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Helping Upper Intermediate Learners Listen for Gist and Identify the Speakers’ Emotions and Attitudes in Semi-Authentic and Authentic Dialogues. 

by CHRISTINA KAZAZIS

written for Module 2 of the Delta diploma of the University of Cambridge

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

 

1 Introduction ……………………………………………………………..    3

 

2 Language Analysis………………………………………………………    3

 

2a Listening for Gist   …………………………………………………….    3

 

2b Clues for Identifying Speakers’ Attitudes, Emotions

      & their Manifestations………………………………………………    4

 

2c Authentic Material…………………………………………………….   4

 

3 Learner Problems ………………………………………………………    5

 

4 Teaching Suggestions …………………………………………………    6

 

Bibliography …………………………………………………………………  9

 

 

 

 

 

  1. Introduction

 

Listening is a major indicator of what Ss can actually do in L2, how far they can actually communicate.  Successful listening for gist entails an understanding of the speaker’s thought continuum. My experience with various levels of both adult learners and teenagers showed me that they usually adopt a localistic approach of trying to understand every single word. They lack training in grasping the different set of norms in L2, in terms of sound, speed, stress. Understanding speakers’ emotions and attitudes causes great difficulty, as the appropriate intonation used to express these can be misleading even for native speakers of the language (Field, 2003: 206). I wish to learn how to help learners raise their awareness levels of both these as well as show them how to exploit all the information around the text, be it schemata of previous happenings/facts, be it the successful discourse representation in the co-text (Field 2003: 219), or the kinesic decoding and the awareness of local colloquialisms and norms. The most important reason I have chosen to focus on ‘authentic’ language is that the majority of my adult students feel that they can usually successfully handle the scripted material of the various B2 exams, but when it comes to interacting and having a dialogue with native speakers in real life their receptive communicative capacity falls short.

 

Language Analysis

 

2a Listening for Gist

 

Successful listening for gist means the learner has grasped the main points raised but also has correctly interpreted the implied meaning conveyed through the use of various linguistic and paralinguistic signs. Although decoding according to the bottom-up model is necessary, it can be argued that -especially when listening to “authentic” dialogue other factors may be of equal or even higher significance. For example, prosodic cues of stress and tone groups through language, and kinesic awareness (ie, in video) as message-carriers, may be of more help in accurately understanding the message than the precise awareness of the lexis involved. Flowerdrew and Miller (2005, 25-26) argue that knowledge of schema can lead to successful decoding of context without necessarily having to recognize or segment every word. Brainstorming language and concepts that learners can freely associate with a topic prior to listening lowers learners’ affective filter in that it makes them aware of how much they can exploit to understand the language, and provides a sense of security. It closely assimilates a real-life situation as we rarely engage in dialogue without implicit knowledge of these. Asking learners to respond to very general questions, for example a question to do with what the relationship between the speakers is, also helps them formulate accurate general ideas about the text and lowers anxiety levels, which is the main problem learners consciously complain about when asked how they feel when they do listening. Gist is conveyed through content words and Field (2003: 259) proposes an exercise in which learners have to jot down the stressed words only (which are usually the content words) regardless of whether they know them or not. Then learners try to work out the meaning of what they have heard during pause in the recorded material. So they train their working memories, exploiting co-text clues to arrive at concept understanding.

 

2b Clues for Identifying Speakers’ Attitudes and Emotions & their Manifestations

 

In real life, either in an L1 or an L2 context, one automatically makes presumptions through awareness of tone, rhythm, stress, pitch and that of kinesic information to decode a message. The problem is that often,  learners from different cultural backgrounds associate some aspects of these elements with different types of emotional message. For example, native English speakers rush through words that aren’t content words, (Flowerdrew and Miller 2005: 32). The choice of what to speed up and what not to speed up in the case of dialogue will depend on the speaker’s true emotions and attitude and by correctly interpreting these, a listener may correctly identify both emotion and attitude. Difficulty would arise, when, for example, the L1 of a learner doesn’t commonly employ speed devices to express emotion and attitude. Harmer (2007, 42-43) points out the different emotions and attitudes that can be conveyed through the tone of voice as well as through facial expression, gesture, proximity, posture and echoing all of which are also culture-dependent and without awareness of which a learner may miss crucial main points in an interaction. The use of interjections, hesitators and echo questions constitute an integral part of dialogue and verbal exchange of any sort and of any genre.

