A List of Articles/Books about Listening

Over the years a lot of work has been done in the field of listening and what follows is by no means a complete list. Furthermore their inclusion here in no way indicates an endorsement of any products or ideas on this site. Rather they are listed here as a reference for interested teachers:

Teaching Listening

Anderson, Anne & Tony Lynch, (1988) Listening, Oxford: Oxford University Press
A classic in Oxford's "Scheme for Teacher Education" series.

Brown, H.D. (2001), Teaching by Principles, An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy, New York: Addison Wesley Longman
An excellent overview of current issues and practices in the field of English Language teaching. Although aimed at beginning teachers or student-teachers, the book is nonetheless a useful reference to dip into from time to time. The teaching of listening is looked at in fairly good detail.

Buck, Gary, (2001), Assessing Listening, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Primarily concerned with testing, the introduction provides an excellent overview of listening processes and what we as teachers should be teaching our students.

Celce-Murcia, Marianne, (1996), Teaching Pronunciation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
As the name suggests, this is primarily concerned with pronunciation, however the elements of connected speech and dynamic English are well covered and very applicable to listening.

Cervantes, R.,� & G. Gainer, (1992), "The effects of syntactic simplification and repetition on listening comprehension", TESOL Quarterly, 26: 767-70
This study compared the affects of syntactic simplification with syntactic simplification and repetition finding positive effects for both. However there was little significant difference between the two groups suggesting that syntactic modification might not always be necessary if other forms of modification are used.

Chaudron, C., (1983), "Simplification of input: Topic reinstatements and their effects on L2 learners recognition and recall", TESOL Quarterly, 17(3), 437-458
This study looks at simplification, which can involve "reduction or regularization of surface forms or alternatively, an increase in surface forms for the sake of elaboration or clarification". (439). This study investigated how topic reinstatement affected recall, finding that redundant words were recalled more effectively than other words and that sytactically more complex structures were more difficult for low level learners. This leads to a conclusion that "no single form of simplification would be an appropriate method of presentation for a group of learners representing a range of proficiency levels" (451)

Chaurdron, C. & J. Richards, (1986), "The effect of discourse markers on the comprehension of lectures", Applied Linguistics, 7(2), 113-127
In a study of listening comprehension during "reading style" lectures this study found that discourse markers better aided comprehension than "micro-markers", discourse markers that give learners more time to bottom-up process.

Chiang, C.S., Dunkel, P., (1992), "The effect of speech modifcation, prior knowledge, and listening proficiency on EFL lecture learning",TESOL Quarterly, 26, 345 - 374.
This research paper looked at the effects of speech modification through redundancy and elaboration and found that listening comprehension was enhanced amongst higher level students when listening to texts with added redundancy and elaboration

Conrad, Linda, (1989), "The Effects of Time Compressed Speech on Listening Comprehension", Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 11, 1-16, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
An experiment using time-compressed speech to handicap listening comprehension in order to observe aural processing strategy differences. The results illuminate the importance of native listener's syntactic predictions in comprehension.

Derwing, Tracey, (1989), "Information Type and Its Relation to Nonnative Speaker Comprehension", Language Learning, Vol. 39, No. 2, 157-172
This paper found that an increase in background detail, (as opposed to crucial information essential to comprehension), correlated with comprehension problems for second language learners; too much inconsequential detail can over-burden low-proficiency learners. The implication for language teachers is to select materials for presentation, or as tasks, which rely on limited amounts of inconsequential detail.

Dunkel, Patricia, (1986), Developing Listening Fluency in L2: Theoretical Principles and Pedagogical Considerations, The Modern Language Journal, 70, ii: 99-106
This paper highlights the important role that listening plays on first languge acquisition and suggests a similar role for second language acquisition, especially at lower levels; she also outlines the importance of providing a wide range of listenings, with classroom activities that match the cognitive processes associated with second language listening.

