Teaching and Researching Listening provides a focused, state-of-the-art treatment of the linguistic, psycholinguistic and pragmatic processes that are involved in oral language use, and shows how these processes influence listening in a range of practical contexts. Through understanding the interaction between these processes, language educators and researchers can develop more robust research methods and more effective classroom language teaching approaches.
In this fully revised and updated second edition, the book:
- examines a full range of teaching methods and research initiatives related to listening
- gives definitions of key concepts in neurolinguistics and psycholinguistics
- provides a clear agenda for implementing listening strategies and designing tests
- offers an abundance of resources for immediate use for teaching and research
Featuring insightful quotes and concept boxes, chapter overviews and summaries to guide the reader, Teaching and Researching Listening will engage and inform teachers, teacher trainers and researchers investigating communicative language use.
Contents
General Editors’ Preface ix
Acknowledgements xi
Preface xii
Introduction: Perspectives on listening
Section I Defining listening
Introduction: The nature of processing
1 Neurological processing
1.1 Hearing
1.2 Consciousness
1.3 Attention
1.4 Individual differences in neurological processes
Summary: Organization of neurological processing
2 Linguistic processing
2.1 Perceiving speech
2.2 Identifying units of spoken language
2.3 Using prosodic features in processing speech
2.4 Recognizing words
2.5 Employing phonotactic knowledge
2.6 Utilizing syntactic parsing
2.7 Integrating non-verbal cues into linguistic processing
Summary: Unification of linguistic processing
3 Semantic processing
3.1 Comprehension: The role of knowledge structures
3.2 Cognitive understanding: The role of schemas
3.3 Social understanding: The role of common ground
3.4 The role of inference in constructing meaning
3.5 Listener enrichment of input
3.6 Problem-solving during comprehension
3.7 Reasoning during comprehension
3.8 Compensatory strategies during comprehension
3.9 Memory building during comprehension
3.10 Comprehension and learning
Summary: Comprehension and understanding
4 Pragmatic processing
4.1 Listening from a pragmatic perspective
4.2 Inferring speaker intention
4.3 Detecting deception
4.4 Enriching speaker meaning
4.5 Invoking social expectations
4.6 Adjusting affective involvement
4.7 Formulating responses
4.8 Connecting with the speaker
Summary: Listening as co-construction of meaning
5 Automatic processing
5.1 Goals of automatic processing
5.2 Linguistic processing
5.1.2 Syntactic processing
5.3 Semantic processing
5.4 Pragmatic processing
Summary: Automatic processing and human language processing
6 Listening in language acquisition
6.1 Listening in L1 acquisition: Development of linguistic processing
6.1.1 Lexical acquisition
6.2 Listening in L1 acquisition: Development of semantic processing
6.3 Listening in L1 acquisition: Development of pragmatic processing
6.4 Listening in L2 acquisition: Development of linguistic processing
6.4.1 Syntactic development
6.4.2 Lexical development
6.5 Listening in L2 acquisition: Development of semantic processing
6.6 Listening in L2 acquisition: Development of pragmatic processing
Summary: Comparison of L1 and L2 language acquisition
Section II Teaching listening
Introduction: The role of teaching in learning to listen
7 Approaches to teaching listening
7.1 Contexts for teaching listening
7.2 SLA research and language pedagogy
7.2.1 Affective filter hypothesis
7.2.2 Input hypothesis
7.2.3 Interaction hypothesis
7.2.4 Processability hypothesis
7.2.5 Meta-cognition hypothesis
7.2.6 Sociocultural hypothesis
7.3 Development of listening instruction
Summary: A balanced approach for teaching listening
8 Input and interaction
8.1 Relevance
8.2 Genres
8.2.1 Narrative
8.2.2 Descriptive
8.3 Authenticity
8.4 Vocabulary
8.5 Difficulty
8.6 Simplification
8.7 Restructuring
8.8 Interaction
8.9 Strategies
Summary: Quantity and quality in input and interaction
9 Instructional design
9.1 Structuring learning sequences
9.2 Intensive listening
9.3 Selective listening
9.4 Interactive listening
9.5 Extensive listening
9.6 Responsive listening
9.7 Autonomous listening
Summary: Fresh instructional design
10 Listening assessment
10.1 Defining the social and educational context for assessment
10.2 Developing criteria and constructs
10.3 Formulating a model of listening for assessment
10.4 Creating forms of assessment
10.5 Adjusting factors that influence test performance
10.6 Modeling listener processes during assessment
10.7 Assessing listening proficiency in oral interview tests
10.8 Describing listening proficiency
Summary: Fairness in assessment
Section III Researching listening
Section introduction: Direct insight
11 Sociolinguistic orientations
11.1 Listener perspective
11.2 Listener participation
11.3 Listener response
11.4 Listeners in cross-cultural interactions
Summary: The social dimension of language
12 Psycholinguistic orientations
12.1 Listener processing
12.2 Listener memory
12.3 Listener misunderstandings
12.4 Listener strategies
Summary: Access to psycholinguistic processes
13 Developmental orientations
13.1 Academic listening
13.2 Listening materials
13.3 Autonomous listening
13.4 Teacher training
Summary: Mixed methods of research
Section IV Exploring listening
14 Resources for further exploration
14.1 Resources for teaching listening
14.1.1 Published sources
14.1.2 Internet sources
14.1.3 Online listening courses
14.1.4 Directories
14.2 Resources for researching listening
14.2.1 Research networks
14.2.2 Research tools
14.2.3 Research sources and avenues for dissemination
Summary: Exploring, researching, teaching
Glossary
References
Index
Biography
Michael Rost is author of a number of influential books and articles in the field of oral language development and curriculum design, beginning with the classic Listening in Language Learning (1990). He is also an award-winning author and series editor of several successful language materials series and online courses. As a teacher, teacher trainer, language program director and educational consultant, he has worked with the Peace Corps in West Africa and the Save the Children Foundation in Southeast Asia.
