Z. M. Bobur nomidagi andijon davlat universiteti chet tillar fakulteti ingliz tili va adabiyoti kafedrasi

Extensive and intensive listening.
Listening of both kinds is especially important since it provides the perfect opportunity to hear voices other than the teacher’s, enables students to acquire good speaking habits as a result of the spoken language they absorb and helps to improve their own pronunciation.
Extensive listening (the teacher encourages students to choose for themselves what they listen to and to do so for pleasure and general language improvement).
Extensive listening will usually take place outside the classroom, material for extensive listening can be found from a number of sources (tapes that accompany different books, songs, video-films).
Intensive listening are taped materials and material on disk. Most coursebooks include tapes and many teachers rely on tapes to provide significant source of language input. The teacher uses taped material at various stages in a sequence of lessons.


Cognitive process of listening as a type of speech activity
The ability to hear is a natural process that develops in all normal infants. Indeed, most of us begin to hear sounds before we are even born. The physical components of listening process combine with the cognitive development in a child, resulting in sophisticated listening skills. The ability to discriminate sounds at a very early age appears to be evident not only in the mother tongue but in other language, too. The natural ability to hear, however, is often mistaken for fully developed skills that needs no further fine turning. It is necessary to understand that LI listeners (the mother tongue) often need training in how to listen just as much as FL listeners do.
In real life we often listen to understand information with a certain purpose to each other. Verbal (oral) communication is the necessity of human, which is conducted via speaking and listening to get information and understand the received information. Hence, listening is considered as a speech activity. If students do not understand the meaning of the speech in a complete form, it means that they lack listening comprehension skills.
In order to decode the message sent by the speaker the listener has to use his linguistic knowledge and divide the stream of sounds into meaningful units, and then compare these items with the shared knowledge between him/her and the speaker in order to get the meaning of the sentence.
During communication a listener switch analyzers to perceive and understand the message. When we say «Did you listen?» we try to analyze did he understand or not. In one word «listening comprehension» means to understand message. Perception and comprehension of the message go simultaneously. We can divide them into different sentences to express different meaning.
Thus, listening is a complex skill of a student. While speaking a student selects the language units and compensates for his deficiencies; while listening he/she can not take the control over the language that is used. He must be prepared to cope with a wide range of extralinguistic and linguistic performance factors, which are out of his/her control (background noise, distance, accent, dialect). He/she also needs to be familiar with the characteristics of spoken language to get the information. Among the language skills speaking and listening are the part of the oral speech. It is difficult to distinguish them when we use the term «listening comprehension». So it would be better if we call this process as *- «listening-speaking comprehension».
In native speech we understand the meaning and the form of speech immediately, but in a foreign language it is difficult. We should have vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation subskills to perceive and comprehend received information. In other words, listening skills can be developed by teaching vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. Vocabulary helps you to understand the main idea of the audio text and grammar helps you to understand the meaning of the text concretely.
Listening has unconditioned character which has the following elements: the desire and ability to listen for the successful recognition and analysis of the sound. As a listener is a processor of language he/she has to go through three processes of listening:

3. 
   Processing sound/Perception skills:
   

As the complete perception doesn't emerge only from the source of sound listeners split the stream of sound and detect word boundaries, contracted forms, vocabulary, sentence and clause boundaries, stress (especially the long words) and effect on the rest of the words, the significance of intonation and other language- related features, changes in pitch, tone and speed of delivery, word order pattern, grammatical word classes, auxiliary words, basic syntactic patterns, cohesive devices, etc.

4. 
   Processing meaning/ Analysis skills:
   

It's a very important stage as_researches show syntax is lost in the memory within a very short time whereas meaning is retained for much longer. They say that, 'memory works with propositions, not with sentences'. While listening, listeners categorize the received speech into meaningful sections, identify redundant material, keep hold of chunks of the sentences, think ahead and use language data to anticipate what a speaker is going to say, accumulate information in the memory by organizing them and avoid too much immediate details.

