Theme: Effective ways of teaching listening and speaking contents introduction chapter problematic aspects of classroom listening and speaking

1.2 The problems when speaking in foreign language.
It is known that in the practice of teaching the methodology of teaching listening is the least developed. One of the main reasons for the lack of attention to listening on the part of methodologists and teachers is the fact that, until recently, listening was considered an easy skill. There was a point of view that if, when teaching oral speech, the teacher concentrates all efforts on speaking and ensures the mastery of this skill, then students will learn to understand speech spontaneously, without special purposeful training. The incorrectness of this point of view is proved by both theory and practice.
So, those teachers who think that the ability to speak at least a little in a foreign language also provides the ability to freely understand oral speech within the same limits are very mistaken. Although these two skills are in a known relationship. To achieve their uniform development is possible only by applying special graduated exercises to develop the ability to understand exactly oral speech in different communication conditions.
Undoubtedly, the most significant difficulty of auditing should be considered the lack of the auditor's ability to regulate activities. Listening is the only type of speech activity in which nothing depends on the person performing it. The listener, unlike the one who reads, writes or speaks, is powerless to change the activity performed, to facilitate it, to adapt it to his abilities and thus create favorable conditions for receiving information.
In the methodology, there are two ways to deal with difficulties: their elimination or their overcoming.
The removal of difficulties, of course, facilitates the mastery of listening and gives quick and tangible results. Therefore, teachers often strive to facilitate the activities of students as much as possible. However, such artificially facilitated listening does not prepare for the perception of natural speech, since all the eliminated difficulties are present in it, and the student is not prepared to overcome them.
Since the main goal of training is to prepare the student for verbal communication in natural conditions, the learning process will only be purposeful and effective when the student already at this time has encountered the difficulties of natural speech and has learned to overcome them. Consequently, it seems to us correct not to eliminate, but to gradually and consistently overcome difficulties in the learning process. It should also be noted that excessive facilitation of activity does not contribute to its improvement. As psychologists point out, the most effective is such training in any activity that is carried out under conditions of high tension in the psyche of the individual, mobilization of his will and attention, and the precise functioning of all mental mechanisms.
In order to target listening training to overcome difficulties and, on this basis, to develop skills and abilities that can successfully function in natural conditions, it is necessary to clearly imagine these difficulties.
Let's look at these difficulties in more detail.
1. The group of difficulties associated with the conditions of perception seems to be the most numerous:
One-time and short-term presentation of information, which requires a quick reaction from the listener when perceiving the sounding text;
The pace set by the speaker. The average rate of English speech is 250 syllables per minute, German - 220 syllables, French - 330 (the measurement is given in syllables, since German words are much longer than English and French). So, the average German word consists of 6 - 13 letters, and the English - from 4 - 5 letters;
· Source of listening: live partner in a conversation, sounding speech from an audio cassette, speaker, radio text, timbre, voice power, individual characteristics of speech, deviation from the standard pronunciation, gender (male or female voice), age (children's or adult voice);
1. The following group of difficulties is associated with the perception of the linguistic form:
Unfamiliar material contained in the audio text (vocabulary, grammar) or familiar, but complex;
The presence of homonyms in the information (words belonging to the same part of speech and sounding the same, but different in meaning);
The presence of homophones (words that sound the same but have different spellings);
The use of words in a figurative sense, polysemantic words;
Language difficulties distract the listener from the content, making it difficult to understand.
2. Difficulties associated with the content of the audio text:
· Understanding facts (numbers, dates, proper names, geographical names, etc.);
· Understanding the logic of presentation due to information overload;
· Understanding the general idea.
3. Difficulties associated with the form of presentation of the audio text.
Studies show that the teacher's speech is most easily perceived, illustrated by visualization, it is already more difficult - speech without visualization, audio texts from an audio cassette, and the most difficult are texts on the radio. Having studied various forms of presentation of audio texts (audio text with illustration, listening with and without support from printed text, presentation of audio text), it is believed that listening comprehension depends on:
On the complexity of the text (the more complex the text, the more supports are required to remove difficulties);
Auditory skills of students (the more competent and experienced students are, the faster they are able to give up support in the form of printed text and other illustrations, the faster you can move on to listening to texts without pauses);
· Learning goals and objectives (if the task is to prepare students for a real situation and form a truly auditory competence, the printed basis should be abandoned). It is unlikely that in a real situation of communication there will be a need to perceive information through the auditory and visual channels simultaneously. Genuine auditory competence is formed only with the help of "pure" listening.
4. There are difficulties associated with the perception of a certain type of speech activity and type of utterance. Most researchers believe that monologue texts are easier to perceive than dialogic ones, and among monologues, plot texts are much easier than descriptive ones.
5. A special group is the difficulties associated with the acquisition of sociolinguistic and sociocultural competence. Lack of knowledge of the norms of using the language in accordance with the situation, lack of knowledge of situational options for expressing the same intention, ignorance of the rules and social norms of behavior of native speakers, traditions, history, culture can make it difficult to interpret the partner’s speech behavior, understanding the information perceived by ear Elukhina N. V
As you can see, listening is indeed a very complex type of speech activity. Much of the difficulty comes out in natural communication, as we can't go back and rewind the tape. In addition, in a situation of natural communication, there are many distractions - street noise, audience noise, music, laughter, etc. But as some wise man said, if you cannot change the situation, you need to change your attitude towards it. To do this, you need to know how listening functions, understand its mechanisms Methods of teaching foreign languages ​​in primary and secondary schools: a textbook for students of pedagogical colleges (edited by V.M. Filatov) / Series “Secondary vocational education”. - Rostov n / a: "Phoenix", 2004 - 236. Thus, listening has a numerous number of difficulties. Difficulties associated with perception, with the form of presentation of the text, with the conditions of perception. Listening training aims to overcome these difficulties.