Lingua-cultural approach to teaching listening Proficiency

Listening is a significant and essential area of the development of Intercultural communicative competence for “listening is the process of receiving, attending to and assigning meaning to aural stimuli, it is a complex problem-solving task which sharpens thinking and creates interaction.

Listening interacts with speaking, it usually occurs in conjunction with speaking. Listening takes =90% of class time at school and it is probably the most important skill in overall communication. For many it is the most important medium through which significant cultural information is conveyed.

Listening interacts with very powerful non-verbal system (gestures, mimicry, facial expression) For example, “Let’s get gather for lunch sometime” The non-verbal clues (indifferent facial expression, moving away and onto next activity) can give a very different message that must be interpreted and weighed before the action is taken. As much as 93% of information comes from non-verbal, visual clues. So, we must train our students how to listen well and how to pick up non-verbal clues at the same time. Listening is linked to all the four components of the Intercultural communicative competence: language, strategic socio-cultural and discourse competences. The scheme shows the relationship between listening proficiency and each of the elements of Intercultural communicative competence

 

Linguistic competence Strategic competence (using any

(grammar, vocabulary, clues for guessing, background knowledge etc)

pronunciation-pauses stress,

intonation)

Listening Proficiency

Socio-cultural Competence Discourse competence

(knowing social and cultural Integration (Knowing how discourse operates)

expectations related to the with other

appropriate use of FL) skills

 

Linguistic competence is a sort of “umbrella concept” that helps to catch the meaning of what we hear.

Socio-cultural Competence involves knowing what is expected socially and culturally by the FL users in this or that communicative situation. It is very important in FL listening to understand what the speaker wants to convey (facts, feelings, emotions, a sense of authority or meet hostility) Culturally aware listener must be able to “listen and understand between the lines” in order to respond properly (verbally or non-verbally)

Discourse competence. Discourse as you know deals with communication above the sentence level. It students have discourse competence they will be able to anticipate what will be said next and understand more easily what they are hearing at any moment. Discourse competence implies that the listener is cognitively involved, he is active not passive and is always seeking to know how the parts of communication relate to each other and what they mean. Moreover, it involves understanding how the target language is used in different situations.

Strategic competence is perhaps the most important of all the communicative competence elements for listening Proficiency, and because of this we shall discuss it in detail. In reference to listening Strategic competence means the ability to use all possible clues to get at the meaning of what is heard. First of all it involves using guessing strategies to compensate the missing knowledge of grammar, vocabulary, idioms trying to understand what is being heard. Guessing is most essential for listening the listener makes hypotheses, then tests them: he tries to predict what is coming next using both linguistic and non- linguistic clues. Linguistic clues include suffixes, prefixes, phrases, word order cognates, international words, titles, proper names and nicknames. For example “sweetheart” gives the learners a very different clue to the meaning in comparison with the formal “Dr Smith”

Discourse markers first, second, third, we will now turn to give us a signal of what is being presented. Differences in American and British accents can cause difficulties in understanding if the students are not aware of them.

Non-linguistic clues include facial expressions, positive, background noise and general, background knowledge of any kind related to what is being said.

There are many factors’ that influence Listening Comprehension. One of them is the degree of Attention. Which may he guided by a clear-cut objective (установкой): Listen to the story about the sailor and say where he has sailing: Why? The clear-cut objective (listening task) should precede every stage of listening: Pre- listening. While- listening and post- listening to involve them cognitively: at prestige to utilize the existing knowledge (Find the right store to kill the bird); at the while stage to provide guidance; at the post stage to provide a sense of completion on the whole process.

Our immediate task is to provide opportunities for increased practice in listening by use of self-directed (self-access) learning materials for listening. After all it gives maximum individualization of learning which increases motivation. Clearly, the use of tasks and activities based on the principles of problem-solving are likely to be most effective in engaging the learners’ cognitive involvement. Authentic audio- and visual materials provide the best channels of exposure of culture, target language culture. Here is a story for listening in the 8-th form:

Carrying an Umbrella

The umbrella was brought to England from the East in the eighteenth century. It was used in the East as a protection against the sun. In England it was used more as a protection against the rain. The English people liked the umbrella very much. Later they put up a monument to the first man who appeared in the streets of London with an umbrella.

Of course, you can go out without an umbrella in rainy weather if you put on a raincoat, but our story today is about an umbrella. Here it is.

One day a man was walking in the street when he saw a little boy carrying an umbrella.

“Little boy”, said the man, “why do you carry that umbrella over your head? It is not raining and the sun isn’t shining”

“When it rains,” answered the boy, “Dad wants it. I can use it only when the weather is good”

The learners are made much more aware of their own culture by learning about the foreign one. But it is needless to say that the choice should appropriate for the developmental level of the learners.