Scola Workshop
Spring, 2006
“Technology-mediated Language Learning Beyond the Classroom”
University of Pennsylvania
Developing Listening Comprehension Using SCOLA Online
Newscasts: Theoretical and Practical Considerations
Luba Iskold, Ed. D.
Muhlenberg College
Allentown, PA
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Background Information
Theoretical Foundations of
Second Language Acquisition
• Competing theories are typical of all disciplines that
attempt to explain complex phenomena
• Although there is no one unified theory of second
language acquisition, this state of the art is reflective of
the complexity of the acquisition process and the
variability of individuals and contexts (Brown, 1994)
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Kreshen’s (1985, 1989, 1990)
Hypotheses about L2 Acquisition
• Articulated the most influential and the most controversial
hypotheses about L2 acquisition
• Advocated a “natural order” of language acquisition
• Emphasized listening to large amounts of “comprehensible input” in
early stages of instruction
• Was instrumental in bringing listening comprehension to the front
with regard to its importance to the overall process of language
acquisition
• Provided the foundation for comprehension-based approaches to L2
• Supporters: Terrel, Ehrman, and Herzog, 1984
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Cognitive-theoretical View
of Language Acquisition
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Is based on cognitive view of learning represented in the work of Anderson
(1985), and instructional implementations drawn by Gagné (1985),
Perkins & Solomon (1989)
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Contradicts the view of L2 acquisition as a learning process which is most
effective when it occurs unconsciously (Schmidt, 1990)
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Advocates high degrees of learner involvement in the process of learning
Learners:
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Consciously select information from their environment
Organize this information
Relate it to what they already know
Retain the information they consider important
Use the information in appropriate contexts
Reflect on their own success in learning
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Cognitive View of L2 Acquisition
O’Mally and Chomat (1993), based on cognitive-theoretical view of learning,
assert that in classroom and non-classroom settings L2 learners:
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Think about the language demands
Apply prior knowledge and skills to new learning
Model “expert” performance
Seek feedback,
Refer to rules for refinements in performance
L2 acquisition occurs most effectively with high degrees of learner
involvement
The learner should be able to achieve expert-like performance in
complex skills
Automaticity is the shift from conscious to spontaneous processing
(McLaughlin, 1990)
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Sociocultural Approach to Language Learning
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Places L2 acquisition in a context of social practices
Emerged from a more general sociocultural theory
proposed by Vygotsky (1962, 1978)
Examines the relationship between
Mind
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Language
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Communication
■ Culture
Focuses on three major concepts:
■ Genetic Analysis
■ Social Learning
■ Mediation
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Sociocultural Approach to Language Learning
Genetic analysis
• Suggests that interpretation of learning should take into account broad
social, cultural, and historic trends
Social learning
• Postulates that learning to read and write is a social practice rather than
an individual skill
• Interactions with teachers or peers allow students to advance through their
“zone of proximal development” (ZPD), the distance between what they
can achieve by themselves and what they can achieve when assisted by
others (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 58)
• Learning is not an isolated fact of cognition, but a “a process of gaining
entry to a discourse of practitioners via apprenticeship assistance from
peers and teachers” (Warschauer, 1997)
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Sociocultural Approach to Language Learning
Mediation
• Interprets the teacher’s role as a “facilitator, guide, and,
when appropriate, expert” in apprenticing students into
“discourse and social practices” of the communities of
native speakers (Warschauer, 1997, p. 90)
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Research Related to Listening
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Research on listening and reading comprehension
Factors that affect listening comprehension
Research on listener characteristics
Authentic materials in listening research
Video in listening research
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Research Related to Listening
The process of listening consists of internal operations and
therefore is not easy to measure
Researchers examined top-down, bottom-up, and parallel processing:
Bacon, 1992; Bernhardt & James, 1987; Danks, 1980;
Chaudron, 1983; Glisan, 1988; Lund, 1990, 1991; Rubin,
1994; VanPatten, 1989
Process refers to how listeners interpret input in terms of
what they know, or identify what they do not know, and use
different kinds of signals to interpret what is said
(Rubin, 1994, p. 210)
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“Listening to Learn” & “Learning to Listen” (Lund, 1991)
Traditional approach: listening is a language-recognition skill rather
than a cognitively controlled process (Swaffer & Bacon, 1993)
More recently, listening began to be recognized as the foundation
of language instruction. The receptive skills of listening provided
the basis for comprehension-based approaches, which Lund (1991)
characterizes as “listening to learn.”
