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TEACHING LISTENING SKILL TO EFL STUDENTS
Aytimbetova U.
Nukus, Uzbekistan
Doctoral Student, Ajiniyaz Nukus State Pedagogical Institute
e-mail:
ulbiykeaytimbetova537@gmail.com
Abstract.
This scientific research article aims to explore various approaches to teaching
listening comprehension specifically tailored for English as a Foreign language (EFL)
students. It examines listening comprehension skill, their function in the development of
communicative competence, and approaches to teaching listening proposed by foreign
researchers, top-down and bottom-up strategies. It helps to improve listening skill of EFL
students of university and examines the effectiveness of the approaches in the teaching of
listening by observing students’ listening in the classroom.
Keywords:
listening skill, bottom-up and top-down approaches, EFL students.
Rezyume:
Ushbu ilmiy tadqiqot maqolasi ingliz tilini chet tili sifatida (EFL) talabalari
uchun maxsus tayyorlangan tinglab tushunishni o’rgatishning turli yondashuvlarini
o’rganishga qaratilgan. Unda tinglab tushunish malakasi, ularning kommunikativ
kompetentsiyani rivojlantirishdagi vazifasi va chet el tadqiqotchilari tomonidan taklif
qilingan tinglashga o’rgatish yondashuvlari, yuqoridan pastga va pastdan yuqoriga
strategiyalari o’rganiladi. Bu universitetning EFL talabalarining tinglash qobiliyatini
yaxshilashga yordam beradi va talabalarning sinfda tinglashini kuzatish orqali
tinglashni o’rgatishdagi yondashuvlarning samaradorligini tekshiradi.
Kalit so’zlar:
tinglash qobiliyati, pastdan yuqoriga va yuqoridan pastga yondashuvlar,
EFL talabalari.
Listening is one of the most important skills in learning foreign language. Learners
practically always utilize this skill to communicate, to respond, even to answer the phone,
to watch English movies or music on the radio, to listen to English songs, and to send and
receive voice messages on social media in English. These instances provide as evidence
that listening is a crucial skill for enabling communication between people. If learners
create English environment for them, it affects only improve their listening skill but also
all the skills. The basic goal of listening, which is a receptive type of speech activity, is to
gather the necessary information. Because hearing is a receptive kind of speech activity,
it frequently receives less attention in English lessons than speaking and writing, which
are productive types. But if we know what a foreign language’s speech perception
process entails and what abilities are needed to grasp a certain phrase, we may say that
listening helps a language develop effectively in many different ways. It demands EFL
teachers to be aware of methodical approaches to explain new themes and use these
approaches to reach pedagogical goals.
Thus, this study was conducted to investigate the use of listening approaches for
EFL students of high education in the teaching of listening. Particularly, the study
investigates listening practices commonly utilized by EFL teachers to teach listening
skills for university students in EFL classrooms.
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This review not only shows the definition of the concepts, but it also presents the
principles of scholars in terms of listening and using listening approaches in teaching
process.
Listening is accepted as a receptive skill and its main purpose is gathering
necessary information from oral speech [1; 180-184].
Speaking, reading, and writing are all skills that may be mastered through
listening, which also helps with lexical and grammatical structure. The ability to listen is
essential for success in learning a foreign language, and voice speech should be used to
continue developing speech understanding by ear [5; 57-60].
According to Genisher, E.Z. the ability to speak and understand discourse in a
foreign language is thought to be the primary objectives of the process of learning a
foreign language, which ought to approach step-by-step. The listening learning system
includes three main levels:
- Perceptual listening base dedicated to the beginning-formation;
- Speech activity to develop listening as a developed type;
- Final - mastering oral communication, during which the student plays a practical
role. The purpose of the first level of education is to form the mechanisms of perception
of foreign speech; in the second, forming the ability to perceive and understand oral in-
linguistic texts; as a result of study at the highest level of the system, students should
have the ability to participate in oral communication in a foreign language [5; 57-60].
By analyzing we found out that in Western methodological literature they talk
about the presence of two approaches to teaching listening (as well as reading).
