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STAGES OF LISTENING IN LANGUAGE LEARNING
Teshaboyeva Nafisa Zubaydulla qizi
Jizzakh branch of the National University of Uzbekistan
named after Mirzo Ulug’bek
Scientific advisor: The faculty of psychology, the department of Foreign languages:
Philology and teaching languages: English
Amirova Xurshida Abduaziz qizi
Student of group 101-23
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14169860
Annotation.
The Article shows the importance of listening and that it is as significant as
reading and writing or speaking and even more important than the other skills and identifies
the three stages of listening and explains the three stages clearly. It also shows the aims of each
stage and how each stage is significant. The article shows what students do at each stage of
listening and how each stage is done in class. The instructor explains that the three stages of a
listening lesson are pre-listening while listening, and post-listening. The teacher has a specific
role in each of these three listening stages. The author vividly explains the duration of the pre-
listening stage and the teacher’s role in activating the schema at that stage. The stages differ in
their length the pre-listening stage takes less time, while the other stages take longer time in
class.
Key words:
Stages of listening, pre-listening, while-listening, post-listening, stages,
teaching, “EFL”, Win and Maung, proficiency levels, Rost, Kim and Kang, Bowen, Madsen,
Hilferty, Sevik.
Introduction:
Listening is very important in language learning because it provides input
for students and has a vital role in developing students’ language knowledge (Rost, 1994). If
students cannot understand the input, the learning process cannot begin. In line with this
statement, Kim and Kang (2015, p.175) report that many linguists and English teachers state
that listening becomes the most fundamental and crucial skill among other language skills
because it is a key role to study a foreign language. Jafari and Hashim (2015) emphasized that
listening is a channel for comprehensible input, and more than 50 percent of the time learners
spend learning a foreign language is devoted to listening. Bowen, Madsen, and Hilferty (1985)
demonstrated that listening is understanding the oral language. Students hear oral speech,
divide sounds, classify them into lexical and syntactic units, and comprehend the
message. Sevik (2012, p.330) states that listening is the same as reading which is a receptive
skill because both listening and reading focus on receiving information from an outside source.
Literature review:
In the 1960s, a hypothesis was proposed in which language learning
begins with comprehension and then leads to production. Speaking will emerge automatically
after the learner understands the function of the target language. At first, the language learners'
speech may not be perfect, but it will gradually become similar to the target language. The
comprehension approach, which focuses on understanding language, shows the importance of
listening comprehension ability. One of the ways to teach listening comprehension is to use pre-
listening activities that may help listeners understand better.
Pre-listening
is one-way listening task involves three phases: pre-listening, while-
listening, and post-listening (Brown, 2018). Among these, the pre-listening is considered the
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most influential as it plays an important role in determining the success of the task (Chastain,
1988, as cited in Rajaei, 2015). Primarily, the pre-listening phase aims at activating schematic
knowledge (Newton & Nguyen, 2018) which tends to influence the task success or facilitate the
comprehension (Zohrabi & Sabouri, 2015). Evidently, listeners equipped with background
knowledge were found to outperform listeners lacking such knowledge in listening
comprehension tests (Rajaei, 2015; Zohrabi & Sabouri, 2015). Unfortunately, background
knowledge was said not to be available to L2 listeners (Long, 1990, as cited in Zohrabi &
Sabouri, 2015). Without background knowledge, listeners were found likely to inaccurately
understand the listening input (Hohzawa, 1998, as cited in Zohrabi & Sabouri, 2015). In
addition to activating schematic knowledge, the pre-listening phase also aims at activating
linguistic component required to comprehend the text (Rajaei, 2015). The aforementioned aims
of the pre-listening phase collaboratively facilitate listening comprehension as Bei and
Xinguang (2017) conclude that the connection between linguistic information and background
knowledge is what sought for when listening takes place. Effective listening requires not only
linguistic and schematic knowledge. It also requires a positive listening attitude (Owolewa &
Olu, 2017). To begin with, listeners should be equipped with attentiveness and stay focused.
Listening cannot be effective if listeners lack interest and the ability to sustain attention. In
addition, attitudes about the listeners themselves, the listening environment, and the purpose
or the goal of the listening take part in determining success in listening tasks. Therefore, the
pre-listening phase should also serve to enhance a positive listening attitude.
