Listening strategies in Language Learning
This is part of a series of posts on process skills in language learning, Listening strategies in Language Learning, where we will examine some ideas and perhaps challenge some received ideas – although you may not always agree with what I say, but I’d really welcome some comments and constructive ideas on this.
Listening is a highly complex process involving a variety of processes.
The first is cognitive in nature this is what is referred to as neurological processes involving hearing which is a physical activity where sound waves are permuted into speech sounds; selective attention that is to say lining up our consciousness and processing energy to something while discharging ourselves from others (Schmidt, 1995).
The second listening process is linguistic.
In linguistic processing, three stages can be discerned: Speech perception, semantic processes, syntactic processes, prosodic and non-verbal behaviour decoding(Rost, 2002)
The final listening process involves pragmatic processes which suggests that there is more to comprehension than the association of discreet language units with meaning.
So as you can see, teaching / training / facilitating (or whatever you call it) listening in language learning involves much deeper and pertinent processes than just listening to answer right / wrong answers or anything that is anchored to any form of content – Listening strategies in Language Learning should equipe learners to adapt to any type of content and later to a variety of speakers.
The primacy of process over content cannot be over emphasised here.
Listening to native speakers will help you to understand a lot, apart from words, and is probably one of the principal objectives of all language learners.
However, we must be clear that the first objective is NOT to understand, as this is a counter-productive aim and one which will often leave us feeling disappointed with our performance, as in real-world situations, we will not understand everything that is said, and sometimes very little.
Now, not understanding when listening, may seem a little strange and almost illogical; I will explain.
The idea is that we tune our ear into listening, by first being able to hear what is said – a lot harder than it would seem, but there is a lot more to listening than you may have heard.
If I ask you the question, “What is the opposite of listening?”
Most will reply, after a great deal of thought, as many feel that this is a trick question with a simple, and almost obvious answer – ‘Well, it’s speaking … isn’t it?’
Well, in fact no, the opposite to listening is what we call ‘turn-taking’ – in other words, formulating a response to a question etc., then awaiting your turn to speak, which means that most of us don’t fully listen to what is said in a conversation – think about it.
That said, for language learners, turn taking often takes second place to understanding what is said.
In foreign language learning, we have the problem not only of a foreign language, in terms of grammar, vocabulary etc., but also of foreign sounds; those sounds which don’t exist in our native language.
So there is a lot to cope with here, that is why it is primordial to be able to hear a language before we have the slightest chance to understand it.
This is why it is important to adopt and work on our Listening strategies in Language Learning.
For example the following diagrams show the rhythm and intonation pattern of a French person and an English person saying the same word / sentence :
FRENCH NATIVE
ENGLISH NATIVE
The French speaker is the first image which shows a much lower and monotone tonal range – the liaison between words is more broken and less fluid that the English speaker. This illustrates why listening is sometimes difficult – not being able to reproduce the range of tone means often that we don’t HEAR the tones etc., even before being able to understand the words.
The last word used in the sentence was « vegetables », as you can see on the image the French speaker considered that the word consisted of 4 distinct syllables and a flat regular tone–
VEG––ET—AB—LES
The result being VEG-E-TA-BLES (as we hear it)
Whereas you can see that the English native used 2,5 syllables and stress on the the first and last syllable
VEG —‘T—-BLES
The result being VEG te BULLS (as we hear it)
This is an easy word that everyone knows, but when it is in a sentence or spoken at natural speed with liaison between preceding and following words or sentences this could be totally misunderstood. The French speaker will be listening out for 4 syllables, whereas there are actually 2,5 which can be confusing.
There is also a change in the pronunciation, intonation and stress pattern which may lead to a native not understanding the word spoken by a second language speaker – so as you see, it can go both ways.
When listening, practice imitating native speakers – of what you hear and not what you think you hear. You need to make a clear imprint in your oral memory of words and sentences which will help your listening skills.
It has also been proved that improved listening skills also help speaking writing and reading – what a bonus!
If you must note down words – do so, but try to note the whole phrase or sentence, rather than isolated words, and try to write it as you hear it.
For example the French word ‘Souhaite’ sounds close enough to ‘Sweat’ for me and that’s how I learnt it (better).