At the same time, Rubin (1994) suggests that teachers and scholars
“will recognize more and more the importance of teaching listening
comprehension in a L2 classroom (p. 199), which Lund defines as
“learning to listen” (p. 105)
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Factors that Affect Listening Comprehension
How do listeners integrate phonologic, syntactic, lexical, and
sociolinguistic information?
According to Rubin (1994), the following factors affect listening
comprehension:
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Text Characteristics (variations in listening passage/text or associated
visual support)
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Interlocutor Characteristics (variations in the speaker’s personal
characteristics)
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Listener Characteristics (variations in the listener’s personal
characteristics)
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Process Characteristics (variations in the listener’s cognitive activities
and in the nature of interaction between speaker and listener)
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Task characteristics (variations in the purpose for listening and
associated responses)
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Authentic Materials in Listening Research
• A growing interest in designing materials to teach comprehension
more effectively
• Teaching comprehension via authentic texts and video
Studies by Cromer and Thompson (1980), Manning (1988),
Mueller (1980)
• Identified a relationship between mental imagery and creative thinking
• Demonstrated that appropriate contextual visuals can enhance students’
performance on listening comprehension recall tasks
• Video technology permits students to witness “real world interaction as
they observe native speakers in authentic settings using different
accents, registers and paralinguistic cues (Secules et al. 1992, p. 480)
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Authentic Television
Television, movies, and video
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Expose viewers to real-world texts that are informative,
interesting, motivating, and “current” (Thompson & Rubin, 1996)
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Are most readily available and least expensive samples of fully
contextualized authentic speech, they are an important source of
materials for teaching listening comprehension (Garret (1991)
Richardson (1989) identified categories of videos:
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Video materials intended for native speakers, including broadcast
television and feature films
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Video materials intended for a L2 classroom
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Authentic Discourse
Geddes and White (1979) draw a distinction between
the types of authentic discourse:
Unmodified authentic discourse, a genuine act of communication
Simulated authentic discourse, a discourse for pedagogical
purposes, but at the same time exhibits features that have a high
probability of occurrence in genuine acts of communication (p. 130)
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Textbooks and curricular materials:
• Are very useful, but insufficient for bring the target culture to
students
• Are frequently created to introduce specific linguistic structures
• Present scripts produced solely for student consumption
• Solicit answers to artificial, unauthentic questions
Authentic texts play an important role at all levels of language
learning: Bacon, 1992; Byrnes, 1984; Eykyn, 1992; Herron, 1994;
Joiner, 1991; Omaggio Hadley, 1993a; Richards, 1983; Thompson and
Rubin, 1996; VanPatten, 1989)
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Video in Listening Research
Rivers (1975) reported data on how adults spend their
communicative time:
40%-50%
listening
25%-30%
speaking
11%-16%
reading
9%
writing
In our “media saturated” world students are
“increasingly expected to obtain information from oral rather than
written sources” (Joiner et al., 1989, p.427)
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Video in Listening Research
• Learning to listen, to understand, to assimilate, and to evaluate
what one hears through media sources is therefore an important
aspect of using our native language
• Similarly, the ability to listen and to understand is an important goal
in learning L2
• Programs from target countries (documentaries, news reports,
guided tours) provide a rich source of information about civilization
and culture (Herron, 1994)
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Newscasts as a Source of Authentic Videotext
Nearly essential consumer product
•Available on the Internet in overflowing supply
•Major resource for information gathering, similar to newspapers
•Provide information on current matters of interest in
the target country
•Present paralinguistic information, including manners, gesture, and
speaking styles
•Significant source of authentic language, particularly rich in
cognates
•Allow viewers to see a country the way that country sees itself
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Why use SCOLA Newscasts?
• SCOLA introduces regularly scheduled newscasts
• Includes game shows, talk shows, feature films, and cultural
programming from selected regions
• An archive of the past week’s programming allows choosing
from a variety of materials
• Materials are immediately available via the Internet
• News episodes are relatively brief (2-3min.) and are easily
identifiable
• Programming is commercial-free
• It is easy to point students to a specific episode
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Why use SCOLA Newscasts?
