Exploring L2 listening instruction: examinations of practice

© The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.

Exploring L2 listening instruction: examinations of practice

Joseph Siegel

This paper contributes to L2 listening pedagogy by exploring listening instruction and examining teachers’ authentic listening lessons. Listening instruction has yet to be investigated systematically, and the literature has typically relied on anecdotal and intuitive accounts of what takes place in listening lessons. Therefore, this paper reports on a practical investigation into listening pedagogy through a review of 30 listening lessons taught and recorded by ten EFL instructors in Japan. Lesson content was transcribed and coded according to a priori categories informed by the literature. These categories included, among others, comprehension questions, bottom-up listening activities, and metacognitive listening strategies. Results revealed some teachers using a range of techniques while others limited their teaching to product-based approaches. The paper provides empirical descriptions of L2 listening instruction in practice and discusses pedagogic implications stemming from the results, including suggestions for how language teachers can expand their repertoires for the teaching of listening.

For years, listening has been considered the most difficult of the four main language skills. It is a challenging skill for both learners to acquire and for L2 instructors to teach (for example Vandergrift 2004; Field 2008). Because most people develop their L1 listening abilities seemingly without effort or attention, it is not surprising that many L2 educators give little thought to what listening is, how it works, or how it can be developed in others. Yet due to its ephemeral nature, learners often feel overwhelmed by the speed and intangible nature of spoken language. It comes at them rapidly and they typically only have one chance to listen unless they ask for repetition or clarification, which can lead to a loss of face in some contexts. Language students may also be frustrated that there are no rules to memorize that will automatically lead to listening success (Nemtchinova 2013). Indeed, L2 learners face an arduous challenge in learning to listen in their new language.

Language learners’ troubles with listening include linguistic difficulties such as learning a new phonetic system, inability to parse the L2 speech stream, and struggling to understand the spoken forms of words they know in written form (for example Goh 2002). Other challenges come from unfamiliarity with the generic conventions of the L2 or lack of

Introduction

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sufficient background knowledge to aid in understanding the L2 in context. In addition to those linguistic and world-knowledge obstacles is the challenge of identifying and chronicling progress in listening ability. In other words, learners cannot tell if and when their listening is improving. Students may look to scores on tests of listening proficiency, but assessment methods contain several complications (for example Buck 2001). Add the pressure and anxiety that come with listening in real time, and learners are left with few options. Naturally, they look to their teachers for help.

Language educators, however, also face a challenging task when trying to help learners develop L2 listening skills. Teachers may be less familiar with the intricacies of listening than they are with other language skills, both in terms of what listening entails and how to address it in the classroom. Moreover, instructors may be unfamiliar with a range of activities that effectively develops the necessary sub-skills and strategies to lead to competent listening (Nemtchinova op.cit.). This situation may lead some teachers, especially those new to the field, to rely heavily on traditional product-oriented approaches to listening instruction, such as the (over) use of comprehension questions (for example Field 2008).

Teachers lacking in pedagogic knowledge about L2 listening may rely on the same ‘listen, answer, check’ pattern for all of their listening lessons. Other techniques for listening instruction may not be incorporated into their teaching repertoires. As such, teachers may have limited pedagogic resources when it comes to developmental progression for their learners’ listening abilities. In other words, students may do essentially the same thing in each listening lesson: listen to a text, respond to questions, and check their answers. If used over and over again, this approach would seem more like a continuous test of present listening ability than scaffolded guidance meant to improve that ability. In addition, learners may not be exposed to a flexible array of listening activities. Instead, the same comprehension-based approach may be used regardless of student proficiency level, age, or background. Such circumstances are less than ideal because students would not have adequate opportunities to expand their listening skills and strategies.

One possible source of the problem is the underdeveloped area of teacher education for L2 listening instruction. Many teacher education courses neglect the exploration of listening at the theoretical level, and they typically underprepare new teachers in terms of the practical approaches, techniques, and activities that they can apply in their classrooms (Graham, Santos, and Vanderplank 2011). Furthermore, teachers who turn to textbook manuals for help may find a lack of support for listening (Field 2012). Therefore, it would seem that teacher education about listening is an area in need of development. More attention from teacher educators could help alleviate situations like that described by Lynch and Mendelsohn (2002: 207) in which some teachers either avoided teaching listening altogether or did so ‘rather poorly’.

