Renandya,W. A.,& Hu, G.(2018). L2 Listening in China: An Examination of Current Practice. In A. Burns &J. Siegel(eds.), International Perspectives on Teaching the Four Skills in ELT(pp. 37-50).Cham Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. 3 L2 Listening in China: An Examination of Current Practice Willy A. Renandya and Guangwei Hu Introduction Once a neglected skill, listening has in recent years attracted the attention of both researchers and practitioners. Second language(L2) researchers have now acknowledged the key role that auditory input plays in language acquisition, believing that exposure to such input is an important require- ment for learners' language development. Similarly, the teaching of listening has received greater attention in recent years (Field 2008； Richards 2009； Vandergrift and Goh 2012). Listening now occupies a prominent place in many language programmes, often taught as a stand-alone course or inte- grated with a speaking course. In addition, high-stakes tests (e.g. school leaving examinations, university admission tests and international standard- ized proficiency tests such as IELTS and TOEFL) often include a listening component. Given this increased research and pedagogical interest in L2 listening, one would expect teachers to be in a much better position to draw pedagogi- cal insights from research and use these to design instructional procedures W.A. Renandya().G. Hu National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, 1 Nanyang Walk, Singapore 637616， Singapore e-mail:willy.renandya@nie.edu.sg G. Hu e-mail:guangwei.hu@nie.edu.sg C The Author(s)2018 37 A. Burns and J. Siegel (eds.), International Perspectives on Teaching the Four Skils in ELT, International Perspectives on English Language Teaching. https:/doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63444-9_3
© Te Author(s) 2018 37 A. Burns and J. Siegel (eds.), International Perspectives on Teaching the Four Skills in ELT, International Perspectives on English Language Teaching, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63444-9_3 Introduction Once a neglected skill, listening has in recent years attracted the attention of both researchers and practitioners. Second language (L2) researchers have now acknowledged the key role that auditory input plays in language acquisition, believing that exposure to such input is an important requirement for learners’ language development. Similarly, the teaching of listening has received greater attention in recent years (Field 2008; Richards 2009; Vandergrift and Goh 2012). Listening now occupies a prominent place in many language programmes, often taught as a stand-alone course or integrated with a speaking course. In addition, high-stakes tests (e.g. school leaving examinations, university admission tests and international standardized profciency tests such as IELTS and TOEFL) often include a listening component. Given this increased research and pedagogical interest in L2 listening, one would expect teachers to be in a much better position to draw pedagogical insights from research and use these to design instructional procedures 3 L2 Listening in China: An Examination of Current Practice Willy A. Renandya and Guangwei Hu W.A. Renandya (*) · G. Hu National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, 1 Nanyang Walk, Singapore 637616, Singapore e-mail: willy.renandya@nie.edu.sg G. Hu e-mail: guangwei.hu@nie.edu.sg Renandya, W. A., & Hu, G. (2018). L2 Listening in China: An Examination of Current Practice. In A. Burns & J. Siegel (eds.), International Perspectives on Teaching the Four Skills in ELT (pp. 37-50). Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan
38 W.A.Renandya and G.Hu that would benefit L2 learners and help them become better L2 listeners (see Santos and Graham,this volume).This,however,may not always be the case for three reasons.First,teachers may not have access to the professional literature and consequently may be unaware of recent developments in L2 listening.Second,even those who keep up with the literature may find con- flicting views about the main factors that affect the processing of spoken text and about how best to teach L2 listening (Wang 2010:Wang and Renandya 2012).As a result,they may feel bewildered and unable to choose between these various views.Third,contextual factors such as paucity of suitable lis tening materials and lack of access to online resources may constrain teach ers from trying out new ways of teaching listening.Many teachers,as noted by Field(2008)and Siegel (2014),continue to use traditional methods of teaching L2 listening that focus more on the product than the process of listening.One such method which is still widely used in L2 classrooms is known as the comprehension-based approach where students listen to a recording multiple times and are then required to answer a set of compre hension questions as if they were taking a listening comprehension test. Not surprisingly,L2 learners continue to find L2 listening to be one of the most difficult skills to learn (Vandergrift and Goh 2012).Those at the lower end of the proficiency scale find L2 listening particularly hard.Many have reported that they are unable to cope with the fast rate of speech,cannot recognize words they already know in print,have difficulty segmenting words in connected speech and,as a result,fail to form a coherent representation of the meaning of the text(Zeng 2007).Even those at the more advanced levels sometimes find listening to be demanding,as is the case with college English teachers from China with whom we have been working for several years These are teachers whose overall English proficiency is quite advanced but whose