Going like six or seven years backwards I remember having a student in my class who was kind of obssessed with listening activities. There were times when she would ask me : "why don't we have listening activities on daily basis ?" which came to me as a surprise because all other mates in her class didn't hesitate to show signs of dissatisfaction everytime I bring the tape recorder to the classroom. She was the only one with that unique zeal for listening tasks.
I came to know later from her that she failed her TOEFL test many times because of the listening section and ever since she was trying to improve that skill by exposing her ears to anything that sounds English, which I advised her to quit doing and to focus on native speaker instead if she were to do better in future listening tests.
Honestly, I didn't have much to help her with apart from a couple of pieces of advice because deep inside me I still believed she needed much time to manage to redress her ears to grasp a full native speaker's talk. I only wish I knew what I know today, then I would have recommended a list of website which help students get ready for computer based tests, for example:
- http://www.learn4good.com/
- http://toefl.jumbotests.com/
- http://www.examenglish.com/TOEFL/index.php
I really believe that the way modern technology has become available and inexpensive will inevitably contribute to fixing the problem of listening especially for students who plan for higher studies abroad. One last thing to mention is that listening is believed to be among the hardest skills to develop because it demands longer period of times and regular exposure to native speakers.
In addition to this, there are language features that are known to native speakers instinctively like stress, tone, vibration, intonation, pitch patterns, accent and prosodic features and which affect the production and perception of much of the spoken discourse and help uderstand even even the mute or neutralized parts of it. As Maria Busa put it in her article :
" Individuals who start acquiring a language after early childhood rarely develop native-like speech patterns even after considerable exposure to a second language. In fact, in many cases second-language learners speak with a foreign accent"
Unfortunately non-native speakers aren't naturally endowed with the gift to distinguish these features instinctively as they are listening. That needs a pretty long way to go and a really intensive practice.
I came to know later from her that she failed her TOEFL test many times because of the listening section and ever since she was trying to improve that skill by exposing her ears to anything that sounds English, which I advised her to quit doing and to focus on native speaker instead if she were to do better in future listening tests.
Honestly, I didn't have much to help her with apart from a couple of pieces of advice because deep inside me I still believed she needed much time to manage to redress her ears to grasp a full native speaker's talk. I only wish I knew what I know today, then I would have recommended a list of website which help students get ready for computer based tests, for example:
- http://www.learn4good.com/
- http://toefl.jumbotests.com/
- http://www.examenglish.com/TOEFL/index.php
I really believe that the way modern technology has become available and inexpensive will inevitably contribute to fixing the problem of listening especially for students who plan for higher studies abroad. One last thing to mention is that listening is believed to be among the hardest skills to develop because it demands longer period of times and regular exposure to native speakers.
In addition to this, there are language features that are known to native speakers instinctively like stress, tone, vibration, intonation, pitch patterns, accent and prosodic features and which affect the production and perception of much of the spoken discourse and help uderstand even even the mute or neutralized parts of it. As Maria Busa put it in her article :
" Individuals who start acquiring a language after early childhood rarely develop native-like speech patterns even after considerable exposure to a second language. In fact, in many cases second-language learners speak with a foreign accent"
Unfortunately non-native speakers aren't naturally endowed with the gift to distinguish these features instinctively as they are listening. That needs a pretty long way to go and a really intensive practice.
No comments:
Post a Comment