Moreover, context often conveys a speaker’s attitude: By identifying and using contextual clues  listeners may identify emotions and gist despite gaps in linguistic awareness; Field (2009:130) explains how the message of an utterance like ‘It’s going to rain’ depends on the situation in which it has occurred. It may carry a literal meaning to do with the interlocutors’ plans for a picnic, or it may be the interlocutor’s non-committal to something else, in which case it may convey the speaker’s evasiveness or their trying to end a discussion. Furthermore, the voice range used by the interlocutors are clues as to their emotions; Field (2009:206) referring to Brown G (1990:116) points out that the pitch and voice placement reflect emotion but it is very difficult for a listener to discern the exact emotions. A voice covering a larger range shows interest or engagement, whereas a voice of a limited range may betray distrust.

 

2 c Authentic Material

Language, in the form of dialogue, manifests itself as a result of and owing to a set of events, which are pragmatic and specific to the external and emotional circumstances involved. Though one rarely eavesdrops others’ conversations (which is what learners are called to do in a listening task), Field (2009,61) points out that “eavesdropping” takes place in any situation in which there is a group of 4-5 people and in which “any one of them may be ‘eavesdropping’ for 70% or more of the time”. Hence dialogues may come from sources such as actual interviews or parts of film selected to provide learners with a similar, near-authentic experience.

Another issue is what determines text authenticity; Field (2009, chapters 4 and 14) claims that authentic texts are those that have not been designed and written especially for ELT(Field 2009,28). My experience shows that using such material can create a genuine experience for learners; Field (2009,283) also makes a comparison between simplified dialogue which has been proven harder to understand, and natural, native dialogue which has been proven easier even though there are more new words. Redundancy, fillers and hesitation pauses give the listeners the time needed to process what is being said, so, provided the accompanying tasks are appropriate for the level, authentic material in this sense, can be used for ELT training.

 

 

 

3 Learner Problems

 

  1. Lack of familiarity with the topic/lack of schemata:

This occurs mostly with younger learners who have little or no awareness and/or interest in various general-interest topics; even though they are more able to correlate sounds to words (Flowerdrew and Miller, 2005,31), they lack the background knowledge, the culture and age-specific schemata to properly assess gist. Adults, on the other hand, who have more readily available schemata- of, say, arranging a visit to the dentist-, can better comprehend things is a roundabout way.

Exercises on schema activation are extremely helpful in this.

 

  1. Inability to parse and segment:

The lack of kinesic and paralinguistic information in audio listening affect the formation of meaning severely. Moreover, in my experience there are learners who – although knowledgeable in terms of lexis and grammar  – have serious difficulty in parsing and segmenting aural input; this is evident in most mixed-ability groups, whose background learning has relied too heavily on the written analytical aspects of the language in their study (ie, Grammar-Translation method), and have little or no awareness of phonological features of informal or even formal spoken discourse. They  segment the sounds into words with difficulty and after a great deal of thought, they are not familiar with the elisions, liaison and assimilation predominant in such discourse; they are also hardly familiar with the English phonemic sounds and the rules governing the pronunciation of individual words and connected utterances.

 

  1. Resistance to L2 culture:

The sounds of the target language are an integral part of the specific culture it reflects. Learners often resist acculturation – both in the context of ESL and EFL (Ellis, 2003) and this predisposes them negatively to comprehending the language when spoken in its most authentic forms. The majority of my adult students when presented with real language that reflects a real society often shy feel inadequate. This is sometimes manifested through their ridiculing of the set of ‘foreign’ norms exposed to them. I exposed independent learners to ‘Educating Rita’ in which a range of British social norms is presented and they failed in identifying main pieces of information communicated. This may be because they feel obliged to learn English for some objective, concrete reason but do not wish to culturally identify with the culture(s) behind the English language (Ellis,2003,38). They lack a sufficient level of convergence (Ellis,2003,39) and I believe this affects all communicative/skills aspects of their language acquisition process.

 

  1. Extensive focus on scripted audio with inadequate practice in listening to authentic speech:

The above-mentioned group was successful with B2 listening exam requirements. This shows that difficulty with authentic text often goes undetected because B2 exams require comprehension of scripted dialogue which is always well-enunciated and stresses content words in an unnatural and obvious manner (Flowerdrew and Miller,2005, 33). Authentic spoken language relies on intonation patterns more than on grammar and lexis. Hence, the stress-timed pattern of the English language may cause difficulties for learners whose L1 is syllable-timed such as French and Chinese (Flowerdrew and Miller,2005,32).

 

  1. Inability to interpret non-literal meanings:

Finally, in interpretation where concepts such as irony, metaphor and other non-literal meanings are necessary, L2 learners stumble upon added difficulty, success in these often depending on the equivalence or non-equivalence of the use of these in their L1.

