LISTENING...

LISTENING

MAY 22, 2014

THURSDAY

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Why listening is selected? 

     This skills is the favorite of mine. Many researches are made to discover it, because I personally it is the most ambiguous one between all the fourth skills.    

What is listening?

     Listening is one of the four language skills. In fact, it is a receptive skill, where it involves responding to language rather than producing it. In this summary, we are going to explain and show this skill with certainly the help of several trusted websites and the issued book (TKT-CAMBRIDGE ENGLISH).

What are the characteristics of the spoken language?

     1- Stress:* the way that a word or syllable is pronounced with greater force than other words in the same sentence or other syllables in the same word.

     2- Intonation: *the sound changes produced by the rise and fall of the voice when speaking, especially when this has an effect on the meaning of what is said.

     3- Connected speech: sounds and single words connected together to formulate a form of speaking.

     4- Facial expression: the express appeared in the face during the conversations, 

     5- Hesitations:  *the act of pausing before doing something, especially because you are nervous or not certain.

What are the characteristics of the written language? 

     1- Punctuation: *The most common punctuation marks in English are: capital letters and full stops, question marks, commas, colons and semi-colons, exclamation marks and quotation marks.

     2- Logical sequence:  The organization of the whole essay or the paragraph, and how it is gradually connected to each other.

     3- Complex: stylish and highly developed sentences with the use of the Punctuation.

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     Some important terms in listening skills

     1- utterances: * the action of saying something

     2- text types: spoken language such as, conversations, stories, songs, and many other examples.

     3- interaction: Different way of organizing the language according to the speaker.

     4- relevant: suitable/appropriate

     5- linking: a connection between words and sentences.

     6- listen for gist: listening looking for the main idea

     7- global understanding specific: listening for well-known thing.

     8- infer attitude: listening to see what attitude a speaker is expressing.

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    TYPES OF LISTENING

In the mentioned website, there are:

*Informative Listening

 Informative listening is the name we give to the situation where the listener’s primary concern is to understand the message. Listeners are successful insofar as the meaning they assign to messages is as close as possible to that which the sender intended.

*Relationship Listening

The purpose of relationship listening is either to help an individual or to improve the relationship between people. Therapeutic listening is a special type of relationship listening. Therapeutic listening brings to mind situations where counselors, medical personnel, or other professionals allow a troubled person to talk through a problem. But it can also be used when you listen to friends or acquaintances and allow them to “get things off their chests.” Although relationship listening requires you to listen for information, the emphasis is on understanding the other person. Three behaviors are key to effective relationship listening: attending, supporting, and empathizing.

*Appreciative Listening

Appreciative listening includes listening to music for enjoyment, to speakers because you like their style, to your choices in theater, television, radio, or film. It is the response of the listener, not the source of the message, that defines appreciative listening. That which provides appreciative listening for one person may provide something else for another. For example, hard rock music is not a source of appreciative listening for me. I would rather listen to gospel, country, jazz, or the “golden oldies.”

*Critical Listening

The ability to listen critically is essential in a democracy. On the job, in the community, at service clubs, in places of worship, in the family—there is practically no place you can go where critical listening is unimportant. Politicians, the media, salesmen, advocates of policies and procedures, and our own financial, emotional, intellectual, physical, and spiritual needs require us to place a premium on critical listening and the thinking that accompanies it.

  

*Discriminative Listening

The final type of listening is discriminative listening. It may be the most important type, for it is basic to the other four. By being sensitive to changes in the speaker’s rate, volume, force, pitch, and emphasis, the informative listener can detect even nuances of difference in meaning. By sensing the impact of certain responses, such as “uh huh,” or “I see,” relationship listening can be strengthened. Detection of differences between sounds made by certain instruments in the orchestra, or parts sung by the a cappella vocal group, enhances appreciative listening. Finally, sensitivity to pauses, and other vocal and nonverbal cues, allows critical listeners to more accurately judge not only the speaker’s message, but his intentions as well.

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Finally, it is really important topic to talk about, and to search it. I highly recommend all my classmates to make a check.

 Regards,

* this mark is an indication of the usage of the below websites.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/

http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/kline-listen/b10ch4.htm