AURAL COMPREHENSION INSTRUCTION: Principles and Practices

condensed from Joan Morley

♣ During the last quarter of the 20th century. Academicians have heralded new views on the importance of:

1. individual learners and the individuality of learning;

2. listening and reading as nonpassive and very complex receptive processes;

3. listening comprehension’s being recognized as a fundamental skill;

4. real language used for real communication as a viable classroom model.

♣ In the 1970s, the status of listening began to change from one of neglect to one of increasing importance.
Instructional programs expanded their focus on pragmatic skills to include listening as well as reading, writing,
and speaking.

♣ During the 1980s, special attention to listening was incorporated into new instructional frameworks. it
featured functional language and communicative approaches.

♣ Throughout the 1990s, attention to listening in language instruction increased dramatically. Aural
comprehension in second/foreign language acquisition became an important area of study.

♣ In reality, listening is used far more than any other single language skill in normal daily life. On average, we
can expect to listen twice as much as we speak, four times more than we read, and five times more than we
write.

FOUR GENERIC INSTRUCTIONAL MODELS

MODEL # 1 – Listening and Repeating

Learner Goals: To pattern-match; to listen and initiate; to memorize

Instructional material: Features audio-lingual style exercises and/or dialogue memorization – based on a
hearing-and-pattern matching model.

Procedure: Ask students to a) listen to a word, phrase, or sentence pattern; b) repeat and imitate it; and c)
memorize it often, but not always a part of the procedure.
Value: Enables students to do pattern drills , to repeat dialogues, and to use memorized prefabricated patterns
in conversation; enables them to imitate pronunciation patterns. Higher level cognitive processing and use; d)
propositional language structuring are not necessarily an intentional focus.

Model # 2 – Listening and Answering Comprehension Questions

Learner Goals: To process discrete-point information; to listen and answer comprehension questions.

Instructional material: Features a student response-pattern based on a listening and question answering model
with occasional innovative variations on this theme.

Procedure: Ask students to a) listen to an oral text along a continuum from sentence length to lecture length;
and b) answer primarily factual question. Use familiar types of questions adapted from traditional reading
comprehension exercises. Also called a “quiz-show” format of teaching.
Value: 1) enable students to manipulate discrete pieces of information, hopefully with increasing speed and
accuracy of recall; 2) Increase students’ stock of vocabulary and grammar constructions; 3) Do not require
students to make use of the information for any real communicative purpose beyond answering the questions;
4) Is not interactive two-way communication.

Model # 3 – Task Listening

Learner goals: To process spoken discourse for functional purposes; to listen and do something with the
information, that is, carry out real tasks using the information received.

Instructional material: Ask students to a) Listening-and using (listen-and do) response pattern; b) Complete a
task, solve a problem, transmit the gist of the information orally or in writing; listen and take lecture notes, etc.

Procedure: Ask students to a) listen and process information b) use the orally transmitted language input
immediately to complete a task which is mediated thru language in a context in which success is judged in
terms of whether the task is performed.

Value: The focus is task-oriented, not question-oriented. to use info., not to answer it. There are two types of
tasks:
1) language use tasks: to give students practice in listening, grab gist of it and “make functional use of it”

2) language analysis tasks: to help students develop cognitive and metacognitive language learning strategies,
i.e., to guide them toward personal intellectual involvement in their own learning.

NOTE:

Metacognitive – is a term used in information-processing theory to indicate an “executive” function, strategies

that involve planning for learning, thinking about the learning process as it is taking place, monitoring of one’s
production or comprehension, and evaluating learning after an activity is completed.

e.g., a composition, a lecture, a short essay, etc.

Cognitive – strategies are more limited to specific learning tasks and involve more direct manipulation of the
learning material itself.

Model # 4 – Interactive Listening

Learner goals: To develop aural/oral skill in semiformal interactive academic communication; to develop critical
listening, critical thinking, and effective speaking abilities.

Instructional material: Two-way communication by means of individual or small-group presentation or

discussion, followed by audience participation in Q&A.

Procedure: Ask students to participate in discussion activities that enable them to develop all three phases of
the speech act: speech decoding, critical thinking, and speech encoding.

Value: the focus is communicative/competence-oriented as well as task oriented. Learners have opportunities
to engage in and develop the complex array of communicative skills in the four competency areas: linguistic
competence, discourse competence, sociolinguistic competence, and strategic competence.

Some Psychosocial dimensions of Language and the Listening act

Purpose: to bring students to an understanding that listening is not a passive skill, but an active receptive skill
which requires as much work as does becoming skilled in reading, writing, and speaking in a second language.
Listening in three modes:
Bidirectional (two-way) listening mode – Two (or more) participants take turns exchanging speaker role and
listener role as they engage in face-to-face or telephone verbal interaction.

