The Listening Skill: Cognitive Processes, the L2 Classroom,
and an Authentic Listening Text
|
Christopher Stern
|
Listening to
speech in order to construct meaning is an intricate process, which, because we
engage in it on a daily basis in order to function as speakers of our native
language, we generally overlook. In this
paper, I will first explore the cognitive processes and other mental features
of listening in our native language, and then examine how they can shed light
on the activity of listening in an L2, and help to inform more effective
practice of listening to the L2 as the acquisition of a skill. Finally, I will review a listening text (Real
Lives, Real Listening, Unit 1) in order to critically examine the tasks and
text included in consideration of those cognitive processes and mental
features, and the degree to which they are activated, overlooked or further
developed.
The Cognitive Process and Mental Features of Listening
In examining the
cognitive process of listening to speech (herein: listening), it may be most
central to introduce the concepts of bottom-up and top-down processing, both of
which play an important part in the creation of meaning. Stated simply, bottom-up processing is
processing beginning at the phonemic level – putting sounds together to form
words, words to form phrases, phrases to form sentences. Top-down processing occurs though relating
information from bottom-up processing to any relevant information we already
have stored in our long-term memory.
From our long-term memory, in top-down processing we access “three types
of background knowledge … (1) linguistic
information … (2) knowledge of the
world … (3) knowledge of discourse
structure” (Omaggio, 2001: 145)
The cooperative
and co-dependent bottom-up and top-down processes are just the starting point
in modeling the cognitive process of listening.
The model for this process comprises three distinct mental entities –
the memory store, working (or short-term) memory, and long-term memory. A dedicated memory store exists for each of
the five senses, for the purpose of retaining, for a very short period, sensory
information in an unanalyzed form. There
are three stages to the cognitive process of listening, calling on both
bottom-up and top down processing. In
the first stage, sounds come into the auditory sensory store. This is the basis for bottom-up processing. It has been found that auditory information
can be retained in its unanalyzed form for up to four seconds in the sensory
store. In the second stage, this
auditory information is held in the working memory while it is checked for
concordances against information in the long-term memory in order to construe
meaning. This is the activity of
top-down processing. In the third stage,
once meaning has been created, it may be transferred from working to long-term
memory. It is instructive to note that
such information is kept in a reduced form. (Underwood, 1989: 2)
Carroll,
in Psychology of Language, makes
three very useful observations related to the mental process of listening. First, he states “The relatively longer
duration of the auditory store may enable us to reanalyze auditory messages
that we did not understand initially.”
(Carroll, 1999: 48) Secondly, he
notes that most information in the sensory stores “disappears very rapidly
because it is not germane to our current goals.” (Carroll, 1999: 48) And finally, he observes that in order to
store information more efficiently we “chunk the words into grammatical
constituents such as noun and verb phrases” (Carroll, 1999: 51).
Of
additional use in understanding the process of listening is the concept of
automatic and controlled processes. Carroll
notes that the working memory has a limited processing capacity (Carroll, 1999:
49), and defines controlled processes as those which draw upon this limited
capacity. He notes the importance of
this concept when considering the cognitive load of complex tasks, and the
possibility of cognitive overload leading to “impaired performance.” In
contrast, automatic processes are those which “do not require extensive
capacity.” (Carroll 1999: 54) In regards to listening, “One language
processing task that is automatic, at least for adults, is recognizing common
words.” (Carroll 1999: 55)
Given the
importance of a goal in the cognitive
process of listening, it is appropriate to consider the reasons for which
listening takes place in authentic situations.
These have been well delineated by Underwood. He summarizes by providing “five main reasons
for listening …(a) to engage in social rituals (b) to exchange information (c)
to exert control (d) to share feelings (e) to enjoy yourself” (Underwood, 1989: 4) He then goes on to delineate all kinds of listening
situations for which students should be prepared. Although perhaps outdated in regards to
genre, these include all the typical situations in which one listens to one’s
native language. More pertinent than listing
the various situations in which native speakers listen, is to note the various
goal-dependent roles of the listener.
These include listener as information gatherer (as in when listening to
a lecture), listener as audience (watching TV or a film, listening to radio),
listener as participant (and speaker, co-creating and directing the event), as
side participant, and as overhearer.
(Flowerdew, 2005:89) In each
case, the listener has a different purpose, by which what is germane and what
is not is determined. It is instructive
to note that the last role, that of overhearer, while being the most typical role of the student
listener, is the least common role of the authentic listener, and the one which
provides the fewest authentic listening goals.
