John Field, CRELLA, University of Bedfordshire, UK. University of Leuven, 1st February 2013

Transcription

1 John Field, CRELLA, University of Bedfordshire, UK University of Leuven, 1st February 2013

2 Teaching L2 listening

3 The Comprehension Approach Pre-listening: motivation, mental set Extensive listening: general questions Pre-set task or questions Intensive listening Checking answers (? with replay?) [Language review] [Listen with tapescript]

4 Teaching not testing Until we have some diagnostic procedures, the teacher [of L2 listening] can only continue to test comprehension, not to teach it. We need to move into a position where the teacher is able to recognise particular patterns of behaviour in listening manifested by an unsuccessful listener and to provide exercises for the student which will promote superior patterns of behaviour (superior strategies). (Brown, 1986: 286)

5 Concerns about the Comprehension Approach Teacher-centred; isolation of learners The notion of right and wrong answers Origins in L2 reading methods; consequent misconceptions about the nature of listening Heavy emphasis on comprehension at the expense of decoding Emphasis on the products of listening in the form of correct answers, and not the process

6 A partial solution: a diagnostic approach a. Teacher adopts a non-interventionist stance Who thinks the answer is A? Who thinks it is B? Shall we hear it again? b. Teacher follows up both right and wrong answers. Why do you think answer A is right? Why do you think answer B is right?

7 A more radical solution (Field 1998) An approach based upon intensive small-scale exercises that practise the various sub-skills that contribute to skilled listening. A distinction between sub-skills (part of the behaviour of a skilled listener) strategies used to compensate short-term for problems of understanding.

8 Field (2008): A process approach Listening is a form of expertise. We acquire it like other skills such as playing chess or driving. Achieving any type of expertise requires the novice to adjust their performance slowly to the way in which an expert behaves Teachers need to understand expert behaviour if they are to induce it in novices. Becoming an expert of any kind requires: Intensive practice in important processes so that they become more and more automatic Combining the processes into larger operations Exposure to real-life experiences, where taught processes have to be used appropriately and under the pressure of time.

9 A process approach assumes: Language instruction is not the solution: knowledge recognition

10 Modelling the skill 10

11 Evidence for listening Testers and researchers need information about the speech signal that reaches a listener s ear, and the problems it might cause to an L2 listener. [Source: phonetics] the processes that an expert listener uses in normal circumstances and the way they might vary in the case of an L2 listener. [Source: psycholinguistics]

12 What makes listening difficult? Transitory: no record Happens in real time Need to store while analysing Need to carry forward information in mind Speech rate not under listener's control

13 What does a listener need to do?: 1 INPUT LANGUAGE *! + > / ^ THE+ SUN + IS RISING Phoneme Syllable Word Phrase / clause PERCEPTION / DECODING

14 Decoding entails Translating input into the sounds of the language Searching for words which match or nearly match these sounds OUTPUT: a string of words

15 Building a sentence The anxious woman in the brown coat has been reading the bus timetable for the past ten minutes

16 Word meaning You hear the following. Give meanings to them: [raɪt] [ˈhevɪ] [tɜ:n] [əʊld] [ˈnærəʊ]

17 What does a listener need to do?: 2 a. Recognise a grammar pattern in a string of words. b. Fit a word to the words surrounding it. a heavy smoker old man old friend my turn to pay mind the step narrow street narrow minded narrow escape /raɪt/ a letter /raɪt/ turn /raɪt/ answer PARSING OUTPUT: a proposition (a literal abstract idea)

18 What does a listener need to do?: 3 LANGUAGE PROPOSITION THE+ SUN + IS RISING Add meaning (world knowledge) Handle information (relevant? important?) MEANING BUILDING

19 Phases of listening Decoding a string of words identify a grammatical pattern Parsing precise word meaning Meaning building add to meaning integrate into event so far (recall)

20 Five phases of listening (Field 2008) Speech signal Input decoding Lexical search Words Parsing Meaning construction Meaning Discourse construction 20

21 Memory and listening Long term memory Working memory Knowledge of language heard so far Knowledge of the world

22 Knowledge sources Phonological knowledge Word knowledge Grammar knowledge Co-text World knowledge Speaker / situation Heard so far and carried forward Current topic Decoding Parsing Meaning building

23 The L2 listener: decoding and parsing Approximate phonological values Limited vocabulary Word recognition not automatic / not inter-connected Limited grammar Grammar patterns not automatically recognised.