 

 

 

 

4 Teaching Suggestions

 

  1. Lack of familiarity with the topic/lack of schemata:

The general topic is introduced by the teacher who asks CCQs to help the class determine its connotations and make predictions. Personal experience and memories related to the topic, are elicited and written on the board. A discussion can ensue in pairs during which learners exchange their personal experiences and/or beliefs. After this, a second part of the board can be dedicated to brainstorming possible lexis and expressions that would possibly be used. Learners ask about meanings of words they only know in their L1, and/or be divided into groups for an activity in which learners listen only for the words they initially thought would appear in the text to check if their predictions were correct. A  possible problem with this would be if the topic chosen is too far from the specific learners’ experience, so careful topic choice is crucial. [adaptation from Field,2008,219].

 

  1. Inability to parse and segment:

The teacher selects a number of key utterances in daily life which come in chunks and contain liaisons, elisions and assimilations; she then finds them on sites such as playphraseme.  First she asks Ss to improvise dialogues in pairs using the phrases which she has given on small slips. Then she sticks cards with them on the walls or board. She plays the phrases and Ss are asked to notice the differences between the way they pronounced them and the way they are pronounced on the video. Then Ss imitate the proper way of pronouncing these in chorus and/or individually. A good example is ‘Do you want a coffee?’ which is pronounced /dʒu:ˈwɒnəˈkɒfɪ/ and not /du: ju: ˈwɒnt ə ˈkɒfɪ/. As a follow-up Ss listen to an audio text which contains some of these along with the transcript of the text and are asked to underline differences between the way utterances are written and the way they are spoken.

 

  1. Resistance to L2 culture:

Fun activities to inspire learners about the L2 culture should be found and encouraged. Exposing independent learners to meaningful and interesting video sequences, not for actual comprehension but to help convey the ‘feel’ of the culture is one way to do this. Using comedy that has acquired international recognition status, such as episodes of Mr. Bean, is very helpful as it is part of something in their existing schemata they can directly or indirectly refer back to. Using virtual reality classrooms is also a good way to motivate learners to become more accepting of the L2 culture, as I have noticed that often students who come back from a trip to Britain are more positively disposed to delving into the culture. Of course the limited number of teaching hours per week may not afford the luxury of focusing extensively on ‘immersion’ into the culture as such, but stimuli can be provided for Ss to go about this on their own.

 

  1. Extensive focus on scripted audio with inadequate practice in listening to authentic speech:

This can be countered firstly by making sure that teacher talk is limited to the L2. Furthermore, it is important to include sessions in the syllabus in which learners are exposed to authentic or near-authentic video and/or radio podcasts

. A possible sequence of such lessons is: (adapted from Wilson, 2008,119-122):

 

A

  1. a) Vision on, sound off: Ss try to guess what the actors are saying.
  2. b) Vision off, sound on: Ss see how far their guesses were correct.

 

B

  1. a) Ss are given transcripts of the video and are asked to act them out. Then they watch the scene and notice how things are really pronounced and intonated.

 

C

  1. a) Ss first watch a scene and follow what the actors say in a written transcript they have been given. They watch a few times and then act the scene out trying to imitate the natural intonation of the speakers/actors.

 

A possible problem with the above may arise if/when Ss are too self-conscious to act. In such a case, the teacher may allow those Ss to complete the tasks seated stressing the importance of grasping and reproducing a natural sound.

 

  1. Inability to interpret non-literal meanings:

Comedy is an ideal genre  through which to study “different tones of voice, irony, sarcasm..” (Wilson, 2008,51). Comedy contains these in exaggeration and this quality helps L2 learners discern differences that in normal speech may go undetected. The teacher draws the Ss’ attention to these and can then have them guess what the intonation would be if the inferred meaning was something else. Worksheets in which learners have to match the metaphorical utterances to their inferred meanings can be used. A possible problem can be that learners often don’t share the same set of norms as to what is humour, irony etc. This can be explained more directly by the teacher at the end or the beginning of any such session.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

Flowerdrew and Miller, Second Language Listening, Theory and Practice, Cambridge language Education, 2005

Jack C. Richards, Teaching Listening and Speaking, Cambridge University Press, 2008

J Wilson, 2008, How to Teach Listening, Pearson Education Limited

J Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching, Longman

John Field 2008, Listening in the Language Classroom, Cambridge University Press, 2008

Larry Vandergrift, Christine C.M. Goh, Teaching and Learning Second Language Listening, Routledge 2012

Rod Ellis, Second Language Acquisition, Oxford University Press, 2003