Keywords: pre listening activities, pre tuning in introduction
Language can be recognized as a marketing of communication, as opposed to the simple organic of audio, vocabulary and grammar. English language educating (ELT), therefore, is definitely conducted through reading, listening as receptive skills and speaking, writing as fruitful skills in communication. Among all the factors, hearing can be an essential portion of terms competence and this implies the comprehending of spoken dialect.
During the process, listening suggestions is usually accompanied with other looks and sometimes with aesthetic source (Lynch & Mendelsohn, 2002). To make sense of the listening contents, the context of the communication happens in and listeners' relevant previous knowledge is vital (ibid). However, as much linguists reviewed, being attentive has long been neglected until the early on 1970s (Morley, 2001; Dark brown, 1987; Rivers, 1966). It is merely since then that listening attracts more hobbies from linguists and analysts. Therefore, as it is much less examined than other important skills, listening needs more research and is worth to be emphasized in ELT.
II. An Overview of a Tuning in Lesson
In the modern-day English language teaching and research, tuning in is becoming more and more important. Some researchers advocate and encourage instructors to apply hearing strategies in school room coaching and guide students to pay attention (Mendelsohn, 1994; Field, 1998). Tuning in strategies are also recommended and experienced. Harmer (1987) assessed some basics of receptive skills and stated that, learners read and pay attention to language with purpose, desire and anticipations. He further remarked that, a lead-in level can create goals and arouse the students' drive in the following listening items. Field (1998) proposed a diagnostic way that involves pre-listening, tuning in and post-listening in a being attentive category. He asserts that the strategy can check and adjust students' tuning in skills through short micro-listening exercises. Based on the introduction distributed by Hedge (2000), the process of listening class can be divided into three phases, pre-listening stage, while-listening stage and post-listening level.
1. Pre-listening Stage
It is commonly regarded that pre-listening is a planning of the being attentive class. Within this stage, teachers tend to arouse learners' expectation and interest of the terms text they will listen. They are able to also inspire learners by providing background knowledge of the text; managing learners to go over an image or a related theme that involves in the written text; asking some related questions to the text, and etc. Generally, pre-listening plays a role of warming-up and the main aim of this level is to make learners focus their attention on the following while-listening stage and decrease the difficulties of the written text. It really is more important in its associated with and being of help to many other aspects which will be represented later.
2. While-listening Stage
While-listening is the primary procedure of being attentive information input. In this particular stage, learners are given some audio materials for listening. Learners may be requested to cope with some questions with the listening materials, such as Yes/No questions, Cloze, True/False questions and etc. Usually learners need to answer the questions concurrently or observe some main points of the being attentive materials. Professors, as a guide in this process take control of the rate of the materials, start or pause of the machine and increase some questions for discussions or give necessary explanations to help the learner comprehend the materials. Depending on the learners' language level and the issue level of the materials, instructors can decide the changing times of presenting the listening materials. The purpose of while-listening is to supply the learners with music material source with exercises and therefore promote the learners' hearing competence.
3. Post-listening Stage
Post-listening is also an important level as it reviews and checks the hearing efficiency and result. During this stage, teachers are not only supposed to check the answers, in addition they need to lead the learners to consolidate the comprehension of the hearing input. They can organize further conversations on the listening text, explain some new conditions and phrases, summing up made an appearance language rules and making some related exercise for the learners to strengthen their impression about the knowledge. In addition, giving a dictation on a summary of the written text may check all the several language items and learners' mastery of knowledge. Via the first two stages, learners have obtained many comprehensible source, thus, the goal of post-listening is to copy these input into absorption. In another term, the stage of post-listening can be considered as a change of terms knowledge to language competence in listening coaching section.
III. The Essentiality of Pre-listening in a Hearing Class
Pre-listening, as the first level of listening coaching, is long argued by linguists and professors on its contexts and role in the listening teaching. For example, some research workers (Buck, 1991; Cohen, 1984) suggested arrange a question preview in pre-listening stage with the reason that it may guide the students' attention in the right direction. On the contrary, others (Ur, 1984; Weir, 1993) argued that the question preview process may distract the learners from participating in to the real insight. Hence, it is worthwhile to clarify the position of pre-listening in class room teaching of listening.