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In order to support the developing field of L2 listening instruction, as well as to relocate a discussion of listening pedagogy from the literature to the everyday classroom, this paper examines authentic listening instruction. First, several techniques for teaching L2 listening are reviewed. These approaches established the framework for exploring listening pedagogy adopted for this research. Next, the study into listening instruction is described, in which samples of L2 listening instruction from ten university EFL lecturers in Japan were examined. Several approaches found in the data are explained and exemplified. Findings from the study show some teachers employing a range of techniques in their classrooms while others adopt more conservative product-oriented approaches. Finally, analysis of the lessons provides insight into what actually happens during listening instruction and leads to a discussion of implications for classroom pedagogy and teacher education on the topic of L2 listening instruction.

Much of the class time spent on L2 listening has traditionally involved responding to comprehension questions like those on standardized listening tests (for example Flowerdew and Miller 2005; Field 2008). This situation may have been caused by an absence of different techniques for addressing listening in the L2 classroom, and thus, teachers continued to rely on test-like procedures. In recent years, however, several works on L2 listening methodology have suggested alternatives to comprehension-based approaches. Instead of an approach that relies exclusively on comprehension questions, the literature offers teaching techniques that focus on decoding and bottom-up activities (Field 2008), predictions (Lynch and Mendelsohn op.cit.), metacognitive listening cycles (Vandergrift and Goh 2012), transfer of listening strategies (Siegel 2013), and teacher modelling (Goh 2008; Siegel ibid.), among others. These techniques, which were selected in order to determine the extent to which recent pedagogic suggestions in the literature were being employed in listening classes, are summarized below.

This is a teacher-centred approach that makes extensive use of questions (for example multiple choice) and requires listeners to provide discrete information from a text. It essentially consists of constantly testing present listening ability rather than facilitating development (see Field 2008).

This broad category encompasses phonemic perception, syntactic parsing, and intonation. Bottom-up activities target learners’ abilities to process the acoustic input they receive and to extract meaning from the speech stream (see Lynch and Mendelsohn op.cit.).

This technique is the realization of a top-down view that involves learners first setting up predictions or hypotheses and then confirming or rejecting them while or after listening. Predictive activities stimulate background knowledge so that learners can predict aural content and subsequently monitor the accuracy of their predictions (see Buck op.cit.).

Techniques for teaching L2 listening

Comprehension approach

Bottom-up activities

Prediction

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A metacognitive listening strategy cycle includes planning, monitoring, and evaluating listening as well as problem-solving. Use of metacognition when listening allows for efficient and effective use of cognitive strategies, which act directly on the input received (see Vandergrift and Goh op.cit.).

This technique is used when teachers link listening skills and strategies practised in class to future listening situations, either in or beyond the classroom. This can be accomplished by first using scaffolded listening practice with one text before students listen to a different text on a similar topic or from a similar genre, with the purpose of preparing learners for subsequent listening encounters (see Siegel op.cit.).

This technique involves teachers performing think-aloud procedures in which they explain their cognitive processes while listening. The teacher sets a mental model for students to emulate by describing how they prepare for and monitor input during listening. Teachers also identify those parts of the aural text on which they focus their attention (see Goh 2008; Siegel op.cit.)

Although there are a number of pedagogic options that L2 teachers have for listening instruction, little research has been done to systematically investigate how they carry out the teaching of listening. A link between pedagogic theory in the literature and listening instruction in practice needs to be established. Teachers may be aware of a range of pedagogic options through the literature, but are they being used in listening lessons? Or is the ‘Comprehension approach’ (Field 2008) as prominent as anecdotal accounts might suggest? A logical starting point would be to investigate aspects of L2 listening instruction in practice so that teachers and teacher educators can understand what is actually happening when teachers ‘teach’ listening. Once an empirical description of L2 listening instruction is available, beyond anecdotal and intuitive accounts, L2 professionals can determine appropriate directions for improvement.

Many accounts of L2 listening instruction mentioned in the literature are based on anecdotal evidence and intuition (Graham et al. 2011), and the field is in need of empirical descriptions of listening instruction in practice. Therefore, a descriptive study of L2 listening instruction was undertaken to better understand related teaching trends. The study examined the approaches, activities, and verbal output that L2 listening teachers used during the listening portions of their language classes.

