Fachdidaktik C

• Listening comprehension competency


  Taking in information from the spoken language

  
• Listening comprehension


  • It is a prerequisite for other language activities
  • It is a complex process involving general and linguistic competences
  • It can be described by bottom-up, top-down, and interactive process models

  
• Bottom-up model


  Listening comprehension process that goes from individual sounds via words to larger units of information

  
• Top-down model


  Listening comprehension process that goes from extra-textual to textual units

  
• Interactive process model


  Integrative, mediating concept that combines linguistic and non-linguistic procedures of meaning development
• Good listening


  • Listener must activate existing knowledge, draw conclusions, anticipate, use existing patterns of interpretation (top-down strategies)
  • Listener must master bottom-up strategies
  • Listener cannot control the pace of the text, sounds come in real time, authentic spoken English contains features that complicate understanding

  
• Less successful listeners


  Focus on the bottom-up procedure, stay at the level of individual words and try to decipher one by one
• Difficulty of listening texts

  • Speaking pace
  • Language standard
  • Length
  • Complexity (sentences, text, topic)
  • Number of speakers
  • Background noise
  • Recording quality
• Length of listening texts

  • Important because foreign-language listening requires great concentration
  • Too short makes it difficult to "listen in"
  • Too long can exceed the attention span and have a tiring effect
  • Usual length varies between one and three minutes, higher classes can exceed five minutes
• Pre-listening-phase


  1. Use suitable exercises and tasks to control and check the listening comprehension process

  2. Sharpen attention

  3. Build up expectations

  4. Focus listening interest

  5. Activate prior knowledge

  6. Facilitate while-listening phase

  
• While-listening-phase


  1. Check text comprehension through discussion to understand the text

  2. Use closed formats (e.g. listen and act, multiple choice, true/false, matching, put pictures in order, identify differences)

  3. Use open formats (e.g. filling gaps, answering questions, filling in tables, completing sentence beginnings)

  4. Use semi-open formats (e.g. content details, questions about the text)

  
• Post-listening-phase


  Focus on deepening, transfer or application, e.g. draw conclusions, discuss problems, analyze language and style, elaborate thematic aspects, do language work, carry out creative activities or projects
• Listening strategies


  • Strategies for preparing for listening comprehension (e.g. read work instructions carefully)
  • Strategies to facilitate the hearing process (e.g. ask own questions)
  • Strategies for processing the heard (e.g. take notes)
  • Strategies to compensate for incomprehension (e.g. unlock meaning from context)
  • Strategies for improving retention (e.g. further process notes)
  • Strategies for preparing language production (e.g. create an outline)

  
• Selection of audio texts should take different sources, formats and genres into account
• Suitable audio texts include radio broadcasts, podcasts, speeches, songs
• Teacher should explicitly recognize listening comprehension as complex, difficult, and with possibility of non-understanding
• Listening comprehension task should be prepared by a previous activity and followed up or expanded by a subsequent task

  
• Wide listening


  Learners select listening texts based on their own interests and preferences, e.g. audiobooks, pop songs, English-language audio files
• Listening comprehension outside the classroom

  • Face-to-face contacts like contacting native English speakers, exchange programs, holidays in English-speaking countries are more difficult to organize but very demanding
• Auditory-visual comprehension (listening and viewing comprehension) is a combined foreign language competence that requires training
• Auditory-visual comprehension


  • Requires listening comprehension skills, visual comprehension skills, hearing/seeing/comprehension skills, intercultural competence, media skills, linguistic competence
• Main goal of auditory-visual comprehension

  Media education - recognise and critically reflect on creative means
• Selection of audiovisual materials

  • Length is important to prevent overtaxing students
  • Aids to reduce difficulty include withholding the film, clear description of purpose, limitation to global understanding, repeating scenes, restriction to short scenes, limitation to few manageable questions, chronological order of tasks, focus on closed formats, learning aids, working in pairs/groups

  
• Pre-viewing phase


  Obtain prior knowledge and expectations of learning group, focus attention on certain thematic or filmic aspects

  
• While-viewing phase


  Secure comprehension of listening-seeing text, check global understanding, selective understanding, understanding of detail, use open, half-open, and closed formats, prevent monotony and progress to more open and complex tasks

  
• Post-viewing phase


  Focus on transcendent understanding, go beyond the text, e.g. construction of a listening-seeing-comprehension-lesson
• Separation of reception channels (blind listening, silent viewing) can increase attention
• Working with listening-seeing-documents has a motivational function, autonomous working of learning groups is essential for deepening knowledge