Unidirectional (one-way) listening mode – auditory input comes from a variety of sources: overheard
conversations, public address announcements, recorded messages (telephone answering machines), radio,
TV, lectures, religious services, etc. Being unable to interact, we respond by talking to ourselves or in self-
dialogue manner. We may sub-vocalize or even vocalize these responses.

Autodirectional listening mode – or self-dialogue communication. In our thought process, as we think, plan
strategies, and make decisions, we talk to ourselves and listen to ourselves.

Psychosocial functions of listening:

Transactional function:

1) message-oriented

2) focus on content and conveying factual or propositional information

3) giving instructions, explaining, describing, giving directions, ordering, inquiring, requesting, relating, etc.

4) The premium is on message clarity and precision. Speakers often use confirmation checks to make sure
what they are saying is clear.

5) It’s “business-type” talk.

Interactional function

1) person oriented

2) the objective is the establishment and maintenance of cordial social relationships.

3) examples: identifying with the other person’s concerns, being nice to the other person, and maintaining and
respecting “face.”

4) It’s “social-type” talk.

Developing listening comprehension activities and materials

Three principles for materials development

a) Relevance
b) Transferability/Applicability
c) Task Orientation

1. Relevance

–Both the listening lesson content (the information) and the outcome (the way the information is put to use)
need to be as relevant as possible to the learner. This serves to hold learner attention and provide motivational
incentive.

— The more the lessons focus on things with real-life relevance, the more they appeal to students, and the
better the chance of having learners’ wanting to listen.
–If the listening activities is self-created, relevance is easy to control. If published materials are used, Richards
suggests some ways to adapt materials to suit students’ needs: modifying the objectives; adding prelistening
activities (warm-up); changing the teaching procedures for class presentation and devising postlistening
activities (wrap-up).

2. Transferability/Applicability

–internally: can be used in other classes.

externally: can be used in out-of-school situations.

— The best listening lessons present in-class activities that mirror real life, i.e.,
the use of radio or television news broadcasts in adult classes can provide not only a real experience in
listening comprehension, but such lessons also contain content that can be applicable outside of class as a
source of conversation topics.

3. Task Orientation

–In children, teenage, and adult classes, it is productive to combine two

different kinds of focus: 1) language use tasks and 2) language analysis
activities.

–Define “Task”?

a) to provide “actual meaning” by focusing on tasks through language.

Success is judged in terms of whether the tasks are performed.

b) It is task-oriented, not question-oriented, providing learners with tasks which

use the information in the aural text, rather than asking learners to prove their
understanding of the text by answering questions.

Focus 1: Language use tasks

–to give students practice in listening and then doing something (“Listen-and do”), e.g., “Simon says”, taking
phone messages, outlining info. etc.

Focus 2: Language analysis tasks

–aimed to give students opportunities to analyze selected aspects of language structure (i.e., form) and
language use (i.e., function) and to develop some personal strategies to facilitate learning.

Focus 2: Language analysis tasks.

To analyze “fast speech, to chunk the input into units for interpretation, to analyze sociolinguistic dimensions,
including participants and their roles and relationships, settings, purpose of the communicative episode, and
expected outcomes, and to analyze strategies used by speakers to deal with miscommunication,
communication break-downs, distractions, etc.
— Materials: Recordings of real-life conversations, talks, and discussions can be used to introduce listening
analysis tasks.

LECTURE 2

A Framework for Planning a Listening Skills Lesson

Listening is one of the most challenging skills for our students to develop and yet also one of the most
important. By developing their ability to listen well we develop our students’ ability to become more
independent learners, as by hearing accurately they are much more likely to be able to reproduce accurately,
refine their understanding of grammar and develop their own vocabulary.

In this article I intend to outline a framework that can be used to design a listening lesson that will develop your
students’ listening skills and look at some of the issues involved.

a. The basic framework

b. Pre-listening
c. While listening
d. Post-listening
e. Applying the framework to a song
f. Some conclusions

The basic framework

The basic framework on which you can construct a listening lesson can be divided into three main stages.

Pre-listening, during which we help our students prepare to listen.

While listening, during which we help to focus their attention on the listening text and guide the development of
their understanding of it.
Post-listening, during which we help our students integrate what they have learnt from the text into their
existing knowledge.

Pre-listening

There are certain goals that should be achieved before students attempt to listen to any text. These are
motivation, contextualisation, and preparation.

Motivation

It is enormously important that before listening students are motivated to listen, so you should try to select a
text that they will find interesting and then design tasks that will arouse your students’ interest and curiosity.

Contextualisation

When we listen in our everyday lives we hear language within its natural environment, and that environment
gives us a huge amount of information about the linguistic content we are likely to hear. Listening to a tape
recording in a classroom is a very unnatural process. The text has been taken from its original environment
and we need to design tasks that will help students to contextualise the listening and access their existing
knowledge and expectations to help them understand the text.

