Learning to Listen and Listening to Learn
- reineke
- Black Belt - 3rd Dan
- Posts: 3570
- Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 7:34 pm
- Languages: Fox (C4)
- Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=6979
- x 6554
Learning to Listen and Listening to Learn
I wanted to share this ---
Last edited by reineke on Fri Dec 27, 2019 3:31 am, edited 3 times in total.
5 x
- reineke
- Black Belt - 3rd Dan
- Posts: 3570
- Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 7:34 pm
- Languages: Fox (C4)
- Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=6979
- x 6554
Re: Learning to Listen and Listening to Learn
How are words stored in memory?
Last edited by reineke on Wed Mar 13, 2019 8:31 am, edited 5 times in total.
2 x
- Ani
- Brown Belt
- Posts: 1433
- Joined: Mon Mar 14, 2016 8:58 am
- Location: Alaska
- Languages: English (N), speaks French, Russian & Icelandic (beginner)
- x 3842
- Contact:
Re: Learning to Listen and Listening to Learn
reineke wrote:A decoding phase - input is ‘translated’ into the sounds of the language
A lexical search phase - in which the listener searches his brain (long-term memory) for words which match or nearly match these sounds.
A parsing phase - in which he must recognise a grammar pattern in a string of words and fit a word to the linguistic context surrounding it
A meaning-building phase - in which, having ‘broken’ the speech flow, identified the words he heard and how they fit grammatically in the sentence he finally makes sense of it
A discourse-construction phase - in which the understanding of each unit of meaning (e.g. sentence) is connected to the larger context of the narrative. In this phase, one’s background knowledge will help enhance comprehension.
The problem as I see it, with a list like this is that most of these aspects are handled in the brain exactly like in the native language. You really don't have to teach through a "lexical search phase" because that is what people do when they pay attention and try to figure something out. The "decoding phase" however, could use an enormous amount of work and teaching as phonemes, accenting and rhythms may be all new and difficult to hear. I think it might be more productive to identify the areas we can actually teach and which ones need to be acquired by "just listening". I don't have an answer but I am becoming a big fan of early, thorough, explicit instruction in phonology... And then cartoons.
I'd love to hear if there are other ideas out there on which aspects of listening can actively be taught to speed up the rate of skill acquisition. It seems so often like "listening drills" are simply quizzes, not actually skill building tasks.
8 x
But there's no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.
-
- Blue Belt
- Posts: 952
- Joined: Wed Nov 02, 2016 8:49 pm
- Location: UK
- Languages: English (native). French (studying).
- Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7466
- x 1386
Re: Learning to Listen and Listening to Learn
Dictation seems to be a significant part of french children's french language education. Wouldn't that be a practical method for self-study of listening skills?Ani wrote:reineke wrote:A decoding phase - input is ‘translated’ into the sounds of the language
A lexical search phase - in which the listener searches his brain (long-term memory) for words which match or nearly match these sounds.
A parsing phase - in which he must recognise a grammar pattern in a string of words and fit a word to the linguistic context surrounding it
A meaning-building phase - in which, having ‘broken’ the speech flow, identified the words he heard and how they fit grammatically in the sentence he finally makes sense of it
A discourse-construction phase - in which the understanding of each unit of meaning (e.g. sentence) is connected to the larger context of the narrative. In this phase, one’s background knowledge will help enhance comprehension.
The problem as I see it, with a list like this is that most of these aspects are handled in the brain exactly like in the native language. You really don't have to teach through a "lexical search phase" because that is what people do when they pay attention and try to figure something out. The "decoding phase" however, could use an enormous amount of work and teaching as phonemes, accenting and rhythms may be all new and difficult to hear. I think it might be more productive to identify the areas we can actually teach and which ones need to be acquired by "just listening". I don't have an answer but I am becoming a big fan of early, thorough, explicit instruction in phonology... And then cartoons.
I'd love to hear if there are other ideas out there on which aspects of listening can actively be taught to speed up the rate of skill acquisition. It seems so often like "listening drills" are simply quizzes, not actually skill building tasks.
3 x
- blaurebell
- Blue Belt
- Posts: 840
- Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2016 1:24 pm
- Location: Spain
- Languages: German (N), English (C2), Spanish (B2-C1), French (B2+ passive), Italian (A2), Russian (Beginner)
- Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3235
- x 2240
Re: Learning to Listen and Listening to Learn
Ani wrote:I'd love to hear if there are other ideas out there on which aspects of listening can actively be taught to speed up the rate of skill acquisition. It seems so often like "listening drills" are simply quizzes, not actually skill building tasks.