5. 
   Processing knowledge and context/ Synthesis skills:
   

Here, 'context' refers to physical setting, the number of listener and speakers, their roles and their relationship to each other while 'linguistic knowledge' refers to their knowledge of the target language brought to the listening experience. Every context has its individual frame of reference, social attitude and topics. So, members of a particular culture have particular rules of speech behavior and certain topic which instigate particular understanding. Listening is assumed to be 'interplay' between language and brain, which requires the «activation of contextual information and previous knowledge» where listeners guess and predict, organize and confirm meaning from the context.

However, none of these micro-skills is either used or effective in isolation or is called listening. Successful listening refers to 'the integration of these component skills' and listening is nothing but the coordination of the component ‘skills'.

It is very important to make and choose the text. It should be interesting and be adequate to learner's age. If the learner is interested in the text, he/she will read it with pleasure. Activities in this stage would be interesting and easy including face to face interaction, using visual and tangible topics, clear description of the listening procedure, minimum use of written language, and immediate and ongoing responses and etc. So that learners can easily keep pacewith the text and activity.
Listening to short chunks, music image, personal stories, teacher’s talk, small question - answer, and interview may be applied in this stage.
The main source of getting information by listening is teacher’s speech, tape recorder, radio; in any case, recording must be authentic. Recording two to three times is preferred in order to avoid rewind that may discrete attention of the listeners, films, filmstrip, TV program and many others.
One more important features of listened text is to clarify its’ simplicities and difficulties. It is significant to know difficulties and their causes.
The process of obtaining knowledge has sensitive and logical sides. These qualities come together in listening teaching. The mechanisms of listening are studied well in the theory.
Psychologists stress that mechanism to understand speech is the first step. This mechanism is closely connected with the mechanism of listening memory, while understanding speech it helps to ^! understand a part of speech automatically.
Let’s read information about speech recognition and memory working suggested J. Flowerdew and L.Miller in the book “Second Language Listening. Theory and Practice”.
We have three types of memory: sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory. Auditory message is first received by sensory memory from environment around us. The sensory memory’, which detects the signals, is activated, and the message is held for a period of not more than one second. In this period, the message is held in its exact form, then, depending on a number of factors, such as the quality of the message, the urgency of the message, and the source of the message, it is either passed on to our short-memory or lost.
In the short-term memory, we begin to process the message consciously, but we have fewer 15 second to decide what to do with it. We have to decide whether the message contains old r new information. If it is old information, we check it against what is already held in our long-term memory. If it is new information, we have to begin to try to match the information with our existing knowledge and make “sense" of the message. If we are able to make sense of the message, then it can be committed to our long-term memory and be fully assessed.
Our long memory contains a huge amount of information, and the new message is placed within the systems we have developed. In placing the new information, we must make decision about its usefulness; whether it will be needed again soon, or later; and how to categorize the special syntactic, semantic, and phonological features of the message. Once this is done, we can hold the new message in our long-term memory for as long as we wish.
The level of understanding the message is connected with speaking and listening experience. That’s why it is recommended to teach listening and speaking integratively.
There are two approaches to listening process: bottom-up and top-down approaches. We will describe these models based on the aforementioned book by J.Flowerdew and L,Miller.
According to the bottom-up model, listeners build understanding by starting with the smallest units of the acoustic message: individual sounds, or phonemes. These are then combined into words, which in turn, together make up phrases, clauses, and sentences. Finally, individual sentences combine to create ideas and concepts and relationship between them.
Top-down model emphasizes the use of previous knowledge in processing text rather than relying upon the individual sounds and words. Listeners rely on more than just the acoustic signals to decode a verbal message; they rely on the prior contextual knowledge as well. In applying contextual knowledge to interpret, listeners use pre-established patterns of knowledge and discourse structure stored in memory. Pre-established patterns, or structure expectations include knowledge related to schemata, frame, script, and scenario, although schemata is often used as a cover term. A schemata consists of an active organization of past experience. Frame organizes knowledge about certain properties of objects, events, and action, which typically belong together. A script deals with event sequences. A scenario consists of representations of situations or events from long-term memory.
Listening involves these processings, however, some individuals prefer to rely more on top-down processing, while others favour a bottom-up one. Beginners need to spend more time on developing bottom-up skills of decoding. Advance students need to develop top-down skills and apply schematic knowledge, because they have mastered basic phonology and syntax and know the specificity of discourse organization.
These processings are related to development of listening mechanism.
In listening there is a mechanism of comparison of the signals coming to the memory. Comparison may be correct or incorrect depending on the person’s previous experience.
Listener’s experience is the trace left by listening and speaking in brains while comparing them listener succeeds in recognizing ^f them. Next mechanism is called anticipation, which means prediction. When mechanism works there is a possibility to guess the content of the audio text (through words and combinations). One more mechanism is understanding audio text logically. By forming these mechanisms, the listening/comprehensive skill of students is developed.

