[I can find no record of feedback from Elizabeth on this, either via e-mail or Moodle.]

What did I learn about myself as a listener in my L1?

After finishing this unit, I still think my strongest L1 skills are listening and writing. In our “cocktail party” exercise it was easy to tune out the distractions — music, other conversations, the “waitress” — and focus on small details of my party-partner’s conversation. I unwittingly snagged pieces of sound floating by, but still could attend primarily to my partner of the moment.

In the pair exercise of listening to and telling a story, the outcome was the same. I believe I absorbed even minor details of Yajuan’s story about her father. When I recounted it to her at the end, she confirmed that. One factor that helped me, beyond listening, was my ability to jot notes quickly, so details I considered more minor would stay in my memory. As a listener, my recall is enhanced a hundred-fold if I can take notes. Of course that’s not pertinent during “live” conversation, but it is helpful during class.

What did I learn about myself as a listener in my L2?

I’ve concluded that my L2 listening is much less developed even than I thought. I could never have done either of the exercises above in my second language, and continue to marvel at the abilities of our international students.

The exercise of listening to El Norte the first time — without picture or context — was proof that my L2 listening is weak. With the movie we had no textual or content schema (on first listening). The high level of ambient noise and the speakers’ fast pace exacerbated the listening challenge. I found myself listening from the bottom up, trying to pick out words and phrases and then inferring some sort of meaning, storyline or other context. I could tell there were two people talking at some sort of restaurant. I could hear a few keywords: “work,” “dangerous” and the food they ordered. It was frustrating and I was disappointed in myself.

On our second pass through. I didn’t fare much better: a few new words which I tried to place into the context Elizabeth had given us for this listening. The last time ‘round, listening and watching, yielded the best comprehension, but sadly not nearly as successful as I’d hoped.

What did I learn? I need a lot more practice not just with speaking but with listening in Spanish. Luckily, I’ll get that opportunity in a couple months! I’ve learned that I need to brush up before leaving and that listening (language table, perhaps?) needs to be an area of concentration.

What did I learn about how students learn to listen in an L2?

I learned about two primary strategies for listening that students (and teachers) use: listening from the bottom up — seeking out individual words and chunks and parts of speech — as the foundational building blocks of the text; and top-down listening, which begins with the big picture (the cultural and thematic context) into which the L2 learner can place the text elements. Teachers can frame listening exercises so that one or the other approach is the focus.

Another sequence of listening strategies we examined is chronological: predicting (what will they hear); inferring (reading between the lines); monitoring (what they do and don’t understand); clarifying (getting more information); responding (to what they hear); evaluating (how well did they understand).

The article by Jack Richards¹ raised some interesting points about how students learn to listen. I wish that SLA/FLA scholars had arrived at these conclusions when I was learning French and Spanish in high school: that comprehension rather than accurate analysis of grammar should be the first focus when teaching listening.

He also made the important (and unknown-to-me) distinction between “listening for comprehension” and “listening for acquisition.” He calls the two “input” and “intake,” respectively. The first part of the Bob Marley exercise we did in class is an example. Working both from top-down (schema) and bottom-up (selected language elements), we learned the context, predicted the meaning, extracted the broad message of the song, and tried to express our interpretation of meaning through dance. We weren’t focused on absolute accuracy but on gist.

Listening as acquisition goes hand-in-hand with listening as comprehension. But since extracting meaning is key to learning to listen, it seems optimal that comprehension precede acquisition in the classroom.

To return to the Bob Marley exercise, once we had a foundation of comprehension, we began to play with deeper linguistic meaning: bottom-up exercises and restructuring. We began with a noticing exercise, in which we held up “our word” each time we heard it. Later we assembled language “chunks” in sequence, looked at their contextual role, and otherwise played with the syntax.

I’m guessing that this sequence of learning, from understanding to practice, is the natural flow for many learners. It is for me. I have learned that I don’t do well, when just beginning to learn a language, when form precedes meaning.