listening skill seems to lag behind other skills such as reading,writing and speaking.In the general proficiency test that we administered as part of the admission requirements to the postgraduate programme they were apply ing for,they tended to perform well on the reading,speaking and writing components,but scored poorly on the listening segment. In this chapter we begin by describing the kinds of problems that Chinese college English learners encounter when listening to spoken English.These include both lower level (e.speech rate,word recognition)and higher level (e.g.failure to make schema-based inferences)listening problems.These problems are related to the processes of listening rather than to the products, with the latter being typically focused on in comprehension-based teach ing approaches.We then outline pedagogical strategies that Chinese college English teachers believe are useful to help their students overcome various
38 W.A. Renandya and G. Hu that would beneft L2 learners and help them become better L2 listeners (see Santos and Graham, this volume). Tis, however, may not always be the case for three reasons. First, teachers may not have access to the professional literature and consequently may be unaware of recent developments in L2 listening. Second, even those who keep up with the literature may fnd conficting views about the main factors that afect the processing of spoken text and about how best to teach L2 listening (Wang 2010; Wang and Renandya 2012). As a result, they may feel bewildered and unable to choose between these various views. Tird, contextual factors such as paucity of suitable listening materials and lack of access to online resources may constrain teachers from trying out new ways of teaching listening. Many teachers, as noted by Field (2008) and Siegel (2014), continue to use traditional methods of teaching L2 listening that focus more on the product than the process of listening. One such method which is still widely used in L2 classrooms is known as the comprehension-based approach where students listen to a recording multiple times and are then required to answer a set of comprehension questions as if they were taking a listening comprehension test. Not surprisingly, L2 learners continue to fnd L2 listening to be one of the most difcult skills to learn (Vandergrift and Goh 2012). Tose at the lower end of the profciency scale fnd L2 listening particularly hard. Many have reported that they are unable to cope with the fast rate of speech, cannot recognize words they already know in print, have difculty segmenting words in connected speech and, as a result, fail to form a coherent representation of the meaning of the text (Zeng 2007). Even those at the more advanced levels sometimes fnd listening to be demanding, as is the case with college English teachers from China with whom we have been working for several years. Tese are teachers whose overall English profciency is quite advanced but whose listening skill seems to lag behind other skills such as reading, writing and speaking. In the general profciency test that we administered as part of the admission requirements to the postgraduate programme they were applying for, they tended to perform well on the reading, speaking and writing components, but scored poorly on the listening segment. In this chapter we begin by describing the kinds of problems that Chinese college English learners encounter when listening to spoken English. Tese include both lower level (e.g. speech rate, word recognition) and higher level (e.g. failure to make schema-based inferences) listening problems. Tese problems are related to the processes of listening rather than to the products, with the latter being typically focused on in comprehension-based teaching approaches. We then outline pedagogical strategies that Chinese college English teachers believe are useful to help their students overcome various
3 L2 Listening in China:An Examination of Current Practice 39 listening difficulties.In the final section,we present a set of pedagogical rec- ommendations grounded in current research for teaching listening in China and other similar L2 learning contexts,in particular in places where English is taught as a foreign language Why Is Listening Difficult? Listening is one of the first language skills that LI users acquire naturally in the early years of their lives.They develop their ability to comprehend oral language 'seemingly without effort and attention(Siegel 2014:22) This,however,is not often the case with L2 learners of English,especially those who learn English in a foreign language (EFL)context like China. These EFL learners get more exposure to written than oral language because the English language curriculum is typically heavily biased towards literacy rather than oral skills.As Stephens(2011)pointed out,These students typi cally demonsrate literaey skills that are superior to theirr skills(p.31) What kinds of difficulties do students often encounter?L2 learners have reported both lower level and higher level problems(Goh 2000).Lower leve problems are associated with inefficient processing of the language features of spoken text(e.g.sound and sound blending ord boundaries in speech and complex grammatical structures),whilst higher level problems have more to do with failure to make relevant connections within and between utterances to comprehend the intended message of the text.A consensu is lacking amongst researchers about which of these two types of problems contributes more to L2 learners'inability to comprehend spoken text,but there is growing evidence that comprehension failure is often associated with lower level processing problems (e.g.Field 2009;Goh 2000;Wang 2010; Wang and Renandya 2012). In a study of university students from China who were learning English in Singapore,Goh (2000)used Anderson's three-phase theoretical frame- work(i.e.perception,parsing and utilization)to categorize their listening problems.Her study revealed that most of the difficulties were lower level processing problems associated with the first two phases of perception and parsing.Simi arly,Zeng(2007)reported that the majority of listening prob lems (see Table 3.1)that his college EFL students in China encountered most frequently had to do with lower level processing such as rate of speech, word recognition,unfamiliar words,complex sentences and unfamiliar pronunciation (see McAuliffe and Brooks,this volume,for a listening pro- gramme designed to address these difficulties)