• Users do not have to surf the Internet to find the assigned video
• SCOLA grants copyright permission to use materials in class
and for research purposes
• Learner control of the video input accommodates for individual
differences and learning styles:
Students may watch the video as many times as needed
Students may control their path through the video by pausing
and replaying specific segments of each episode
Such flexibility is likely to reduce anxiety and make video
viewing more enjoyable than classroom group video viewing
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Factors that Affect Listening Comprehension
as Found in SCOLA Newscasts
Text Characteristics:
• Unmodified authentic discourse: Texts are produced by native
speakers and for native speakers
• Dry, monotonous monologues delivered by “talking heads” with little
visual support
• Subject matter unfamiliar to students
• Long sentences with complex relative clauses
• Sophisticated, frequently unfamiliar vocabulary
• Figurative expressions, including idioms and metaphors
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Factors that Affect Listening Comprehension
as Found in SCOLA Newscasts
Speech (Interlocutor) Characteristics
News anchors and reporters express meaning efficiently, thus
speech is characterized by:
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Fewer normal pauses, hesitations, corrections, paraphrase
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Diminished word or even sentence boundaries
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Reduction of vowels and assimilation of consonants
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Input is rehearsed and read (vs. produced spontaneously)
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Written language is delivered via an audio-visual medium
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Interviews are prepared and edited, thus merely resemble natural discourse
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Factors that Affect Listening Comprehension
as Found in SCOLA Newscasts
Listener Characteristics
Most students at the Intermediate level have had little
prior exposure to unmodified authentic discourse
L2 viewers have imperfect control of linguistic code
L2 viewers exhibit low tolerance for information gaps
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Factors that Affect Listening Comprehension
as Found in SCOLA Newscasts
Process Characteristics
By nature, newscasts is a one-way medium
Negotiation of meaning is absent from discourse
Viewers carry out a passive, receptive role
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Factors that Affect Listening Comprehension
as Found in SCOLA Newscasts
L2 viewers may:
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Experience a comprehension shock from non-interactive speech flow
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Find it difficult to filter out less important items
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Exhibit frustration, or give up when speech is too fast
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Get tired of watching mundane news
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Find news boring for the lack of relevance to their own experiences
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Disengage from listening and just keep watching
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Factors that Affect Listening Comprehension
as Found in SCOLA Newscasts
Task Characteristics:
Ancillary Materials Provided by SCOLA
Pros:
Insta-Class is an excellent addition to SCOLA
Provides weekly English translations for one news episode
Provides weekly comprehension questions for that same episode
Cons:
Materials created by SCOLA developers are limited in quantity and variety
Seem appropriate for classroom environment only
Need substantial reworking to be completed online
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Instructional Challenges:
• Adapting the broadcasts to the learning needs of students
with various proficiency levels
• Adapting material to instructional goals:
Listening to Learn vs. Learning to Listen (Lund, 1991)
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Instructional Challenges:
Listening to Learn - video as a vehicle to other skills,
an integrated approach
Video provides a starting point for work on productive skills:
vocabulary development
structural analysis
conversation
analytical writing
Instructional Objective:
Creating activities to cultivate productive skills
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Instructional Challenges:
Learning to Listen - skill acquisition for comprehension
Purely receptive approach that involves the teaching of
listening strategies
Instructional Objectives:
Creating activities to cultivate listening skills for structural
and sociocultural comprehension
Developing learning activities to accompany unmodified
authentic discourse
Assisting viewers with comprehension of unmodified
authentic discourse
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Instructional Challenges:
Why is it time-consuming and difficult?
• Matching the difficulty of the task to the level of students’ proficiency
• Preparing various types of activities, to keep students interested
• Identifying timely topics with significant shelf life
• Finding relevant materials to complement video segments
(e.g., newspaper article, cultural commentaries, Internet links, etc.)
