Introduction

The term listening is used in language teaching to refer to a complex process that allows us to understand spoken language. Listening, the most widely used language skill, is often used in conjunction with the other skills of speaking, reading and writing. Listening is not only a skill area in language performance, but is also a critical means of acquiring a second language (L2). Listening is the channel in which we process language in real time – employing pacing, units of encoding and pausing that are unique to spoken language.

As a goal-oriented activity, listening involves ‘bottom-up’ processing (in which listeners attend to data in the incoming speech signals) and ‘top-down’ processing (in which listeners utilise prior knowledge and expectations to create meaning). Both bottom-up and top-down processing are assumed to take place at various levels of cognitive organisation: phonological, grammatical, lexical and propositional. This complex process is often described as a ‘parallel processing model’ of language understanding: representations at these various levels create activation at other levels. The entire network of interactions serves to produce a ‘best match’ that fits all of the levels (McClelland 1987; Cowan 1995).

Background

Listening in language teaching has undergone several important influences, as the result of developments in anthropology, education, linguistics, sociology, and even global politics. From the time foreign languages were formally taught until the late nineteenth century, language learning was presented primarily in a written mode, with the role of descriptive grammars, bilingual dictionaries and ‘problem sentences’ for correct translation occupying the central role.