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Extensive listening in the language classroom
Abstract
This chapter discusses the role of extensive listening in foreign or second language learning and teaching. It explains the language learning benefits of extensive listening, explores the kinds of material that are suitable for extensive listening, and provides practical activities that promote extensive listening in the foreign or second language classroom.
... Unlike other language skills, listening requires immediate understanding and processing (Vandergrift, 2004) and background knowledge of the target language culture (Vandergrift, 2007;Walker, 2014). Krashen (1985) argued that language can be acquired with comprehensible input; therefore, studies have focused on developing listening skills through both intensive and extensive listening (e.g., Chang & Read, 2006;Jones, 2008;Renandya, 2011). This paper has taken a different approach in that developing listening skills might happen through interaction where learners discuss and negotiate, and not solely through intensive input (Ellis, 1997). ...
... A diferencia de otras destrezas lingüísticas, el escuchar requiere de una comprensión y un procesamiento inmediatos (Vandergrift, 2004) y un conocimiento previo de la cultura del idioma destino (Vandergrift, 2007;Walker, 2014). Krashen (1985) sostenía que el dominio de una lengua puede adquirirse con un input comprensible; por ello, los estudios se han enfocado en el desarrollo de las habilidades de comprensión auditiva a través de la escucha intensiva y extensiva (por ejemplo, Chang y Read, 2006;Jones, 2008;Renandya, 2011). En este trabajo se ha adoptado un enfoque diferente en el sentido de que el desarrollo de las habilidades de comprensión auditiva podrían adquirirse a través de una interacción en la que los alumnos discuten y negocian, y no únicamente mediante un input intensivo (Ellis, 1997). ...
... Studies have focused on developing listening skills through both intensive and extensive listening (e.g., Chang & Read, 2006;Jones, 2008;Renandya, 2011). However, "real-life listening is interactive" (Holden, 2008, p. 301) and might require more than just "comprehensible input" (Krashen, 1985). ...
Listening is often a challenge for foreign/second language learners. Unlike other language skills, listening requires immediate understanding and processing (Vandergrift, 2004) and background knowledge of the target language culture (Vandergrift, 2007; Walker, 2014). Krashen (1985) argued that language can be acquired with comprehensible input; therefore, studies have focused on developing listening skills through both intensive and extensive listening (e.g., Chang & Read, 2006; Jones, 2008; Renandya, 2011). This paper has taken a different approach in that developing listening skills might happen through interaction where learners discuss and negotiate, and not solely through intensive input (Ellis, 1997). Accordingly, the current study examines whether active learning group discussion activities help develop lower-level students' listening comprehension skills. The study creates and implements fifteen active learning group discussion activities based on insights from Elmetaher's (2021) Active Learning Checklist for a full academic term with a group of 25 L1 Japanese students enrolled in a compulsory academic listening course in a Japanese southern university. Pre- and post-listening tests were developed, administered, and showed a significant increase of the listening scores in this group . A discussion on the effectiveness of 'group discussion' in developing listening skills with a newly introduced Four Questions (4Q) teaching strategy has been included.
... The significant difference between the two activities lies in the objectives. At the same time, the intensive listening practice focuses more on vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation; meanwhile, extensive listening emphasizes the exposure students get to gain overall understanding independently and enjoyably (Ivone & Renandya, 2019;Renandya, 2011). ...
Numerous scholarly investigations have been conducted on students' perceptions of implementing Google Sites in various learning environments, including English as a foreign language (EFL) context. However, some existing research lacks specific exploration of the use of Google Sites in both intensive and extensive listening classrooms in tertiary education. This study aims to investigate the implementation of Google Sites in that specific listening classroom. This case study involved twenty-two first-year students in English language education at one of the public universities in Bandung, Indonesia. Data were collected through classroom observation, students' reflection, and semi-structured interviews, and they were analyzed thematically using NVivo as a helping tool. Results indicate that, according to the implementation and the ease of using Google Sites in their listening classroom, students generally hold positive attitudes towards Google Sites, finding it beneficial to improve their listening skills along with their creativity. Conversely, some students experience challenges that evolve around poor internet connectivity, accessibility, and adjustability of the website. This study promotes Google Sites as an alternative learning tool to assist both teachers and students in meeting their learning objectives in a fun and creative way.
... He pointed that input refers to "oral or written language that a learner receives". According to Renandya (2011), in order for input to benefit the language learning process, it has to meet the following requirements: 1) it has to be comprehensible, 2) it has to be abundantly and reliably available, 3) it has to be frequently encountered, 4) it has to contain language features slightly beyond the learner's current level, 5) it has to contain language features that engage the learner's attention, 6) it has to be meaningful and interesting. ...