Del Hymes’ Experiential Learning Cycle is another useful model in understanding how students learn to listen to a new language. Every language situation consists of separate elements, each of which is important to the whole: what is the setting; who is talking; what’s the purpose of the conversation (or monologue); what is the order of speech events; what is the tone; what is the style of speech; what are the social rules; and what kind of speech event is it (genre).

It’s important for us as teachers to realize that listening is more complex and multifaceted than it seems. Even the simplest sentence is conveying layers of meaning and intent. As learners (and even as native speakers!), we may not be aware of everything that happens within a speech act. As teachers we are not only helping our students learn to comprehend, but to master communicative competence (specifically, Canale and Swain’s model of grammatical, discourse, sociolinguistic and strategic competence).

A final observation about learning to listen is its close interrelationship with the other of the four skills. None is mutually exclusive. Each has its own domain but each also has significant overlap with the others. And of course listening and speaking are particularly closely connected.

What did I learn about teaching English (especially in relation to my internship and future teaching)?

I’ve begun to answer this question in above section, but I have a few things to add.

The idea of instructional strategies tailored specifically to listening was new to me: inference, identifying key words, predicting, listening for gist, etc. These will be a source of  inspiration when I teach listening skills in Mexico. I don’t yet know what level(s) I’ll be working with, but I have some resources that will help me tailor exercises to specific competencies.

A facet of the listening module I found particularly useful is that we as teachers need to proceed through three phases of teaching: pre-, in- and post-. As a language student, I’ve never experienced this, so it was new to me. Every listening exercise needs these elements for ultimate success.

• The “pre-” phase is crucial for setting context, framing the exercise for scaffolding, and motivating students. It helps guide strategic listening. We need to make sure our expectations are clear, and give students the information they need to predict what they might hear. I also learned we need to keep this phase brief, not longer than about five minutes.

• The “in-” phase: The listening. For beginning exercises, keep the input short. Teachers decide what will be the focus of the exercise: e.g. top-down listening for themes and overall understanding, or bottom-up listening for specific types of information.

• In the “post-” phase we tie the goals to the outcome, through discussion, writing or other activity. Were students able to infer meaning (either at the context level or vocabulary level, depending on the nature of the exercise)?  How can we tell they understood? If we were listening to a sequential story, can the students assemble a timeline? If they were listening for gist, can they summarize it? If they were listening for a phonological characteristic, can they produce it?  The “post” phase may also provide an opportunity to lay the groundwork for the next listening exercise. That gives students continuity and clear expectations, and may also boost their motivation.

A note about assessment of understanding of the exercise: it’s a crucial component that must be included in each listening lesson. A logical place for it is in the “post” segment, but in fact it can live in any or all of the phases.

Brown (2007)² talks about eight aspects of spoken language that pose particular challenges for L2 listeners: clustering (sub-sentence-level units); redundancy (extra words that can clutter the meaning); reduced forms (e.g. some kinds of connected speech); performance variables (corrections, stammers, etc.); colloquial language (e.g. idiom); rate of delivery (pace and pauses); stress, rhythm, and intonation (the sound of a stress-timed language); interaction (e.g. turn-taking). An awareness of these challenges allows us to use them as teaching opportunities.

Finally, here are a few concepts I find important for planning listening-focused lessons:

• The distinction between exercises that involve intensive (deep) versus extensive (wide) listening

• The need for authentic listening materials and exercises

• The importance of natural speech, without artificially slowing pace

• Exposure to different types of speech (conversational to monolog, informal to formal, variety of purpose, etc.)

• Working in pairs for listening exercises as a powerful tool for comprehension and lowering the affective filter

• Inclusion of a variety of listening tasks and types of input

• Introducing redundancy in listening exercises because it’s a natural form of speech and it aids in comprehension

• Activation of top down and bottom up schema

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¹Second Thoughts on Teaching Listening. Richards, Jack C.

²Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. Brown, H. Douglas. Pearson Longman, 2007.