The participants were ten EFL university lecturers (three Japanese teachers of English and seven native-speaker teachers) representing five different tertiary institutions in Japan. Each teacher was given a digital recorder and a small collar microphone and asked to record any three of their classes that included listening instruction. The teachers were not informed of the purpose of the study and were asked to teach as they usually would. The combined total amount of recorded listening instruction in the 30 lessons was approximately 18.5 hours. Only the

Metacognitive listening strategies

Transfer to other listening situations

Teacher modelling

The study1


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teachers’ verbal output during designated listening portions of the lessons was recorded. No student output or interaction was included in the analysis.

Prior to the data collection phase, I identified the group of techniques for listening instruction described above to investigate in the data. This set of categories was not meant to be comprehensive; rather, it was to provide a description of listening teaching at a broad level. Table 1 includes the list of techniques and authentic illustrative examples from the data.2

There were several instances of listening instruction that fell outside these categories and were disregarded for this study. Recordings of listening instruction were transcribed and analysed for content that matched the various categories outlined above. Using a checklist, I read the transcripts and recorded the frequency of each approach to listening instruction. The data and codings were reviewed by four other EFL professionals, yielding an 83 per cent consistency rate in coding. Most coding variations were resolved through discussion and additional contextual background from the lesson transcripts. In two cases, agreement on a single category was not reached; therefore those two excerpts were placed in two different categories.

Each of the selected aspects was found in the data, as shown in Table 2. The recordings totalled approximately 18.5 hours of listening instruction. Listening portions of the lessons ranged between 10 and 90 minutes. However, not all of this time is accounted for in Table 2, for example classroom activities such as checking comprehension with partners, listening to and replaying audio texts, and setting up tasks

table 1

Technique Authentic example from the data

Comprehension questions Ok, what are the complaints? Lily, the complaints? Sorry, one more time? Ok, terrible headache. Number two, Akiko?

Bottom-up activities Ok, I’d like you jump to the back of the book ... read the script to your partner, who’s then going to fill in the gaps.

Set up/check predictions Try to guess what transition words you think he will use [three-minute gap] ... Which ones did you hear and did you hear any different ones?


So I’ll give you one minute just to read the questions, ok? And then later, I’ll play the audio.

Encourage transfer to other listening situations

Right, so the stress might change according to a different country or culture, ok?

Teacher modelling If you just look at the [script], then you immediately have … that’s your most important hint. Look at the words and they happen so often, you know it’s about fish ... the word happened so many times ... so then, it’s kind of, a little bit easier to find out the main theme.

Realizations of listening instruction techniques

Samples of L2 listening instruction

Findings

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were not included in the analysis. In addition, the approaches employed may have been dependent on several factors, including time available, text type, textbook task type, class goals, learner level, and teacher preference.

Comprehension questions were used at a much greater rate than any of the other techniques, both in terms of the total number of instances and the total number of lessons. All ten teachers used them at some point during instruction. This finding is hardly surprising given the prominence of the ‘Comprehension approach’ (for example Field 2008). The findings in this study provide empirical support for the notion that discrete item questions dominate listening lessons.

Activities and instruction that targeted bottom-up processes (which included work on phonics, reduced speech, dictation, and simultaneous listening and script reading) were also regularly present. The fact that some teachers spend class time on bottom-up processes is encouraging, as recent literature (for example Field 2008) has called for more attention to be paid to helping learners process the speech stream rather than relying on top-down processes to fill in gaps in comprehension.

Teachers also attempted to access learners’ background knowledge through predictions, although setting up predictions occurred more often than checking those predictions. Meanwhile, nearly half the lessons (12 of 30) had some attention to metacognitive strategies. In the majority of those instances, teachers were drawing students’ attention to task requirements or planning what to focus on during listening. Both of these approaches to listening have been mentioned in the literature (for example Vandergrift and Goh op.cit.), although until now there has not been a record of the frequency with which they are employed.