Likewise, given
the importance of top-down processing in the act of listening, it is
instructive to examine all the elements which may come into play. Flowerdew notes eight “distinct dimensions of
listening …Individualized, Affective, Cross-cultural, Strategic, Social,
Intertextual, Contextualized, Critical” (Flowerdew, 2005: 85). While fitting well with Omaggio’s triadic
framework of linguistic, world and discourse knowledge, all of these comprise a listener’s background
knowledge or lack thereof, thus determining top-down processing capability.
Implications for Effective Listening Practice in the L2 Classroom
Because
of the dyadic nature of listening, it is important that listening tasks address
both top-down and bottom-up processes.
While the bottom-up process only occurs through listening itself, the
top-down process can be activated prior to listening, by providing contextual
cues, notably within the realms of students’ linguistic and world
knowledge. This is known as activating the schemata. Numerous authors concur on the importance
of activating schemata, as well as on the importance of choosing a text for
which students have a schema to be activated.
Omaggio states: “learning must be
meaningful to be effective and permanent.
For material to be meaningful, it must be clearly relatable to existing
knowledge that the learner already possesses.”
(Omaggio, 2001: 144) Furthermore,
“comprehension …is not a matter of simply processing the words of the message,
but involves fitting the meaning of the message to the schema that one has in
mind.” (Omaggio, 2001: 148) This process of activating schemata can be
accomplished in the classroom through introduction of any one of a number of
facets of the listening – the topic, the relation of the speakers to each
other, the location of the communication, the discourse genre, etc. – and
asking students to consider what they already know in regards to it.
Brown argues
that “you don’t want to dwell too heavily on the bottom-up, for to do so may
hamper the development of a learner’s all-important automaticity in processing
speech.” (Brown, 1994: 246) While I agree with the importance of
activating schemata, I take issue with his phrase “a learner’s all-important automaticity.” Carroll notes that “not all top-down
processing is facilitative …expectations may actually interfere with learning
new material.” (Carroll, 1999: 54) That is to say, automatic reliance on
top-down processing can lead to expectations which, when contradicted, are
simply not perceived.
Because,
as Carroll noted, information that is not germane to our goals for listening
quickly disappears from the sensory store, it is important to provide students
goals in listening. To some extent, goal
generation occurs simply through the process of activating schemata. But this in and of itself is not enough. This is why pre-listening activities follow
on with listening tasks, which are to be introduced and considered by the
student before the listening itself, in order to provide the student a reason
to listen. Thus, prior to listening,
activities are designed to address only two purposes: providing context, and creating motivation. (Field, 2002: 243)
Finally,
in consideration of the limited processing capacity of working memory, it is
important that listening tasks are presented in a way that is manageable for
students. Nunan, among many other
authors, emphasizes the role of comprehensible input (Nunan, 2002: 238).
When using authentic texts, comprehensibility is best achieved by
simplifying student tasks. (Field, 2002:
244) Thus, through multiple listenings, tasks can be given which develop from
an extensive, or gist-oriented, to an intensive, or detail-oriented nature. Because auditory information is stored in a
chunked or reduced form, questions requiring listening for detail should be
given attention before listening, as a cue for what to listen out for, while
summarizing activities may be information-specific but not word-specific.
Real Lives, Real Listening, Unit 1
The text and accompanying exercises chosen were taken from Real Lives, Real Listening, available at
http://www.northstarelt.co.uk/, and billed as a “new series of ready-made, unscripted, authentic
listening materials featuring native and non-native speakers.” As can be seen from the transcript, this
particular listening takes the form of an interview, and, as the interviewer’s
questions follow quite naturally on ‘Scott’s’ replies, seems quite likely to be
truly authentic, rather than even semi-scripted. In order to direct discussion of the tasks, I
will summarize the transcript as being an interview with Scott, a young Australian
living in a suburb of London, regarding the various living situations and neighbourhoods
he has lived in in London.