Before analyzing the role of pre-listening in the process of a being attentive class, it pays to to overview the difficulties in listening coaching initially so the role of pre-listening stage can be further discussed.
1. The Difficulties in Coaching Listening
Comparing to other words competence, such as reading and writing, tuning in has some specific features that could bring learners pressure and difficulty in working with it. They may be concluded as follows (Lynch & Mendelsohn, 2002; Thomson, 2005):
- High rate of recurrence in communication. Based on the exploration of Rivers and Temperley (1978), tuning in takes approximately 45% of the area in communication of an individual's lifestyle.
- Passivity. Apparently, being attentive is recognized as a totally passive action in communication, though it is further regarded as a dynamic process somewhat than its original passive role (Lynch & Mendelsohn, 2002).
- Speediness and repeatlessness. Change from reading, tuning in normally must process the information instantly and usually only once. It isn't as flexible as in reading that viewers can refer to the contents as much times as they like.
- Other widely-concerned areas of natural characteristics. Along the way of listening, many other aspects of dialect of knowledge are needed such as phonetic, vocabulary, grammar.
Due to above top features of listening, teaching hearing was involved in an amount of issues. According to the benefits of Cherry (1957), in second and spanish listening, the majority of the down sides are brought on by "uncertainty" that could present in the area of speech looks and patterns, terms and syntax, recognition of content and other impact of environment. The difficulties could show different representations in school room teaching of tuning in:
- Learners could be anxious in regards to a long text for the reason why of lacking time to process information.
- Unfamiliar framework and background could frighten the learners and make them lose passions and endurance.
- Learners may be affected by new vocabularies, phonetic occurrence, grammar composition and these affections could lower their understanding about the written text.
- By giving a long audio material, learners could have difficulties to concentrate on the important information.
- There are also some other elements along the way of listening that could confuse the learners such as different accent, background noise and assimilation, etc.
2. The Functions of Pre-listening in a Hearing Class
As reviewed above, pre-listening can be recognized as a stage of planning and warming up of the complete process of hearing. As some research workers (Rees, 2002; Peachey, 2002)review, there are a few of seeks and types of pre-listening jobs that allow the learners deal with the next listening text properly and strategically, such as to generate interest, build up self-assurance and facilitate comprehension. Following is the comprehensive conversations on the functions of pre-listening.
(1) Motivating learners
People imagine "Interest is the better professor". To arouse students' hobbies is one of the most crucial conditions for a coaching process. Only once the students are enthusiastic about the articles of teaching can the efficiency of teaching and learning be guaranteed. Therefore, the first role of pre-listening is motivating learners.
Underwood (1989) summarizes a variety of means of pre-listening work can be executed during the school room teaching. Some of them are appropriate in motivating students:
- The teacher offers history information.
- Organizing the students to have a discussion about this issue or situation in the upcoming text.
- Showing a picture which is related to this content of the text.
To make the listening activity interesting, the tutor also can inform the beginning area of the text and offer with some questions as a guide for the students to guess the end or take some keywords for brainstorming.
(2) Activating current world knowledge and acquiring new knowledge
The main purpose of listening is to instruct the knowledge of language and help the learners to be skilled in hearing. Design some activities that can activate learners' world knowledge will accomplish them behave better in the tuning in. Furthermore, pre-listening can also play a role to source some new terms knowledge. Therefore, it is necessary and meaningful to introduce or review the terms knowledge in pre-listening treatment.
There is actually a amount of ways to make this part meaningful, depends on the content of the written text, the educator can:
- List the new vocabularies and make sure the students know the meaning and the pronunciation of each one.
- Introduce some phonetics knowledge that could impact on understanding, such as jointed looks, lost tones and etc.
- Review the complex grammar guidelines and introduce new sentence patterns if any.
- Introduce some language discourse knowledge briefly.