Dunkel, Patricia, (1991), "Listening in the Native and Second/Foreign Language: Toward and Integration of Research and Practice, TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 25, No.3: 431-457
Looks at the critical importance of listening in any second language teaching program and calls for greater collaboration between teachers and educational researchers. With greater integration more can be understood about how to teach in today's post-literate society.

Field, J., (1998), "Skills and strategies: towards a new methodology for listening", ELT Journal, 52, 110 - 118.
This paper proposes an approach based on micro-listening exercises which practice the individual subskills of listening.

Field, J. , (2004), "An insight into listeners' problems: too much bottom-up or too much top-down?", System, 32, 363-377
This research papers suggests that even lower level learners use top-down compensatory strategies and that listening in a foreign language may be assisted by an interactive-compensatory mechanism already available in L1.

Feyton, Carine, (1991), "The Power of Listening Ability: An Overlooked Dimension in Language Acquisition", The Modern Language Journal, University of Wisconsin Press
This study suggests a positive relationship between listening ability and foreign language acquisition and asks "whether more attention needs to be paid to listening as a necessary skill in the diagnosing and preparation of foreign language students".

Flowerdew, J., & Tauroza, S., (1995), "The effects of discourse markers on second language lecture comprehension", Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 17, 435-458
This study found that the inclusion of discourse markers in lectures enhanced listening comprehension.

Goh, C., (1997), "Metacognitive awareness and second language listeners", ELT Journal, 51, 361-369.
In a study of listening diaries, Goh suggests that an increased learner metacognitive awareness in listening is positively correlated with better listening skills and argues for listening diaries as a tool for this purpose.

Goh, C., (2002), "Exploring listening comprehension tactics and their interaction patterns", System, 30, 185-206
This research paper found that higher level listeners demonstrated more effective use of both cognitive and metacognitive tactics. It also recommends that teachers try to raise awareness about strategy use in their classrooms by having students reflect on their language training.

Graham-Marr, A. (1997), "Teaching the weak from for receptive competence and pragmatic understanding", The Academic Reports, Faculty of Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Polytechnics, Vol. 20, No. 2
This simple review paper suggests that a greater focus is needed on weak form pronuncation in Japanese EFL classes. You can download this here.

Graham-Marr, A. (2004), "Teaching Speaking and Listening", Handout in Spring 2004 ETJ Certificate Course
A simple and quick overview of some of the issues facing teachers of speaking and listening. You can download this here.

Long, D, (1990), "What you don't know can't help you", Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 12, 65-80.
This research paper looked at the importance of schemata in the comprehension of L2 listening passages.

Lund, Randall, (1990), A Taxonomy for Teaching Second Language Listening, Foreign Language Annals, 23, No.2: 105-115
A useful list of the sub-skills associated with listening and the teaching of listening. He describes a taxonomy or real world listening taks as a conceptual framework for teaching listening based on a matrix of listener function and listener response.

Mendelsohn, David J. (1998), "Teaching Listening", Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 18, 81-101
An article that gives an overview of the "state-of-the-art" of listening methodology up to 1998; the article advocates a strategy based approach, where "strategy instruction becomes the design around which the listening course is based."

Morley, Joan, (2001), "Aural comprehension instruction: principles and practices", in Marianne Celce-Murcia (ed.), Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language, 3rd Edition, Boston: Heinle & Heinle
This article is an updated version of her 1991 paper, in the same collection. She outlines four instructional models. She makes the case for listening instruction to include both two-way interactive listening activities and one-way reactive, Listen and Do activities and tasks.

O'Malley, J.M., Chamot, A.U. & Kupper, L, (1989), "Listening comprehension strategies in second language acquisition", Applied Linguistics, 10(4), 418-437
This paper looked at the mental processes that second language learners use in listening comprehension and found that strategies were useful tools for language learners and that less effective students can learn to use learning strategies and apply them.

Peterson, P., (1991) "A Synthesis of methods for interactive listening", in M. Celce-Murcia, (ed), Teaching English as a Second or Foriegn Language, 2nd edition (ppp.106-122), New York: Newbury House
This is now out in a third edition and offers a good breakdown of listening into its sub-skill components.

