Chapter One: The aspects of listening
1.1 Introduction
Today, more and more people in Japan come to use English as a common language because now that English is recognized as a kind of universal language. In Japan the teaching of English started several decades ago and continues to the present day. Most people study for at least 6 years, from 12 years old to 18 years old, in general. In addition to the teenagers, a lot of little children are likely to go to an English class. When we study English, we may focus on grammar, memorizing the words, vocabulary and so on. This is because we may recognize English as examination, for instance entrance examinations, TOEIC, and so on. However, it is possible for the learners that when they communicate with the native speakers they cannot understand what they say and respond to their questions fluently with these method such as focusing on grammar, vocabulary. It is necessary for us to study not only English for examination but also “live” English. I will look at listening which is the first process of communicating with people.
It will be necessary for us to be able to listen to the words. It will be possible to acquire “live” English from reading the books and newspapers but we need the ability to listen to the words when we communicate with people.
Human beings start to listen to the words when they acquire the native language and they can speak, read and write their language. However, we start to write and read English in Japan when we learn English as a second language. A lot of teachers seldom focus on listening to English in the classroom, therefore, we need to study listening to English to communicate with people. So, how can we get an ability to listen to English effectively?
1.2 Listening
Rivers and Temperley said that listening is not a passive but an active process of constructing a message from a stream of sound with what one knows of the phonological, semantic, and syntactic potentialities of the language (Takei 44). Moreover, Rivers suggested that listening is an active process of constructing a message from a stream of sound.
Celce-Murcia(2001) and Nunan(1999) said that listening has not been emphasized until recently and there are fewer research pages about listening than the other fields such as speaking, writing and reading (JACET 2005). Moreover, according to JACET, in recent years, useful various theories to analyze the process of listening have been advocated, and the directions and the way of evaluation based on those theories have been built, but there is a perception that listening is like “a mysterious black box” (Rost, 2001) so we need to continue to research hereafter (163).
Like this, we can understand that listening is a mysterious part of studying English and I thought that there was a little chance to study listening through English language teaching in Japan.
1.3 Background, theory types and methods of listening
Listening is the skills which relates to practice pronunciation which looks like a delegate of theAudiolingual Method until in the 1960’s. However, in the middle of the 60’s, Rivers (1966) indicated the importance of listening capability which is needed to communicate with other people, and then in the 1970’s, Asher (1977) advocated Total Physical Response; thus listening was recognized as a necessary ability. In the 1980’s, listening was noted as an ability which we couldn’t ignore because people wanted more practical language teaching to improve their ability to communicate. Krashen (1982) said that in theinput hypothesis, it is useful for the learners to understand higher level input than learners’ ability. Krashen and Terrell (1983) also paid attention to the importance of listening and suggested theNatural Approach. This tendency continued during the 1990’s and the perception of the role in listening as an activity of communication was deepened. (JACET 2005)
1.4 Strategies
According to Listening in Action, there are basically 2 ways of practicing listening. First thing is “one-way listening” tasks and the other is “interactive listening” tasks.
One-way listening is about acquiring information and knowledge. When we listen to the radio, speakers’ speech and lecture or watch TV, this situation is called one-way listening. On the other hand, Interactive listening is about exchanging words with other people as a communication face to face. In this method, we can ask questions, inform and express our opinion so this is well-balanced method. We can practice in listening with some of the following strategies by using one-way listening and interactive listening.
1.4.1 Attentive listening
Attentive listening makes the students practice listening English by making them respond to the speaker. This needs an immediate decision and information processing so they can practice real time listening.
1.4.2 Intensive listening
Intensive listening makes the students concentrate on the language form. This makes them realize that it is difficult for them to pronounce, choose ,and structure the English words. This makes them practice real life listening situation. That is to say, according to Listening in Action.
Listening intensively—in order to appreciate the language form of messages—is a vitally important aspect of language acquisition. In order to listen effectively and to learn the language effectively, learners need to recognize critical grammatical distinctions ‘in real time’ while they listen. For instance, they will need to recognize differences in verb tense, aspect, and voice (present vs. past; unmarked vs. progressive; active vs. passive) and differences between singular and plural markings of nouns and pronouns. Further, they will need to recognize the important function of stress and intonation in signaling focal elements of an utterance. (p. 49)
1.4.3 Selective listening
Selective listening will help the students to know the purpose of listening. By learning to concentrate on words, hints and fact selectively, the students can treat short naturalistic text such as announcements as well as longer and more complex text such as authentic video programs.
There are several ‘real-world links’ for the activities in this section:
• listening to announcements for specific information
• listening to news reports to update your knowledge of a situation
• listening to speeches or lectures
• listening to recorded messages to note important information
• listening to stories to understand the main points
• listening to songs for appreciation of the lyrics
• listening for specific information in service encounters (p. 83)
1.4.4 Interactive listening
Interactive listening will help the students to suppose active roles in shaping and controlling an interaction. It is necessary for the students to take anactive role as a listener.