24 The L2 listener: meaning building Cultural misunderstanding Lack of pragmatic knowledge Focus on decoding that limits the ability to carry forward information Inability to connect ideas Incomplete representation of what has been heard already

25 Memory and the L2 listener Long term memory Working memory Knowledge of language heard so far Knowledge of the world

26 Memory and the L2 listener Long term memory Working memory Knowledge of language heard so far Knowledge of the world

27 Memory and the phases of listening In decoding, a listener has to hold in the mind a record of the actual words being said until such time as he/she can parse them. In meaning building a listener has to carry forward a representation of what has been said so far in order to integrate incoming information into it. If the first makes heavy demands upon the listener, the second may be inadequately performed.

28 Final point: listening as an on-line process Evidence from listening psychologists suggests that listeners do not wait until the end of an utterance before working out its meaning. It seems that they analyse what a speaker is saying at a delay of only about ¼ second, or the length of an English syllable.

29 On-line processing a. The heavy fall clumsily. b. The actor learnt the words had been written by Shakespeare. c. The rescuers discovered the plane had crashed. d. The lawyer questioned by the judge admitted lying.

30 Conclusions on on-line processing If listening is on-line, it must be a very approximate process in terms of - Word recognition - Grammar patterns The listener has to keep forming and revising hypotheses about what has been heard. This applies as much to an L1 listener as to an L2 listener The difference is that the L2 listener a) is less sure about the evidence on which to base the hypotheses b) finds it less easy to hold more than one hypothesis in the mind and to abandon one for another.

31 Applications of the model to L2 teaching and testing Candidate errors may be due to lack of L2 knowledge but may equally be due to processing problems. Within comprehension, candidate errors may reflect a. the knock-on effects of decoding and parsing problems, b. an incorrect matching to meaning c. the inability to perceive the relevance of the information. We cannot ignore the contribution of decoding to comprehension. In local tests, we may even wish to test decoding skills. At certain levels of proficiency, decoding demands may limit comprehension. Because listening is on-line, test-takers often form a firstpass hypothesis and cling to it.

32 Testing L2 listening

33 Predictive testing Many high stakes language test scores are employed predictively: e.g. to show that an individual is capable of performing in a particular job, class or academic setting. This places a responsibility on the test designer to ensure that the test elicits behaviour similar to the behaviour that happens in a real-world context.

34 Cognitive validity (Glaser, 1991) Clearly we cannot reproduce the circumstances of a real listening event in the artificial environment of a test. But cognitive validity requires us to find out if the mental processes that a test elicits from a candidate resemble the processes that he/she would employ in non-test conditions. At issue: How valid is the test as a predictor of real-life performance? The notion of cognitive validity has been used to investigate whether tests of scientific thinking or logical reasoning actually tap in to the processes they are supposed to measure (rather than, e.g. relying on rote learned facts). Hoole, 2006 Baxter & Glaser, 1998, Thelk &

35 Distribution

36 Construct validation These hypothetical results from piloting a test show that it discriminates well between learners. It might seem to test the construct (say listening) well. But supposing it is a test of listening with an easy recording but very complex comprehension items? It is possible that the result mainly represents learners reading skills and not their listening skills

37 Establishing cognitive validity Weir (2005) argues that we need to have a clearer idea of the construct we are testing before designing a test. Cognitive validity can be investigated in two ways: 1. How does an expert listener behave (what is the target behaviour learners are working towards?) Modelling the skill 2. What do test takers actually do in a listening test? How closely does it resemble natural listening? Studying candidate behaviour (verbal report)

38 Conclusion A cognitive model of listening can assist teaching by Giving teachers a clearer set of targets with the goal of producing better listeners, not just more listening Providing insights into where and why learners have problems Suggesting material for small-scale exercises that focus on individual listening processes A cognitive model can assist testing by Providing criteria against which performance can be measured Suggesting likely problems and limitations at different levels of proficiency