Daily Life Listening


REAL LIFE LISTENING/ Daily Life Listening:

In our real life, we come across certain listening situations some of which are given below:-
discussions, arguments, complaints. orders, instructions, directions. expressing feelings, attitudes; listening to radio and TV programmes; Chatting with friends, family, relatives etc.; Making plans and arrangements; Attending a workshop, seminar, lecture; Listening to recorded/broadcast songs; being tested orally in a subject of study or being interviewed. Getting the advice of a professional such as a doctor, lawyer, teacher etc. hearing announcements; hearing a speech. COMPONENTS OF LISTENING. Listening comprehension can be divided into five sequential components each dependent upon the preceding one; The ability to identify the sounds, stress and intonation patterns, voice qualities in the second language and to discriminate between them and similar sounds in the native language. The perception/construction of a message from them. Holding the message in one's auditory memory until it can be processed. Decoding the message with the help of the previous information stored in the memory. Plan a response or store it in the second language.

PROBLEMS OF LISTENING FOR THE SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNER.

A foreign or second language learner-can experience certain problems while listening to English language. Some of these problems are:- Problems regarding sound discrimination These problems are caused due to different accents, stress, intonation patterns. clarity etc.
Prohlems regarding words and grammar The students who are not good at gramrnat ic al rules of spoken language, styles of language, different expressions etc., usually face this kind of problem. This is mainly due to the lack of exposure to different styles of speaking.

Problems regarding the setting or cultural context. Most of the listening problems arc caused by the unfamiliar culture and the lack olknowledge about the context in which the conversation is taking place.
Problems regarding the knowledge about the speaker and the suhject matter. A listener who is not familiar with the speaker or the subject matter under discussion finds difficulty in comprehending the message.
SOME SOLUTIONS to improve the listening and speaking skills:
In view of the problems faced by the learners of second/foreign language in comprehension the following measures are recommended.
1-Stress the importance of careful and constant listening. A second language learner must concentrate on each and every word unlike the manner of l istcn ing to his own language where he can discard the redundant and unnecessary elements of the message.
2-Select material worth listening to and of an appropriate level of linguistic difficulty regarding grammar and vocabulary.
3-Control the speed of delivery and clarity of diction. Deliver each sentence at a moderate speed and pause rather longer than you normally do between sentences. This gives the listener some more time to process the information. But the speed should always be normal, with native stress. pronunciation. intonation. liaisons and elisions.
4-Control the variety and types or accents .
5- Guide the students to perceive and to distinguish those sounds that are not found in the first language from familiar sounds that may be somewhat similiar.
6-After the above distinctions. the learners can listen to sentences for meaning. provided they have also been learning vocabulary and grammar during this period.
7-Once the learners are able to discriminate various linguistic cues and perceive spoken messages they begin to develop their ability to retain sentences.
8-To develop the student's auditory memory the teacher should give as much practice as possible in hearing the language. In the early stages the sentences should be quite short. there should not be too many syllables or too much intormation. Later on, short conversations and oral readings help in developing greater listening comprehension. At a still later stage the learner should be provided additional listening activities. such as description ofcustoms, plays and scenes from plays. songs, lectures, radio broadcasts, movies etc. These activities help in acquiring listening comprehension ability.