listening is primary

LISTENING SKILLS TEACHING AND LEARNING

•    Defining 'listening'

Why we listen? Because we listen for many different purposes in and out of the classroom, this has an effect on the way we listen. So what is listening?. Yule and Brown (1983) make a useful distinction between interactional and transactional communication. McCarthy, (1991) in Discourse, defines transactional talk (and listening) as communication for getting business done. Interactional communication, on the other hand, has to do with lubricating the social wheels. In Listening (1988) Anderson and Lynch describe them as (transactional) listening when the main purpose is to achieve a successful transfer of information, while interactional listening is defined as listening for social reasons, and to establish or maintain friendly relations between interlocutors.

The linguist Howath and Dakin (1974) said “Listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying. This involves understanding a speaker’s accent and pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary and grasping his meaning.”

"But a good listener does not merely remain silent. He asks questions. However, these questions must avoid all implications (whether in tone of voice or in wording) of skepticism or challenge or hostility. They must clearly be motivated by curiosity about the speaker's views." (S.I. Hayakawa, "How to Attend a Conference." The Use and Misuse of Language, ed. by S.I. Hayakawa. Fawcett Premier, 1962)

Listening effectively is a demanding and involved process. One must be able to deal with different accents or pronunciation, unfamiliar lexical items and syntactic structures, competing background noise, and also make a conscious effort to not 'switch off' or become distracted while listening. All of this must be achieved and dealt with more or less simultaneously in order to identify and understand the meaning in any given message.

Listening skills are vital for your learners. Of the 'four skills,' listening is by far the most frequently used. Listening and speaking are often taught together, but beginners, especially non-literate ones, should be given more listening than speaking practice. It's important to speak as close to natural speed as possible, although with beginners some slowing is usually necessary. Without reducing your speaking speed, you can make your language easier to comprehend by simplifying your vocabulary, using shorter sentences, and increasing the number and length of pauses in your speech.

So, the conclusion from the defining listening is “It's important to speak as close to natural speed as possible, although with beginners some slowing is usually necessary.” This is become listening is the major priority than others four skills. Because when we master in listening we will able to speak as close like native speaker. It is the target of listening teaching to the learners can speak like native speaker when they learned listening become priority.

•    Problems of listening teaching and learning

Teaching listening is more difficulty than others skills. It’s not for teacher but also learners. There are some problems could find in teaching and learning listening. Some potential problems are:

1.    It's more difficult to repeat back what was heard, translate into the native language, take notes, make an outline, or answer comprehension questions.

2.    How 'fast' native speakers speak, difficulties in understanding different accents, and not knowing (or recognizing) the vocabulary used by the speaker.

3.    Some found it challenging to concentrate on understanding every word while at the same time attempting to understand the whole message.

4.    Lacking in cultural knowledge of the target language also presents problems for the non-native listener, as shared knowledge is important in order to be able to carry out effective predictions and utilize a top-down process to aid understanding.

•    Solutions of listening teaching and learning

There are problems also have solutions to overcome it. The solutions beside our self for practice listening intensively also some solutions for it.

1.    Dictation is a favorite as well, providing useful practice in listening for detail as well as features of connected speech. In Grammar Dictation (1990) activities are presented which practice listening for key information words later used as a base for speaking and collective grammar practice while students discuss their notes and attempt to reconstruct the text, maintaining meaning and coherence. It has found this to be an excellent integrated activity that benefits advanced learners in not only listening but in grammar, speaking and writing as well.

2.    Reduce distractions and noise during the listening segment. You may need to close doors or windows or ask children in the room to be quiet for a few minutes.

3.    Instruction with songs also could give more understanding and relax for learners to listen. Because it can followed by language development automatically and fulfilled the emotional learners too.

4.    Prepare you and your learners by introducing the topic and finding out what they already know about it. A good way to do this is to have a brainstorming session and some discussion questions related to the topic.

5.    If you are using a cassette player, make sure it is well quality sounds. This makes you and your learners ease listen the topic when it well sounds quality.

6.    Read or play the text a total of 2-3 times. Tell students in advance you will repeat it. This will reduce their anxiety about not catching it all the first time. You can also ask them to listen for different information each time through.

•    conclusion as opinion about listening skills teaching and learning

Listening is about identified and understands what other people say. It is include meaning and accent of speaker and also vocabulary. We are born to listen and we learn everything firstly from listen. Listening is same like foundation into our language and speaks. When we listen well, we will speak as close the speaker’s ay. So, it makes listening skill more priority than other skills. Normally, learner will understand what the speaker’s said from listen not from read or write. That is all why the listening so important for us and become priority to teach firstly. Because, firstly we are born to learn with listen.