Develop Creative Listening and Linguistic Communication Skills of the Second Language Learners - Dissertation Example

?Developing Creative Listening and Linguistic Communication Skills of Second Language Learners Introduction The latest trend in developing listening skills for school children and adults adds the Creative Listening feature to the previous categories of appropriate listening skills. In addition to appreciatory, informational, evaluative and understanding listening, modern scholars have added creative listening in order to bring the listening behavior to higher thinking teaching-and-learning levels. The latest trend corrects misconceptions that all listening behavior is alike. It tells us that different listening tasks will enable the learner to perform more effectively through behavioral mind sets and the specific kind of listening needed by a situation. It also tells us that apart from focus on enjoyment (appreciation listening), information value (informational listening), criticism of standards (evaluative listening), and acceptance (understanding listening), the learner with equal or higher value can be creative as to his listening behavior. Creative listening is described as occurring “when listening, a student takes what he has heard and creates an idea” (Williams, n.d.). This dissertation attempts to take the concept of creative listening to task as a development method to assist Second Language Learners in developing creative listening and linguistic communication skills. Second Language Learners are a language minority in such English speaking countries as the United States and the United Kingdom. Inculcating literacy among these learners is a present-day critical challenge since English literacy is essential to their academic achievement, and to educational and economic opportunities beyond schooling. Given the phenomenon that minority learners are increasing owing to immigration and birth rate conditions, there is the added fact that without English literacy, this language minority group will not fare well in school achievement.. Already, statistics show that 51 percent of minority learners do not finish high school compared with only 10 percent of English speaking learners who do not complete secondary education. (National Center for Educational Statistics). Meanwhile, listening skills belong to the unattended self-improvement skills being developed in schools. While much training is given to reading, writing, arithmetic and science, the listening part of the communication process is bypassed or presumed to be virtually learned. Research studies, however, makes a revelation, namely that untrained listeners are very low— lower than 50 percent—on proficiency in learning. This should not be surprising since various studies also state that people, including school learners, may spend 45 to over 50 percent of their communication time in the listening act. It appears most timely and important therefore that the educational system should give adequate attention to the improvement of listening skills among learners. This dissertation makes two assumptions: 1. Creative listening and linguistic communication skills can be developed along the new paradigm of multiple intelligence learning, and 2. A program patterned along multi-intelligence activities can be devised to respond to the need to develop creative listening and linguistic communication skills. Creative Listening Skills To focus on the listening act itself, it is necessary to remove the misconception that hearing and listening are the same. At times, we may have heard someone complaining, “I hear you, please don’t shout at me.” This is to recognize the physiological process that occurs when sound is received by man’s hearing apparatus. People may hear, however, but they may not be listening in the sense of recognizing the meaning of those sounds, such as the internal anger or anguish expressed by the speaker. Developing listening for meaning is therefore a must. Developing listening to create constructive ideas and action, such as behavioral change, can therefore be very beneficial to society, inclusive of social relationships and work. Some steps can be taken to improve listening behavior, and the major ones are” 1. Accept the speaker’s peculiarities. The listener must admit that each person is unique with his own physical, social, racial, and cultural background. The task to take is to avoid any distracting behavior and focus on the listening task. Practice in this area is essential to improving one’s listening ability. 2. Improve attitude. Someone may be faking attention, and really be putting on a mask by nodding or smiling. In reality, however, we may be turned off by the speaker. An excess of fake listening can become habitual and difficult to break, but it needs to be broken in order to develop one’s listening skills. 3. Improve the environment. Get into a position that is conducive to better listening, such as by sitting nearer to the speaker or avoiding a group that talk or gossip during the talk. Move therefore and select a seat in order to get into the listening mood. 4. Withhold judgment. Any preliminary judgment, especially along negative ones, may reflect bias and become an obstacle to listening with fairness and objectivity. 