EFFECTIVE WAYS OF RECEPTIVE SKILLS DEVELOPMENT THROUGH
LISTENING AND READING
Sagitdinova T.K., Plyassunova S.S.
North-Kazakhstan State University named after M. Kozybaev, Petropavlovsk sveta_plyassunova@mail.ru
Effective listening and reading are required for success in acquiring a second language. After all, reading is the base of instruction in all aspects of language learning: using textbooks for language courses, revising, writing, acquiring grammar, developing vocabulary, editing, and using computer-assisted language learning programs. Reading instruction, thus, is an significant component of every secondlanguage curriculum. In addition, according to Dr. West, reading should be given more priority in the teaching process. He emphasizes that reading indicates knowledge of a language, inreases experiences, contributes the learner’s intellectual development [1: 2].
Foreign languages have been taught officially for centuries and records of language teaching materials have been around for over 500 years. Though, teaching listening comprehension as a part of teaching a foreign or second language is a relatively recent development whose history lies mostly in the last thirty years. In the earliest of teaching methods known, is the grammar-translation method, learners concentrated eceptionally on the analysis of written texts. Listening was used exclusively to accompany these texts and to provide models for oral reading. It was not until the late 1800s that listening was used in language instruction as a means of developing oral communication [2: 139]. Good listening skills are significant to healthy relationships. Whether you are strengtheing a relationship, offering support in a facing a crisis, or resolving a conflict, good listening skills can be a lifeline to peace.
And what does the word “skill” mean itself? A skill is the learned capacity to carry out pre-determined results often with the minimum outlay of time, energy, or both. In other words the abilities that a person possesses [3]. There is also another definition of this word, given by Macmillan Dictionary. It is the ability to do something well, usually as a result of experience and training a particular ability that involves experience and special training .
Language instruction includes four important skills. These skills are Speaking, Listening, Writing and Reading. The main reason for isolating these skills and considering them apart is to highlight their significance and to make an impression upon the teachers to place emphasis on their teaching and deal with them in a balanced way. Some language skills are neglected during the classroom practice and therefore they are given inadequate and insufficient exposure. Research shows that listening and speaking are nearly neglected. These skills are substantially considered as passive skills.
Language skills are divided into receptive and productive ones. The receptive skills are listening and reading while the productive ones include speaking and writing. Skills that we observe in this article refer to receptive.
Receptive skills are the ways in which people retrieve meaning from the discourse they see or hear. There are generalities about this kind of processing which apply to both listening and reading. But there are also significant differences between reading and listening processes too, and in the ways we can teach these skills in the class.
When we read a newspaper or a story, listen to the news, or take part in conversation we use our previous knowledge as we approach the process of comprehension, and we deploy a range of receptive skills; which ones we use will be determined by our reading or listening purpose [4: 165].
What a reader will bring to understand a piece of discourse is much more than just knowing the language. In order to make sense of any text we need to have ‘preexistent knowledge of the world’. Such knowledge is often referred to as schema (plural schemata). Each of us carries in our heads mental representations of typical situations that we come across. When we are stimulated by particular words, discourse patterns, or contexts, such schematic knowledge is activated and we are able to recognise what we see or hear because it fits into patterns that we already know. As Chris Tribble points out, we recognise a letter of rejection or a letter offering a job within the first couple of lines [5: 35].
When we see a written text our schematic knowledge may first tell us what kind of text genre we are dealing with. So, if we identify an extract as coming from a novel we will have expectations about the kind of text we are going to read. These will be different from the expectations caused if we recognise an extract of text as coming from an instruction manual. Knowing what kind of a text we are dealing with allows us to predict the form it may take at the text; paragraph, and sentence level. Key words and phrases alarm us to the topic of a text, and this again allows us, as we read, to predict what is coming next. In conversation knowledge of typical interactions helps participants to communicate effectively. As the conversation goes on, the speakers and listeners draw upon various schemata – including topic, genre, discourse patterning, and the use of specific language features – to help them make sense of what they are hearing. As with readers, such schemata cause expectations which allow listeners to predict what will happen in the conversation. Such predictions give the interaction a far greater chance of success than if the participants did not have such pre-existing knowledge to draw upon.
Shared schemata make spoken and written communication effective. Without the right kind of pre-existing knowledge, comprehension becomes much more difficult. And that is the problem for some foreign language learners who, because they have a different shared knowledge of cultural reference and discourse patterning in their own language and culture from that in the English diversity they are dealing with, have to work doubly hard to understand what they see or hear [6: 3].
Reading and listening are skills that will empower everyone who learns it. They will be able to profit from the store of knowledge in printed materials and, eventually, to promote to that knowledge. Good teaching enables students to learn to read and read to learn (to learn to listen and listen to learn). The role of the teacher in the teaching process should be of a companion rather than the boss. Teaching can be made interesting and innovative if the efforts are put in to make learning an enjoyable experience. Successful teaching is where effective learning takes place with the use of appropriate knowledge, the right emotion and exact application of scientific devices. With consistent progress in technology and science and other areas of study, it is the teacher’s duty to apply the best methods and use the best devices to provide rapid growth in the teaching process. Teachers must be competent of the progress that students are making and control instruction to the changing abilities of students. Both classroom practices and research support the use of a balanced approach in instruction [7: 56-57]. Reading depends on effective word recognition and correct comprehension, instruction should develop reading skills and strategies, as well as build on learners’ knowledge through the use of authentic texts. Similarly, the most effective way of dealing with the problem of cultural meaning in texts is to encourage students to read and to listen by themselves, choosing topics related primarily to their own interests so that they bring motivation and experience to reading/listening. As their understanding of other cultures and of unfamiliar views increases through reading and listening, they will bring to their reading/listening activities a gradually increasing capacity to understand the full meaning of texts [8: 200].
When reading/listening comprehension breaks down, different students need to find ways to restore their understanding. This is where the importance of knowing how to teach reading/listening strategies come in, so as to contribute the reading/listening process and give students a clear sense of what they are reading/listening. Students can become easily frustrated when they do not understand what they are reading/listening and as a result, they become demotivated. A teacher needs to work out and teach different strategies in order to help students close the gaps in their understanding. The main challenge for the teacher is to know exactly which strategy is useful and most beneficial to teach, since each student needs different strategies.
References:
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http://nsambatcoumar. files. wordpress.com/2010/10/teaching-reading-in-english. pdf
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Richmond Publishing, 1998. – 162 p.
3. Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skill, 17.03.2014.
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5. Tribble Chris, Word for Word. – UK, 1989. – 83 p.
6. Dr. Fadwa, D. Al-Jawi, Teaching the Receptive Skills, Saudi Arabia – 2010, – 29 p.
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