, geographic places and etc. Then repeat them
   
4. 
   Listen to the words and group them according to the given theme;
   
5. 
   Listen to the text and then fill in the gaps in its printed one while listening teachers may give the listeners ,,props ‘’ in the form visual (pictures, graphs, charts, maps eta )