Re: Listening vs Comprehension (and the case against TV) [interesting article]
Posted: Wed Apr 26, 2017 10:20 am
As I follow the debate I'm not sure that the use of the term intensive listening means the same thing for everybody. In my opinion, intensive listening has two components: many repetitions and focused analysis of the linguistic content. The purpose of this is to improve the level of understanding - and ultimately that of speaking.
Intensive listening can only be done with relatively short samples of speech, but what is interesting is to work with a variety of different speaking genres. While a lot of talk has been made about TV series, there is a lot to be said about looking at other kinds of spoken language. Youtube is a fabulous resource for this.
As a concrete example, I look no further than the April 26 web page of the Spanish newspaper El mundo. In an article on a case of corruption in the Madrid area, the newspaper gives a transcript of a telephone conversation recorded by the police and then explains, not the linguistic contents, but more the political significance of this conversation.
Linguistically, it is interesting to see how very important politicians use informal language with lots of slang when speaking with each other and far from the cameras. Actually, there are elements that I don't understand. I'll have to bring them up with my tutor later today. This sort of stuff is very important for understanding real native informal speech.
Intensive listening can only be done with relatively short samples of speech, but what is interesting is to work with a variety of different speaking genres. While a lot of talk has been made about TV series, there is a lot to be said about looking at other kinds of spoken language. Youtube is a fabulous resource for this.
As a concrete example, I look no further than the April 26 web page of the Spanish newspaper El mundo. In an article on a case of corruption in the Madrid area, the newspaper gives a transcript of a telephone conversation recorded by the police and then explains, not the linguistic contents, but more the political significance of this conversation.
Linguistically, it is interesting to see how very important politicians use informal language with lots of slang when speaking with each other and far from the cameras. Actually, there are elements that I don't understand. I'll have to bring them up with my tutor later today. This sort of stuff is very important for understanding real native informal speech.