Listening
is the Black Sheep of Language Learning Skills
 |
Listening Skills
|
Transparent
Language: 7.30.2018
When
learning a language, there’s one skill that’s more neglected than the others.
It’s underestimated both in terms of its complexity and its utility. It’s less
glamorous than speaking, and more difficult to master than reading. Listening,
unfortunately, is the black sheep of language learning.
A
recently-posted discussion thread on Quora began with the question, “Why is
listening so difficult for people studying Spanish?”.
Although,
in this case, the question was posed by a learner of Spanish, the sense that
listening is a far more difficult skill to master than reading is a feeling
shared by many language learners across the full spectrum of languages, and for
good reason.
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Why
do language learners struggle with listening more than other skills?
The
problem comes in the fact that even though listening, as a skill, is much more
complex than reading, most classroom-based listening activities fail to move
beyond the kinds of highly simplified and inauthentic representations of spoken
language that mask most of those complexities.
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A
survey of the skill level descriptors for the receptive skills of reading and
listening across a number of the most reputable proficiency scales, including
the CEFR, ACTFL, and the ILR, would seem to suggest that there is very little
difference between these two skills. Consider, for example, the following
can-do statements from the CEFR’s self-assessment grid for level A2.
Reading A2
I
can read very short, simple texts.
I can find specific, predictable information
in simple everyday material such as advertisements, prospectuses, menus and
timetables and I can understand short simple personal letters
Listening A2
I
can understand phrases and the highest frequency vocabulary related to areas of
most immediate personal relevance (e.g. very basic personal and family
information, shopping, local geography, employment).
I can catch the main point
in short, clear, simple messages and announcements
One
could almost get the impression that listening is just reading done with the
ears, rather than with the eyes, when nothing could be further from the truth.
The problem with these proficiency descriptors, and others like them, is that
they focus more on the ways that listening and reading are alike than on the
ways that they are different. This tendency to downplay the unique challenges
of listening has led some to refer to listening as the red-headed stepchild of
language proficiency.
Is
listening really all that different from reading?
A
good illustration of just how much more complex and demanding listening is than
reading can be found in the news ticker that crawls across the bottom of the
screen on most cable news broadcasts (sometimes called a chyron).
There’s no way to re-read or pause when
listening in real time.
The
fact that the text moves across the screen at a rate that can be challenging
even for some native speakers, let alone non-native speakers, and then
disappears into the ether never to be seen again, makes this kind of reading a
significantly more challenging undertaking than reading the exact same
information would be if it were encountered as static text on the page of a
newspaper, where it can not only be read at a pace that is comfortable for the
reader, but where it remains available for re-reading or review as the reader
works their way through the text, constantly self-monitoring for correct
understanding of the author’s communicative intent.
There are no visual clues (spaces,
punctuation, etc.) when listening.
Now,
let’s try to imagine how the experience might become even more challenging if
we were to modify our crawling news ticker to reflect another way in which the
spoken word is different from the written word by removing the capitalization,
the punctuation, and all of the spaces between the words.
Listeners are exposed to many different
accents, voices, and ways of speaking that aren’t present in the written word.
Let’s
add another wrinkle to our scrolling news ticker by changing the block print to
messy handwriting to simulate the differences in the regional accents and idiosyncratic
vocal qualities of the various speakers we listen to on a daily basis.
Listening and speaking are inseparable
skills.
When
most people think about learning another language, speaking seems to be the
skill that first comes to mind. We ask people how many languages they speak,
not how many languages they read – and certainly not how many languages they
can listen in! When we think about traveling to a foreign country, the first
thing many of us think about buying is a phrase book that will teach us how to
order dinner in a local restaurant, ask for directions, or talk to shop vendors
in the market.
How can you improve your listening
proficiency?
While
there are no silver bullets that will suddenly or magically simplify the task
of listening in another language, there are several practical strategies that
can help to build this essential skill. READ MORE ➤➤
Based
on 7 readability formulas:
Grade
Level: 14
Reading
Level: difficult to read.
Reader's
Age: 21-22 yrs. old
(college
level)
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