There are a number of ‘real-world links’ to the interactive listening activities in this section:
•chatting and discussing topics with friends
• making arrangements
• exchanging news, reports, or anecdotes
• interviewing and being interviewed
• working collaboratively on projects (p. 122)
1.5 Listening in Japan
As we saw in the background of listening in 1.3, in Japan,people didnot emphasize the importance of listening until the middle of the 60’s. Yet, more and more people have been thinking about listening as a communication skill. In fact, the listening test was first introduced into the Center examination 2 years ago so the students need to study listening to English. Moreover, it is necessary for us to acquire “living” English because English has become a common language. According to the editorial of The English Journal, the students from Japan got worse score than other overseas students on the Michiganlistening test. Moreover, Professor Black ofOhioUniversitycomparedthe listening ability of native listeners, native listeners with mild hearing loss and the students from overseas who went to OhioUniversity. He found that weak listeners had a5% worse score than native listeners and the students from overseas were 20% lower than native listeners. From these two tests, we can see that Japanese cannot listen to English adequately so we ought to study listening to English effectively.
1.6 Research questions
In section 1.5 we saw the importance of listening and that we need to study listening. We know that we can practice listening to English with some activities of Attentive, Intensive, Selective and Interactive listening by using either one-way listening orinteractive listening. However, we don’t know the learners’ attitude and feelings toward listening, what types of strategies they have and what methods they use to improve their listening skills.
Research Questions
1. What are the learners’ attitude and feelings toward listening to English?
2. What types of strategies do the learners have?
In Chapter Two we will look at the results of my questionnaire.
1.7 Summary of the chapter
Listening skills had not been focused on their importance before the middle of the 60’s. However, people such as Rivers, Asher and Krashen noticed that it was important for the learners to study listening as a communication.
Now in Japan, we take listening tests when we take some entrance examination, TOEIC or English certificate examination. This makes us study listening to English with “one-way listening” and “interactive listening”. But we need a lot of strategies such as Attentive, Intensive, Selective and Interactive listening.
In the next chapter, we will look at the learners’ attitude and feelings toward listening and find out a good way to improve the listening skills.
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Chapter Two: The questionnaire data of listening
2.1 Introduction
In Chapter One, we saw the background, theory types, and strategies of listening. In this chapter we will look at learners’ attitude to study listening to English, their thoughts of listening and attitude to improve their listening skills. In Chapter Three, we will discuss which method is the best for the students to study listening to English.
2.2 The questionnaire
2.2.1 Introduction of the questionnaire
The aim of this questionnaire is to find out the learners’ attitude to listening to English and what types of strategies they have. Moreover, I want to find out the good way to improve the listening skills.
2.2.2 Method
a) Subjects
34 Japanese students answered my questionnaire. Their ages were from 16 to 23 and their English level was from Elementary to Upper intermediate. All of them were women. They had studied English for at least 3 years while they were junior high school students. The average of their studying time of English was 3.5 hours per a week.
b) Test design
I made aquestionnaire for students to find out their thoughts about listening to English and how to study listening toEnglish. This questionnaire was composed of 3 parts.
The first part of this questionnaire was about their ability to understand listening English, for example I asked them, ‘do you usually understand English when you hear native speakers speak?’ Besides, I want to know which is better of the two, listening to English with some images or just listening to English. Iasked this by asking them,‘doyou understand native speakers speak on TV and movies or from radio or tapes?’.
The second part was about their thoughts about listening. For example, I asked them, if listening to the stories by audio tape/disks with text was hard, easy, enjoyable or boring or listening to your teacher’s stories without a text is hard, easy, enjoyable or boring and so on.
The last part was the method of improving in listening to English. I would like to know their ways of studying.My questionnaire is inAppendix A and B.
c) Procedure
I made questionnaire for Japanese students and asked my friends, my sister’s friends and students of Notre DameSeishinUniversity to answer my questionnaire. They answered my questionnaire immediately. Then I put the data in Excel so I could calculate the responses to the questions. The data are in section 2.3.
2.3 Results
First, we will look at the data about their ability to understand listening to English. Next is about their thoughts of listening to English. Finally, we will look at the data of their attitude to improve their studying listeningto English. Some tables do not reach 100% this is because some of the subjects did not answer my questions.
Table 1: How much do you usually understand when you hear native speakers speak?
Almost always / Usually / Sometimes / RarelyDaily conversation / 21% / 32% / 29% / 18%
In a lecture / 12% / 47% / 15% / 26%
From the radio / 6% / 12％ / 35% / 47%
On TV / 3% / 12% / 53% / 32%
Tapes without text / 12% / 26% / 36% / 26%
In movies / 0% / 15% / 47% / 38%
In songs / 0% / 18% / 41% / 41%
Table 1 shows us the students’ ability to understand listening English. 53% of them said that they could understand listening to daily conversation almost always and usually. 47% said that they might understand listening to English usually in a lecture but only 12% of them could understand English almost always. There are only 6% of the subjects who could understand listening to English with the radio, on the other hand, about half of them seldom understand English with the radio. Only 15% of them could understand listening to English almost always and usually on TV. With movies and songs, nobody could understand listening to English almost always and there are a lot of subjects who could not understand English.
Table 2: How do you feel about listening to English?
