Confluence 26 February 2011

Key words: learners, perception, communication, reception, auto-learning, production.


Introduction

A good speaker must be a good listener. Intent listening results in good perception and an equally good comprehension. This is the key element in developing communication skills, especially good conversational skills. The term skill implies an ability, which needs constant exposure to a regular and a continuous practice. Linguists and pedagogues have time and again emphasized the use of audio-system, which is one of the earliest devices to be introduced in a language classroom in communicational approach. This is especially true of L2 Teaching/learning classroom. A learner who focuses on the ‘what’ of a text will also focus or at least, must focus on the ‘how’ of the text he or she is listening to. This can help in achieving effective oral comprehension.

Listening and Speaking

In general, given that the language learner has no speech or hearing disorders, it is possible that he or she falls into the following categories: (1) effective listener and ineffective speaker, (2) ineffective listener and effective speaker, (3) effective listener and effective speaker, or in the worst case, (4) ineffective listener and ineffective speaker. For the present, we stress the first two categories of learners, while the third category can take be treated later.

Proficiency in language begins with exposure to the spoken variety, in terms of the sound segments and the idiosyncrasies of the speakers. This depends largely on the individual cognitive capacity of the listeners, which differs from one person to another. It also depends upon the learners’ awareness of the fact that there is no one way of speaking. There is variation in spoken language which is dialectal, registral or stylistic, depending on different social factors like the speaker’s age, gender, social status, and relationship with the listener and social context. It is this ability to decipher the different varieties of spoken language and draw the message being communicated, that makes one a good listener. Because, as mentioned earlier, taking into consideration the different cognitive process involved, one needs to be a good listener to communicate successfully.

English language proficiency testing systems globally are using this ability to evaluate the proficiency levels of English users. Today, global intelligibility is being stressed upon and this aspect of language learning has been studied extensively, where individual articulatory ability of language users is taken in account. Thus, there is no one standard language to be looked up to, and no one level to be attained, as long as communication is complete.