English language education has undergone a paradigmatic shift from linguistic competence to multimodal communicative competence over the last few decades. In this case, English language teaching materials should be adjusted to meet this shift where English has been globally and culturally accepted as a lingua franca where students' moral identities are at risk of being affected. Although numerous studies have scrutinized ELT materials from various perspectives, little attention is addressed to how moral values are represented multimodally in an ELT textbook, notably viewed from the Systemic Functional Multimodal Discourse Analysis (SFMDA) (O’Halloran, 2009; Lim, 2019). Hence, this study aims to fill the void. The corpus selected chapters from an Indonesia-produced EFL textbook. The data were analyzed multimodally by adopting the SFMDA framework. The findings revealed that moral values in such a book encompass showing social awareness, upholding a democratic atmosphere, strengthening positive habits, building personal integrity, and constructing evidence-based thinking. With this in mind, teaching and learning English practices should go beyond form-focused instruction to enable students to make meaning of the delivered teaching materials. Additionally, teachers should be
aware that ELT textbooks are not neutral but value-laden to meet policy goals. Pedagogically speaking, by understanding moral values implied in ELT materials, teachers are expected to be moral agents helping students maintain their morals based on the existing social norms and national characters' educational purposes.
Keywords: An Indonesia-Produced EFL Textbook, Moral Values, Systemic Functional Multimodal Discourse Analysis
... De Wilde et al., 2020;Peters, 2018). Although FL educators have long been endeavouring to promote extensive reading and listening outside class (Day and Bamford, 1998;Renandya, 2013;Yip and Tsang, 2020), from the findings in the current study, these were among the least popular types of extramural English engagement. Only a handful of the 350 learners engaged with extensive listening with or without accompanying scripts and not many engaged in the traditional sense of extensive reading (e.g. ...
Being cognizant of the indispensable role of abundant language input, scholars have given more attention to learning beyond the foreign language classroom in recent decades. This is especially important because there is usually limited time and exposure to authentic input in class. Contexts in which English is regarded as a foreign language warrant scrutiny since English is now highly accessible to learners at virtually all ages, worldwide, at no/low cost, thanks mostly to technology. The present longitudinal study set out to examine 350 Hong Kong junior-secondary-school learners’ informal engagements with extramural English activities (e.g. watching videos; playing computer games). The relationship between their engagements and language proficiency was also investigated. The findings revealed that as many as 90% of the participants had informal extramural exposure to English. This exposure was classified into seven categories. Overall, the three most popular types of engagement were videos/movies, songs, and communication (e.g. face-to-face chats; text messages). Intriguingly, the overall levels of engagements were correlated significantly and positively with proficiency scores for the average- and high-proficiency groups, but no such relationship was found for the low-proficiency students. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the findings.
... Reflecting on the findings on difficulties during the extensive listening practices, it is apparent that as novice English learners, the students might not have a vast vocabulary and are inexperienced in listening to different aspects of speech including pronunciations, accents, as well as speed. On this matter, it is important to take into account one very important benefit of extensive listening which is the increased fluency in listening, referring to one's ability to keep up with speakers' speed of speech (Renandya, 2011;Waring and Browne, 2012). This essential skill is particularly useful in a natural language setting as one will only get the chance to listen and would not get the chance to replay what is heard (Ducker & Saunders, 2014). ...
Despite the fact that technology and online media’s great contributions on extensive listening practices, students who are unaccustomed to such activities would find the practice challenging. The current study investigated 20 first-semester university students undertaking extensive listening practices which were recorded into logbooks. The researchers aimed to map out students’ reflections on challenges and satisfaction towards the media and listening practices under a descriptive qualitative research, utilizing document analysis. Results of data analysis shows that the freedom of choice given to students while undertaking extensive listening activities through online media brought positive responses on the overall students’ satisfaction on the listening practice. Nevertheless, the unsorted levels of difficulty, unfamiliar words, foreign accents, and speed of speech from the media became the barriers mostly encountered in understanding the language contents. Furthermore, unsatisfactory listening experiences were also reported by a few students. Thus, it is advisable that teachers who implement extensive listening practices to offer help for learners to be more aware of their current and future potential to make sure learning more efficiently. It is highly expected that through frequent interactions with the listening inputs from various sources, students would enhance their metacognitive strategies to have better control of their learning.
... One of the ultimate goals of EL is to encourage and assist learners to select their study materials according to their preferences and language proficiency (c.f. Renandya, 2011). Materials used in many EL studies, however, were determined by the instructor. ...
This study investigated the multidimensional effects of extensive listening (EL) on learners’ actual language gains, selection of study materials, and practice styles. Language gains were measured through a pre- and a post-test on students’ aural vocabulary test (Listening Vocabulary Levels Test, LVLT) and general listening comprehension (TOEIC), administered before and after the intervention. Fifty-five university student participants took part in the four-month experiment; they were entirely free to select their favorite study materials online or off-line. The results showed that each student spent an average of 1,387 minutes (approximately 87 minutes per week) doing EL practice. The three most popular study materials were the following: Songs (63.64%), movies (49.09%), and talks (43.46%); materials were mainly from YouTube (74.55%), Netflix (49.09%), and other miscellaneous sources (43.63%). Their practice style was unanimously a combination of viewing and listening. From the pre-tests to the post-tests, students made significant gains in both LVLT and TOEIC, but the effect sizes were small. Some suggestions are made for implementing EL.
... N.C. Ellis, 2002;Renandya, 2013) would agree that extensive exposure is conducive to mastering a language. However, as written and spoken input given in FL lessons are rather limited and the target language does not often exist naturally in the FL milieu, exposing oneself to a substantial amount of the language outside class becomes all the more important. ...
