LISTENING

Listening is a very important skill that everyone should master because we spend nearly
60% of our working hours listening to a variety of things being said to us and around
us. Listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying. This
involves understanding a speaker’s accent, his grammar and vocabulary, and grasping
his meaning. An able listener is capable of doing these four things simultaneously. A
series of micro-skills are involved while one is listening. They include the following:

 Predicting what people are going to talk about

 Guessing unknown words or phrases

 Using one’s background knowledge of the subject

 Identifying relevant points

 Retaining relevant points (note-making, summarizing)

 Rejecting irrelevant points

 Recognising discourse markers (e.g. well, oh, besides, another thing, now,
etc)

 Recognising cohesive devices (e.g. such as, which, however, etc)

 Understanding different intonation patterns and uses of stress

 Understanding inferred information

Listening is an active process and has three basic steps. They are hearing,
understanding and judging.

Hearing means listening enough to catch what the speaker is saying. For instance, if
you were listening to a verbal documentary on cats and the speaker mentioned that
many animals belong to the cat family. If you can repeat the fact, then you have heard
what has been said. Understanding happens when you take what you have heard and
understand it in your own way. Let’s go back to the documentary on cats. When you
hear that many animals belong to the cat family, think about what that might mean. You
may think, “Maybe this means that animals having certain features and characteristics
of a typical cat that we know, belong to the cat family”. Judging occurs when you
understand what the speaker has said and think about whether it makes sense. Do you
believe what you have heard? You might think. “How could animals which we call by
different names be all in the cat family? But, then again, when we bring in our
knowledge of the world about human beings for example, we fall under one category
called “human beings” and yet categorise ourselves as being “Malay”, “Chinese’,
“Indian”, and others, according to our race. Thus, the information in the documentary
we have just listened to seems believable.

STRATEGIES FOR LISTENING

Listening is a demanding process. In order to function efficiently in the English

language, you must develop good listening strategies which will help you to listen,
process and respond to information in both academic and social contexts. Some good
listening strategies that can help you to listen better include the following:

 Concentrate and focus on the listening text/speech’

 Listen with a purpose. Decide what information you should listen for and what
you can ignore.

 If you are going to hear it only once, try to grasp the gist of the text/speech. Do
not worry about understanding all the words you hear or even trying to memorise
every detail.

 If you are going to hear it more than once, try to grasp the general meaning of
the text/speech the first time you listen to it. When you listen to the text the
second time, concentrate on identifying specific details or key words.

 Guess the meaning of unfamiliar words by paying attention to the context in

which they occur.

 Learn to process information quickly or in ‘real time’ because in real life situation,
you often hear something said only once.
HOW TO BE A GOOD LISTENER

1. Give your full attention to the person who is speaking or to the text or speech you
are listening to.
2. Make sure your mind is focused.
3. Let the speaker finish before you begin to talk.
4. Listen for main ideas. They are the most important points the speaker wants to
get across. They may be mentioned at the start or at the end of the talk, and
repeated a number of times.
5. Jot down some important points given by the speaker. (If you are listening to
identify important points or to summarise the speech later)
6. Pay particular attention on the use of discourse markers and cohesive devices by
the speaker.
CRITICAL LISTENING

Critical listening is a form of listening that involves analysis, critical thinking and
judgment. Making judgments during listening is often considered as a barrier to
understand a person, and there's a lot of truth in that. However, critical listening occurs
when you still want to understand what the other person is saying, but also have some
reason or responsibility to evaluate what is being said to you and how it is being said.
For example, if there's an upcoming election and you need to decide who to vote for,
you probably use some form of critical listening when you watch a televised debate. You
listen, AND you evaluate. While experts on learning and communication almost
universally demean the importance and value of critical listening, when it comes to real
life, listening critically is used every day. The key though, is to try to understand the
other person FIRST, before one evaluates

Listening Text Types

Below are some of the listening texts that we often need to listen to critically:

Forum –

A forum can be defined as a public meeting or a programme (as on radio or television)

involving discussion of a problem usually by several authorities and usually among
experts. It is an open discussion involving audience participation.
Example : Money Matters

Speech –

A speech is a talk or public address. The best impromptu speeches are the ones written
well in advance. Giving a speech is also an act of expressing or describing thoughts,
feelings or perceptions by the articulation of words.
Example : Formal speeches given by ministers, corporate leaders, educationists

Documentary –

A documentary is a creative work of non-fiction. This includes documentary film,

television, radio documentary and documentary photography.
Example : Animal Planet, National Geographic

News –

News is any information or information on current events which is presented by print,

broadcast, internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience. News is also
the reporting of current information on television and radio, and in the newspapers and
magazines.
Examples : Business News, BBC News, CNN, Channel News Asia
Multimedia Resources –

Multimedia is any combination of text, graphic art, sound, animation and video delivered
to you by computer to other electronic means. Multimedia is not new. It has been used
in the classroom for the last decade in the form of overhead projectors, slide shows,
filmstrips and coloured chalk.

Exercises

1. Watch and listen to a talk show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFnMTHhKdkw
Every kid needs a champion _ Ted Talk

Identify the issue/s being discussed and give your personal response.

2. Listen to the talk on ways to listen better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSohjlYQI2A

List the 5 ways to listen better.

1: __________________________________________________________________

2: __________________________________________________________________

3: ___________________________________________________________________

4: __________________________________________________________________

5: __________________________________________________________________

Provide your own ideas on how to be a better listener.

1: ____________________________________________________

2: _____________________________________________________
3. Listen to an English song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHcXx2JXrtA

Identify and analyse the issue reflected in the song.

Additional Task

Listen to a forum either on the radio or television and identify its features as follows :

- chairperson
- speakers (and their professions)
- topic/issues discussed
- opinion of each speaker