• Developing web-based activities for languages with
non-Roman alphabets
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Designing Tasks for Video Viewing
The concept of helping students to develop their listening skills through
specific strategies has emerged in the past fifteen years:
• Applying to L2 successful techniques and strategies used for
teaching receptive skills in the L1 (Bernhardt & James, 1987;
Byrnes, 1984; Dunkel, 1986)
• Adapting to listening instructional reading models
• Richards (1983) suggested manipulation of two variables:
the input and the task (pp. 227-229)
INPUT

MICRO-SKILLS
 TASKS
• His taxonomy includes 33 micro-skills for listening
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Adapting Tasks vs. Adapting Texts
Language of instruction:
• L1 questions and tasks may be used to check comprehension
• L2 questions may provide cues for comprehension, and assist
with teaching
specific linguistic aspects of videotext
Activities & Tasks:
Previewing
• Viewing
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Post Viewing
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Previewing
Objectives:
• Elicit students’ background knowledge
• Identify students’ previous experiences
• Generate a meaningful framework for further development
of comprehension
• Generate a meaningful framework for further development
of linguistic skills
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Reduce anxiety of confronting the unknown
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Previewing:
Examples of Tasks
Facilitation of deductive reasoning and predictions:
• Providing cultural information via ancillary materials and cultural
commentaries
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Playing the synopsis of the upcoming news, when possible
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Watching the video without sound: making inferences/deductive
reasoning, based on visual cues
• Discussing still shots from the video
• Generating L1 and/or L2 questions guiding toward comprehension
• Generating a list of key words germane to the topic (in English)
• Looking up L2 equivalents for 8-10 key words to check if they would
come up in the video text
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Video Viewing
Low-production Activities & Tasks:
• Scaffolding, assisting with comprehension of lexical items:
(e.g., add subtitles, or full scripts, then steadily withdraw
help as the semester progresses)
• Identifying main ideas, characters, places (multiple choice)
• Focusing attention on particular features of the videotext
• Scanning the videotext for specific information
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Video Viewing
Item format: multiple choice, or T/F:
• Recognizing vocabulary
• Identifying cognates
• Conducting grammar observations
• Testing hypotheses
• Classifying statements (T/F)
• Determining intonation patterns
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Post Viewing
High Production Skills:
Tasks that bring the language of the video into active use:
• Recall, recognition, and application exercises
• Comparing findings with other students in the group
• Naming the topics covered in the video
• Discussing how the topics treated correspond to anticipations
from experiencing L1 news
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Post Viewing
Facilitating retention of linguistic items processed
during video viewing:
• Cloze exercises for active vocabulary development
• Paragraph-level oral and written summaries
• Examine the acronyms (practice saying; explain the meaning)
Fostering critical thinking and students’ analytical skills:
• Comparing relative place of importance of specific
news in the L1 and L2 newscasts
• Compare L1 and L2 stories for content and approach
• Express your opinion about the event
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Conclusion
Select:
• Most interesting materials with lots of visual support
• Topics that learners are most likely to understand
• Topics about which students have some background
knowledge from reading newspapers, watching TV in
their L1
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Conclusion
Encourage students to:
• Check out online news sites in English, such as CNN or
Reuters
• Look for similarities/differences in international news coverage
• Compare the coverage, including categories of news and
order of presentation
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Conclusion
Avoid
• Cognitive overload
• Task overload
• Long video episodes, exceeding 3 min. in length
Provide
• Comprehension checks to sustain high degree of concentration
• Parallel texts for reading (full text, captions, key words)
• More viewing sessions of fewer discrete episodes
• Class time and screen space for note taking
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Conclusion
Develop
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Multi-skill exercises with extended shelf life
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Ancillary materials that are likely to have considerable shelf life:
Recent History, Ecology, Health, etc.
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Materials on L2 cultures reporting about American life (takes away from
authenticity)
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Expandable tasks, ranging from Novice to Intermediate High Level:
from basic comprehension of names, places and numbers gradually moving on to using video as a vehicle to other skills
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Flexible learning environments compatible with developing technologies
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Developing quality ancillary materials appears excessive for individual faculty
Team effort is more likely to be successful.
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Contact Information:
Dr. Luba Iskold
2400 Chew Street
Muhlenberg College,
Languages, Literatures and Cultures,
Allentown, PA 18104
Phone: 484-664-3516
Fax: 484-664-3722
E-mail: iskold@muhlenberg.edu
http://www.muhlenberg.edu/depts/forlang/LLC/iskold_home/index.htm
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