CHAPTER REPORT: LEARNING AND INSTRUCTION IN ENGLISH

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A.      Background of Problem

Listening has been the basis for the development of all other skills and the main channel through which the student makes initial contact with the target language and its culture. Through active listening, students acquire vocabulary and syntax, as well as better pronunciation, accent and intonation. Though listening skill is very important, for some language learners it is considered to be the most difficult language skill. Therefore, students have various problems when they are listening to the speakers or recordings in the listening class.

No one can deny the importance of listening skills in foreign language learning because the key to acquire a language is to receive language input. Krashen, Terrell, Ehrman, & Herzog (1984) claim that acquisition takes place only when students absorb enough comprehensible input.  The same claim was supported by Rost (1994) who confirmed that listening is vital in language classrooms because it provides input for learners. As an input skill, listening plays a crucial role in students’ language development. Krashen (1985) argues that people acquire language by understanding the linguistic information they hear. Thus language acquisition is achieved mainly through receiving understandable input and listening ability is the critical component in achieving understandable language input.

Furthermore, without understanding inputs at the right level, any kind of learning simply cannot occur. Thus listening is a fundamental language skill, and as such it merits a critical priority among the four skill areas for language students. As Hasan (2000) pointed out, “listening comprehension provides the right conditions for language acquisition and development of other language skills” (p.138). Listening, therefore, is essential not only as a receptive skill but also to the development of spoken language proficiency. Rost (2002) also indicates that developing proficiency in listening is the key to achieving proficiency in speaking.

Listening has received increasing attention from ESL/EFL professionals in recent years. The digital revolution has made spoken language much easier to record, edit, and share. Digital communications and travel raise the chances of needing to communicate in a second language, making that language much less "foreign." Still, despite being increasingly important, understanding what someone says in a second language remains a challenge.

Communication happens if there is an interaction between the speaker and the listener. Therefore, listening comprehension activities have a direct and important relationship to the amount and quality of speaking skill. Successful listening for language learners depends on many factors such as the knowledge of the language, background knowledge, etc.

When students are learning to understand speech in a second language such as English, it is a reasonable assumption that they need to spend considerable time listening to speech. Nevertheless, once basic competency has been attained, there are theoretical grounds based on cognitive load theory for hypothesizing that additional competency may be facilitated more by an emphasis on reading rather than listening. This is later to do with listening skill and its problem faced by EFL learner to be revealed in this paper.

B.       Formulation of Problems

There are some formulation of problems about listening that will be explained further in this short paper, those are:

1.      Recordings are sometimes not clear and hard to follow

2.      Students tend to catch word by word

3.      Listening takes too much concentration

C.      Purposes of Study

There are some purposes from construction of this short paper, those are:

1.      To know the best solution for solving the problem in recordings

2.      To explore the reason of students tendency in listening

3.      To describe the role of listening competence

CHAPTER II

THEORETICAL FOUNDATION

A.      The Insight of Listening

Theoretically, according to Tomlison (1984) listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying. This process involves understanding a speaker's accent or pronunciation, the speaker’s grammar and vocabulary, and comprehension of meaning. An able listener is capable of doing these four things simultaneously. This insight of listening here will be explained below.

Listening Comprehension

Listening comprehension is regarded as a complex, interactive process in which listeners are involved in a dynamic construction of meaning. Listeners understand the oral input from sound discrimination, prior knowledge of vocabulary, grammatical structures, stress and intonation, as well as other use linguistic, paralinguistic, or even non-linguistic clues in contextual utterance (Rost, 2002).   

Literature Review Related To Listening Comprehension

In the eyes of many researchers and learners of English, listening is a complex and active mental process that involves perception, attention, cognition, and memory. During the process of listening comprehension, various factors may affect learner listening ability. Lists of general factors have been identified (Hayati, 2010; Flowerdew and Miller, 1992) while the role of specific factors has also been examined. Some factors that have been the focus of research include speech rate (Conrad, 1989; Blau, 1990; Griffths, 1992; Zhao, 1997), lexis (rost, 1992), phonological features and background knowledge (Long, 1990; Chiang and Dunkel, 1992).

Other issues have also been related to listener difficulties. These range from text structure and syntax to personal factors such as insufficient exposure to the target language, and a lack of interest and motivation. Brown (1995) acknowledged the relevance of all these issues, and further argued that listener difficulties are also related to the levels of cognitive demands made by the content of the texts. Buck (2001) identifies numerous difficulties which can be confronted in listening tasks such as unknown vocabularies, unfamiliar topics, fast speech rate, and unfamiliar accents. A considerable number of difficulties learners face in listening comprehension are discussed in literature (Underwood, 1989; Ur, 1984).

Accordingly, as it is stated by Hamouda (2013) that listening plays an important role in communication as it is said that, of the total time spent on communicating, listening takes up 40-50%; speaking, 25-30%; reading, 11-16%; and writing, about 9% (Gilakjani and  Ahmadi, 2011). According to Devine (1982), listening is the primary means by which incoming ideas and information are taken in. Gilbert (1988), on the other hand, noted that students from kindergarten through high school were expected to listen 65-90 percent of the time. Wolvin and Coakley (1988) concluded that, both in and out of the classroom, listening consumes more of daily communication time than other forms of verbal communication.

