1. Listening
Ms A. Sauer

2. What is listening?
An active process by which students receive, construct meaning from, and respond to spoken and or non-verbal messages (Emmert, 1994).
Integral part of the communication process
Listening comprehension complements reading comprehension
Verbally clarifying the spoken language before, during, and after a presentation enhances listening comprehension.

3. Hearing v. Listening
Hearing: the act of perceiving sound by ear. Passive process. A natural process that people engage in involuntarily
Listening: a purposeful, cognitively directed activity. It requires concentration so that your brain processes meaning from words and sentences. Active process.
Listening leads to learning.

4. Types of listening
Comprehensive(informational): students listen for the content of the message.
Critical (Evaluative): students judge the speaker’s message, listen to evaluate or criticise.
Appreciative(aesthetic): Students listen for enjoyment.
Therapeutic (empathetic): Students listen to support others but not to judge them.
(Wolving and Coakley, 1992)

5. Purpose for listening
To receive information?
To follow instructions?
To evaluate information?
For pleasure?
To support and empathise?

6. Listening in real life Casual/half listening:
listen with no particular purpose in mind,
Paying attention to some; tuning out others
-listening to the radio while doing housework; chatting to a friend
-distracted by personal thoughts or what’s going on around you
-doodling or texting

7. Listening in real life (Cont.)
Sound listening:
-Hearing the words, but not the meaning behind them.
-Missing the significance of the message.
- Responding with logic only.

8. Listening in real life (cont.)
Focused/active:
-listen for a particular purpose
-ignoring delivery quirks and focusing on the message
- Asking clarifying questions
Making eye-contact
Understanding the speaker’s ideas
Being aware of body language
Remaining engaged even when taking notes

9. Cont.
For one to be able to respond appropriately to what he/she hears, one has to listen attentively, understand what he/she hears, and be able to interpret it before formulating a response.
Listening is a receptive skill in that the listener receives information from the speaker. This information has to be clearly heard, understood and properly interpreted before meaningful interaction can take place.

10. The listening process
Two major approaches to explaining the listening process:
Bottom-up processing
Top-down processing

11. Bottom-up processing
Using the incoming input as the basis for understanding
Comprehension is viewed as a process of decoding
Listener’s lexical and grammatical competence in a language provides the basis
Process: (i) chunking(ii) Knowledge of grammar helps us find the appropriate chunks (iii) speaker assists through intonation and pausing.

12. Bottom-up (cont.)
e.g. “The guy I sat next to on the bus this morning on the way to work was telling me he runs a Thai restaurant in Chinatown. Apparently, it’s very popular at the moment.” (i) chunking: our knowledge of grammar helps us find the appropriate chunks

13. Top-down processing
Top-down: the use of background knowledge in understanding the meaning of a message.
the attribution of meaning drawn from one’s own world knowledge, to language input. It involves “the listener’s ability to bring prior information to bear on the task of understanding the ‘heard’ language.” (Morley, 2001)

14. Top-down (cont.)
Process: (i) draw on previous knowledge by asking questions (ii) response to questions
E.g. “I heard on the news there was a big earthquake in South Africa last night.”
Where exactly was the earthquake? How big was it? Did it cause a lot of damage? Were many people killed or injured? What rescue efforts are underway? The questions guide us through the understanding and focus our listening.

15. If the listener is unable to make use of top-down processing, an utterance or discourse may be incomprehensible.
Bottom-up processing alone provides insufficient basis for comprehension.
In real-life listening, both bottom-up and top-down processing generally occur together.
The extent to which one dominates depends on:

16. (a)Listener’s familiarity with the topic and content of a text (b)The density of information in a text ©The text type (d)The listener’s purpose for listening

17. Barriers to listening
1. We join the conversation with predetermined attitude and assumptions about the other person or the subject matter to be discussed. 2. We are so preoccupied with our own thoughts that we are unable to listen attentively. 3. We are completing the other person’s thoughts and jumping to conclusions. 4. We engage in selective listening.

18. Barriers (cont.)
5. We feel too tired, anxious, or angry to listen actively. 6. We don't pay enough attention to body language and vocalics, such as intonation, rate of speech, emphasis, or tone. 7. We are in a hurry. 8. The type of technical language used. 9. Cultural differences. 10. The place where listening occurs.

19. Effective listening habits
Pre-listening:
Build their background knowledge on subject before listening
Have a specific purpose for listening and attempt to ascertain speaker’s purpose
Tune in and attend
Minimise distractions

20. Effective listening habits (cont.)
During listening:
Give complete attention to listening task and demonstrate interest.
Search for meaning.
Constantly check their understanding of message by making connections, making and confirming predictions, making inferences, evaluating and reflecting.

21. During listening (cont.)
Know whether close or cursory listening is required: adjust their listening behaviour accordingly
Are flexible note makers (outlining, mapping, categorising) who sift and sort, often adding information of their own
Take fewer, more meaningful notes
Distinguish message from speaker
Consider the context and “colour” of words

22. Effective listening habits (cont.)
After listening:
Withhold judgement until comprehension of message is complete.
Will follow up on presentation by reviewing notes, clarifying, reflecting and acting upon the message.