Less frequent in the data were instances in which teachers made connections between the listening practice at hand and future listening

table 2Quantitative findings from recordings

Teacher3 Comprehension questions

Bottom-up activities

Set up predictions

Check predictions


Encourage strategy transfer

Teacher modelling

Gary 38 (3)* 15 (3) 8 (1) 8 (1) 4 (2) 6 (3) 2 (1)Harold 32 (3) 12 (3) 1 (1) 0 8 (3) 2 (2) 2 (1)Tony 13 (3) 2 (1) 11 (2) 3 (1) 3 (2) 1 (1) 0Edward 25 (2) 6 (3) 3 (3) 0 5 (3) 2 (1) 0Saki 102 (3) 7 (3) 0 0 2 (1) 0 0Jeffery 34 (3) 1 (1) 0 0 2 (1) 0 0Nihiro 27 (3) 24 (3) 0 0 0 0 0Brian 22 (3) 3 (2) 0 0 0 0 0David 22 (3) 0 0 0 0 0 0Atsuko 16 (3) 0 0 0 0 0 0Total 331 (29) 70 (19) 25 (8) 11 (2) 24 (12) 11 (7) 4 (2)

Note: * total number of instances (number of lessons out of three)


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situations in which learners might find themselves. Only four teachers did this in a total of seven classes. By encouraging transfer of listening skills and strategies introduced and practised in class, teachers could help prepare their students for experiences beyond the classroom. This was only done 11 times in the data, for example when teachers discussed regional accents, listening to L2 university lectures, or how a certain listening technique could help learners on upcoming standardized tests.

The technique of teacher modelling (for example Goh 2008) was a rare occurrence in this data set, with only four instances. As this technique was evident in only two lessons, it seems that few teachers are aware of teacher modelling as an option for listening instruction. This is a relatively new idea in listening pedagogy and, it would appear, has not yet managed to evolve from literature about listening pedagogy to common classroom practice. However, Siegel (op.cit.) has outlined practical guidelines for teachers wishing to use teacher modelling in their classes.

The teachers mentioned in Table 2 varied widely in the range of techniques they employed. At one extreme were teachers Atsuko and David, who relied heavily on comprehension questions. Other instructors (for example Harold and Tony) added more variety by incorporating additional approaches. Gary displayed the widest array of approaches by utilizing each in at least one lesson. It should be noted that amounts of class time designated for listening may have helped or constrained teachers in their decisions about instructional approaches. Additionally, the outcomes of teaching practices represented in Table 2 may be a consequence of textbook activity types.

Taken as a whole, these findings add empirical support to the more anecdotal and intuitive reports about what actually takes place during typical listening instruction. All of the designated approaches and techniques were evident in the data, demonstrating that teachers are aware of and able to incorporate a variety of pedagogic methods into their lessons. Of the ten teachers involved in the study, four exhibited broad repertoires of listening techniques in their three lessons. It seems these teachers were more likely to apply or experiment with techniques other than standard comprehension-based activities. Regarding the frequency of each element, comprehension questions vastly outweighed the others. ‘Newcomers’ to listening methodology (for example metacognitive listening strategies and teacher modelling) occurred less often.

Before proceeding with pedagogic implications, the limitations of this study must be acknowledged. First, the listening lessons have been decontextualized and isolated from the flow of a semester of classes. The study represents only snapshots of listening instruction. The teachers involved may have exhibited different patterns of listening instruction in other classes. Second, the study investigated neither teachers’ assumptions about listening nor their reasons for choosing certain approaches. Teachers may have had well-founded and appropriate reasons for employing the techniques revealed in the study. Additionally, the extent to which listening textbooks and materials guided these listening lessons was not investigated. Finally, the categories and their boundaries are open to debate, for it is difficult

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to differentiate between some close and overlapping concepts. Despite these limitations, this study has explored listening instruction in a practical manner that can help improve the uncertain circumstances associated with L2 listening pedagogy.

The majority of instances of listening instruction found in these data involved comprehension questions. While other types of listening activities (for example bottom-up exercises and prediction) were utilized at times, other techniques mentioned in the literature, such as encouraging transfer of listening skills and teacher modelling, were used less frequently. The data suggested that there is an imbalance of comprehension questions compared to other techniques, which also have merit in listening lessons depending on variables such as course goals and learner ability. If teachers are aware of and able to implement a wider range of techniques, they will be better prepared to adequately address the multiple facets of listening. Teachers such as Gary and Harold are prime examples of teachers who are able to do so.

Each approach investigated in this study serves a purpose for teachers and students. Comprehension questions are useful for test preparation, as they mimic common testing items. They are also one of the few efficient and practical ways to evaluate the listening ability of groups of students. These questions provide evidence of comprehension or non-comprehension, which teachers can use to diagnose and possibly address listening problems. However, the data suggested little instruction connected to the use of comprehension questions. Indeed, comprehension questions were used more than any other element in the data, suggesting that evaluation of present listening ability happens more frequently than listening instruction.

