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BOOK REVIEW
LISTENING IN THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM
By John Field
Cambridge University Press: Cambridge
2009
As
written at the title, this book is about listening in the language classroom. Mostly,
the author talks about some alternative approaches to teach listening that can
be applied in teaching listening so that the teachers can run their classes better. One of the approaches stated in
this book is comprehension approach. In the chapter, the author suggest a more
effective way to do the comprehension approach.
This
book is written by Dr. John Field, a
senior lecturer in cognition in language learning and assessment. He has
an MA in Linguistics and ELT from the University of Leeds and an MPhil in
English and Applied Linguistics from Cambridge University. He has published
widely on second language listening. In fact, this book, Listening in the
Language Classroom, which
is his most recent book, has reshaped thinking on the teaching of the
skill, and won the international Ben Warren Prize for its contribution to
second language studies.
After I read this book, there are some
topics that interested me. One of them is “listening and the learner” part. In
this chapter, the author wants to consider the ways in which comprehension
approach affects the dynamic of the classroom and to put forward suggestions on
how some of the teaching practices with which the approach is associated might
be made more effective.
For comprehension approach stated in
this chapter, the listening class is teacher-centered. It is the teachers who
control the agenda. It is the teachers who do most of the work. As for
learners, the comprehension approach marks out the student’s role as being to
answer questions. The comprehension approach was founded on the premise that
there is a ‘right’ answer to each question that is asked. Actually, I do not
really agree with what comprehension approach marks for the learner’s role even
though I know that this approach is made by experts. In my opinion, listening
is not only about answer the questions to check the students’ comprehension of
the listening, but listening also, actually, have to ‘train’ the students
ability to listen so that they can comprehend better.
Besides, the writer explains about the
differences between listening in group and
individually. The
interesting fact is that learning listening individually and learning listening
in groups have different effects on learner. They can comprehend better about
what they hear when they listen to the listening in group because they have
some discussion after listening activity. Another advantage is that the learner
becomes more active speaker since they discuss their understanding to each
other. It means that, instead of listening the students can learn speaking as
well. Brown (2006) also said the same idea. He said that “once the listening
tasks have been completed, if time allows, speaking tasks using the same topic
can be done in pairs or groups to give practice interpersonal listening”.
I really agree about having group
listening and discussions because there must be some things that make the
students hard to understand what they listen to. As teachers, they should understand
that all humans are limited in their ability to process information (Brown,
2006). Because of this limitation, I think the teachers should provide some
time for the students to discuss the materials in the listening. Also, it is
because everyone may have different understanding about listening. Even the
best listener can have difficult time (Brown, 2006). This different understanding
may be because sometimes the speakers at the conversation in the recording do
not always say exactly what they mean. That is why we have to check for
meaning. Barker in Brady and Leigh (2005) stated that “words have no
meaning—people have meaning”. Thus it means that the students need to listen
what the speakers trying to say. Therefore, the students need to discuss the
possibilities of what the listening may exactly mean so that they can
comprehend better. In addition, Brown
also stated that “listening courses must make use of students’ prior knowledge
in order to improve listening comprehension” (2006). Therefore the students
need to share they knowledge on guessing what the listening about exactly. If
the students have already had prior knowledge about the topic, they can comprehend
what they listen to easily. Thus, having listening in group and group discussion
afterward is just necessary.
Therefore, for me, I think it would be
good if this method (listening in group) is used in our department. As I have
experienced I have not done listening activity in groups in listening class. We
just listened to the record individually in our sits and answer the questions.
Sometimes, we only have class discussion after the listening activity, but this
is not enough to make all students to participate in the discussion because
only some students who are willing to speak out their opinions. Whereas the students
need chances to express their own ideas and listen to different point of view,
to talk through problems or share ideas to create something new (Dawes, 2011). And,
listening in groups and having the discussion afterward are useful to check the
students understanding of the listening. As Dawes (2011) mentioned that
“children need to say things aloud if they are to check their own understanding
and that of others”. Thus, I think having group listening and group discussion
in listening are worth-considered activities to have in listening class in our
department.
In conclusion, from the benefits that
can be got by the students on their listening comprehension, the more effective
way to do the comprehension approach is to have group listening activity and group
discussion after the listening. Because of that, I personally suggest that this
activities to be used in our department.
References
Brady, M., & Leigh, J. A. (2005). A Little Book of Listening Skills. Paideia Press. Retrieved on
September 15, 2013, from http://libgen.org/book/index.php?md5=CC2EE67929B43AB78E6026C7942265C7&open=0
Brown, S. (2006). Teaching
Listening. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dawes, L. (2011). Creating
A Speaking and Listening Classroom- Integrating talk for learning at key stage
2. New York: Routledge.
Field, J. (2008). Listening
in the language classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved
on September 10, 2013, from http://libgen.org/book/index.php?md5=0b6e0d06403cbf6df170661577c02f14&open=0