GST 111 Listening Skills PDF

GST 111 STATUS: REQUIRED CREDIT UNITS: 2 LECTURE DAY: THURSDAY LECTURE TIME: 12 – 2PM LECTURER: DR. FLORENCE CHIKA NWOSU DEPARTMENT: LINGUISTICS AND NIGERIAN LANGUAGES, FACULTY OF...

GST 111 STATUS: REQUIRED CREDIT UNITS: 2 LECTURE DAY: THURSDAY LECTURE TIME: 12 – 2PM LECTURER: DR. FLORENCE CHIKA NWOSU DEPARTMENT: LINGUISTICS AND NIGERIAN LANGUAGES, FACULTY OF ARTS  MODULE Listening Skills is one of the vibrant topics in GST 111. It is designed to help the learner develop the communication skills of listening. It critically analyse listening skills as aspects of grammatical acquisition in language learning especially in the second language (L2) learning situation. It highlights how best a learner can comprehend aspects of grammar through the use of appropriate listening skills. Among the areas of concentration of this topic are: definition of listening skill, listening communication processes, principles of effective listening, barriers to effective listening, process of listening, listening types, and purpose and role of listening.  LEARNING OUTCOMES At the end of the teaching and learning, student should be able to: i. itemise the principles of effective listening skill; ii. identify the types and levels of listening; iii. enumerate the various listening communication processes; and iv. list factors that inhibit effective listening skill;  AIM This course aimed to: i. demonstrate the principles of effective listening skill; ii. examine the types and levels of listening; iii. highlight the various listening communication processes; and iv. identify the factors that inhibit effective listening skill;  TITLE LISTENING SKILLS  INTRODUCTION Listening is taken for granted mainly because people fail to differentiate between the two concepts of hearing and listening. They also forget the fact that listening requires more than the hearing of speech sounds. Hearing does not require much effort since the auditory organs are not impaired for the sound waves to pass through. Hearing is the mere process by which sound wave are received and relayed along the nervous system of the ear. Hearing covers picking out all forms of sound around us irrespective of the source of the sound. Listening on the other hand, is the process of directing attention to the sound contrasts produced by the human organs of speech and their sequences. Beyond sounds, listening is the ability to differentiate between the dictionary meaning of words and the meaning words acquire when used in connected speech.  DEFINITION OF LISTENING SKILLS Listening skills is the ability to pay undivided attention to utterances and effectively interpret what was said. Listening skills encompasses receiving sounds, understanding the message conveyed in the sounds that is heard, evaluating the message, and responding to it.  TYPES OF LISTENING ACTIVE LISTENING PASSIVE LISTENING LISTENING COMMUNICATION PROCESS Information Transmitter Noise source Source Destination Receiver ACTIVE LISTENING VERSUS PASSIVE LISTENING Active Listening is the ability to accurately receive and interpret messages in the communication process. Passive listening is tantamount to hearing because it does not require concentration unlike active listening. Principles of Effective Listening Things to do to enhance your listening ability include the following: 1. Stop talking 2. Prepare Yourself to Listen by Relaxing 3. Put the Speaker at Ease 4. Ignore Distractions 5. Empathise: Try to understand the other person’s point of view 6. Be patient 7. Listen to the tone, pitch and volume for emphasized parts 8. Watch out for the Non-Verbal Communication Aspects Barriers to Effective Listening Listening to more than one conversation at a time Lack of interest in the topic of discussion Lack of interest in the speaker. Meaning, Nature and Characteristics of Listening Listening is one of the four communicative skills of language, used most often in our daily lives than the other three skills of speaking, reading and writing. PROCESS OF LISTENING Predicting what the talk is about. Guessing the contextual meaning of unfamiliar words and phrases. Identifying and retaining relevant points. Recognizing discourse markers and cohesive devices. Understanding the speaker’s inferred meaning and attitude to what he is saying. Separating facts from opinions, and Understanding the speaker’s pattern of thinking and presentation Types of Listening 1. Attitudinal Listening: The listener must be able to develop positive attitude toward the subject matter of the speech 2. Appreciative Listening: The listener here goes ahead to infer the mood of the speaker and see how the speaker makes his words have effect on his intended meaning. Here you watch out for the tune/intonation of the speaker for that is what will inform you the mood of the speaker. 3. Analytical/Critical Listening: This involves listening to explicitly stated points and using the point and their contents to arrive at other points in other discourse situations Purpose and Role of Listening in Verbal Communication 1. Listening for information Processing 2. Listening to Conversations 3. Listening for Taking Directions 4. Listening for Inferences 5. Listening to Narrations 6. Listening to an Arguments 7. Listening to an Advertisement 8. Listening for Note Taking Listening in the ESL (English as Second Language) Classroom Situation The listener needs to be trained to enhance his listening ability especially in the English for Secondary Language user’s (ESL) case. The major reason being that some sounds in the foreign language are not present in our languages, using Nigeria learners as example. A learner in this case tends to mistake the foreign sound he hears for the familiar sound in his own native language. Conclusion Listeners must first and foremost develop auditory discrimination among sounds, tones, stress, intonation, words and sentences. Auditory discrimination is an important aspect of listening. This is for the fact that it aids general comprehension of listening types, purposes, processes and aims. Listening is not only hearing. It goes beyond hearing to paying attention to cogent message, information, argument directions, instructions, etc.