The other approaches to listening seem to serve more developmental purposes. Bottom-up activities draw learners’ attention to phoneme discrimination and parsing of the speech stream. Prediction helps activate learners’ background knowledge and encourages them to be active listeners. Metacognitive listening strategies guide learners to be more efficient, focused, and self-aware while listening. The transfer of listening skills practised in the classroom to learners’ listening futures is inherent in the term ‘instruction’. That is, a major goal for instructors of any kind is to prepare learners to succeed beyond the classroom after a course of study. Finally, teacher modelling can utilize teachers’ adept listening ability, as they provide advice, direction, and a mental framework for learner improvement.

Although comprehension questions may be convenient for classroom management and easy to incorporate in listening lessons, they may have limited benefits for learners. Such questions continually evaluate present listening ability but seem to contribute little to listening development unless the teacher uses them for diagnostic purposes, which ideally leads to targeted practice on problematic areas. As shown by the cross-section of teachers in this study, a range of listening approaches other than comprehension questions is achievable. A variety of approaches to listening instruction not only keeps listening lessons stimulating, but can

Implications for pedagogy


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also cater appropriately to different groups and learning styles. Moreover, a range of methods will help to develop holistic listening ability.

This study has attempted to contribute to L2 listening pedagogy by exploring ten EFL teachers’ listening instruction and revealing some pedagogic patterns in listening classes. Through empirical findings, it has begun to address the need for more description of L2 listening instruction in practice to supplant anecdotal and intuitive accounts. Descriptive classroom-based research on listening instruction can help L2 professionals discover those elements that are being addressed appropriately and those that are being neglected. Additionally, such research will reveal whether pedagogic recommendations in the literature are making their way into common practice in the classroom. Teachers are invited to use and build on the method of listening instruction analysis offered here to reflect on their own teaching. Likewise, teacher educators are encouraged to use this framework with teachers-in-training to equip them with a range of techniques for listening instruction.

Final version received July 2013

Notes1 This work was supported by Kakenhi research

grant 24720280 from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

2 Pseudonyms have been used in place of all student and teacher names.

3 Japanese and western pseudonyms have been used for Japanese and native-speaker teachers, respectively.

ReferencesBuck, G. 2001. Assessing Listening. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Field, J. 2008. Listening in the Language Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Field, J. 2012. ‘Listening instruction’ in A. Burns and J. C. Richards (eds.). The Cambridge Guide to Pedagogy and Practice in Second Language Teaching. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Flowerdew, J. and L. Miller. 2005. Second Language Listening: Theory and Practice. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Goh, C. 2002. ‘Exploring listening comprehension tactics and their interaction patterns’. System 30/2: 185–206.Goh, C. 2008. ‘Metacognitive instruction for second language listening development’. RELC Journal 39/2: 188–213.Graham, S., D. Santos, and R. Vanderplank. 2011. ‘Exploring the relationship between listening development and strategy use’. Language Teaching Research 15/4: 435–56.

Lynch, T. and D. Mendelsohn. 2002. ‘Listening’ in N. Schmitt (ed.). An Introduction to Applied Linguistics. London: Arnold.Nemtchinova, E. 2013. Teaching Listening. Alexandria, VA: TESOL International Association.Siegel, J. 2013. ‘Methodological ingenuity for L2 listening instruction’ in J. Schwieter (ed.). Studies and Global Perspectives of Second Language Teaching and Learning. Charlotte, NC: Information Age.Vandergrift, L. 2004. ‘Listening to learn or learning to listen?’. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 24: 3–25.Vandergrift, L. and C. Goh. 2012. Teaching and Learning Second Language Listening. New York, NY: Routledge.

The authorJoseph Siegel has taught for several years at university level in Japan and is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Foreign Languages at J. F. Oberlin University in Tokyo. He has given a number of international presentations and workshops on the topics of L2 listening pedagogy and strategy instruction. He is currently a PhD candidate in Applied Linguistics at Aston University (UK), where his research focuses on the implementation of L2 listening strategy instruction at university level. Among his research interests are discourse analysis, classroom interaction, and pragmatic development.Email: [email protected]

Conclusion

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Exploring L2 listening instruction: examinations of practice