Assignment
Name : Nishtha Makwana
Submitted to the Department of English, MKBU.
Roll No. 15
Paper : English Language Teaching
Topic :
Role of Listening Skill for language learning
Abstract :
If we are asked how we have learned our mother language? Then the ultimate answer will be - By listening and observing, capturing lisping. It is the most conventional way to learn a language. But it depends upon our listening skills. We all have certain types of listening skills. This assignment will analyze those types of listening skills and how it affects our language learning. Especially when we are learning a second or foreign language.
Research Questions
This assignment will follow these questions
Why is listening important in language learning?
Why is listening important for foreign languages?
Introduction
According to research, whenever we communicate with people, we listen to 40 to 50% of the person, we speak 25 to 30% . It means we spend half of the time listening. We think listening is the easiest way, but when we sit to listen foreign language, listening becomes the hardest skill then other activities. We have always had this problem in India to learn or teach foreign languages. Here are five reasons why listening is important for foreign language learning.
Listening is an Active Process
Listening is an active process because we have to focus on conversations or words as well as we have to concentrate. Sometimes we just listen in social gatherings or group discussions, we speak not a single word because people are talking in other or foreign languages. But Listening is a very active process, getting over the feeling that we are doing nothing is a key step towards listening effectively. Here are some tips to show that we are active listeners.
👉Make eye contact
👉Nod your head slightly to show you are understanding
👉Don't play with your phone and look somewhere else.
The Silent Period is Golden
This is a very interesting part. While studying second language children have this silent period where they just listen to people or teachers. But adults don't do this, they just slightly jump and try to speak. A period of silent listening can actually be hugely beneficial.
Our Brain Is a Foreign language Goldfish
We easily forget what someone says in foreign language, we don't easily forget what the person said in our mother tongue. It happens a lot of the time.
We are not familiar with that language and we don't know the segmentation rules also to speak that language. So, here are some examples of how to solve this problem and being familiar with rules.
👉Watch film in target language
👉Listen audiobook version and also read
👉Spend time with native speaker and attend social gathering
👉listen to radio in target language
Our Listening Strategies Are Upside-down
In schools we are told to listen to tape recorders and radio. And now in the classroom we have to listen to each and every word carefully. The pronunciation and punctuation. This is called Bottom Up listening strategy. But in reality I can not listen every time carefully. Top-down listening, a great strategy to add more understanding. It focuses on the concept while Bottom up strategy focuses on words.
The Gist is only half the story
Whenever we listen in other languages we pretend to understand everything. But in reality we didn't understand anything. We just think that we have understood. Here are some exercise which will help us to find whether we understand or not.
👉Try drawing a picture of what was said
👉Ask yourself some questions about it and try to answer them
👉Provide a summary of what was said
👉Suggest what might come next in the story
👉Translate what was said into another language
Thus, these are some reasons which show how listening is important to learn language.
Why Is Listening important in language learning?
Listening is the skill we will use the most in English or any other language to learn.
“If you develop good listening comprehension, the other skills will come, the speaking will come, even your grammar, your accuracy. All of these things will come if you have had so much exposure to the language that you understand it when it is spoken by a native speaker.”
– Steve Kauffman, polyglot and founder of LingQ
If we just develop our listening skill we will improve our spoken skill and accuracy. Repeated listening and use of the worksheets will help us to improve our listening skills. It is not an easy process to learn through listening, but this is the best way to learn any language. Because the more you listen, the more you understand. Here are some examples of types of listeners.
Types Of Listening
👉Interactive listening
👉Appreciative listening
👉Attentive Listening
👉Biased Listening
👉Casual Listening
👉Comprehensive Listening
👉Critical Listening
👉Deep listening
👉Empathetic Listening
👉Evaluating Listening
👉Inactive Listening
👉Reflective Listening
👉Sympathetic Listening
👉Total Listening
These are types of listening and listeners. It depends on your listening style.
Conclusion
Thus, one can say that listening plays a very vital role in learning a foreign or second language. It also helpful to improve our language. Automatically our spoken skill will increase.
Work Cited
Hill, Alex O. "Why the Heck Is Listening Such a Big Deal? 5 Reasons Why Language Learners Need to Listen Up." FluentU Language Learning, 17 Mar. 2019, www.fluentu.com/blog/the-importance-of-listening-in-language-learning/. Accessed 5 Dec. 2020.
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