LEARNING TO LEARN
in their Language B examinations , which had previously been tested ‘ implicitly ’ under the auspices of other skills .
The importance of listening is therefore impossible to ignore , yet ostensibly remains one of the hardest skills for all students to acquire . The perceived stress and time-boundedness of classroom listening practice so often seems to replicate an exam , which Vandergrift ( 2007 ) describes as an undue weight ‘ on the product of listening : the correct answer ’. Anecdotally ( from what we might call the ‘ groan-o-meter ’) our department has seen that students often dread this skill and have historically performed less well here in exams . As a result of in-house training , we have implemented strategies to improve students ’ listening whilst also reducing anxiety around this essential skill . The approaches outlined below would of course have applications beyond the Modern Languages classroom .
Learning to listen : improving listening skills in modern languages and beyond
Dr Fabienne Cheung , Head of French
Introduction
Picture the scene in the average Modern Languages classroom , unchanged over many decades : Monsieur , Madame , Señor or Professoressa , poised with their finger on the ‘ Play ’ button ; the diligent students , ears craning towards the loudspeaker ; the less diligent perfecting a doodle in their margin . The tape begins . The classroom jolts to a start , and by the end of the audio some are dusting off their hands in satisfied glee whilst others ask : ‘ Why are they speaking so fast , Miss ?’.
Traditional listening activities in Modern Languages still form an essential part of both classroom practice and examination assessment . Indeed , from as recently as 2018 , the IB decided to instate a listening component
Why do students find listening so hard ?
Research into why students seemingly find listening difficult abounds , particularly in the Modern Languages context . This research has attempted to take account of the way listening is taught , as the key to understanding how teachers can improve our delivery of this skill .
Perhaps the most useful explanation of this comes from languages teacher-researchers such as Conti and Smith ( 2019 ), who have argued that listening was , for too long , taught with majority emphasis on students ’ ‘ top-down ’ processing . Here , students apply their existing knowledge of a given scenario ( e . g . buying a ticket at a train station ) and match their expectations to what they hear on the audio tape . Conti and Smith assert instead that ‘ bottomup ’ processing must be given more weight . That is , students must be ‘ built up ’ to listening through activities such as : increasing their phonological awareness ; word recognition tasks ; metalinguistic preparation ; and pre-listening activities . By joining these top-down and bottom-up approaches , students stand not only a better chance of ascertaining what information to isolate to answer a given question , but crucially are taught to learn to listen .
Bloomfield et al ( 2010 ) indicate that ‘ ability to understand the phonology of the non-native language ’ in addition to ‘ background knowledge about the topic ’ and the ‘ mental state of listeners ’ all together influence listening skill . They advise that ‘ working memory is likely to impact L2 listening comprehension , and that [ negative ] effects will be particularly strong in conditions that impose additional demands on working memory ’. In agreement with Conti and Smith , Bloomfield et al suggest that teaching strategies to support students ’ working memory will ultimately lead to higher listening ability and reduces the anxiety which ‘ can have a profound effect on listening performance ’.
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