One effective approach used by EFL instructors is bottom-up processing, the
second one is top-down processing [2; 395-411]. This approach involves focusing on
individual components of language, such as sounds, words, and grammar, to understand
the overall meaning. EFL Instructors employ various techniques to develop this skill,
including:
- Phonemic Awareness: Teaching students to recognize and differentiate English
sounds through activities such as phoneme drills and minimal pair exercises. While
organizing listening activities, teachers should take into consideration minimal pair
exercises as learners’ phonemic awareness can help them to understand the spoken
speech completely. Minimal pairs are very similar words and they differentiate by a
single sound.
For example: when we say the words “ship” and “sheep” out loud, we are making
very similar sounds , the only difference is that ship has the soft “I” sound, like in “sick”,
but sheep has hard “E” sound, like in “he”. Students practice distinguishing these kind of
words. These types of minimal exercises are appropriate when designing pre-activity
tasks.
Vocabulary Building: Introducing new words and reinforcing their meaning
through context, visuals, and word association exercises is very useful to enhance lexical
resource.
Example: Showing pictures or objects, power point slides, visual aids related to a
specific word, “cheerful” to help understanding. Vocabulary building tasks are
appropriate for designing mostly pre-activity tasks.
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Grammar Instruction: Providing explicit instruction on grammar rules and
structures to facilitate comprehension during listening tasks. Unless language learners are
aware of grammatical structures, they have misunderstanding to oral speeches. Thus,
EFL instructors also add grammar exercises.
Example: Teaching the difference between tenses, conditionals, and linking words
and others.
Top-Down Processing
In addition to bottom-up processing, EFL instructors utilize top-down processing
strategies to enhance listening skills. This approach emphasizes using background
knowledge, context, and predictions to understand the overall message. Key strategies
include:
Pre-listening Activities: Engaging students in discussions or brainstorming
sessions related to the topic of the listening task to activate their background knowledge
[2; 395-411].
The choice of pre-text exercises depends on the level of knowledge of the students
and the time. If the level is low, the amount and time of exercise should be increased but
in groups with a sufficiently high level of knowledge, it is possible to focus only on the
contextual aspect. Thus, the same audio text can be used in groups with different levels of
training [3]. Example: Asking students to share their experiences or opinions on a
specific topic, such as “Gestures in different countries”.
Predictions: Encouraging students to make predictions about the content, context,
or specific vocabulary they might encounter in the listening material.
Example: Asking students to guess what they think the main idea of a lecture
could be based on the title.
Listening for Specific Information: Guiding students to listen for specific details or
answers to questions during a listening task.
Example: Providing students with a set of questions to answer while listening to a
dialogue.
According to Vandergrift L., Goh C and Young L scientific works, top-down
approach assumes that by understanding the context of the spoken text, students can
recognize and highlight key words and phrases of the spoken text, and also guess the
meaning of unfamiliar words and thereby fill gaps in understanding. This approach also
includes teaching students the ability to recognize the stages, mechanisms of speech
perception by ear and independently regulate this process. Thus, this approach provides
for the development of skills in listening to foreign speech on the basis of students
obtaining theoretical knowledge about listening and students’ personal involvement in
this process [2; 4].
However, EFL teachers should into consideration drawbacks of these approaches.
The disadvantage of the first approach (bottom-up) is that students can recognize
individual foreign words, but face difficulties at the level of understanding the meaning
of an entire sentence or text, since it is often difficult for them to divide the flow of
speech into individual words. The second approach (top-down) eliminates such
difficulties, since it prepares students for the perception of foreign speech in advance,
introducing them to the listening process itself, its stages and psychological mechanisms.
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Conclusion.
Enhancing listening skills is crucial in EFL classrooms, and
instructors employ various strategies to foster this aspect of language learning. By
incorporating both bottom-up and top-down processing while designing listening
activities, EFL instructors can create a dynamic learning environment that improve their
students’ listening comprehension abilities. Thus, it is recommended that it is useful to
use different approaches for classroom activities in teaching listening.
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Vandergrift L., Goh C. Teaching and Testing Listening Comprehension. The
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