According to some scholars listening is influenced by the following factors:

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  Inner factors (interest, level of attention and concentration, conviction of significance of the information, degree of development of phonemic memory, individual peculiarities of pupils’ quick-wittedness, reaction and quick transfer from one intellectual operation to another, etc) which are strictly personal;
  
• 
  Outer factors (the linguistic structure of an audio-text, its content, some situational factors).
  

Some training specialists specify some other difficulties of listening -extra-linguistic and linguistic ones.

1. 
   To the extra-linguistic difficulties we refer:
   

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  the volume of the auditory memory;
  
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  a kind of speech to be listened to;
  
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  tempo of speech. From the very beginning period of teaching tempo of speech must be normal (200-250 syllables/min);
  
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  the number of presentation and the volume of an utterance. The volume and character of a text for LC in junior classes - descriptive texts consisting of 3-6 sentences (1-2 min.), at the intermediate stage
  
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  10-15 sentences (2-3 min.), in senior stage - 20-25 sentences (3 min.);
  
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  peculiarities of the speaker’s timbre
  
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  props and reference - points of perception:
  

4. 
   semantic (intonation, rhythm, pauses, logical stress, parenthetical phrases);
   
5. 
   formal props (pictures, title);
   
6. 
   visual verbal props (voc. notes).
   

2. 
   The linguistic difficulties are:
   

1. 
   phonetic (phonemic oppositions, or contrast sounds: short-long, voiced-voiceless, different intonation patterns and their meaning), tempo, indistinct (defective) pronunciation;
   
2. 
   lexical (antonyms, lexical constructions, interruptions, etc. are difficult to comprehend); homonyms, paronyms;
   
3. 
   grammatical (tense forms, elliptical words and sentences, analytical forms);
   

4. 
   compositional structure of a text (description or narration or reflection, the beginning or the end of the story);
   
5. 
   structural peculiarities of a text;
   
6. 
   the presence of proper names, geographical names, terms;
   
7. 
   a major linguistic difficulty is the extension of sentences in a text for LC. The more complicated syntax of a sentence is, the more difficult it is to comprehend it, because it requires a retentive shorten memory. (7+-2 lexical units deep);
   
8. 
   peculiar stylistic devices, implication, dialectisms, slang words, jargonisms, euphemisms.
   

Modem methodological literature contains instructions about influence of a context on a text comprehension. It may be of 3 kinds:

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  favourable;
  
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  neutral;
  
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  unfavourable.
  

Favourable influence is produced by a text, which:

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  is interesting to the pupils of a particular age-group from the point of view of emotional colouring;
  
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  has a simple plot;
  
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  is logically characterized by the development of events;
  
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  is free from too many details;
  
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  doesn’t contain too many proper and geographical names, terminology;
  
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  has but several evidently unfamiliar words distributed, preferably presented not at the beginning of the text or a context (Context is a sentence or a group of sentences united by a sense - common idea).
  

One of the main task of communicative competence development is the mastering listening skills. In curriculum listening is the object and means of FLT.
The purpose of revealing difficulties for students' listening comprehension is to work out the ways of preventing them from instructional point of view. Remedy of difficulties demands time, work and doing special exercises.

