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39FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE SUCCESSFULL LISTENING
Ruziyeva N.Z.
Ruziyeva Nafisa Zarifovna - Teacher of the English Language,
ENGLISH LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT, BUKHARA ENGINEERING-TECHNOLOGICAL INSTITUTE, BUKHARA, REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN
Abstract: the article is devoted to the study of listening comprehension of the second language (in this article the L2 is English). We have analyzed all the factors which can influence the successful listening. Personal factors, vocabulary factor, discourse factors are the main factors which can affect the successful listening.
Keywords: macro and a micro level of listening, personal factor, Pragmatic knowledge, discourse knowledge.
Teachers often wonder why learners achieve different levels of success in L2 learning. Given two learners who have gone through the same classroom learning experiences with the same teacher and the same curriculum, why does one learner become more successful than the other? This article will analyze the factors that can influence the quality of that processing and lead to different results for different learners. Knowledge of these factors and how they hinder or facilitate successful comprehension is important for informed teaching of L2 listening. Many factors are assumed to influence L2 listening, but there is still very little research to provide empirical evidence for a causal relationship.
The person factors are important to listening success on both a macro and a micro level. On a micro level, these factors affect the quality and quantity of processing resources available for and allocated to the task, such as working memory capacity. Person factors are both cognitive and affective. Cognitive factors include linguistic knowledge (vocabulary and syntactic knowledge), discourse knowledge, pragmatic knowledge, metacognitive knowledge, prior knowledge, first language listening ability, sound discrimination ability, and working memory capacity. Affective factors include factors such as anxiety, motivation, and self-efficacy. Listening context factors include informal real-life listening outside the classroom (listening to television or radio), formal real-life listening in the classroom such as lectures, formal classroom listening practice, interactive listening, and listening assessment. Each of these contexts places different cognitive and affective demands on the listener.
When L2 learners are asked what they consider to be the most important element for L2 listening success, they almost unanimously identify vocabulary knowledge as key. Anecdotally, language learners most often respond with comments such as "learn more words." Very few studies, however, have attempted to verify this claim empirically. The first attempts to do so were studies that examined the potential difference in comprehension processes for listening and reading. In a significantly larger study, we have analyzed third year students who learn English Language to examine the degree to which vocabulary knowledge and syntactic knowledge contribute to listening and reading comprehension. We found that vocabulary knowledge emerged as a significant predictor for reading and listening, explaining about 25 percent of L2 reading ability and 14 percent of L2 listening ability. Based on our research, we concluded that (1) comprehension processes in listening and reading may share similar characteristics; (2) L2 vocabulary knowledge appears to be less important in the comprehension process underlying L2 listening compared to reading; and (3) it is important to identify the factors that can explain the remaining variance in L2 listening.
Discourse knowledge, sometimes called script knowledge (Dunkel, 1986), refers to awareness of the type of information found in listening texts, how that information might be organized, and how listeners can use the information to facilitate
comprehension. Discourse knowledge has mostly been researched in the context of academic listening, where discourse signaling cues such as previews ("First, let's look at"), summarizers ("To sum up so far"), emphasis markers ("and, to repeat, this is why preparation is so important"), and logical connectives ("first," "second," etc.) play an important role in facilitating lecture comprehension.
Research on the role of discourse knowledge in successful L2 listening has been limited up to now to academic listening where discourse signaling cues can help call learner attention to the organization of information and the important information to note.
Pragmatic knowledge involves the application of information regarding a speaker's intention that goes beyond the literal meaning of an utterance (Rose & Kasper, 2001). Listeners generally apply pragmatic knowledge to determine a speaker's intention by elaborating on what they heard, using linguistic, cultural, and contextual information. Most research on the use of pragmatic knowledge has been conducted with reference to the production of speech acts; research on the application of pragmatic knowledge to L2 listening comprehension remains limited.
Our discussion of the affective factors demonstrates the important role played by these factors in listener engagement with a speaker or the listening/learning environment. It is important to emphasize, once again, the interrelatedness of the three stages: the person and context factors will influence the quality of the processing and strategies a listener may deploy, which will affect the quality and nature of the outcome.
References
1. Dunkel P. 1986. Developing listening fluency in L2: Theoretical principles and pedagogical considerations. The Modern Language Journal. 70. 99-106.
2. Graham S. 2003. Learner strategies and advanced level listening comprehension. Language Learning Journal, 28, 64-69.
