Learning to Listen and Listening to Learn
Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2017 6:16 pm
I wanted to share this ---
We talk languages
http://forum.language-learners.org/
http://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5698
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.
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.
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.
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?
reineke wrote: The ability to detect individual words in running speech is a fundamental early requirement for language acquisition.
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