For a long time, listening has been treated as the Cinderella of the four macro-skills: speaking, listening, reading, and writing. However, as an essential part of communicative competence, listening is a skill that deserves equal treatment with the others, both in the classroom and in the preparation of language teachers. With the unrelenting trend toward globalization, which manifests itself in greater international trade, travel, education, Internet use, cheap international telephone calls, and mass entertainment, English has become a world language. The need to be able to understand English is increasing by the day. There is a growing need, therefore, for international citizens to be able to understand not just standard British or American spoken English, but other varieties spoken around the world.

Second Language Listening: Theory and Practice combines up-to-date listening theory, a pedagogical model developed by the authors, and case studies of pedagogical practice. The volume draws on the authors' own research and experience, where appropriate, but is eclectic in encompassing a full range of current views on theory and practice. Each chapter contains tasks and discussion questions that contextualize the material and encourage readers to engage with the concepts presented.

Textbooks are normally viewed as presenting established bodies of knowledge to uninitiated students. In Second Language Listening: Theory and Practice, we have tried to go a little beyond this traditional approach by incorporating our own innovative pedagogical model of listening. This is introduced in Chapter 6 and applied in subsequent chapters, which deal with materials and methodology, primarily by means of a range of case studies.