While-listening
While-listening stage The while-listening stage is a vital stage in listening, it is considered
the core of the listening. The purpose of the while-listening stage is that students listen for
specific information. As Underwood claimed “While-listening activities are what students are
asked to do during the time that they are listening to text. As far as listening comprehension
(i.e. listening for meaning) is concerned the purpose of while listening activities is to help
learners develop the skill of eliciting messages from spoken language.” (Underwood 1989 P.45)
Students in this stage listen for meaning. They could listen for several times each time they
listen is a purpose of something, it could be for gist or detailed information depending on what
the teacher is looking for. While listening stage is a harsh task for students because they are
required to listen carefully and intensely. To find answers in a listening stage the audio should
played twice or three times. The while-listening stage takes longer time than the pre-listening
stage because teachers are providing the required time for the students to read the questions
first and then play the audio at least twice. In addition, Win and Maung, 2019 mentioned that
“the purpose of while-listening activities is to assist students develop the skill of eliciting
messages from spoken language. It is the moment where students are actually exposed to the
recorded text. In some cases, students will need to listen more than once to complete the
activity.” (p.2285) This stage is considered the most significant stage in the listening stage
because it shows how competent the student is. It is the stage where the student thinks and
activities his language skills to complete the given task in class. During the while-listening stage
it is significant for learners to take notes while listening. Taking notes help students to
remember what they have heard and it helps them answering the questions perfectly well.
“During Listening Activities: While students are listening to the tape the teacher asks them to
take some notes.” (Saricoban, A., 1999. NP) When learners take notes it strengthens their
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memory and permits them to come back to what they have written when needed. Win and
Maung, 2019 also explained that the aim of the while listening stage is to understand the
provided audio and to list for gist as they puts it, “The aim of the while-listening stage for
students is to understand the message of the text, not catching every word. Therefore, during
this stage, most of the while-listening activities focus on listening for the gist, listening for
specific information, and listening for speaker’s attitude or opinion related to language
knowledge and cultural information students had in pre-listening activities to get listening
comprehension.”(2285) During the listening stage students are not supposed to catch and
understand every word they are not expected to know the meaning of every word, they are
listening for a specific purpose.
One Example for a while listening task adapted from (Raza, 2016) is as follows, 1. Play the
recording and ask the students to tell the main idea, i.e., listening for the gist. 2. Now replay the
recording and ask some general questions about the recording. For example, asking about the
relationship between speakers, mood of speakers, the place where the speakers are, etc. 3. Now
ask some direct and simple questions to answer. For example, listening for some number, time,
date or some (p.87)
Post-listening
stage In this stage as Underwood identified it “some post-listening activities are
extensions of the work done at the pre-listening and while listening stages” Underwood 1989
p.74 in the post listening stages the work is much more and it is extended from the while-
listening stage. This stage which contains the follow up activity is important; it shows if the
student successfully understood the given activity. “there are a number of purposes why to
incorporate follow-up activities into the lesson plans. One of them, can be checking if the
learners understood the listening passage or whether they finished the task successfully”
(Prace 2009 p.28) post-listening stage is more likely to be the outcome of the while-listening
stage. This stage shows the results of the while-listening stage. In addition, it exhibits how each
student did because it is the final stage from the three stages. “EFL students need to act upon
what they have heard to expand their thinking, and a well-planned post-listening activity is a
useful device for them to speak and think about links between the lecture and their life
experiences. The following are some post-listening activities for the teachers to take as a
reference…. After the listener has understood the message, it’s important for them to think
aloud by telling someone what they have heard. Therefore, giving an oral summary is necessary
for students in EFL classroom.” (Liao, 2012, p.18). This stage is also considered as the
discussion stage where students discuss their answers in pairs or as a group in class. The
students are also assessed during this stage and the skills of this stage could be integrated with
other skills as Win and Maung, 2019 puts it, “students in post-listening activities have chance
to assess how much they have understood in a listening task. On the other hand, teachers can
integrate listening skills with other skills, for example, communicative skill. They can allow
students to make discussion on an issue about the listening task. Students in the discussion try
to use the words and structures they have learnt in the listening task and they promote their
communicative competence to their listening” (2285)
To Sum Up
Listening is not like reading. In reading learners could go back to the text and reread what
they misunderstood, but in listening they cannot go back to people and make them repeat what
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they said. Listening is extremely fast, learners listen to phrases and they are demanded to reply
immediately. In order for learners to learn the English language they must listen first. In class
in order to understand instructions of reading or writing they must listen to the instructions
first. The pre-listening stage is significant for learners because in that stage students could
activate the schema before going on into the next listening stage. It is important for teachers to
teach students the techniques and the skills of listening before allowing them to listen. Getting
the students ready and equipped for that stage is the teacher’s goal in the lesson. In a while
listening stage it is significant for students to take notes to link what they have listen to the
questions in front of them. Students link what they have listened to the questions by reading
their notes. They have to take good notes while listening because this phase is the core of all
the listening stages. Last but not least, the post-listening stage is where students achieve the
given work. it is the stage where they conduct a good answer sheet according to what they have
heard. All three stages are significant but they all differ from each other in their tasks and
outcomes. The outcome of the pre-listening is activating the schema whereas the task for the
while-listening stage is to take good notes and listen well to the audio. Finally, the post-listening
stage is the results stage that shows the how savvy that student became.
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