8 Input and context
8.8 Some implications for the teacher
The main argument of this chapter has been that both input and context play an important part in second language listening, regardless of the level of the learner. The important difference is that a novice listener is likely to make use of context to compensate for inadequate decoding skills, while a more experienced one employs context to enrich under-standing of a message. The argument has been put that expertise in listening is assisted by the ability to decode connected speech in a way that is automatic and accurate. This (a) gives the listener confidence in her ability to shape sounds into words and (b) releases attention that can be switched from basic processing to deeper issues of meaning.
There are clear implications for the listening teacher wishing to adopt a process approach to the skill. Firstly, it is useful in the early stages of listening instruction to dedicate time and effort to building up the learners’ decoding processes. The goal is to ensure that their listening comes to approximate more closely that of a native listener who enjoys the benefit of being able to decode automatically. Secondly, the way in which ‘context’ is treated by the teacher needs to vary according to the level of the learners. At lower levels of English, the emphasis will be on
1 Though this should by no means rule out a parallel ‘top-down’ approach by the teacher, which equips learners with strategies that enable them to make the most of the little they succeed in decoding.
encouraging learners to make use of world knowledge, topic knowledge, etc. to compensate for gaps in understanding. At higher levels, learn-ers can be encouraged to expand on what they hear by relating it to background knowledge just as they would in L1.
This raises issues about the convention of a pre-listening phase in a lesson, when learners reflect on the topic of the recording. At either level, it makes perfect sense; but the purposes for which it is employed should differ significantly. For the novice, it provides a framework which may assist in interpreting some imperfectly grasped fragments of speech; it also alerts the learner to certain words associated with the topic which may occur in the listening passage. In other words, it assists in decoding.
For the more advanced listener, it creates a mindset which brings forward knowledge of the topic available from L1 and possibly raises questions and expectations about the content to be heard. In other words, it assists in building meaning.
When thinking about the less skilled listener, it is worth bearing in mind the distinction made between context (= external knowledge) and co-text (= ‘text-so-far’). Teachers need to recognise that the latter only slowly becomes a resource on which the L2 listener can depend, since its reliability depends upon how much of the input the listener is able to decode. This means that there will be a progression from a situ-ation where the learner supports decoding almost entirely with outside knowledge to one where co-textual information can increasingly be relied upon.
For the process teacher, then, the relationship between input and context/co-text is not a constant one, but one that evolves. This has con-sequences for the types of task that are set within the listening lesson, and in particular for the ways in which the teacher encourages the learner to make sense of what has been heard. Early work on compensatory strategies should first draw on contextual cues and only gradually involve the use of co-textual ones.
We should also consider moderating the meaning-building demands imposed upon learners in the early stages of listening. Here, two consid-erations come together: the limited attention that the novice listener can allocate to wider meaning and the unreliability of the listener’s under-standing of ‘co-text’. It is wise to restrict the number of questions which require the listener to report on the meaning of the recording as a whole, or to interpret or evaluate it. It is also wise to employ texts which are narrative or instructional, and where one assertion leads to another chronologically (‘then’) or in an additive way (‘and’). This spares listen-ers from having to build complicated meaning relationships at the same time as dealing with the problems posed by inexperienced decoding.
We have now identified some very general guidelines for a develop-mental element in a process-based programme:
early priority accorded to decoding skills;
early attention to the development of strategies that make use of con-text;
a carefully moderated increase in reliance upon co-text;
minimal use in the early stages of questions relating to wider meaning or interpretation of what has been heard;
a shift over time in the purposes for which we use the pre-listening stage;
an early preference for texts where the meaning construction is additive or chronological rather than entailing more complex meaning struc-tures.
Further reading
Field, J. (2004) ‘An insight into listeners’ problems: too much bottom-up or too much top-down?’ System, 32: 363–77.
Field, J. (1999) ‘Key concepts in ELT: bottom up and top down’. ELT Journal, 53/4: 338–9.
Lynch, T. (2006) ‘Academic listening: marrying top and bottom’. In A.
Martinez-Flor and E. Us ´o-Juan (eds.), Current Trends in Learning and Teaching the Four Skills within a Communicative Framework.
Amsterdam: Mouton, pp. 99–101.
Tsui, A. and Fullilove, J. (1998) ‘Bottom-up or top-down processing as a dis-criminator of L2 listening performance’. Applied Linguistics, 19: 432–51.
Vox nihil aliud quam ictus aer. (The voice is nothing but beaten air.) Seneca (c. 4 BC – 65 CE), Roman philosopher and politician
The last chapter suggested that decoding skills should play a larger part than at present in L2 listening programmes, and certainly a larger part than the comprehension approach normally provides for. Focusing on decoding skills rather than general comprehension is probably the most effective means of improving a novice listener’s performance. This is not on the grounds that decoding is in some way ‘simpler’ than extracting information from a recording, but on the grounds that efficiency in the fundamental process of matching strings of phonemes to words and phrases allows the listener greater opportunity to focus on wider issues of meaning.
This chapter and the one that follows therefore take a close look at the way in which sounds reaching the listener’s ear are turned into words.
Here, we examine the raw material that the listener has to analyse and consider how informative it is. How consistent is the input received from a speaker and what difficulties do its inconsistencies present to the less experienced listener? Many of the characteristics to be discussed are common to all spoken production: for example, the tendency of the speaker to take short cuts between one sound and the next or the foregrounding of important words. But they are realised in different ways in different languages – thus posing challenges to the novice L2 listener.
By noting where the challenges lie, we can identify a set of targets for small-scale practice exercises like those recommended in Chapter 5. The teacher can play or dictate multiple examples of a single feature, in order to raise learner awareness of it or to ensure that learners are able to handle it more adequately next time they encounter it. With the needs of the classroom in mind, the chapter will illustrate in detail the aspects of connected speech that are discussed, using examples from English. There will be concrete suggestions for exercises that practise specific features.