•To describe the listening process
•To suggest some barriers that the teacher imposes
•To suggest some barriers that the student faces

What is Listening?
Listening is an active process where listeners SELECT and
INTERPRET information that comes from visual and auditory clues in order to define what is going on and what speakers are trying to express
It is a two way process between a speaker and a listener
Listening is a complex, cognitive process that is often described as a parallel processing model. That is, information is processed by using “bottom up” and “top down” processing, simultaneously

The Listening Process
Anderson (1983, 1995) suggests that there are 3 phases in the cognitive (comprehension) process
maintaining attention to spoken input
– holding the information in your short term memory and making sense of it
– using your background knowledge to interpret the input for storage

Bottom Up Processing
Perception = Aural Decoding

Top Down Processing
Utilization = understanding the rules of spoken English
•Formulaic expressions: idioms, colloquialisms
•Intonational patterns: sarcasm, emphatic stress
•Situational contexts: phatic communion
•Cultural knowledge patas arribas

Input received and decoded
Comprehension
Parsing holding the information in short term memory
“Rules” of
English are known and acknowledged
Comprehension problems for the L2 learner
•The desire to understand every word and so miss the gist
•The need to translate into L1 before attempting comprehension

Barriers to Listening :Take a Dictation
•Speed of delivery
•Clarity of voice and utterance
•Accent and dialect
•No pause and rewind
•The materials aren’t matched to the learner’s proficiency: too lengthy and/or complex
•Lack of context or meaningless to the learner: topic unfamiliar
•Poor quality audio materials

Barriers to Listening : The Student
Physical Barriers
•Hearing problems
•Poor concentration: tiredness, frustration, boredom, resistance
Habitudinal Barriers
•Insistence on listening word by word
•Silently translating in to the L1 in order to comprehend

Linguistic Barriers
•Lexical, syntactical and grammatical knowledge isn’t in place and so can’t pick up key words
Psychological Barriers
•Inability to hold gathering information in short term memory
•Allowing yourself to get distracted
•Unable to process English phonemic patterns
•Unable to distinguish words in connected speech
• Unable to process English rhythm and intonation

Cultural Barriers
•Learners whose native language possesses stress and intonation features similar to English are likely to have less trouble than learners whose L1 is based on different rhythms and tones
•Students whose culture and education includes a strong storytelling and oral communication tradition are generally better at listening comprehension than those from a reading and book-based background
Underwood (1989)
•Lack of schematic and cultural knowledge of British traditions:
Loch Ness Monster; Morris dancing; Pancake Day races

Further Reading
Carter & Nunan (2001) The Cambridge Guide to TESOL (chapter 1)
Bremer et al. (1996) Achieving Understanding
Brindley (1998b) Assessing listening abilities
Flowerdew (l994b) Research related to second language lecture comprehension
Mendelsohn and Rubin (1995) A Guide for the Teaching of Second
Language Listening
Nunan (l995c) New Ways in Teaching Listening
Rost (1990) Listening in Language Learning
White (1998) Listening
Chen Yiching (2005) Barriers to Acquiring Listening Strategies for EFL
Learners and their Pedagogical Implications