The first task of
Section 1 (Pre-Listening Comprehension)
is titled Schema building, and this
seems a good start. However, it takes the
form of multiple choice questions, all relating to Australia (none of which are
answered in the text), while none of the listening text relates to Australia in
any way, and so, as an exercise in schema-building seems to miss the point. Task B, Discussion,
follows on with a further question regarding Australia, a question asking
students to consider why Scott may have left, and finally asking whether
students know what an Australian accent sounds like. While the last question is unlikely to yield
any discussion beyond “yes”,” no”, or “difficult to understand,” the first two,
again do not serve to prepare the learners in any way for what they will hear. A better schema building exercise, given the
content of the text, may be to ask students to discuss what they know about
London, what sort of living arrangements young unmarried people often have in
Western countries, and the advantages and disadvantages of living in certain
types of neighbourhoods. The last task
in this section, Normalisation, is a
very good idea, as it “is designed to help you get used to Scott’s voice.” However, it is nothing more than a gap-fill
exercise. As such, it is technically an
intensive listening task rather than a pre-listening task. While pedagogically it seems sound in encouraging
students to examine the exercise before listening to try to guess the
(grammatical) types of words that may be needed, practically it is over-challenging
as a listening activity, as all the information comes in far too quickly – most
likely confusing students and interrupting their transfer from sensory store to
paper. Rather than ‘normalise’ students
to Scott’s voice it may simply serve to convince them of the difficulty of
catching so much information in so short a time span.
In Section 2 (Listening Comprehension), we see
a continuation of intensive listening tasks, where students are asked to listen
for very specific information. The tasks
take the form of questions which must be answered with specific, discrete
information (A, C and E), or gap-fill (B, D and F). Furthermore, at no point
are students encouraged to discuss or check their answers with other
students. Ideally, at this point,
students should first be given a more global listening task, for example: Does Scott live in a nice part of
London? Why do you think he does or
doesn’t? Discuss your answer with your
friends. After such a task, students
then can move on to listening a second time for more specific information.
Section 3,
titled Interesting Language Points,
begins with an examination of contrasting uses of simple and continuous verb
forms in tasks A and B. As this is
grammar- and not listening-specific it is not germane to our discussion. However, tasks C and D proceed to examine
aspects of speech particular to the Australian accent. The following Section 4, Further Listening Practice, is of more interest from a listening
perspective. Task A, Recognising sentence stress, would prove
useful to listeners, with the added bonus that it asks students (unfortunately,
again singly rather than in pairs), to predict which words might be stressed,
then to check their predictions against the listening. Tasks B, C and E deal with minimal pairs, and
task D with linking. In training
students’ bottom-up listening skills these are sound (no pun intended)
exercises. Unfortunately, this section
of tasks fails to recognize the most interesting language points in regard to
authentic spoken English – the ‘Um’s, the pauses, the reformulations, the back-channeling
on the part of the interviewer, the ‘Yeah, yeah’ and collocated chunks of
language such as “It’s all about …”
While there are
an additional four pages of tasks, I will finish my analysis here, with the
brief note that as opposed to the further gap-fill exercises, it would probably
be much more instructive to focus in post-listening on class-specific
difficulties that come up during the course of the initial listenings. As Field has stated: “the main aim of a listening lesson is
diagnostic …A diagnostic aim for the listening lesson implies a change in
lesson shape …it is much more fruitful to allow time for an extended
post-listening period in which learners’ problems can be identified and
tackled.” (Field, 2002: 246)
In
summary, while providing students exposure to authentic listening texts is a
necessity in the classroom, this is only one element of a well-thought out
listening lesson. A well-developed
listening lesson will take into consideration all aspects of the actual
cognitive processes of listening, encouraging both top-down and bottom up
processing, activating relevant
schemata, as well as conversation, examining aspects specific to spoken
language, and allowing time to deal with class-specific issues as they arise.
Sources:
Brown, D. (1994). Teaching
by Principles. Location: Prentice Hall.
Carroll, D. (1999). Psychololgy of Language. Location:
Brooks/Cole.
Field, J. in Richards & Renandya, Eds. (2002).
Methodology in Language Teaching. Cambridge:
CUP.
Flowerdew, J. & Miller, L. (2005).
Second Language Listening. New York:
CUP.
Lam, W. in Richards & Renandya, Eds. (2002).
Methodology in Language Teaching. Cambridge:
CUP.
Nunan, D. (1991). Language Teaching Methodology. Location:
Prentice Hall.
Nunan, D. in Richards & Renandya, Eds. (2002).
Methodology in Language Teaching. Cambridge:
CUP.
Omaggio Hadley, A.
(2001). Teaching Language in Context, 3rd Ed. Boston:
Heinle & Heinle.
Richards & Renandya, Eds. (2002).
Methodology in Language Teaching. Cambridge:
CUP.
Underwood, M. (1989).
Teaching Listening. Location:
Longman.
REAL
LIVES, REAL LISTENING series
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A new series of ready-made,
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source: http://www.northstarelt.co.uk/
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