Richards, Jack, (1983), "Listening Comprehension: Approach, Design, Procedure", TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 17, No.2: 219-240
THE classic paper on Listening. You'll find this article in the bibliography of nearly every major article or book on listening. Richards breaks down listening into its micro-skill components, suggesting that the aim of teaching listening comphrension is "to provide opportunities for the learners to acquire particular micro-skills" Some examples of these micro-skills are: recognizing stress patterns of words, recognizing reduced forms of words, distinguishing word boundaries and so on.

Richards, Jack, (1990), The Language Teaching Matrix, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
With respect to Listening Richards makes the point that "An understanding of the role of bottom-up and top-down processes in listening is central to any theory of listening comprehension, as well as recognition of the differences between the interactional and transaction dimensions of language use and how these affect listening".

Rubin, Joan, (1990), "Improving foreign language listening comprehension", Georgetown University Roundtable, (Ed. J.E.Alatis), Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press
A research report on the positive effects of video on listening comprehension. Visual cues activate world knowledge which can be strategically applied to listening comprehension.

Rubin, Joan, (1994), "A Review of Second Language Listening Comprehension Research", The Modern Language Journal, 78:199-221
Much as the article title suggests.

Tsui, A., & J. Fullilove, (1998), "Bottom-up or top-down processing as a discriminator of L2 listening performance", Applied Linguistics, 19(4), 432-451
This 7 year study of L2 learners test performance in Hong Kong found that bottom-up processing was more important than top-down processing in discriminating the listening performance on selected test items.

Ur, Penny, (1984), Teaching Listening Comprehension, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
A classic from the 1980's. Perhaps slightly dated, it nonetheless is a good overview of some of the bread and butter issues surrounding listening.

Underhill, Adrian, (1984), Sound Foundations, Oxford: Macmillan Heinemann
Again largely concerned with production, the book covers many issues associated with listening. The book makes a strong case for using IPA in language classes and is a good resource for all those teachers who do use IPA in their classes.

Vandergrift, L, (1999), "Facilitating second language listening comprehension: acquiring successful strategies", ELT Journal, 53(3), 168-176
This paper argues for a greater emphasis on listening comprehension in language teaching and suggests that learning strategies and metacognitive awareness are useful tools for students because they open up more reliable and less frustrating routes to language learning success.

Vandergrift, L., (2003), "Orchestrating Strategy Use: Toward a model of the skilled second language listener", Language Learning, 53:3, 463-496
This research study examines the relationship between proficiency and learning strategies employed, finding significant differences between more skilled and less skilled learners, suggesting that an "astute use of metacognitive strategies appears to enhance success". (488)

Vanderplank, Robert, (1993), "'Pacing' and 'spacing' as predictors of difficulty in speaking and understanding English", ELT Journal, Vol. 47/2, 117-125, Oxford: Oxford University Press
This article looks at levels of listening difficulty, and suggests that "rates of 'pacing' and 'spacing' may offer a means of grading passages of spoken English more accurately than words or syllables per minute.

Zhao, Y., (1997) "The effects of listeners' control of speech rate on second language comprehension", Applied Linguistics, 18, 49 - 68
This study, in contrast to a few others, found that improved listening comprehension was achieved by slowing down the speech rate.

Explicit Language Teaching

Lightbrown Patsy & Spada, (1999), How Languages are Learned, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Schmidt, Richard, (1995), "Consciousness and foreign language learning: a tutorial on the role of attention and awareness in learning" in Richard Schmidt, (ed.) Attention and Awareness in Foreign Language Learning, (Technical Report #9) Honolulu: University of Hawaii Second Language Teaching and Curriculum Center.

Strategies

Oxford, Rebecca, (1990), Language Learning Strategies, Boston: Heinle & Heinle

Communicative Competence

Canale, Michael & Swain Merril, (1980) "Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing", Applied Linguistics, Vol. 1, No. 1, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Canale, Michael, (1983), "From communicative competence to communicative language pedagogy", in J.C. Richards and R.W. Schmidt (eds.) Language and Communication, London: Longman