Preparation

To do the task we set students while they listen there could be specific vocabulary or expressions that students
will need. It’s vital that we cover this before they start to listen as we want the challenge within the lesson to be
an act of listening not of understanding what they have to do.

While listening

When we listen to something in our everyday lives we do so for a reason. Students too need a reason to listen
that will focus their attention. For our students to really develop their listening skills they will need to listen a
number of times – three or four usually works quite well – as I’ve found that the first time many students listen
to a text they are nervous and have to tune in to accents and the speed at which the people are speaking.
Ideally the listening tasks we design for them should guide them through the text and should be graded so that
the first listening task they do is quite easy and helps them to get a general understanding of the text.
Sometimes a single question at this stage will be enough, not putting the students under too much pressure.

The second task for the second time students listen should demand a greater and more detailed understanding
of the text. Make sure though that the task doesn’t demand too much of a response. Writing long responses as
they listen can be very demanding and is a separate skill in itself, so keep the tasks to single words, ticking or
some sort of graphical response.

The third listening task could just be a matter of checking their own answers from the second task or could lead
students towards some more subtle interpretations of the text.

Listening to a foreign language is a very intensive and demanding activity and for this reason I think it’s very
important that students should have ‘breathing’ or ‘thinking’ space between listenings. I usually get my students
to compare their answers between listenings as this gives them the chance not only to have a break from the
listening, but also to check their understanding with a peer and so reconsider before listening again.

Post-listening

There are two common forms that post-listening tasks can take. These are reactions to the content of the text,
and analysis of the linguistic features used to express the content.

Reaction to the text

Of these two I find that tasks that focus students reaction to the content are most important. Again this is
something that we naturally do in our everyday lives. Because we listen for a reason, there is generally a
following reaction. This could be discussion as a response to what we’ve heard – do they agree or disagree or
even believe what they have heard? – or it could be some kind of reuse of the information they have heard.

Analysis of language

The second of these two post-listening task types involves focusing students on linguistic features of the text.
This is important in terms of developing their knowledge of language, but less so in terms of developing
students’ listening skills. It could take the form of an analysis of verb forms from a script of the listening text or
vocabulary or collocation work. This is a good time to do form focused work as the students have already
developed an understanding of the text and so will find dealing with the forms that express those meanings
much easier.

Applying the framework to a song.

Here is an example of how you could use this framework to exploit a song:

Pre-listening

Students brainstorm kinds of songs

Students describe one of their favourite songs and what they like about it

Students predict some word or expressions that might be in a love song

While listening

Students listen and decide if the song is happy or sad

Students listen again and order the lines or verses of the song
Students listen again to check their answers or read a summary of the song with errors in and correct them.
Post-listening

Focus on content
Discuss what they liked / didn’t like about the song
Decide whether they would buy it / who they would buy it for
Write a review of the song for a newspaper or website
Write another verse for the song

Focus on form

Students look at the lyrics from the song and identify the verb forms
Students find new words in the song and find out what they mean
Students make notes of common collocations within the song

12 Strategies That Help Improve your Listening Comprehension in English

1. Getting the Main Idea from the Introduction

‍ efore jumping in the depth of the discussion on the subject of their talk, speakers tend to provide an
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introduction in which they explain the topic and provide an overview of what they are going to discuss.  They
may say: Today, I am going to discuss/talk about _________ or In this lecture, I will address/cover
_________ or I chose the topic of ____________ for my today’s presentation.
Try to be extremely attentive during the first several minutes of the talk—this is when you will be able to get the
main idea.  Understanding the purpose and the main idea of the talk given in the introduction will help you stay
focused as well as pay closer attention to details that the speaker will provide to support the main ideas.
‍2. Using an Outline to Take Notes
‍ nother helpful activity that you could do when attending lectures or presentations is writing an outline.  Outline
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is a visual representation of the main points and supporting examples of a listening passage.  Using
an outline is particularly helpful on those presentations and lectures where the speaker presents several points
or describes a series of steps.  By listing the steps and jotting down the supporting details for each of them,
you will be able to better understand the speaker.The basic outline could look something like
this:Step/Point/Concept 1: _______________________________________________________Supporting
examples:
________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________Step/Point/Concept 2:
_______________________________________________________Supporting examples:
________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________‍
3. Using Graphic Organizers
‍ s a variation of an outline, you can also draw a graphic organizer.  Similar to outlines, graphic organizers will
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help you visualize the organization of the presentation and map out the main ideas and supporting details, as
well as see connections between them.
‍ . Listening for Definitions When you listen to an academic lecture, you may hear specific terms that you are
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not familiar with.  Speakers have different ways of giving definitions of new terms.  That may use su
ch words as: that is, it means, is.
‍5. Listening for Supporting Details
‍ o accommodate the diverse needs of the audience, the speaker may also provide examples of the new terms
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in the lecture.  In addition, they may also provide supporting details to better illustrate the points they are
making or elaborate on the main ideas.  It is important to listen for those supporting details, as they will
facilitate your comprehension.  Some of the most common expressions that many speakers use before
providing examples are: such as, for example, one example is, for instance, example includes, to illustrate, one
is, take (for example).  So try to pay attention to those signal phrases as you listen.
‍6. Listening for Similarities and Differences
‍ uring their talks, speakers may also compare and contrast different concepts, items, and terms.  They can
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use certain expressions to indicate 1) similarities, such as: similar to, at the same time, as well as, both, like,
likewise, as, in comparison and 2) differences, such as: on the other hand, to contrast, despite, although, even
though, however, nevertheless, unlike, yet, but, on the contrary, rather, though, regardless.  Listen for those
phrases because they tell you that a similar or a different example is coming.

