Strategies for Teaching Second Language Listening Comprehension

Joseph A. Wipf Purdue University

Introduction Listening comprehension is a complex, problem-

solving skill. In many instances understanding the spoken word poses more obstacles to the language learner than speaking. In generating speech, learners control the scope and difficulty of ut- terances. The listener, however, must be prepared to encounter and decode unfamiliar messages.

Perhaps a graphic representation (see Figure 1 ) of the listening skill with its basic components will illustrate the complexity of the assignment. Chas- tain ( l ) , Rivers (4), and Valette (5) provide more details on the components of listening comprehen- sion with implications for the classroom teacher.

The dark space in the center, where all the com- ponents are superimposed, represents listening comprehension, and the size of the darkened area determines the degree of mastery. for native ability or complete comprehension, the model would be seen as a single circle entirely blackened. Finally, the enveloping circle represents the con- text in which the listening comprehension takes place.

Some situations, such as one-way communica- tion (for example, a radio broadcast), present much greater difficulty for the listener than others. Many conversations, however, take place in a setting which provides multiple cues. Discussion of food

Figure 1 : Components of Listening Comprehension

Sound Discrimination Grammatical Structures

Vocabulary

CONTEXT

Retention

Stress and Intonation

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or a choice of restaurants is generally supported by hunger or time cues. Similarly, the TV viewer or movie-goer is supported by visual cues.

In any case, it is clear that listening comprehen- sion is a complex and interdependent process, and one must question whether all of the components can be taught and learned simultaneously. Rivers (4) states the problem aptly when she describes listening as a creative skill where the raw material of words, arrangements of words, and the rise and fall of the voice must all be processed by the learner.

Isolation of Tasks In discussing approaches to the teaching of

reading, Rivers ( 3 ) suggests that courses and materials can be designed to teach students to ex- tract information from texts with only a recogni- tion knowledge of grammatical relations. Among the skills that Rivers maintains students need, is the ability to recognize those grammatical structures which may impede comprehension.

If this type of recognition is necessary and desirable for one receptive skill (reading), then it is equally as important for the other receptive skill (listening). Readers can reread at will selections which they d o not understand, or they can even consult a dictionary or grammar book. The fleeting nature of the spoken word rarely affords that lux- ury to the listener.

These conditions seem to dictate that language teachers and educators need to devote more time and attention to the dilemma of the listener. The call for action is perhaps made most clearly by Chastain ( I ) , who asserts that in reading, students are assisted in making the transition from careful- ly controlled materials to less structured readings, but that in listening comprehension, little assistance and very few guidelines are provided. The assump- tion is made that students will automatically understand spoken messages without specific ex- ercises and practice in that skill. Classroom results do not indicate that such is the case.

For this reason the writer is theorizing that the isolation of tasks such as the recognition of what might be labelled “grammatical signals” needs to become a fundamental component of instructional materials. This suggestion is in keeping with Mueller’s assertion (2) that recognizing the grarn- matical function of a phrase within the total sentence is a major activity and is an essential step in the comprehension process.

According to data gathered at Purdue Universi- ty, it appears feasible to isolate some learner tasks within the various components of listening com-

prehension (see graphic representation given earlier). These data show that the single task of gleaning “grammatical signals” from spoken ut- terances can pose problems for beginning students of a second language. The identification of time in hypothesis and consequence clauses is one such task which the learner who expects to communicate with ease and without misunderstandings must master.

After completing two units on the concept and grammatical structures of the subjunctive for unreal conditions, second-semester students of Ger- man (n = 164) heard 20 hypothesis and consequence clauses with the sole task of determining whether the statement referred to present or past time. Although the mean score of 15.4 items correct ap- pears respectable, one must remember that the learners had only one simple task. Furthermore, the grammatical signals one must recognize to iden- tify time correctly are rather limited in conditional statements. Those referring to past time are built on the pluperfect tense. The auxiliary verbs haften and waren are used in their subjunctive forms hiit- ten and wiiren in combination with a past partici- ple, or else hiitten is used with a double infinitive. The two items with the lowest difficulty index (the lower the index, the greater the difficulty) contained the latter construction, an indication that students need special training in listening comprehension to help them recognize the basic grammatical signals essential for communication.

Following are some sample items which appeared on the listening exercise.

1.

2 . 3.

4. 5 .

Wenn ich das wiiRte, wiirde ich es dir gerne sagen. Das ware natiirlich sehr interessant gewesen. Sie ware auch mitgefahren, wenn wir sie eingeladen hat ten. Wie hatten wir das wissen sollen? Wenn ich Sie ware, wurde ich nicht anrufen.

In French, some problems faced by the learner which would lend themselves to systematic listen- ing comprehension exercises of the type suggested here, are:

1. Plural cues

is given by the definite article only, as in: Le garqon parle franqais. Les garcons parlent franqais.

a) With ER-verbs the plural cue for the listener

b) With some verbs the only cue of plurality for the listener is the verb ending. For example:

I1 vend les livres. 11s vendent les livres.

