Listening- a macro skill in language learning

1.2 Factors affecting the listening skill
Listening has an important place in learning as it is one of the four major skills in language acquisition. Even though the other skills such as reading, speaking and writing are essential to develop language proficiency, listening contributes primarily for language expertise. Listening awakens awareness of the language as it is a receptive skill that first develops in a human being. Learning to listen to the target language improves language ability. The sound, rhythm, intonation, and stress of the language can only be perfectly adapted through listening. To understand the nuances in a particular language, one must be able to listen. As we get to understand spoken language by listening it is easier to improve the other skills and gain confidence.
Other than being the primary form of communication, listening helps the language learner to understand the beauty of the language. Especially in terms of communicative language teaching it is said that the basis for communicative competence is listening as it provides the aural input and enables learners to interact in spoken communication and hence language learning largely depends on listening. Thus listening forms the concrete basis for the complete language proficiency.
Brown defines top-down processing as the process of “using our prior knowledge and experiences; we know certain things about certain topics and situations and use that information to understand”. In other words, learners use their background knowledge in order to comprehend the meaning by considering previous knowledge and schemata. On the other hand, bottom up processing refers to the process of “using the information we have about sounds, word meanings, and discourse markers like first, then and after that to assemble our understanding of what we read or hear one step at a time”. During bottom-up processing, learners hear the words, keep them in their short term memory to combine them with each other and interpret the things that they have heard before. According to Tsui and Fullilove (1998), top down processing is more used by skilled listeners while less-skilled listeners use bottom-up processing. It is important to mention that depending on the purpose for listening, learners may use top-down or bottom-up process more than another. In other words, both processes usually happen together in real-life listening. Cahyono and Widiati state that successful listeners are those who can use both bottom-up and top-down processes by combining the new information and the knowledge that they already know. According to Flowerdew and Miller (2005), advanced listening skills are the results of combining listening process with the cognitive development. In that sense, in order to be effective listeners, students should use both bottom-up and top-down processing in listening. That is, “students must hear some sounds (bottom-up processing), hold them in their working memory long enough (a few seconds) to connect them to each other and then interpret what they’ve just heard before something new comes along. At the same time, listeners are using their background knowledge (top-down processing) to determine meaning with respect to prior knowledge and schemata”. Listening skill, which plays an important role not only in communication but also in interpersonal relationships, is unfortunately one of those skills that is given the least significance in school education. Teachers generally believe that the listening skill emerges spontaneously in time, just like breathing. However, listening skill can only be improved by hard work and repetition as it is the case in reading skill. Reaching educational achievement is not probable for a student, who cannot comprehend what he listens to or reads, and who is not capable of expressing his ideas and feelings clearly and accurately through verbal or written communication. Developing the students’ listening skills is directly related to putting forward the factors that take a part in the listening process. In other words, determining the factors that play a role in the listening process is of vital importance not only to the schools and families that educate students, but also to the institutions that train teachers.
The findings indicated that the factor regarding physical environment were considered as the most influential factor of English listening difficulty encountered by the students. Unclear sounds resulting from poor classroom conditions or outside noise were the most problematic for learners compared to unclear sounds resulting from poor-quality of equipment and the lack of visual clues. This means that physical environment is still an important part to be concerned about. As mentioned above, noise is the most problematic in listening. If the listening task is carried out with noises around, it is for sure students will not have a good result in listening. They are distracted by the noise no matter how hard they try to focus on the task. Otherwise, the noise makes a complex of sounds instead of the solo recording being played. This interrupts the students from hearing and focusing on the task. The poor equipment is an obstacle to students in listening. For an example, in listening comprehension, it is the best place for students to do the listening in the laboratory room. This will bring out the better result for the noises outside cannot get through the lab room. A good cassette recorder or a CD player may give them the better rather than that of the old one. In addition, learners reported that lack of visual clues such as pictures, diagrams, charts, video, and etc. also interfered with their listening comprehension. Furthermore, important visual clues can also be communicated through a good physical setting and sequences of action and interaction.

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