7. Listening for Referencing Phrases:

I‍n many lectures or presentations, speakers often report on the findings of research or provide the results of a
questionnaire or a survey.  They may use phrases that indicate the reporting information.  These phrases are
called referencing phrases because they indicate that a reference to a source will follow.  It’s helpful to listen
for those phrases, as they will help you notice and pay attention to supporting details.  Some of the most
commonly used phrases are: according to, a study reports, based on the results of, the researcher found that,
the findings showed.
‍8. Listening for Causes and Effects
‍ hen speakers try to explain different relationships in their talks or discuss how one item affects the other, it is
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very important to distinguish between causes and effects, that is, the reasons and the consequences.
Oftentimes, the speakers would use words and expressions that can help you recognize cause-effect
relationships.  The most commonly used words and expressions are: because, because of, due to, for this
reason, so, then, as a result, as a consequence, therefore, thus, accordingly.For example, in the
sentence: Because of the increasing number of international students, many universities started to offer
remedial English courses.

 Cause: Because of the increasing number of international students

 Effect: Many universities started to offer remedial English courses

9. Listening for Solutions to Problems

‍ hen speakers describe problems in their talks, they sometimes can also address solutions to those
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problems.  Therefore, it is important to learn to listen for the solutions.  So if you are at the lecture that
addresses a problem, ask yourself the following questions to help you identify the solution:

 Is there any way to solve the problem addressed by the speaker?

 What may be an appropriate solution to this problem?
 What can we do about this problem?

The examples of phrases listed above are often used by speakers.  However, this may not always be the case.
Therefore, you need to pay a close attention to the overall organization of the lecture and the development of
the speaker’s ideas10. Verifying Hypotheses During a talk, you can sometimes make predictions about the
content and the main points discussed by the speaker.  The title of the talk and your background knowledge on
the topic will help you form hypotheses about the presentation.  These hypotheses will be either confirmed or
disproved in the process of listening.  Forming hypotheses and listening for the confirmation or disproval will
help you stay focused during the talk, which, as we already know, will facilitate your listening comprehension.

11. Using Keywords to Take Notes ‍

You can also practice taking notes, which will increase your ability to concentrate and pay attention to the
details.  When you are listening, do not try to write down everything you hear.  It is impossible!  Instead, listen
for keywords from the presentation and take notes using those keywords.  Keywords are usually nouns, verbs,
and numbers.  As you take notes, skip unimportant words such as be, a, the, and prepositions.  Using
keywords and leaving out unimportant words will allow you to take notes much faster and more effectively.For
example, you hear: “Based on the results of this experiment, the researcher made a conclusion that men are
not just driven by money, but by knowing whether they earn more or less than their coworkers.” You
write: “Study: men driven by coworkers earnings (+/- their own salary).”
‍12. Using Abbreviations and Symbols to Take Notes
‍ s stated above, it’s impossible to write down everything the speaker says.  Therefore, you need to use short
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versions (abbreviations) of words and phrases, as well as symbols.  These abbreviations and symbols vary
among people, and it is up to you what kinds of symbols you use—as long as they make sense to you.  In fact,
it would be a great idea to create your personal system of abbreviations and symbols that you will make use
of.Some examples of symbols and abbreviations:

 Ex. – example
 + - and
 = - means, is, results in
 4 – for
 int. – international
 w/o – without
 vs. – against
 v. – very
 < less than
 > more than

To conclude, many of you would probably agree that understanding a speech in a foreign language is
challenging.  But the good news is that there are numerous exercises that you can do to substantially improve
your listening skills.  I described just some of them here, and I hope you will find them useful.
Are there any strategies that you have for helping to improve your listening comprehension in English?