Enjoyable / BoringConversation (tapes) / 35% / 18%
Story (tapes) / 35% / 15%
Story from their teacher / 47% / 13%
Answer that students asked / 41% / 3%
Table 2 shows us how many subjects think that listening to English is enjoyable or not. 35% of them feel that listening to conversation with tapes is enjoyable but 18% do not think so. 35% feel that listening to the stories with tapes is enjoyable but 15% do not think so. 47% think that listening to the stories from their teachers is enjoyable but 13% said that it is boring. 41% of them feel that listening to the answer that they asked is enjoyable but only 3% of them feel that it is boring.
Table 3: Do you feel difficulty or not when you listen?
Very hard / Not so hard / EasyConversation(tapes) / 12% / 41% / 3%
Story (tapes) / 15% / 41% / 0%
Story from their teacher / 26% / 15% / 3%
Answer that students asked / 15% / 32% / 6%
Table 3 shows that there are few people who feel listening to English is easy. With conversation from the tapes, only 3% of them feel that listening to it is easy but 12% said that it is very hard to understand conversation from the tapes. Nobody feel that listening to story from the tapes is easy, 15% said that it is very hard to understand it. With story from their teacher, 26% of them feel that this is very hard to understand it.
Table 4: Do you like listening to English?
Favorite part / Weak pointConversation (tapes) / 18% / 9%
Story (tapes) / 12% / 9%
Story from their teacher / 9% / 18%
Answer that students asked / 9% / 18%
18% said that listening to conversation with tapes is their favorite part but
9% said that it is their weak point of studying English. 12% of them feel that listening to story with tapes is their favorite part of studying English and 9% do not like listening to story with tapes. 9% of the subjects answered that listening to a story from their teacher and listening to the answer that they asked is their favorite part but 18% said that listening to them is their weak point.
Table 5: What do you do to improve your listening in English?
Almost always / Usually / Sometimes / RarelyListen to the radio / 3% / 3% / 6% / 88%
Watch the news with no subtitles / 6% / 0% / 21% / 73%
Watch the news with subtitles / 3% / 9% / 24% / 64%
Talk to native speakers / 15% / 21% / 32% / 32%
Listen to your partner with some text / 15% / 27% / 29% / 29%
Play the role with your partner with some text / 0% / 3% / 30% / 67%
Watch English movies / 24% / 12% / 43% / 21%
Try to listen to what native speakers say in town, or on the bus or train, or at school / 29% / 18% / 24% / 29%
Use world wide web to listen to something that you are interested in / 6% / 3% / 15% / 76%
Listen to the poems or short stories with text / 0% / 3% / 27% / 70%
Watch the play in English / 3% / 6% / 9% / 82%
Discuss the social problems or some topics about world with your partner or the member of your group / 3% / 0% / 18% / 79%
Use interactive CD ROMS / 3% / 6% / 12% / 79%
Listen to the presentation that can be asked questions after listening / 6% / 3% / 12% / 79%
Dictate to each other to complete a text / 0% / 3% / 24% / 73%
Listen to the tapes to complete some tasks e.g. matching read explanation and pictures / 0% / 3% / 24% / 73%
Listen to your partner’s utterance to complete the gap-fill information / 0% / 3% / 27% / 70%
Repeat after tapes when pausing / 9% / 6% / 21% / 64%
Reading aloud / 12% / 24% / 37% / 27%
Shadowing (following the text by reading after / 0% / 15% / 27% / 58%
Pronunciation and intonation practice / 18% / 12% / 35% / 35%
Table 5 shows us what the subjects do to improve their listening skills.
29% of the subjects try to listen to what native speakers say in town, or on the bus or train, or at school almost always and there are many people who try to do this to improve their listening skills and 24% of them try to watch English movies. On the other hand, nobody triedto play the role with their partner with some text, listening to the poems or short stories with text, dictate to each other to complete a text, listen to the tapes to complete some tasks and listen to their partners utterance to complete the gap-fill information almost always. 88% seldom try to listen to the radio.
2.4 Summary
In Chapter Two, we looked at some data. Through the data, we could find out how much they can understand listening to English, their thoughts of listening English and attitudes to improve their listening skills. In Chapter Three, I will discuss the results.
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Chapter Three: The results of the questionnaire
3.1 Introduction
In Chapter One, we got the fundamental knowledge about listening such as theory types and strategies. In Chapter Two, we saw the learners’ attitude, feeling and attitude to improving of listening. In this chapter, we will look at the data carefully.
3.2 Remark of the questionnaire
3.2.1 Overview
Most people feel that listening is enjoyable and it is not so hard to listen to English. The human voice may be more intelligible to the subjects than the sounds from the machine and feeling that listening to English is their favorite part or not depends on what they listen to. Yet it seems that most people do not improve their listening skills on their own accord.
3.2.2 Major findings
In Table One, we can understand that the learners are likely to able to understand listening to English with some images, for example daily conversation, lecture, TV and movies, more than just only sounds or voices such as radio, tapes and songs. However, it is hard for them to understand listening to English with radio, TV, movies and songs this is because they cannot control the speed of utterances.