«scientific progress» Scientific Journal issn: 2181-1601 ///// \\\\\ Volume: 1, issue: 6

ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

It is through listening that students learn pronunciation, rhythm, intonation, pitch and stress of the language. However, since students mostly do not have the opportunity to interact with native speakers, a combination of extensive and intensive listening procedures would help.
Extensive listening occurs when a teacher encourages students to choose for themselves what they listen to and to do so for pleasure and general language improvement⁴. This type of listening is usually done outside the classroom, and listening materials are chosen by the student himself. Therefore, such listening is considered to be highly motivating. Though, to make this practice even more effective, having tapes sorted out by level, topic and genre and making them available for students is advised.
As regards intensive listening, it is a series of short listening exercises aimed at practicing a certain language aspect such as reviewing vocabulary, learning functional language like accepting or declining invitations, giving suggestions, advice, etc. Intensive listening can be conducted in two ways: through taped material or live listening. So, in the former practice the recording is played once or several times by the teacher while students are offered a practice exercise to work out. As is suggested by Jeremy Harmer, though, such practice is not always positive:

Advantages of using taped material	Disadvantages of using taped material
Ss listen to different accents	If the room is rather big, not all students can clearly hear the recording
They offer extensive diversity of situations	Speed of the listening may be hard to catch up for some students
Such materials are widely available	This is not natural process in terms of real-life communication
Most coursebooks offer such exercises	Students do not interact

When it comes to live listening, it can be accomplished in several ways:

1. 
   Teacher reading a piece of written material aloud. It can be an engaging extract from a book, magazine or any other source, either a dialogue with elements of a play. Advantage: Students can interrupt, ask for clarification, customize the speed of speech.
   
2. 
   Teacher telling a story. Advantage: Interaction can be maintained by asking students to predict the coming text.
   
3. 
   Students interviewing the teacher or a guest invited. Advantage: students are motivated to listen as they expect to hear the answer to the questions, they themselves came up with.
   
4. 
   Teacher organizing conversations. Advantage: Students not only listen but watch live interaction.
   

Hearing certain sounds, a listener processes them as a stream of noise on a number of levels, which taken together make up the concept of comprehension⁵. These stages include differentiating sounds, understanding the meaning of individual words, phrases or the syntax of sentences, perceiving the listener’s intonation.
According to Field⁶, while processing a foreign language the listener accomplishes the following:

• 
  Recognizes separate words in a continuous flow of sounds. This process is difficult for English language learners as in this language, especially British dialect, the end sound of the previous word runs into the first sound of the next. For example, “Would you like to drink? /wədjʊlaɪk tdrɪŋk/”.
  
• 
  Understands shortened forms such as “I’d like to../ I’d have done/ She’s gone..”
  
• 
  Perceives the meaning of words.
  
• 
  Understands syntax, that is sentences, clauses and etc.
  
• 
  Understands word stress, sentence stress, rhythm.
  

• 
  Differentiates patterns and purpose of varying intonation. For example, falling intonation means the end of a statement, while rising tone means the sentence is not finished and the speaker is supposed to continue. Furthermore, notes of approval, disapproval, hesitation and others affect the meaning of the utterance.
  

Apart from the sounds, grammar and intonation, a listener also processes the overall meaning of a piece of listening. What is special about this process is that, as is stated by Richards, memory works with propositions, not with sentences⁷ ,which means after listening to a piece of information, the listener is unlikely to remember grammar or vocabulary, but can recall most of the meaning. Furthermore, the way a massage is conveyed has a large influence on how well it is understood. For example, the use of discourse markers such as “next, for example, now, turning to…”, repetition of certain words are some of the means that improve listening comprehension.
Turning to the next point, what should not be overlooked is a context of listening. For example, a sentence like “I saw you there” may indicate disappointment, anger, mockery or affirmation, which is not clear without a context. A context, in its turn, can be “pragmatic”( adj. dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations⁸), that is include location(street, home, school),the number of speakers, their roles and relationships⁹. These cues help listeners imagine the scene of listening, predict its content and think of key words, if the listening is being done for testing purposes.
Finally, the knowledge and experience that a listener has influence listening comprehension greatly. To illustrate, if a student receiving a course in linguistics is put a lecture on microbiology, he is highly likely to demonstrate a lower level of comprehension. This happens because such student cannot imagine most of the processes, reactions and items described as he has not seen or heard them before. What is more, when members of one culture listen to the speech of a foreigner, they do not usually reach full comprehension, though the language can be quite easy.
Now, turning to the role of a teacher in this process, it should be noted that as the aim of practicing listening in the classroom is to prepare students for successful real-life communication, there are a number of factors that either add up to or deter effective listening. Since it is the teacher who organizes, presents and controls classroom listening, it is reasonable to examine their roles first. The primary ones are the following:

1. 
   Organizing the whole process: choosing appropriate materials and tasks to match student level(too easy materials get students bored, while excessively complicated ones
   

discourage them from listening and create a feeling of disappointment which may last further through the whole course) the instructor introduces students to the listening (by asking general questions or conducting war-up activities), clearly defines the purpose of listening (ex. Are they listening to note down specific details such as dates, names, locations, time… etc? Are they listening for general information?), provides easy-to- understand instructions. Most importantly, teachers motivate and provide an incentive to listen, since most learners anticipate difficult content, confusing vocabulary and syntax.

2. 
   Managing the recording: in the 21^st century, there are abundant means to play a track in the classroom. To illustrate, a computer connected to loudspeakers, multifunction loudspeakers with USB or CD/DVD support, equipped language laboratory or tape recorders can be used. Irrespective of the choice, what is important is to prepare beforehand. This means a teacher should play the recording before the lesson to check if the right recording is prepared, if quality is good and the machine is working properly.
   
3. 
   Providing feedback after the activity: when the listening is over it is not just enough to provide keys and mark students. It is more productive to organize a feedback session to check how successful students are, what was especially complicated, how motivated or unmotivated they fell by the end of listening. One way to do this is by asking students to compare and discuss their answers with groupmates. This information can then be used by the teacher to organize further classes, and for students this is a good chance to relive tension and avoid disappointment.
   
4. 
   Promoting skills reinforcement: usually the material a teacher chooses for listening is rich in topic specific vocabulary, idiomatic expressions and thought-provoking ideas, which, if students work thoroughly, enhance their language skills. However, students usually skip this stage and consider listening exercise to be over once the task is accomplished. Thereby teacher’s further guidance is necessary for learners to work with the material to the fullest.