Ways and stages of developing listening skills
In the secondary schools listening process is a part of the active learning process to help students to acquire a certain level of listening skills.
Thus listening is a complex skill which deserves special attention. The teacher should realize what key task can be most important for students, in particular:

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  prediction skills;
  
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  scanning abilities for extracting specific information;
  
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  skimming abilities for getting the general idea;
  
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  abilities for extracting detailed information;
  
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  the ability to recognize function and discourse pattern;
  

The teacher needs instructional model that accounts not only for the core factors of how listeners process information (bottom-up, top-down, integration process) but also all the dimensions that may affect the way messages are perceived and processed.
Listening comprehension is developed by doing the necessary tasks shaped as a system or complex. From the first lesson of FLT in schools is paid attention to the development of listening skills.
It is necessary to point out that the grammatical and lexica) material that is assimilated by learners in speaking and reading is also regarded to teaching listening. Teacher’s speech is important for students listening skills development because it is a sample of the English language. Teacher should organize English classrooms in English.
Listening comprehension (LC) exercises are leading during the lesson. The goal of practical lesson is to get information in English. Content of speaking and listening/ reading materials is assimilated by listening.
LC as a means of teaching is used as 1) a way of introduction of the language material in oral form (in a talk, in speech patterns); 2) a means of developing well-set acoustic images of language phenomena (words) together with their meanings, which is ensured by multiple perception of the same material by the ear; 3) a means of acquiring pronunciation subskills because giving only instruction won’t help learners to pronounce a sound other than their mother tongue if they don’t hear how it is pronounced by a teacher or by the speaker; 4) a means of mastering can be technique of reading aloud.
LC as the means of teaching allows multiple listening of one and the same speech material while LC as a communicative activity constitutes a skill of speech comprehension by ear at single (presented but once) perception (presentation).
Listening is an act of interpreting speech that one receives through ears. Hearing is an act of receiving the language through ears without interpretation. In real life we can hear somebody speak but actually do not listen to what is being said. Listening is a communicative skill to get the meaning from what we hear. People listen in order to remember what they hear verbally or for the sake of meaning retention. They listen in order to evaluate critically what they hear or to give supportive empathy. They can derive aesthetic pleasure from what they hear or to produce a listener’s feedback. They can fulfill the instructions in the received text.
Listening to the spoken language involves hearing the sounds, recognizing words, understanding different accents, understanding intonation, coping with «noise» (external interference and indistinct pronunciation), recognizing sentences, predicting the meaning, understanding a whole discourse.
There are different ways of teaching LC in practice. One of them is teaching language materials firstly then language skills. Via this method all student should must study words and word phrases, sentences then students’ attention is paid to content of the learned material. This method is considered as inefficient because it take much time.
The second way is developing integrative skills in listening, speaking, reading and writing. This method is more effective in teaching LC, because students have opportunity to practice LC during writing, reading and speaking on the basis of the concrete language material (language units and texts). As resources for teaching listening technical tools such as radio, tape recorders, language laboratories, internet resources - audio, video can be used.
Perception and comprehension are difficult for learners because they should discriminate speech sounds quickly, retain them while hearing a word, a phrase, or a sentence and recognize this as a sense unit. Learners are very slow in grasping what they hear because they are consc ious of the linguistic forms they perceive by the ear. These results in misunderstanding or a complete failure of understanding. When listening in the English classrooms the students should be very attentive and work hard in mastering listening skills.
Teaching students in listening skills is accompanied with difficulties for both teachers and students.
They are unknown language, unintelligible manner of presentation, unfamiliar topic, lack of own experience, no visual clues, no expectation about the text. That's why it is necessary for teachers to raise students awareness about characteristics of spontaneous speech;

• 
  teach them how to construct from key words and use the context and their knowledge of English to help them understand the message;
  
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  develop students’ awareness in formation of predictions;
  
• 
  organize intensive listening practice;
  
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  use visual support for the audio text (pictures, sketches), contextualizing the listening situation;
  
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  give a chance to listen audio text more than once to understand the main idea and get accustomed to the voices;
  
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  organize peer-evaluation before the class feedback.
  