(3) Setting framework and predicting content
Rees (2002) emphasized the importance of setting context for listeners in pre-listening treatment because even in examinations learners have the opportunity to know a general notion of the tuning in materials. It'll greatly help them to predict what they will learn. It can help learners to form expectancy of what they will listen which can be an important listening technique for their future review.
Listening is a difficult and complex section in terminology learning. Especially in foreign language teaching without any terminology environment for practising, being attentive competence seems even harder to be developed. Thus, before presenting a "long and unpleasant" text, acquiring some hearing techniques (for example, focusing on the anxious words, predicting the info, etc. ) could be helpful for the students to cope with the duty.
(4) Checking out the listening task
To talk with the learners if they have full knowledge of the duty is important in pre-listening. In this process, the teacher is preferred to create some tasks based on the content of the text for the students. They can also immediately make sure with them in case misunderstanding happens and it may demotivate them.
In the precise classroom activity, the task could be one or two simple questions which relate to the ultimate or important point of the written text. For instance, if the key content of the text is concerned about contending for employment, the task could be "Who received the job in the long run", if it's about a procedure for making a manufactory, the task could be designed as "How many procedures are had a need to make xxx".
IV. The Appropriate Amount of Pre-listening
By inspecting the role and functions of pre-listening, the essentiality of pre-listening level is undoubted and it appears that it is advantageous to spend enough time and energy on this stage. However, the key process of listening class must be a fluent work. It does not make sense to invest too much time on pre-listening. The essential goal of pre-listening is to prepare learners act better in while-listening.
Actually, the space of pre-listening is not set in every listening category. As Rees (ibid) argues, pre-listening should have a "fair proportion" of your lesson but it usually depends on the educators' aim and the learners' words level to decide how long it will take. Also, predicated on the various backgrounds of the text messages (duration, difficulty, genre, etc. ) and the amount of the learners (starting, intermediate, advanced, etc. ), the type and length of pre-listening can be various. For instance, if this content of the text is easy to comprehend, teachers need not spend too much time on basic dialect knowledge teaching any more; if the students are advanced learners, it is needless to spend enough time on pre-listening part for the reason that they have already have sufficient language basis and could be positive in what they are going to listen. On the other hand, if the learners are at starting level, the pre-listening part is supposed to be much longer. In addition, a very short listening job can be prepared by simply presenting several phrases to clarify the situation of the listening or the required information in which the amount of pre-listening can be very brief. Therefore, pre-listening is quite flexible and the distance can be predicated on the specific target and situation.
Via inspecting the role of pre-listening in a tuning in lesson and its own romance with the other two levels, it demonstrates well-arranged pre-listening activities are crucial for listening understanding.
V. Conclusion
Listening is an essential competence in language coaching and learning. On account of the top features of listening teaching and the role of pre-listening level, it is vital to design and arrange appropriate pre-listening activities in a listening lessons. A well-planned pre-listening activity could put together the students to cope with the listening text smoothly. It is also helpful to build-up students' self-confidence and motivate them to listen. During the pre-listening process, instructors may take the possibility to add world knowledge and related language knowledge related to the written text. Additionally, it devotes to satisfy the whole process of a listening lessons in making the task far better and effective. However, even though pre-listening has a substantial role in the whole listening process, it generally does not mean that it requires to occupy too much time in the school room teaching. The distance of pre-listening part could be adaptable in different circumstances.
Based on the research of the features and goal of listening coaching and the role of pre-listening, while-listening and post-listening stage in a hearing lesson respectively, an effective listening class is recommended to include following elements:
- The music materials work for the learners in length, swiftness and difficulty.
- The students are well motivated before listening to the written text.
- The purpose and forms of the listening process is clarified to students.
- The length of each stage are well established and closely connected with each other.
The old saying goes, "Well started is half done". As the warming-up of formal hearing process, pre-listening should be well-organized and emphasized to experiment with its role of rousing students' motivation and objectives for the written text. Hence, more analysis should be centered on making optimizing pre-listening activities to be able to help in the listening teaching in ELT.