For those that resort to translating back into their own language, or fishing around for other words to make a sentence, avoid making lists of unconnected words – go for phrases or sentences.
A written sentence would be written thus :
We are going to go to London.
By a French speaker :
By a native English speaker :
Spoken it would probably sound like :
We’re gonna go ‘t Lundun.
Here we have the effects of the liaison between words and also the sound ‘Schwa’ in English, which changes the vowel sounds and sometimes even changes the sounds of whole words such as ‘of’ etc.
I don’t suggest that two words and a short sentence hold the key for all Listening strategies in Language Learning, but this type of strategy may be a start, and maybe even better than what you are doing at the moment – only you can answer that one.
There are some really useful resources on Schwa here to help both pronunciation and hearing skills and especially Listening strategies in Language Learning.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg0P0oYkniE[/embedyt]
Now, I don’t suggest that we take a spectral analysis of each speech pattern, but it is interesting to see the differences of intonation, stress and word length between native and non-native speakers, and learning these can really help.
You may or may not agree with what I have written here – that’s fine, as long as you can logically come up with other ideas or complimentary ideas for improving Listening strategies in Language Learning, but this is just the tip of the iceberg and will be a subject that we will go on to discuss in other blog posts on the subject.
Listening strategies in Language Learning will also be a feature of our monthly bite-size learning newsletter, which you can sign up to below.
Create a not-to-do list and save yourself
The great thing about process time is that it lets us do just that – take a step back from the breakneck speed of life at work and concentrate more on the How and less on the What of our working lives.
Process time helps us to digest, plan, make strategies for problem solving and set up an action plan before we launch ourselves headlong into our tasks.
And then we are there – up to our necks in phones calls, mails, reports to write, meetings, tasks that get added to the piles, client visits blogs to read, like this one 😉 and any other number of demands on our time.
Process time is where we take a step back, or a step out, and examine what we are going to – sometimes how we are going to do it and sometimes how we are going to live our lives in between .
Some people are sticklers for lists and I can understand that – there is a very satisfying feeling when tasks get crossed-off the list and we actually feel that we have achieved things in our working day.
Don’t rely on the memory – keep it on paper (perhaps) and have a look at it – wow, aren’t we the productive ones.
Now, don’t get me wrong – I think that lists work for some people – Mindmaps work better for others – whichever you choose, it is often a good way of getting a handle on the day.
Well, that’s great, but there are just a few points here:
The list doesn’t get any smaller – often one task will generate at least two others – that must be someone-or-other’s law there, so we cannot really cross it off as done as there are outstanding problems to solve.
Lists are hard to prioritise – today’s N°1 priority could become this afternoon’s N°7 priority as things move organically in an ecologic conspiracy to entrap the most ardent of list builders and organisers amongst us.
Discipline is another issue – how many of us are more attracted to the quick-fix task that can be done and dusted in a short time, thus reducing the length of the to-do list? Sticking to the job at hand can be difficult and sometimes almost impossible, not only from cracks in our own discipline, but also due to unforeseen or outside factors – effectively throwing the To-Do list to the four winds. Now what would happen here if you did Create a not-to-do list and save yourself time, energy and untold annoyances?
OK, so now we need to act! To do something that will help us all get what needs to be done.
I’m talking about the idea that you Create a not-to-do list and save yourself – you know all those little tasks that eat away at the seconds and minutes, that then grow into hours during the weeks, months and years at work, stopping us doing what really needs to be done.
Think about the Pareto principle – 20% of the work brings in 80% of the revenue – if we are focused on the important things – or 20% of the revenue is generated from 80% of the work – oops, that doesn’t look right – yes, and it shouldn’t look right, as this is far too much effort for far too small a gain.
Process time should also entail a certain element of discretion in choosing tasks that bring value – to the organisation and to the person performing them – some tasks that we routinely carry out, do not do this.
We should, obviously, be looking at what we need to do – but, equally, at what we do not need to do – yes! The famous Not-To-Do list!
Here are some tips to Create a not-to-do list and save yourself :
- Turn off the indicator that lets you know when a new mail has landed in your in-box – check your mails 3 or 4 times in the afternoon and the same in the morning. Break the chains that are harnessing you to your mailbox.