3 L2 Listening in China: An Examination of Current Practice 39 listening difculties. In the fnal section, we present a set of pedagogical recommendations grounded in current research for teaching listening in China and other similar L2 learning contexts, in particular in places where English is taught as a foreign language. Why Is Listening Diffcult? Listening is one of the frst language skills that L1 users acquire naturally in the early years of their lives. Tey develop their ability to comprehend oral language ‘seemingly without efort and attention’ (Siegel 2014: 22). Tis, however, is not often the case with L2 learners of English, especially those who learn English in a foreign language (EFL) context like China. Tese EFL learners get more exposure to written than oral language because the English language curriculum is typically heavily biased towards literacy rather than oral skills. As Stephens (2011) pointed out, ‘Tese students typically demonstrate literacy skills that are superior to their oral skills’ (p. 312). What kinds of difculties do students often encounter? L2 learners have reported both lower level and higher level problems (Goh 2000). Lower level problems are associated with inefcient processing of the language features of spoken text (e.g. sound and sound blending, word boundaries in speech and complex grammatical structures), whilst higher level problems have more to do with failure to make relevant connections within and between utterances to comprehend the intended message of the text. A consensus is lacking amongst researchers about which of these two types of problems contributes more to L2 learners’ inability to comprehend spoken text, but there is growing evidence that comprehension failure is often associated with lower level processing problems (e.g. Field 2009; Goh 2000; Wang 2010; Wang and Renandya 2012). In a study of university students from China who were learning English in Singapore, Goh (2000) used Anderson’s three-phase theoretical framework (i.e. perception, parsing and utilization) to categorize their listening problems. Her study revealed that most of the difculties were lower level processing problems associated with the frst two phases of perception and parsing. Similarly, Zeng (2007) reported that the majority of listening problems (see Table 3.1) that his college EFL students in China encountered most frequently had to do with lower level processing such as rate of speech, word recognition, unfamiliar words, complex sentences and unfamiliar pronunciation (see McAulife and Brooks, this volume, for a listening programme designed to address these difculties)
0 WA.Renandva and G.Hu Table 3.1 Top ten listening problems Sources of listening problems 976 1.Speaking rate 1100 2.Distraction 95 3.Unable to recognize known words 90 4.New vocabulary 85 5.Missing subsequent input 80 6.Nervousness 170 7.Sentence complexity /60 8.Background knowledge 55 9.Anxiety and frustration 95 10.Unfamiliar pronunciation 40 Source Zeng(2007:46) In a more recent study,Wang and Renandya (2012)asked 301 students and 30 teachers in China about the sources of listening difficulties using a 38-item questionnaire,which represented five groups of factors:text-related factors (e.g.speech rate,vocabulary load),processing-related factors (e.g quickly forgetting what is heard),listener-related factors (e.g.anxiety),task- related factors (e.g.types of post-listening tasks)and environmental fac tors (e.g.lack of access to listening materials).The results are summarized in Table 3.2.As can be seen,both the students and teachers indicated that text-and processing-related factors caused the most problems,a finding that confirms earlier studies conducted by Goh (2000)and Zeng (2007),whose Table 3.2 Top ten items perceived to be the most difficult by teachers and students Rank order Student perception(N=301) Teacher perception (N=30) Variable Mean Variable Mean Complex sentences 3.81 Fast speed 3.83 Phonetic variations 3.78 Complex sentences 3.57 Missing subsequent 3.69 Missing subsequent 3.53 information information Speaker accent 3.68 Long sentences 3.50 News broadcast 3.59 News broadcast 3.50 Long sentences 3.53 Speaker accent 3.47 Background noise 3.47 Background noise 3.47 Catching the details 3.42 Word recoanition 3.30 Fast speec 3.38 New words 330 10 New words 3.37 Phonetic variations 3.30 Source Wang and Renandya(2012:85)
