Listening: The first skill to aquire when learning a new language
Por: Camila Garcia Voelkl.
The art of learning is always a cumulative process, whatever the content. We learn in various ways and use all our senses for them. The art of learning a language, whether for the first time or as an additional language, requires 5 main skills, listening, speaking, understanding the culture, writing, and learning to read.
Although we must work on the 5 synergistically, it is important to emphasize that the first aptitude: Listening, is one of the most important.
Sound is the basis for communication in all spoken languages. Whichever language you decide to pursue, you must learn how to listen so that you can understand what has been said. It is the same as when you learn your first language as a baby, we spend more than six months just listening and understanding, to later start babbling some words until we can create full sentences. This process takes us around two to three years and a lifetime of continuous learning and improvement.
Human brains evolved to acquire oral comprehension first and a second language is not any different. Even though we are capable of learning faster, the process is similar.
“Research shows that when we communicate, we spend around 40-50% of our time listening, 25-30% speaking, 11-16% reading and only 9% writing (although that last one might have changed in recent years due to the rise in social media).” (https://www.fluentu.com/blog/)
So, why should listening be the first skill to be taught?
Many learners are eager to start talking in their new language. Many even consider that if they are not able to talk a couple of sentences, then they do not know the language. This is not true. The first phase of learning is by listening and being capable of understanding. You can be engaged in conversations among native speakers even when your speaking skills are minimal, but if you cannot understand what they are saying, you will inevitably tune out and feel isolated.
Learning to listen to the target language improves language ability. The sound, rhythm, intonation, and stress of the language can only be perfectly adapted through listening.
It is very important to note that listening is different from hearing. Listening involves an active and conscious process where the student is mentally present.
Dr. Michael Rost, Ph.D. in linguistics (1994) explains the importance of listening in a language classroom as follows:
- Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learner. Without understanding input at the right level, any learning simply cannot begin.
- Spoken language provides a means of interaction for the learner. Because learners must interact to achieve understanding. Access to speakers of the language is essential. Moreover, learners’ failure to understand the language they hear is an impetus, not an obstacle, to interaction and learning.
- Authentic spoken language presents a challenge for the learner to understand language as native speakers actually use it.
- Listening exercises provide teachers with a means for drawing learners’ attention to new forms (vocabulary, grammar, new interaction patterns) in the language (p.141-142).
Teachers need to Commit to teaching Listening skills.
We may think that listening is a simple skill but when it comes to a second language it is not that easy. When our mind doesn’t understand what is said fast enough, it tends to get distracted. The student needs to practice and work on their language skills as much as possible and language teachers need to think of how we can incorporate listening into our teaching and provide opportunities both inside and outside the classroom for our students to be exposed to significant listening input.
A great technique to help students learn to listen is to use Top-down strategies. These strategies focus on concepts and not specific words. The goal is for the learner to understand the overall meaning of what is being said and not only specific words. By using their knowledge of context and co-text, learners should either be able to guess the meaning of the unknown word or understand the general idea without getting distracted by it.
Some examples of how to use top-down strategies are:
- listening activities that include putting a series of pictures or sequence of events in order
- listening to conversations and identifying where they take place
- Listening to Bingo/Loteria games
- Dicto-drawing: Give spoken instructions on how to draw something and the student should follow your directions.
- Games to follow instructions or directions
Other easy ways to practice listening for foreign language acquisition are by listening to music in the target language, watching movies, or getting immersed in conversations with native speakers.
As one of my students reminded me and his classmates in one of my recent classes: We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.
Enjoy the process not only the result!
References:
Rost, M. (1994). Introducing listening. London: Penguin books.
https://www.ripublication.com/ijeisv1n1/ijeisv4n1_13.pdf