- Write clearer, simpler mails and only when you have to – think of more face-to-face time with people (more will mean less in the long run) which can easily short-circuit a long ping-pong of mails that will often terminate in a face to face meeting anyway.
- Never send emails to people in the same office.
- Don’t send emails by just pressing the “reply to all” function – you are wasting your own and a whole lot of other people’s time and think what others think of you. OK, it may be only perception, but you could be viewed as someone who sends out blanket emails to cover your own back, do you really want that?
- Don’t invite people who don’t have a key role in a meeting to a meeting – inviting people just to be polite will not gain you friends nor anything else and those ‘redundant’ invitees won’t thank you for the invitation anyway as you are eating away at their precious time.
- Don’t eat lunch at your desk – get out, get some air, change your environment – clear your head – you will be more productive afterwards anyway.
- If you are engaged in a task, turn your telephone off, or divert your desk phone – you need to concentrate fully – even on vibrator, the phone is a distraction.
- File things on shared disks or on the server that can be re-used by others – don’t reinvent the wheel – it is fine as it is !
- Schedule meetings just before lunchtime or near the end of the day if you need decisions or rapid feedback – people will generally act quicker and more efficiently if they think that their time is going to be encroached upon.
- Stop telling yourself that you can’t do something – of course if you tell yourself this, you are naturally right – you are too, if you say you can do it. Negative self-talk doesn’t help in any way, apart from sapping energy levels and creating barriers – Don’t do it!
- Don’t spend time with negative or manipulative people – what do you expect to gain here? Leave them well alone – they will fuel you with pessimism, negativity and fatigue – don’t go there! You don’t need it.
- Don’t answer a cellphone, where the caller’s number is masked – if it is important they will leave a message or get back to you – otherwise spend hours talking to the world’s greatest peddler of snake-oil who will then tell their friends to call and waste your time.
- If you use Outlook or other mail programs, get your inbox organised – establish rules for mails so that the majority get filed where you need to find them – and will be able to find them in future.
- Don’t horde any form of information – remember the 3 rules and choose one:
- Action it
- File it
- Bin it – handle information once only (where possible).
- Remember that there is a balance to be struck between work and life – do not take work home and do not habitually work late into the evening – there are only so many kilometers that a car can travel on a tank of fuel – and people are the same, don’t go intentionally on your own reserve tank.
- Remember that there is a family / work balance to be struck – ensure that your work doesn’t encroach on this – you need family time.
- Ensure that there is a family / partner balance – family time is important, but so too is the time you spend with your partner – remember, that person who was your friend before the kids came along ? This is a hugely important aspect of life-balance that is often overlooked…
- Ensure that you have time for yourself as a person – hobbies, sport, pastimes, interests or associative work – take this time. Do not neglect this – it is a well of resources for you and others.
- Do not put things off until the last minute – procrastination leads to high stress levels, although some people claim to need this impulsion to get fully motivated. The reality is that things get dropped into your lap at the last moment, so, by leaving things to the latest date you will be running the risk of having another N°1 priority landing at the same moment, which may be very difficult to manage effectively without breaking at least three of the above rules.
- Don’t forget your Not-To-Do list – it is so easy to slip back into old ways – you don’t need this, do you?
It’s great to concentrate our focus on getting things done – but it is only really possible once we have weeded out all of the parasites and interferences that distract us from being highly effective people.
Create a not-to-do list and save yourself, get your ‘Not-To-Do’ List together and pin it to a wall in your eye-line, and when you are tempted to do those old things that stole your time in the past, added to your stress and dissatisfaction and generally left you with a feeling of non-achievement – Stop!
Improving Listening Skills in Language Learning
As you go along with your language learning try to engage yourself and connect as much as possible, with as many of your senses as possible – much like we do when reading.
Reading (another receptive skill) is an excellent example of the way that imagination is used to conjure up scenes, emotions, sounds, taste and feeling that we, as humans, are naturally able to do, all of the time – so why not try this out when listening?
Imagine the feelings and emotions that are illustrated in a listening activity and try to avoid latching-on to key words.