However, listening is central to the lives of students throughout all levels of educational development (Coakley & Wolvin, 1997). Listening is the most frequently used language skill in the classroom (Ferris, 1998; Murphy, 1991; Vogely, 1998). Both instructors (Ferris & Tagg, 1996) and students (Ferris, 1998) acknowledge the importance of listening comprehension for success in academic settings. Numerous studies indicated that efficient listening skills were more important than reading skills as a factor contributing to academic success (Coakley & Wolvin, 1997). Nevertheless, it is evident that listening is more important for the lives of students since listening is used as a primary medium of learning at all stages of education.

B.       Problems in Listening

Listening difficulties are defined as the internal and external characteristics that might interrupt text understanding and real-life processing problems directly related to cognitive procedures that take place at various stages of listening comprehension (Goh, 2000). Here, the theoretical foundation of problems in listening will be elaborated below for the clear understanding.

Furthermore, Higgins (1995) studied Omani students’ problems in listening comprehension and found that the factors which facilitate or hinder listening are speech rate, vocabulary, and pronunciation. After examining 81 Arabic speakers learning English as a foreign language for academic purposes and their perceived LC problems, a study conducted by Hasan (2000) shows that ‘unfamiliar words’, ‘difficult grammatical structures’, and ‘the length of the spoken text’ are the most important message factors for listening problems. In terms of speaker factor, it was revealed that ‘clarity’ was the main cause of EFL listening difficulties. As to listener factor, ‘lack of interest’ ‘the demand for full and complete answers to listening comprehension questions’ were the two main difficulties encountered by EFL students. Yagang (1994) attributes the difficulty of listening comprehension to four sources: the message, the speaker, the listener and the physical setting.

Moreover, Boyle (1984) also classified the factors influencing listening comprehension and directly related to EFL listening into four inter-relating categories: listener, speaker, medium and environment factors. Aside from these, Chang, Chang, & Kuo (1995) discovered five major listening difficulties: speed, a cluster of sounds difficult for segmentation, obsession with the Chinese translation, association of sounds with words and meanings, and idiomatic expressions. Teng (2002) identified four listening factors, which were similar to Boyle’s (1984) classification; they were listener factors, speaker factors, stimulus factors, and context factors. She indicated that “EFL proficiency” was the most important listener factor for EFL listening problems. It implies that students’ difficulties may directly result from their deficient linguistic knowledge. However, Goh (2000) indicated that the most common problem was “quickly forget what is heard (parsing).” Similarly, in Sun’s study (2002), the most difficulty in listening for Taiwan’s students was “forget the meaning of the word (perception).” 

Finally, theoretical explanations of listening comprehension provide the teachers with clues about the problems which learners face when they listen to a spoken text. These insights cannot, however, account for exhaustive explanation of these problems. As Vogely (1995: 41) states, ‘We still need research that documents empirically the relationship between what theory says and what learners actually know and more importantly do’. To locate the sources of listening comprehension, we need to consider the discourse itself in the context of the classroom.

CHAPTER III

DISCUSSION

A.    Problems Solving

1.      Trouble with sounds (recordings)

Since most listeners rely mostly on context for comprehension, they are often themselves unaware of inaccurate sound perception.  In this case the teacher can facilitate them by various activities such as imitation, recording of learner speech, choral repetition of drills, jazz chants, tongue etc.

2.      Have to understand every word (word by word)

This is very common problem, often unconsciously fostered by teachers and/or listening comprehension materials which encourage the learner to believe that everything that is said bears (equally) important information. The effort to understand everything often results in ineffective comprehension, as well as feelings of fatigue and failure. Teacher may need to give learners practice in selective ignoring of heard information – something they do naturally in their mother tongue. Teacher should explain this point to the learners, and set them occasional tasks that ask them to scan a relatively long text for one or two limited items of information.

3.      Can’t understand fast, natural native speech (speakers)

Learners will often ask to slow down and speak clearly – by which they mean pronounce each word the way it would sound in isolation; and the temptation is to do as they ask.  But if the teacher does, he/she is not helping them to learn to cope with everyday informal speech.  They should be exposed to as much spontaneous informal talk as they can successfully understand as soon as possible; and it is worth taking the time to explain to them why. One of the advantages of teacher-produced talk is that teacher can provide them with this sort of discourse at the right level for them, getting faster and more fluent as their listening skills develop.

4.      Need to hear things more than once (audio)

It may have very good pedagogical reasons for exposing learners to texts more than once.  But the fact remains that in real life they are often going to have to cope with ‘one-off’ listening; and teacher can certainly make a useful contribution to their learning if he/she can improve their ability to do so.  Teacher can for example, try to use texts that include ‘redundant’ passages and within which the essential information is presented more than once and not too intensively; and give learners the opportunity to request clarification or repetition during the listening.

