lower-level “identification” skills
, through which they recognize words and
structures necessary for decoding;
higher-level “ interpretive” skills
, through which they reconstruct meaning of
whole parts of the text.
Both of these skills blend into one as the listener (reader) attaches meaning to
a text and makes it a part of what he or she knows.
The research has documented a number of factors that affect comprehension
of a text, be it oral or written.
The first factor
is the importance of context and background knowledge in
understanding input. This linking of new and existing knowledge helps the listener
make a sense of the text more quickly. The key role of context has been verified by
many studies by listening and reading. These experiments have shown that
listeners provided with prior contextual assistance, such as pictures, scripts,
comprehend more accurately than they do in the absence of such support. Te use of
contextual and background information aids understanding.
A second factor
is the degree to which the listener(or reader) uses strategies,
such as guessing in context. Many studies support the claim that learners who
interact with the text through predicting, skimming, scanning, and using
background knowledge and comprehend much better than learners who fail to use
these strategies.
A third factor
that affects comprehension is the purpose for listening (or
reading) or the nature of the task. The type of task determing the kind of strategy
required. For example, a person listening to today’s weather report might choose to
attend only to temperature and disregard other details .
A fourth factor
relates to the length of the text presented for comprehension.
At junior stages of teaching students are given shorter, edited text to listen
( or
read). Students, who listen to shorter texts are more likely to use word-for-word
processing strategies. Some evidence suggests that longer texts may be easier for
students to comprehend because they are more interesting, though they require
more top-down processing.
A fifth factor
is the type of text presented. Traditionally, the difficulty of texts
has been judged on basis of the simplicity of grammatical structures and the
familiarity of the vocabulary. However, studies have shown that exposure to texts
with unfamiliar grammar and vocabulary does not significantly affect
comprehension. Other factors, such as the quality of the text itself in terms of
factual consistency and coherence, as well as the background knowledge and
motivation of learners, may be more important considerations for teachers when
selecting texts.
A sixth factor
involves the treatment of new vocabulary. The use of
vocabulary lists with definitions does little to help the students build vocabulary or
comprehend more effectively. It will be more effective to present new words in
terms of their thematic and discourse relationship to the text instead of giving
dictionary definitions. Students should be encouraged to learn the same words.
In-class vocabulary practice should provide opportunities for students to find
additional words, that relate to the same semantic category, teach students to
identify affixes, suffixes or parts of speech.
Implications for teaching listening (reading).
Research points to the following implication for teaching the receptive skills:
✔
Students comprehension may increase if they are trained to use
strategies such as activation of background knowledge and guessing.
✔
Students need pre-reading and pre- listening activities that prepare them
for the comprehension task;
✔
Text appropriateness should be judged on the basis of text quality,
interest level and learners need.
✔
Authentic materials provide an affective means for presenting real
language, integrating culture and heightening comprehension;
✔
Vocabulary must be connected to text structure, students interest and
background knowledge in order to aid retention and recall.
✔
Students should be taught to interact with the text through the use of
both bottom-up and top-down processes;
✔
Comprehension assessment engage the learner in activities, through
which he or she interact with the text.
Exercises for teaching listening comprehension:
Exercises for developing habits of listening comprehension:
a ) exercises aimed at overcoming phonetic difficulties of reception
Examples:
Listen to following words and raise your hand when you hear a word with the
sound…
Listen to the sentences and raise your hand when you hear an
interrogative(affirmative, negative) sentences;
Listen to the sentence and say how many words it contains;
Divide the word you heard into separate sounds and name them;
State the number of vowels and consonants in the words you hear;
State the numbers of words in the sentence you hear.
Exercises to teach pupils to overcome grammatical difficulties.
Listen to the sentence and name the subject;
Listen to the sentence and say in which the action is used in the past (present,
future);
Listen to the sentence and say how many members of the sentence it contains
Repeat the sentence after the speaker ( the sentence is gradually extended);
Listen to the sentence and say in what they differ;
Listen to the sentence several times and write down the new words that appear
each time;
Listen to the sentence and guess the meaning of the new words.
Exercises aimed at overcoming lexical difficulties.
Listen to the sentence and try to understand the meaning without paying
attention to the new words;
Listen to the homonymes in sentences and guess their meaning;
Listen to the synonyms in sentences give their meaning;
Listen to the sentences with polysemantic words and find the shades of their
meaning
Mark the words on the list that are used in the sentences you hear;
Write down the figures you hear etc.
Exercises in listening to connected speech.
Divide the passage into sentences.
Say what is missing in the passage you hear.
Listen to a number of sentences two times and say what is missing when you
hear it a second time.
Listen to the sentences written on the card and point out the difference in their
sequence.
Look at the list of names and mark those you hear in the text.
Write down the names you hear in the text.
Write down the traits of character you hear in the text.
Listen to the passage and write down the key words
Listen to the text again retell it using the key words you wrote down.
Exercises to teaching anticipation.
Listen to the sentence and made up your own connected with it in meaning.
Listen to the text and say what it is about.
Listen to the passage and choose those that contain the main idea.
Look at the outline of the text and give the title.
Look at the key words and guess the theme of the text.
Listen to the beginning of the text and try to make an outline of what will
follow.
Listen to a fragment of the text and find its place in the typed variant.
Look at the sentences and place them in their logical sequence.
Exercises in developing students’ auditive memory, attention, imagination and
logical thinking.
Listen to two logically connected utterances and repeat them.
Listen to the speech patterns and show the pictures, illustrating their meaning.
Listen to the sentences and do the actions mentioned in them.
Listen to the sentences and arrange them in their logical order.
Learn the dialogue by heart repeating it after the speaker.
Compare the sentences on the card and those pronounced by the speaker.
State their lexical and grammatical differences.
Speech exercises.
Listen to the texts different in meaning, pronounced with normal tempo
illustrated with pictures first, then without any pictures and answer the questions.
Listen to the beginning of the story and try to guess what will follow.
Look at the picture, listen to the beginning of the story and try to guess what
will follow.
Listen to the story and retell the part giving in the description of this picture.
Listen to the story and answer the questions
Listen to two stories and say what they have in common and in what they
differ.
Listen to the text and give it a title.
Listen to the text and give its meaning in two-four sentences.
Listen to the dialogue and give its main idea.
Tell about… after listening to the text.
Working with a text for listening comprehension.
The work in a linguaphone classroom makes it possible to use different
approaches and individual tasks. The teacher can give different individual tasks
based on the audio text writing them on separate cards. Each task will contain an
instruction, a program of doing it and some props. All the students are divided into
several groups and each group is allotted the same time to do the task.
The whole work with the audio text in the phono classroom will go through
three stages:
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