“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak”

Feb 4, 2022 | Bilinguism

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

The natural approach for second language aquisition

Jul 29, 2021 | Bilinguism, Education, English

Becoming bilingual doesn’t have to be hard.

By: Camila Garcia Voelkl.
Written for Michuchutren, Spanish immersion center

Let me start by asking you how did you learn your mother tongue? How many classes did you take to learn how to call your mom or how to ask for more food when you were a baby? None.

We, start learning our first language since we are in our mother’s womb by listening and trying to make sense of sounds. Once we are born, we create associations between images and sounds, making sense of words and their meanings. We learn through listening, watching, and daily experiences. Your mother tongue makes sense because you can use it to fulfill your needs (Asking for more food, demanding attention, playing) and because with it, we can express our feelings to the people around us.

When our children are learning to talk, we do not worry about buying workbooks or following a specific method to teach them the grammar and rules of the language. Once they have enough knowledge of the language and the right age, they start reading, comprehending, and understanding the rules. This process takes years, right?

Well then, why do we expect the acquisition of the second language to be different? Why do we think we need a precise curriculum, lots of workbooks, and tedious grammar lessons to teach our children a second language?

Let me tell you about the theory of “The natural approach” developed by Professor Stephen Krashen and education theorist Tracy Terrell in the late 1970s.

The Natural Way Approach

Following the logic of what I was telling you before, the natural approach is based on learning a second language in the same way we learned our first. Our brains are capable of learning as many languages as we want to (the younger, the better) and, each person learns them at their own pace.

If we compare five kids at the age of 2, will they all have the same vocabulary, language abilities, and same pronunciation? No, they are all different not only because of the degree of exposure to the language but because of their own learning capabilities. The same happens when learning a second or third language.

The Natural way is developed to learn in the same way we learned when we were babies. The teacher speaks only the target language (Full immersion) and students may use either the first or second language while they acquire a better understanding of the target language. The class is devoted primarily to provide input for acquisition. So, what does this mean:

The main goal is to comprehend/understand by listening and making associations with previous knowledge before the student starts trying to repeat and learn how to talk in the language.

The class is developed by creating interest and making the topic relevant for the student. Why does a kid want to learn a second language if they do not feel it is actually useful for them? Or has nothing to do with what they like or not? Therefore, the natural way encourages the interest of the students through their personal interests.

The intend is not related to grammatical rules. The main objective is not to learn the correct way of writing or saying something but to focus on the goal of being able to communicate. Let’s go back to the example of the toddler learning to talk. It is cute to hear a baby babbling and trying to figure out how to say something, isn’t it? Then, we need to see the process of the second language in the same way. It is totally fine to have a “babbling” phase where the student is trying to find the words to communicate something without paying attention if it is grammatically correct.

Students do not have to talk in their second language until they feel they are ready, and there is not a specific time-lapse for that. There are children who in a couple of months will feel comfortable enough to start trying to “babble” and some may take years to get to that point.

“Acquisition requires meaningful interaction in the target language – natural communication – in which speakers are concerned not with the form of their utterances but with the messages they are conveying and understanding”.

(Stephen Krashen)

Therefore, if you are thinking about learning a second language or teaching it to your children, think about it as a process, not a result. The learning journey takes a lifetime (same as with your main language in which you continue learning new words and concepts throughout your whole life). It is not a timed process and, there is no rush to be perfectly proficient. It should go naturally with your own learning process.

Remember that the main purpose of learning another language is being able to communicate with others, so:

Focus on communication and not on perfection.
There is no need to go through extensive use of conscious grammatical rules since the beginning.
Go beyond the books and look for meaningful experiences.
Get immersed in the language from the beginning, do not look for translations.

Enjoy the journey!

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