In my experience it all just depends on vocabulary and the actual time of listening without understanding can be reduced to a bare minimum by building vocabulary with intensive reading, as long as one hast the phonology in place beforehand. With French I did Wyner's pronunciation trainer, followed by a bit of FSI French phonology and shadowing half of Assimil. Then I read 5000 pages intensively, no listening at all during that time. It took me then only 2 seasons of Buffy French dubs to get to 95% comprehension, one season with Subtitles, one without. The whole 7 seasons got me to 97-99%, it was amazingly fast.
10 x
: Дэвид Эддингс - В поисках камня
: LWT Known
: FSI Spanish Basic
: GdUdE B
: Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German
: LWT Known
: FSI Spanish Basic
: GdUdE B
: Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German
- Ani
- Brown Belt
- Posts: 1433
- Joined: Mon Mar 14, 2016 8:58 am
- Location: Alaska
- Languages: English (N), speaks French, Russian & Icelandic (beginner)
- x 3842
- Contact:
Re: Learning to Listen and Listening to Learn
DaveBee wrote:Dictation seems to be a significant part of french children's french language education. Wouldn't that be a practical method for self-study of listening skills?
Dictée is largely for teaching spelling/orthography, though. I'm sure it is done differently in many places, but usually the dictation is studied in advance. Given out on Monday/tested on Friday type thing. I do think it might be useful but not necessarily any more useful to listening skills than learning individual sentences, or learning words in chunks as described in that first post. Unless we are saying that good spelling leads to good listening. Which it might, idk
2 x
But there's no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.
- reineke
- Black Belt - 3rd Dan
- Posts: 3570
- Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 7:34 pm
- Languages: Fox (C4)
- Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=6979
- x 6554
Re: Learning to Listen and Listening to Learn
---
Last edited by reineke on Fri Dec 27, 2019 3:32 am, edited 2 times in total.
3 x
- Voytek
- Green Belt
- Posts: 407
- Joined: Fri May 13, 2016 3:36 pm
- Location: Chiang Rai (Thailand)
- Languages: polski (N)
English(C2)
español(C2)
svenska (C1)
日本語 (A1)
ภาษาไทย (dabbling) - x 346
Re: Learning to Listen and Listening to Learn
reineke wrote: The ability to detect individual words in running speech is a fundamental early requirement for language acquisition.
That's why I was using the L-R method (particularly the 1st phase) in the very beginning of my study of Swedish. It really helped me to acquire that skill and it took me about 4 hours maybe to do so.
1 x
Exposure to Swedish-RL-building stage:
Exposure to Spanish-RL-final stage:
Exposure to Spanish-RL-final stage:
-
- Blue Belt
- Posts: 984
- Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 11:57 am
- Location: Paris, France
- Languages: Native: French
Intermediate: English, Russian, Italian
Tourist : Breton, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, German, Spanish, Latin - Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=1524
- x 2172
Re: Learning to Listen and Listening to Learn
Yes, dictations are done only for orthography.Ani wrote:DaveBee wrote:Dictation seems to be a significant part of french children's french language education. Wouldn't that be a practical method for self-study of listening skills?
Dictée is largely for teaching spelling/orthography, though. I'm sure it is done differently in many places, but usually the dictation is studied in advance. Given out on Monday/tested on Friday type thing. I do think it might be useful but not necessarily any more useful to listening skills than learning individual sentences, or learning words in chunks as described in that first post. Unless we are saying that good spelling leads to good listening. Which it might, idk
In my time, the dictations were not prepared in advance: it was "today, dictation: open your notebook and write...", and you wrote during 1/4 hour.
That being said, I think dictations can be useful when you learn a language that is not written as it is spoken, like russian or french: I regularly do little dictations in russian (with a book+CD for 1st to 4th classes: lot of animals and trees names at the beginning), and it usually turns out to be a deep wound for my ego
6 x
- Voytek
- Green Belt
- Posts: 407
- Joined: Fri May 13, 2016 3:36 pm
- Location: Chiang Rai (Thailand)
- Languages: polski (N)
English(C2)
español(C2)
svenska (C1)
日本語 (A1)
ภาษาไทย (dabbling) - x 346
Re: Learning to Listen and Listening to Learn
May be it's a good idea to make an animated series for kids with the karaoke like subtitles to teach them that skill quite easily.
1 x
Exposure to Swedish-RL-building stage:
Exposure to Spanish-RL-final stage:
Exposure to Spanish-RL-final stage:
Return to “General Language Discussion”
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: Msparks and 2 guests