The teachers should take into consideration the following three main factors which can ensure success in developing learners' skills in listening: (1) linguistic material for listening; (2) the content of the material suggested for listening comprehension; (3) conditions in which the material is presented.
If to organize LC of a text presented by a teacher or using audio texts the teacher must do:

1. 
   organization of introductory talk with the aim to prepare learners for comprehension of a text by the ear;
   
2. 
   preparation of students for listening with focus on the situation and encouraging students to predict (working at the title of a text; removing the language difficulties of the text (phonetic, lexical, grammatical);
   
3. 
   direction to the primary comprehension of the text;
   
4. 
   primary presentation of the audio text to the pupils with the help of visual supports (pictures, adequate to the content of the text) or verbal supports (key-words, word combinations, phrases);
   
5. 
   check up understanding of the general content of the text. LC is a means of assessment of students' comprehension when they hear or read aloud a text. Properly used oral language ensures learners' progress in language learning and, consequently, arouses their interest in the subject;
   
6. 
   the second presentation of the text listening with task performance (listening for details, listening for the gist, listening for inferences).
   
7. 
   organization of feedback. It can be organized within 1) not deep understanding; 2) general understanding; 3) fully understanding; 4) understanding from critical point of view.
   

Systems of exercises for LC are divided into two: special and non- special exercises.
In non-special exercises LC - for example, at the beginning of the lesson learners should listen to the teacher's topic.
Special exercises divided into 2 groups: 1) preparatory exercises and 2) real LC exercises. The object of the preparatory exercises is acoustic signal. The aim of this type of exercises is preventing difficulties (remedy work).
We can refer phonetic exercises aimed at perception of separate words on the flow of speech by the year, separate comprehending phrases and understanding their rhythmic and intonation pattern, types of sentences.
The requirements to the speech exercises for teaching LC are as _t follows: they should provide proper drill in LC with the regard of its psychological and linguistic nature as a language activity (limited time of comprehension, tempo of speech), peculiarities of different language activities (dialogue, monologue); they should have educational character, i.e. they should help learners to overcome grammatical, lexical and structural difficulties of LC not in isolation, as it takes place in language exercises, but in connection with speech; they should provide the development of listening skills step by step in accordance with the level of learners’ command of the target language, the character of the text etc.
Exercises in comprehension includes working on the language form, meaning and function (lexical, grammatical, phonetical material of an audio text).
Such exercises should provide intuitive comprehension of language material, which can be made possible if: a) well-set auditory images of language phenomena are created; b) long-term and short-term auditory memory are developed; c) inner speech in the target language is developed, but it has a broken character.
Aim of the preparatory exercises is to prevent or overcome linguistic and psychological difficulties before the presentation of an audiotext, so that the listener could concentrate his/her attention on comprehension of the content.
For example: listen to a pair of words and say what sounds are the same in them; try to recognize a new word among the familiar ones (clap your hands...); name nouns which are most often used with the following adjective; define the function of a word (is it a verb, noun or adj.).
The aim of the speech exercises is to develop skills of comprehension of speech. Via this type of exercises we teach students to divide an audiotext into parts, to find the main idea of a text, to extract new information from the text. Speech exercises are differentiated according to the developing auditory subskills in a dialogue and a monologue.
Ways of checking up understanding. You can control LC:

1. 
   oral and in the written form;
   
2. 
   in the mother tongue or in the target language depending on the language performance level of students;
   
3. 
   extralinguistic and linguistic ways - draw, underline, perform an action. Pupils are supposed to know the requirements of listening to particular text (e.g. the number of details).
   

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  Multiple choice tests'(choose the correct answer out of 3-4);
  
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  Fill in the blanks in the graphic variant;
  
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  Answer the questions;
  
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  Choose a suitable picture;
  
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  A discussion;
  

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  Underline the correct answer (or raise your hand when...);
  
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  Make up an outline of the story;
  
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  Perform an action;
  
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  Retell the text according to the plan/ key-words;
  
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  Put the pictures in the logical order, described in the story;
  
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  Colour the picture according to the content of the text;
  
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  Draw a picture of...