5. Improve note taking. Taking notes can be learned from practice. Word-for-word note taking is not practical, and so jot only important words or phrases. Of course, modern day recorders can document talks, but note taking can be a most useful devise to improve listening. To add, focus on the topic can help attention on the speaker’s arguments. Since emotional reactions can be an obstruction to listening, be objective and seek to understand, rather than simply argue against or naively accept everything the speaker says. Even before the speaker delivers his talk, we may anticipate what he would say, and this is part of the general ability to be a creative listener. In the case of Second Language Learners, a list of basic creative listening skills can be outlined. While some of these skills are basic language activities, they form the base foundation for creativity from its early until more mature forms of listening skills. These are: 1. Phonemic skill. This is the ability of school beginners in recognizing the phoneme or smallest sounds in spoken language. Phonemes correspond to the ability to read words, such as in the case of the word sat in which the three phonemes are the letters /s/, /a/, /t/. It may not be easy for young learners to determine how many sounds a word has, but language activities can in time help them learn letter-sound correspondences, letter-sound relationships, and sound symbols associations. 2. Word decoding skill. This enables the learner to learn word sounds and their meaning. Acquaintance with words by sounds corresponds to reading of words by sight. Fluency in word listening and understanding enables the listener to understand and grasp the meaning of words quickly and accurately. 3. Listening comprehension skill. In addition to word processing, the learner is able to acquire a word vocabulary base in order to comprehend the meaning of whole phrases, sentences and passages. 4. Listening interpretation skill. This is the starting point in creative listening, as the listener is able to make connections from what is said to what he previously knows. With this skill, the learner is able to make oral description of the theme, even reword or paraphrase the message of the spoken passage or talk. 5. Appreciatory listening skill. This is a creative listening skill making the listener capable of enjoying storytelling, music, stage or television drama, or a movie. This skill broadens one’s listening experience to the aesthetic level. As a maturing listener, the learner is able to discern figures of speech in poetry, get an intuition of the message in a musical symphony and in other artistic performances, thus elevating one’s listening skill to an artistic plane. 6. Informational listening skill. This is a listening skill for effectively obtaining information about people, places, events, etc. . This is especially useful for the classroom learner who desires to gain information in a class work or for lifelong learning. 7. Evaluative listening skill. This makes the listener a critic or evaluator according to standards on information and knowledge he may have set. 8. Understanding listening skill. This makes the listener a positive evaluator who accepts people, ideas and beliefs. The more critical a listener is, the more he is not easily persuaded as in the case of political speeches, dialogue forum, or religious homilies. Linguistic Communication Skills Communication is the human medium to reach out to others with ideas, feelings, and opinions. Generally linguistic communication uses language, but it may also utilize nonverbal signs and symbols. As the learner listens, message may also be conveyed by arm, hand, eye, face signals. Language may also be accompanied by graphs, photos or other visual aids to complement and add to the power of the message. A list of general linguistic communication skills are: 1. Informational skill. To effectively transmit information ideas and knowledge, the speaker must be simple enough to be understood, while being detailed enough to give new information. If he wishes to get positive response, he must be complimentary in his way of presentation so as not to offend listeners.. 2. Persuasive skill. The aim of communication is to convince listeners towards one’s ideas, opinions or conviction. The more skillful communicator uses persuasion patterns such as by putting listeners in a common ground of association, adding attention by praise, or stressing the urgency of a situation. 3. Entertainment skill. The communicator is able to induce pleasure and enjoyment on the listener through jokes and gags. 4. Mass media skill. The more adept communicator uses mass media such as commercials, video drama and cinema films to inform, entertain or convince. Propaganda films such as was employed by Adolf Hitler sustained the German people’ belief in a Germanic super-race. 5. Educational communication skill. A classroom teacher uses communication skills to discuss subject matter, facilitate learning, get feedback on the learning process, etc. Communication relates not only to cognitive faculties, but also to the emotive and psychomotor faculties of learners as well. Activities of multiple intelligences The listening learner is endowed with intelligence. There is, however, a shift from the old to the new view of intelligence, the latter giving favor to multi-intelligence. A comparative view can be illustrated by way of a chart. Note the rather static idea of human intelligence in the Old View, while change and growth is seen in the New View. Note the Old View’s taking intelligence in isolation, while the New View sees intelligence in its complexity and relationship with contextual influences which may include people, places, conditions, systems, etc. OLD VIEW Intelligence is fixed Intelligence can be measured in numbers Intelligence is measured in isolation Intelligence is used to sort students and predict their success NEW VIEW Intelligence can be developed Intelligence is not numerically quantifiable and is exhibited during a performance of problem-solving process Intelligence can be exhibited in many