“Professor, I do not understand”.
“Huh?”, “What?”, “Can you repeat that please?” “What did she say?”, “Teacher, we don’t understand.” Do any of these sound familiar? They certainly do.
When EFL English learners have listening comprehension problems, it can be frustrating. If you use videos, CDs, or audio cassette tapes, or even perhaps when you speak, your students may find their lesson entry interrupted due to lack of listening skills. Comprehensible Input (Krashen, 1989) is an integral part of any English or foreign language class.
Contributing factors
These seven factors can directly or indirectly contribute to your students’ listening and comprehension skills.
1. Vocabulary
ELT author, researcher, and speaker Scott Thornbury said, “…count one hundred words in a (reading) passage. If more than ten of the words are unknown, the text has a lower-than-average vocabulary recognition rate.” 90%. Therefore, it is, unreadable.” (S. Thornbury, 2004) The same is probably true for a listening passage. Remember: “You can never be too rich, too skinny, or have enough vocabulary in a foreign language,” as the old saying goes.
2. Rhyming sounds
Have you ever taught or learned poetry? If so, you’ll remember that there are several types of rhyme patterns that can be used. Alliteration, onomatopoeia, assonance and consonance, simile, metaphor, and allusion, among others, lend their particular ambience to written or spoken English language.
Note: If you want or need a quick refresher on these poetic elements, you should read, “How to Evoke Images, Emotions, and Ideas When Writing Poetry That Captures Your Readers’ Imagination” and “How to Write Poems That Capture Your Readers’ Hearts and Imaginations “from the author. (LM Lynch, 2007)
3. Idioms and expressions
In all languages there are frequently used idioms and expressions that allow their speakers to convey nuances of thought to each other effortlessly and with greater clarity than simply “explaining” everything verbally. Not only is it helpful to know as many of these as possible, but if you don’t, the meanings of many spoken conversations or exchanges can be “lost” to the listener.
4. Pronunciation
Everyone speaks differently and uses continuous speech forms in distinctive ways. Elements including elision, contraction, union, linking, register, accommodation, aspect, intonation, and others affect pronunciation and speech patterns individually. When students are not familiar with these elements, or even ignore them, listening comprehension can be significantly affected.
5. Regional or national accents
The same sentence when spoken by people of different mother tongue (L1) backgrounds, regional locations, or ethnic origins can vary dramatically. Lack of familiarity with this on the part of EFL learners can cause a definite lack of listening comprehension or “understandable input” as mentioned above.
6. Grammar in context
When grammar and its aspects are taught as ‘separate’ topics, that is, outside of a relevant context, learners can be ‘handicapped’, so to speak, by not understanding how and when native speakers use certain grammatical structures during a course of study. oral speech. or verbal exchange. So when they, the learners, hear a grammatical structure that they “know”, but have learned “out of context”, they can often “lose” it, misinterpret it or simply not understand what they are hearing.
7. Language rhythms
One of the big differences between English and, say, Spanish, is that one language is “syllable based” while the other is “accent based.” This explains why non-native speakers sound “funny” when they speak a language that is not their mother tongue.
With epithets like, “oh, she loved him, but she chewed, no, it wasn’t, not a guud, mahn for demm boat.”
These kinds of epithets derive not from a lack of English or other foreign language skills in particular, but rather from pronunciation based on the use of “wrong” spoken language rhythm.
So what to do about it then?
In the next segment of the article, we will briefly consider what approaches can be taken to address these and other issues related to the development of fluent oral discourse and oral exchanges in English or other foreign languages.