This is a feature that is often promoted is – « listen for key words ».
This was something that was a feature of a school that I worked in when I first came to France, and one that I, like the learners never questioned.
Another activity, which I felt was misplaced, but did not really know why at the time, was the compulsory use of the language lab, twice a day – rows of learners listening on headphones to a cassette, which they or the teacher could slow down to make it understandable for them – but a bizarre scenario that is never repeated in real life.
I mean, how often do we listen in a vacuum, in absolute silence with access to the speaker, with so much control that we can slow them right down and replay them as often as we like?
Alright, some will call this practice, but it is so surreal, as an exercise, that it is almost pointless.
It is not about understanding A particular cassette, CD, DvD etc. – it’s about being able to adapt to real people in the real world.
So lets get back to the original point of listening for key words in a listening activity.
I believe this is futile for several reasons :
1. If you have a limited vocabulary you cannot hope to know all the vocabulary in the target language, so listening for key words results in you listening for words that you already know, with no guarantee that they are operative words or indeed important at all.
2. You may not be able to distinuish between changes of speakers in a listening activity so you don’t know who is speaking at any given time.
3. Different accents may have different word stress and inflection patterns, so some things that may sound like an affirmation may turn out to be a question and the reverse is also true.
4. If you listen out for detail you will completely lose the thread and the real meaning of the dialogue. Listen out for background sounds and changes of place, time, speakers etc. treating listening to a dialogue as you would watching a play where scenes change according to the actions that occur. Take it step by step – you are training your ear.
You will have a better chance of ultimately understanding if you are able to actually hear the sounds used in the language and it is in this order that we learn – HEAR > UNDERSTAND.
Spend some time tuning your ears to sounds and rhythms. You can do this by listening to the language as much as possible via the radio, TV, movies and native speakers if possible.
Recite aloud, imitate native speakers, observe and experiment as much as possible, here we can see that the adage « good speakers are poor listeners » is untrue in foreign languages , a good listener will inevitably become a good speaker.
Try to vary activities that you do as much as possible – the most effective learners use a variety of techniques and strategies in whatever they do.
Your memory works best by using a plethora of images, smells sights and sounds that trigger feelings from a distant past – do you remember the smell of your grandmother’s kitchen ? Imagine biting into a lemon ! You can almost taste it as your memory taps into different sensory zones.
You can often remember people and places and what you did when you heard a certain song or piece of music.
These techniques work really well when learning, by underpinning experience with trigger mechanisms.
You could also describe what you see in front of you (to yourself) in the language you are learning – learning by doing !
Going back to the idea of listening for key words, try instead, of listening out for key notions, these give us ideas of how the language is being used and more importantly, why it is being used.
Language is also about functions – we communicate to do something, or get something done, that is the function or the why of the communication.
We can all recognise that linear listening – that is listening to every word in a linear sequence doesn’t always work in our own native language – we often disconnect, think about other things or try to interpret meaning – the good question to ask here is, “Why, then, do we do this in a foreign language?”
I guess the obvious response is that we are trying to hold on to what we know (or think we know) but the result is that we are often listening from an illogical angle.
The problem comes to a head when fast speakers, or speakers with strong regional or national accents are encountered – but, as we have seen, we have choices.
People who find language learning easy often follow simple rules that they have acquired unconsciously and are almost natural language learners (in fact everybody is).
This is often called natural learning skills, or acquisition, and is very close to the way that the mother tongue is learnt.
Many adults however, feel that they need a clear structure and need to understand how a language is built before they are able to learn.
Many adults are not ready or willing to learn a language in a similar way that they learnt their mother tongue as this entails mimic, repetition and making more mistakes than they are ready to make, which children don’t always experience in language learning.
Many adults focus on the wrong things in language learning such as their accent before pronunciation, their correct grammar construction before being able to fully understand and react to spontaneous questions – the list is very long !
We could argue that we are all hard-wired to communicate and learn languages but this doesn’t really answer the question as to why some people find language learning difficult and laborious.
One of the many answers to this is the ineffective strategies used in language learning – but a lot of people use good strategies, and learners who use great strategies for learning are often unable to use these similar strategies in improving listening skills in language learning.