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2. Verb tense signals Je parlais anglais. (imperfect) Je parlerai anglais. (future) Je parlerais anglais. (present conditional)

3. Recognizing the referants of pronouns

lamp, or more than one book or lamp? For example, a m I giving him/her a book, a

Je le lui donne. Je la lui donne. Je les lui donne.

If grammatical signals (which are finite in number) were identified and taught systematically during the early stages of language instruction so they would be recognized quickly and automatically when they are encountered within the context of longer speech utterances, perhaps the listener could begin concentrating earlier o n other components of listening comprehension, such as vocabulary, the acquisition of which is an endless task.

Lock-Step Approach to Language Teaching If one analyzes most of our teaching materials

carefully, it becomes apparent that the performance level expected of the learner is almost always iden- tical for the receptive and generative skills. For ex- ample, reading selections are followed by writing exercises demanding the same level of language mastery. This could be a mistake of serious dimen- sions because, even in our native language, recep- tive skill capabilities consistently surpass those of the generative skills. The net result might be that progress in the receptive skills is seriously retard- ed. The lock-step progression we tend to follow is represented in Figure 2.

Since we are dealing with the question of recall vs. recognition when we compare the receptive and generative skills, the rate of progress by second language learners relative to the four skills might more realistically be made as illustrated in Figure 3 .

Figure 3 : Receptive vs. Generative Skill Acquisition Rates

This problem is especially significant for adult learners who are frustrated by their very elemen- tary language production ability in the initial stages of instruction. It might be pedagogically wiser to challenge learners to proceed at a much faster pace in the receptive skills. Comprehension could be checked in the learner’s native language, but responses in the target language would, of course, be accepted. The goal for instructors would be to conduct classes in the target language, which is represented by the left triangle in Figure 4. Thus, progress in the receptive skills would not be impeded because of insufficient fluency in the generative skills.

Figure 4: Instructor- Learner Interaction Figure 2: Lock-Step Approach to L2 Teaching

[L I s T E N I N CA ~ R E A D I N C 4 I S P E A K I N G --j/ I W R I T I N C 4

Instructor Learner Ques tions/Stimuli Response

L1

-~ Conclusion

If we are serious about teaching listening com- prehension, we should consider the introduction and use of authentic language models in place of

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contrived utterances at a significantly earlier level than is now the case. The teaching strategy sug- gested above would make this possible. Excerpts of radio broadcasts for intermediate level classes could be utilized, for example. Even short segments of broadcasts which the learner is able to hear on a repeated basis can be a valuable teaching tool.

REFERENCES

2.

3,

4.

1. Chastain, Kenneth. Developing Second-Language 5 . Skills: Theory to Practice, 2nd ed. Chicago: Rand McNally College Publishing Co., 1976.

Mueller, Theodore. “Another Look at How to Teach Listening and Reading Comprehension.” The Modern Language Journal 58 (1974): 19-23.

Rivers, Wilga M. “Reading for Information.” American Foreign Language Teacher 4 (1973): 7-9, 38.

. Teaching Foreign-Language Skills, 2nd ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1981.

Valette, Rebecca M. Modern Language Testing: A Handbook, 2nd ed. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977.

ETS/Penn State Oral Proficiency Testing Project

In its 1979 report, the President’s Commission on Foreign Language and International Studies recommended the establishment of a national system of proficiency standards for foreign language education. In the last four years, a number of agencies and institutions (ETS, ACTFL, the Illinois Foreign Language Teachers Association, and the University of New Hampshire, among others) have received support for projects related to oral proficiency assess- ment in order to carry out this recommendation.

To continue this work, ETS and the Pennsylvania State University have received a three- year grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language Program, to conduct a series of workshops to train post-secondary teachers of French, German, and Spanish in oral proficiency interviewing and rating. The goals of the project are: (1) to train foreign language teachers in the principles and procedures of oral proficiency assessment, and (2) to create a regional network of foreign language educators committed to proficiency-based language teaching.

The first oral proficiency testing workshop will take place at Penn State University, Univer- sity Park, PA, on November 7-1 1, 1984. Training will be offered in French, German, and Spanish. The five-day workshop will concentrate on the theory and practice of oral profi- ciency testing, followed by a three- to four-month post-workshop training period. Participants will complete their training by conducting 25 taped interviews on their home campuses, which will be evaluated by the workshop trainers. The region served at this workshop is post- secondary institutions in central and western Pennsylvania, central, northern, and western New York, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia.

The workshop staff includes: Judith E. Liskin-Gasparro, ETS, Project Director (Spanish); Jeannette D. Bragger, Penn State, On-Site Project Coordinator (French); Heidi Byrnes, Georgetown University (German); Pardee Lowe, Jr., Interagency Language Roundtable (Ger- man); Martha A. Marks, Kalamazoo College (Spanish); and June K. Phillips, Indiana Univer- sity of Pennsylvania (French).

For more information, contact Judith E. Liskin-Gasparro; Educational Testing Service 18-E; Princeton, NJ 08541; telephone (609) 734-1487.