This document discusses challenges in listening instruction and proposes solutions. It outlines three types of listening instruction: text-oriented which focuses on decoding skills, communication-oriented which emphasizes authentic materials but may test more than teach, and learner-oriented which develops metacognitive strategies. However, all three face challenges, such as an over-emphasis on testing in text-oriented and communication-oriented approaches. The document argues that these challenges can be addressed by teaching within a metacognitive framework that provides guidance on strategic listening and develops learners' awareness of the listening process through modeling and strategy instruction. The goal is to create more effective learners rather than just better test performers.

1. Ch.1 Challenges and Opportunities
in Listening Instruction
Presentation: Chaewon Lim

2. Listening Comprehension
 It is generally recognized that both bottom-up and top-down
strategies are necessary.
The bottom-up processing
a process of decoding the sounds that one hears in a linear
fashion
The top-down processing
a reconstruction process; the listener actively constructs the
original meaning of the speaker using incoming sounds as
clues

3. Visuwords.com

4. Challenges and Dilemmas
In L2 listening Instruction

5. Introduction: Dilemma I
 Listening skill = Cinderella skill?
Speaking
/ Writing
Listening

6. Introduction: Dilemma II
We still tend to test
listening rather than
teach it!!

7. The key to solving the problem
 Metacognition: the act of thinking about thinking; the
ability of learners’ controlling their thoughts and
regulating their own learning
 Learners are seldom taught how to listen, how to manage
the listening input.
Pre-listening
- More than Background knowledge!
- Learners are just “primed” to listen to a specific piece of text
While-listening
- No guidance on strategic listening

8. Listening instruction: overview
 Text-oriented instruction (Dilemma I & II)
Recognizing and understanding different components of a
listening input
 Communication-oriented instruction (Dilemma I & II)
Listening in the service of something other than itself
 Learner-oriented instruction (Solution)
Developing learners’ awareness of the process

9. Text-oriented instruction
 A heavy emphasis on decoding skills (1950s~1960s)
the accuracy of learners’ comprehension
 A “quiz show” format (Morley, 1999)
discriminating sounds
taking dictation of the written passage
comprehension questions (multiple-choice)
testing rather than teaching listening
 The dominance of the written language
heavy cognitive demands made on working memory
relevant to corpus studies

10. Communication-oriented instruction
 Complex communicative skills
Taxonomies of listening skills
Munby’s (1978) communicative syllabus design
Richards’ (1983) taxonomy
Authentic listening materials
A variety of classroom interaction/ learner
response
 “Sleeping partner” in CLT methodology
emphasis on the speaking component
information gap activity

11. Learner-oriented Instruction
 Research on good language learners (GLL)
 Instructions on listening strategies
 Mendelsohn’s socio-cognitive paradigm (1998)
 Developing learners’ awareness of the process
(O’Malley & Chamot, 1990)
Strategy type Strategy
Metacognitive strategies Selective attention, Self-monitoring,
problem identification
Cognitive strategies Note taking, summarizing, elaboration,
inferencing, transfer
Social/affective strategies Cooperation

12. Strategies-based Instruction
Teacher Modeling
Think-aloud (Chamot, 1995)
Demonstration (Field, 1998) Pre-communication activities
(Buck, 1995)

13. Strategy use in L2 listening
 Vandergrift and Goh (2012)
Planning Focusing attention
Contexualization
Monitoring Evaluation
Inferencing
Reorganizing
Using linguisticand learningresources
Cooperation
Managingemotions Prediction
Elaboration

14. Challenges in the three instructions
 Text-oriented instruction
Current course textbooks which requires learners’
comprehension-based techniques alone (a “quiz show”
mode)
 Communication-oriented instruction
A focus on the product of listening
A disguised form of testing (Sheerin, 1987)
 Learner-oriented instruction
Intangible!
A lack in a variety of structural support

15. Conclusion
 The intrinsic challenges within the three types of listening
instruction can be addressed by teaching within a
metacognitive framework.
 No testing any more!!
 Better learners? Or More effective learners?