Any successful learner uses clear, pragmatic, logical, personalised and conscious strategies that facilitate learning – if you are learning something at the moment, take a moment to consider your strategies – both those that are effective and those that work – are you ready to change the ineffective strategies?
Are you ready to start Improving Listening Skills in Language Learning?
Why not start by listening to some podcasts?
Is English language Learning undervalued
It would seem, at least in France (I say this as I have been in France for over 23 years), that learning English is a slightly undervalued subject in education.
The coefficient of English as a second language at school and in higher or further education is usually (according to the specialisation of study) is so low that points can be made up in other subjects to make up for any weaknesses in English language skills.
Most ‘Grandes Écoles’ and engineering schools have a ceiling grade pass for English language skills that are relatively quite low, as shown here
Many learners are later obliged to improve their language skills due to the forces within the job market, and often the ability to operate in English can be a blocking point to their career.
It is clear that there is a difference between what happens in the classroom and what happens outside, in terms of 2nd language acquisition.
This means that a lot of learners go out of their way to learn English, by way of Internet, social media, virtual and face-to-face networks, listening to podcasts and music etc. and video.
However, I wonder how much most traditional teaching methods actually prepares or encourages learners to be self-directed or autonomous.
The growth in opportunities for out-of-class learning for language learners creates challenges as well as opportunities for teachers and learners.
New roles emerge for teachers as learners become more actively involved in managing aspects of their own learning.
Is English language Learning undervalued?
I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on this, you can comment below :
What do you think?
Is English language learning undervalued where you are?
How are you preparing your learners for out-of-class learning?
Learners – Learn to Love your Mistakes
More than half of the planet speaks two or more languages, over 50% of us are bilingual or multilingual, monolingualism is starting to be seen as a culture and nothing more, and definitely not something we are destined to live with.
Many adults, who have failed at language learning often resort to ideas that they are not good language learners or are just not cut out to learn a language, which is pretty bizarre, as a concept, as they have already learnt one language – their own.
So the question remains as to why they have failed at language learning.
Is it really that they are not cut out for languages or is it something more fundamental?
In most cases, it is the processes within the system in which they have learnt (or at least attempted to do so) which is at fault.
A large amount of language teaching provision is based on outmoded methods, akin to that which is used for teaching chemistry, biology or even maths.
Why stop there?
A lot of language teaching methods are exactly aligned as to how dead languages, such as Latin and Greek are taught, using grammatical rules (and woe betide you if you forget them!) and rote methods of learning (off by heart).
The point is, communication is not a binary process from A to B, so learning by heart is a pointless exercise – language is about emotions, feelings and spontaneity and needs to be used.
Communication is achieved through a series of steps – remember when you were a child, using your own language, at two years old you probably didn’t say something like, “Mummy, I would really like a soft-centred toffee, if you would be so kind as to offer me one.”
You more than likely said something like, “Mummy sweeties.”
The thing is, both versions functionally end up with the same result – you got a sweet (if you were good.)
So why do teachers insist on learners coming up with exactly the correct form for language production?
Learners will be forgiven for being too direct as it is blatantly obvious that they are at a stage where they are learning the language.
Obviously, I don’t suggest that the basic functional forms of the language are used ad infinitum, but let’s start somewhere and then get to a form of language proficiency at a later stage.
Give learners the chance to make mistakes and let them enjoy making them – I make hundreds of mistakes in French on a daily basis, but I am communicating and learning to get them down to an acceptable level and I’ll get there … eventually.
People smile at my mistakes and to be honest I couldn’t care less, as I know that I am using the language and I have no problem with that.
One of the reasons we interview some non-native English speakers on the EFLPodBlog is that we want people to make mistakes, as this is good for them and to their non-native listeners as a way of helping them to identify and finally eradicate them in time.
Behind every mistake is an insight and an opportunity for learning, as long as some element of reflection is included – in learning we call this metacognition – thinking about thinking, a vital element in lifelong learning.
As language learners – learn to love your mistakes and most importantly, love to learn from your mistakes – there is usually very little at risk and a huge amount to gain from them.