  

5.      Find it difficult to keep up (motivation)

Again, the learner feels overloaded with incoming information. The solution is not (so much) to slow down the discourse but rather to encourage them to relax, stop trying to understand everything, learn to pick out what is essential and allow themselves to ignore the rest. The teacher, in this case, should give them motivation based on the interests of students in order to gain their attention and make them keep up in listening.

6.      Get tired (too much concentration)

This is one reason for not making listening comprehension passages too long overall, and for breaking them up into short ‘chunks’ through pause, listener response or change of speaker. The longer listening task, the more power needed to finish the passages. So that, it is clear that it is to do with the listening material chosen by the teacher. Teacher should be selective in order to make his/her students understand about what they listen.

B.       Recommendation

1.      Suggestion

Sharpening the listening skills is relatively easy to begin practicing since most of it is based on knowing what constitutes good listening and what doesn’t.  Remember: listening is not a passive process, so all of the techniques below are active, including the ones that are not visible to the speaker.

a.      Listen with an open mind

Be ready to hear and consider all sides of an issue.  This does not mean that we have to agree with what is being said, but rather that we must avoid defensiveness.  Another way to think of it is to go into an interaction ready to consider new viewpoints and ideas.  If it helps, equate this with the scientific process during grade school.  Every opinion and perspective the learners encounter while listening can be viewed as the hypothesis that they, as diligent pseudo-scientist listeners, can examine and experiment upon.  And just as third grade science debunked the lack of faith that wet paper towels could actually cause a lima bean to sprout, their willingness to listen to a different perspective will sometimes yield surprising new insights for learners.

b.      Listen to the entire message without judging or refuting

Suppress the urge to let biases and prejudices prevent learners from listening fully.  They can only do one thing effectively at a time: listen, judge, or respond.  Go in that order.  They have to begin with listening to the entire message, then they can weigh thoughts against what has been said, and finally respond.  Allow each role to run its course in turn.  When learners are the listener, they cannot simultaneously be the judge.  Their minds do not work in categories quite so neatly, but when they make this effort to suppress or postpone their desire to make premature judgments they become better listeners.

A great way to prepare for this in advance is to be aware of what learners’ biases are and then try to reason out why they feel this way.  What “buzz words” or topics generate a strong emotional reaction–either positive or negative–in them?  If they judge and then speak too soon, they’ve opened the possibility of having missed a critical part of the message and thus embarrassing themselves by jumping to conclusions.

c.       Determine the concepts and central ideas of the message

The best gauge to know whether learners are listening or just hearing is whether or not they are actively looking for the central idea(s) of what is being said.  This could easily morph into a whole other issue about the structure of a message, but that is not the focus here.  Here, they are the listener, and if the message is well-constructed then they role will be easier, but they will not always have that luxury.  A great technique, regardless of the speaker’s ability to construct a message, is to listen in such a way that they can summarize what they gleaned to be the central idea(s).  What are the common threads–the ideas that seem to weave their way into everything being said?  If the situation allows, they can then share their summary with the speaker and confirm (or revise) your understanding.  Doing this builds learners confidence as a listener, plus it proves to the speaker that they were listening.

2.      Advice

The unique challenge that comes with learning to listen well is that learners now know how to fake it.  But when teacher thinks that they were paying attention but in reality they weren’t, they are inviting trouble.  If the speaker notices, they are insulting him/her. If they are asked to respond in some way, then they will be caught unawares and will most likely suffer embarrassment.  And even if they can get away with it, they are gaining nothing except the reinforcement of bad habits. So that, learners should be more aware of the sounds or audio from the speakers or recordings with the help of their teacher.

3.      Conclusion

Listening comprehension is regarded as a complex, interactive process in which listeners are involved in a dynamic construction of meaning. Listeners understand the oral input from sound discrimination, prior knowledge of vocabulary, grammatical structures, stress and intonation, as well as other use linguistic, paralinguistic, or even non-linguistic clues in contextual utterance of the speakers.

Listening as a skill and comprehension have been devoted by EFL learners as the difficult subject in learning English. There are many problems faced by them during the listening process, such as recordings that are sometimes not clear and hard to follow, or students tend to catch word by word, and/or listening takes too much concentration for them.

References:

Anderson, A. & Lynch, T. 1988. Listening. Oxford University Press

Boyle, J. P. (1984). Factors affecting listening comprehension. ELT Journal, 38(1), 4-38.

Brown, G. (1992) Listening to Spoken English. London: Longman Press.

Carrier, K. (2003). Improving high school English language learners' second language listening

through strategy instruction. Bilingual Research Journal, 27 (3), 383-408.

Hamouda, Arafat. 2013. An Investigation of Listening Comprehension Problems Encountered

by Saudi Students in the EL Listening Classroom. International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development April 2013, Vol. 2, No. 2.

Krashen,S.D., Terrell, T.D., Ehrman, M.E., & Herzog, M. (1984). A theoretical basis for

teaching the receptive skills. Foreign Language Annals, 17(4), 261-275.

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