2. Why Listening?
No model of second language acquisition does not avail itself of
input in trying to explain how learners create second language
grammars. (Gass, 1997: 1)
3. Some people now believe that learning a language is not just
learning to talk, but rather that learning a language is building a
map of meaning in the mind. These people believe that talking
may indicate that the language was learned, but they do not
believe that practice in talking is the best way to build up this
“cognitive” map in the mind.
To do this, they feel, the best method is to practice meaningful
listening. Nord (1980: 17)
4. Conditions of Listening
A comprehension approach can work . . . as long as the material
presented for comprehension in fact consists of (1) sufficient (2)
language instances (3) whose meaning can be inferred by
students (4) who are paying attention. Newmark (1981: 39)
5. Benefits of delaying speaking
• Cognitive benefit: no cognitive overload from focusing on two
or more modes of language
• Speed of coverage
• Strong effect on motivation
• Psychological Benefit: No stress from speaking
• Ease of doing independent learning activities
7. Two Models of Listening
• Bottom Up Processes: the processes the listener uses to
assemble the message piece-by piece from the speech
stream, going from the parts to the whole
• Top Down Processes: Top-down processes: the processes the
listener goes from the whole—their prior knowledge and their
content and rhetorical schemata—to the parts
8. Importance of Bottom Up
• Tsui and Fullilove (1998) found that more skilled listeners
performed better on comprehension questions for which the
correct answers did not match obvious content schema for the
topic.
• Successful comprehension was closely allied with linguistic
(bottom-up processing). (Wu, 1998)
9. Lynch and Mendelsohn (2002)
• discriminating between similar sounds
• coping with and processing fast speech
• processing stress and intonation differences
• processing the meaning of different discourse markers
• understanding communicative functions and the non-one-to-
one equivalence between form and function, e.g., “It’s cold in
here”.
10. Field’s Suggestions for Practice
1. Reduced Forms (Contractions, Weak Forms and Chunks)
I’ve lived in Wellington for 10 years.
2. Assimilation and Elision
good cause → goog cause
3. Resyllabification
went in → wen tin