40 W.A. Renandya and G. Hu In a more recent study, Wang and Renandya (2012) asked 301 students and 30 teachers in China about the sources of listening difculties using a 38-item questionnaire, which represented fve groups of factors: text-related factors (e.g. speech rate, vocabulary load), processing-related factors (e.g. quickly forgetting what is heard), listener-related factors (e.g. anxiety), taskrelated factors (e.g. types of post-listening tasks) and environmental factors (e.g. lack of access to listening materials). Te results are summarized in Table 3.2. As can be seen, both the students and teachers indicated that text- and processing-related factors caused the most problems, a fnding that confrms earlier studies conducted by Goh (2000) and Zeng (2007), whose Table 3.1 Top ten listening problems Source Zeng (2007: 46) Sources of listening problems % 1. Speaking rate 100 2. Distraction 95 3. Unable to recognize known words 90 4. New vocabulary 85 5. Missing subsequent input 80 6. Nervousness 70 7. Sentence complexity 60 8. Background knowledge 55 9. Anxiety and frustration 45 10. Unfamiliar pronunciation 40 Table 3.2 Top ten items perceived to be the most diffcult by teachers and students Source Wang and Renandya (2012: 85) Rank order Student perception (N = 301) Teacher perception (N = 30) Variable Mean Variable Mean 1 Complex sentences 3.81 Fast speed 3.83 2 Phonetic variations 3.78 Complex sentences 3.57 3 Missing subsequent information 3.69 Missing subsequent information 3.53 4 Speaker accent 3.68 Long sentences 3.50 5 News broadcast 3.59 News broadcast 3.50 6 Long sentences 3.53 Speaker accent 3.47 7 Background noise 3.47 Background noise 3.47 8 Catching the details 3.42 Word recognition 3.30 9 Fast speed 3.38 New words 3.30 10 New words 3.37 Phonetic variations 3.30
3 L2 Listening in China:An Examination of Current Practice 41 research participants also attributed listening difficulties mostly to language- related variables (e.g.speech rate,word recognition,new vocabulary,sen- tence complexity and phonetic variations). As the results reported above show,micro listening problems are so wide- spread that Field (2009)concludes that 'a disturbingly large number of larger-scale problems of understanding actually have their origins in small scale errors of word recognition'(p.14).Because of this,Field (2008)and others (e.g.Renandya and Farrell 2011;Wilson 2003)have called for lis- tening teachers to pay more attention to lower level,bottom-up processing problems.Field(2009)provides examples of how simple words and phrases are ofen perceived by L:may be heard as invent as prevent,the church where she was buried as the church where she was married.What is often puzzling and also frustrating to L2 learners is that they can readily recognize and decode these words in print but fail to do so when they hear them in speech. The Teaching of Listening in China As in other EFL contexts it is only fairly recently that oral skills have started the weighting of the listening section of the compulsory CET (College English Test)Band 4 was increased from 15 to 35%in 2008 (Li 2013) Consequently,listening now receives more instructional attention in college English classes. Until recently the teaching of listening has largely reflected more tradi- tional methods (see Li 2013;Wang 2010)characterized by the following features: An emphasis on the product rather than the process of listening,with the main pedagogical aim being to help students extract meaning from the text: .Use of inauthentic scripted materials devoid of features typically found in naturally occurring conversational/spoken language; Test-oriented listening practice whose main purpose is to prepare students for the CET test; Overuse of the comprehension-based approach,which puts students on the perpetual cycle of (i)listening,(ii)answering comprehension ques- tions and (iii)checking answers
3 L2 Listening in China: An Examination of Current Practice 41 research participants also attributed listening difculties mostly to languagerelated variables (e.g. speech rate, word recognition, new vocabulary, sentence complexity and phonetic variations). As the results reported above show, micro listening problems are so widespread that Field (2009) concludes that ‘a disturbingly large number of larger-scale problems of understanding actually have their origins in smallscale errors of word recognition’ (p. 14). Because of this, Field (2008) and others (e.g. Renandya and Farrell 2011; Wilson 2003) have called for listening teachers to pay more attention to lower level, bottom-up processing problems. Field (2009) provides examples of how simple words and phrases are often incorrectly perceived by L2 learners: burst may be heard as birth, invent as prevent, the church where she was buried as the church where she was married. What is often puzzling and also frustrating to L2 learners is that they can readily recognize and decode these words in print but fail to do so when they hear them in speech. The Teaching of Listening in China As in other EFL contexts it is only fairly recently that oral skills have started to gain popularity in China. In recognition of the increased importance of listening in developing college students’ oral language skills in English, the weighting of the listening section of the compulsory CET (College English Test) Band 4 was increased from 15 to 35% in 2008 (Li 2013). Consequently, listening now receives more instructional attention in college English classes. Until recently the teaching of listening has largely refected more traditional methods (see Li 2013; Wang 2010) characterized by the following features: • An emphasis on the product rather than the process of listening, with the main pedagogical aim being to help students extract meaning from the text; • Use of inauthentic scripted materials devoid of features typically found in naturally occurring conversational/spoken language; • Test-oriented listening practice whose main purpose is to prepare students for the CET test; • Overuse of the comprehension-based approach, which puts students on the perpetual cycle of (i) listening, (ii) answering comprehension questions and (iii) checking answers