The present mixed-methods study was an inductive investigation of 8-to-12-year-old English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) children’s English input received beyond the classroom (IBC) in Hong Kong. Individual interviews, with an inductive co-constructive approach, were conducted with the participating children’s parents/guardians ( n = 173) to elicit their IBC. The children completed four proficiency tests (listening, reading, speaking, and writing), the scores of which were analysed with their IBC. Medium to large effects were found in correlations between various aspects of IBC and proficiency. Spoken IBC (i.e. exposure to spoken English) generally showed stronger associations with proficiency than written IBC (i.e. exposure to written English) did. Regression analyses demonstrated that both types of IBC were significant predictors, explaining 25% of the variance in proficiency. There were large to very large differences in proficiency between children receiving abundant IBC and little/no IBC. Intriguingly, only specific types of IBC were found to relate to differences in proficiency. The article ends with a discussion of these findings.
Listening proficiency is essential in language acquisition, yet both its classroom time and research are overshadowed by other skills, such as speaking and reading. To tackle the issue of limited classroom time, extensive listening is one of the most convenient and effective solutions. Selecting the materials, however, needs an equally extensive effort; especially for the authentic ones. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the speech rate and vocabulary level of TED-Ed videos as one of the sources of authentic material for extensive listening to determine their suitability for EFL learners. The research used a quantitative descriptive design with purposive sampling. The data collection of Speech Rate is conducted by transcribing the sample videos and dividing the number of words by the length of the video, and the result is measured in terms of WPM (Word Per Minute). To get the vocabulary level, the video transcripts are put into the Vocabkitchen website to analyze the vocabulary CEFR level for each word. From the analysis, the average speech rate of TED-Ed videos is 147.4 WPM and it is suitable for all levels of EFL learners, including beginner level. Meanwhile, the CEFR level of the vocabulary is more suitable for intermediate EFL learners and beyond.
The aimed of this research was to find out does BBC English Learning improve the students’ listening skill and How is the students’ interest toward BBC media Learning English to improve students’ listening skill. The research design of this research was Classroom Action Research. It was conducted in 2 cycles. The research used a test and a questionnaire as instruments to collect the data. The subjects in this research were the students of XII MIPA 4 class of SMAN 4 Makassar. The results of this research there was a significant improvement of students’ listening skills. It can be shown in the mean of students’ score of the D-test in cycle I and test in cycle II. The mean of the test in cycle I (84,19) is higher than in D-test (75,48) Then, the mean test of cycle II (93,55) is higher than in cycle I (84,19). The score improvement of a cycle I to cycle II (9,36) or 9%. The results showed that there was a significant improvement of students’ listening skill by BBC Learning English media and there were students interest in using (BBC) Learning English media.
Listening instruction remains problematic for learners seeking to improve their comprehension and for teachers seeking to address learners' listening difficulties. However, prior evidence suggests task‐based metacognitive approaches in L2 listening help provide pedagogic guidance for learners to employ listening skills in EAP (English for academic purposes) courses (Goh, 2018). This entry explores how to “teach” L2 listening using Goh's (2018) task‐based metacognitive instruction for listening (TBMIL) framework. First, the lesson instruction framework introduces a pre‐listening metacognitive frame so learners can engage in top‐down and bottom‐up approaches to plan their listening. Next, before‐/while‐/after‐listening stages give learners the opportunity to use learning strategies as they listen. Finally, metacognitive listening journals help learners reflect on their metacognitive knowledge to plan and carry out more effective listening and evaluate their interpretations. The entry demonstrates how these metacognitive components improve five‐stage L2 listening lessons using process‐based approaches that educators can implement in their own classrooms.
For many years, research effort has been devoted to understanding the nature of listening strategies and how listening strategies used by good listeners can be taught to so-called ineffective listeners. As a result of this line of research, strategy training activities have now become a standard feature of most modern listening coursebooks. However, in this article, we maintain that given the lack of evidence of success with this approach to teaching lower proficiency EFL learners and the fact that strategy training places a heavy burden on teachers, an extensive listening approach in the same vein as an extensive reading approach should be adopted. © The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.
Evidence shows that aural comprehensible input plays a critical role in the early stages of language acquisition. While uncontrolled casual conversations may be too difficult for beginning and intermediate foreign language students to comprehend, Narrow Listening, the repeated listening of several brief tape-recorded interviews of proficient speakers discussing a topic both familiar and interesting to the acquirers, offers them a valuable and rewarding alternative. In the present study, a survey of beginning and intermediate college French as a foreign language students' reactions to Narrow Listening and their assessment of its impact on their language development was conducted. Results indicate that students found Narrow Listening to be interesting, very helpful in improving listening comprehension, fluency, and vocabulary, and in increasing their confidence with French.
This article explores the relationship between written and spoken language, and questions whether skills and strategies supposedly
used in reading can be effectively transferred to listening. It suggests that in listening, working from the text, or from
texts in general, may be a more productive way of approaching comprehension than working from the notion of ‘strategies’.