ways—multiple intelligences Intelligence is measured in the context of real life situations Intelligence is used to understand human capacities for the many varied ways to learn and achieve. (Source: Harvey F. Silver, et al. So Each May Learn. Virginia, USA: Silver Strong associates, Inc. 2000) The learner’s multi-intelligence can be tapped in developing creative listening and linguistic communication skills. A list of some listening-communication class activities based on multiple intelligence as dispositions can be listed as follows: 1. Verbal-Linguistic intelligence Personal introduction talk before a class One-one-interview for personality profile 2, Logical-Mathematical intelligence Talk demonstration on procedures (e.g. cooking) Create mapping patterns from a talk 3. Spatial intelligence Share ideas from photos Draw or sketch concepts heard 4, Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence Interpret theme through dance or mime 5. Musical intelligence Music appreciation hour Play musical instrument or sing 6. Interpersonal intelligence Share feelings after a film viewing 7. Intrapersonal intelligence Produce a commercial Perform a sales pitch 8. Naturalist Intelligence Out-of-door guide on garden ornamental plants Program CLICK-SLL An original program is devised with the acronym CLICK-SLL to signify Creative Listening and Communication Skills for Second Language Learners. The Program consists of modular lessons aimed at developing creative listening skills while tapping innate multiple intelligences in Second Language Learners. Sample modular lessons are hereby presented, hopefully serving as good models for teachers to adopt within the contextual learning situation in school. LESSON 1 “WHAT DID I SAY?” Objective: To blend sounds and identify the words when presented as a segmented word. Materials: Poster size pictures corresponding with words written at the back Sequence: 1. Tell students the steps of the simple activity: The students are given one picture each. One at a time, they are asked to go in front of the class to show the pictures to the class and read the simple words at the back of the pictures for the class to listen to. 2. Guide each student present to reading the each letter of word, for example //s/, /a/, t/ for the whole class to recite aloud. Then ask learner-presentor to blend letters into the word sat, again the class reciting the word three times. /Blending sounds into words continue until the last presentation. 3. Review by showing pictures for volunteers to identify picture with the words. 4. Stick pictures on the board in front of the class, and ask volunteers to select pictures and identify their individual words. The student accumulated pictures as he or she succeeds in identifying pictures. 5. End class with a class song. LESSON 2 “WHAT LETTER AM I?” Objective: To identify letters and form words. Materials: Letter cards which stick to the board Sequence: 1. Tell students the steps of the simple activity: Individual students are asked to identify and pronounce sounds of letters given by the teacher. The student is asked to form a word from the letters and fix the formed word on the board. The student recites the word to the class. Other students do the same task. 2. End activity with a lively storytelling by the teacher. LESSON 3 “LISTEN AND FOLLOW MY READING” Objective: To advance fluency by way of speed and voice stress in a dramatic reading of a short Gospel story. Materials: Gospel picture and text on the board. Sequence: 1. Introduce the dramatic reading activity with teacher as Model Reader. Teacher also gives the background of the story and picture. 2. Teacher models dramatic reading and asks three capable students to do the same reading, correcting each reader as he goes through the Gospel story. 3. Activity ends with a short movie clip on the Gospel. LESSON 4 “LETS RECITE POETRY TOGETHER” Objective: For the class to perform a choral reading to enhance listening and appreciating the poem : “Invictus” Materials: Handout of poem. Music record, possibly with visuals on LCD projection to support reading. Sequence: 1. The teacher explains the significance of the activity by way of listening and understanding of message and emotions in the poem 2. Teacher coaches class to the dramatic reading. 3. Rehearse with music and visuals. 4. Set a day when the class can perform before the school community, such as an intermission number in a school program LESSON 5: “BE AT YOUR DRAMATIC BEST” Objective: Listening to dramatic reading by students to gain appreciation of either poetry or elocution piece of choice. Material: Stage setting. Either as a class activity or school activity with awards for best readers. Costumes allowed. Sequence: 1. The teacher explains the project 2. Rehearsals are done individually. 3. The dramatic reading event Conclusion Creative listening skill is a facet of listening which need to be a critical focus of development especially among Second Language Learners. Developing creative listening skills needs to be integrated with other development needs of learners inclusive of reading, writing, calculating, visualizing, logical reasoning and all facets of human intelligence. Second Language Learners can more easily join the mainstream of school achievers through higher levels of critical listening and linguistic communication skills. References National Center for Educational Statistics. Available from nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/accessed 10th Nov.2012) Williams, A. (n.d.). Children’s Activities- Creative Listening (Online) Available from www.ehow.com/info-8584800-childrens-activities-creativelistening.html (accessed 9th Nov. 2012) . 4. . Read More