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Date Posted: 13:58:39 09/28/04 Tue
Author: Deborah's Composition Revised
Subject: Re: Task 2
In reply to: Deborah Ávila 's message, "Re: Task 2" on 15:15:12 09/20/04 Mon

The importance of Listening



Usually, when students go to a foreign language course, they are more interested in learning speaking. Because of it, they may think that listening is less important. But listening is a vital mental capacity – one of the principal means by which we understand and take part in the world -although it is less directly observed and less noticeable in both its development and its use. However, it can not be considered less important. A successful practice of this ability, particularly for foreign speakers, depends on several features such as: intonation, stress, kind of language, accents, organization of speech, vocabulary, redundancy, sounds and familiarity to the topic. In this essay the following topics will be discussed: intonation and stress, familiarity to the topic and organization of speech.
The English system of stress, intonation and rhythm can interfere with the foreign learner’s proper understanding of spoken English. The purpose of stress is to highlight words which carry the main information the speaker wishes to convey and changing the stress can alter the meaning of an expression even where the words remain the same. The analysis of intonation is complex; however it is rather important for understanding the right meaning of an expression.
The topic about familiarity can be divided in two subjects: intuition and prediction. Intuition suggests that it is easier to listen to a passage on a familiar topic than on an unfamiliar one. If the listener can make a guess to what sort of information is coming next, it is much more probably that he will understand it well. On the other hand, prediction can be difficult for a foreign language learner for some reasons, as intonation and stress, collocations, clichés and proverbs commonly used.
Finally, as speaking is a creative process, speakers are almost always in the position of formulating what they are going to say, adding thoughts of their own. Unfortunately, non-native listeners may have problems because the discourse is frequently not well organized. They can decide to change what is going to be said, in order to listener’s reaction, and this process causes speakers to hesitate, to go back to the beginning of an idea and start again, to repeat and to contradict themselves.
In conclusion, although listening is a difficult subject for foreign students, it is an essential skill for successful communication and it is possible for everyone to achieve a satisfying level of communication competence. Listeners need to pay attention to some features of listening, as the ones noted above.


Deborah Elisa Alves de Ávila

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