A Study of Listening Comprehension of English Radio News

The Characteristics of Radio News

In literature works, the writer usually tries to impress readers with detailed
descriptions, which increase interests of readers, yet at the same time require them to
digest articles with more energy and time. If literature works are read in the radio, it is
impossible for listeners to comprehend the text and grab the meaning in a short time.
However, in the radio reporting, the difficulty will be greatly reduced if some
approaches are tapped. To reach this aim, we look at some lexical features used in the
radio news.

Borrowing persons and places to indicate specific institutions

The audience of broadcasts is great in number and varies dramatically from

education to occupation; therefore, scriptwriters are required to make the best use of
easy-to-understand and vivid words in order to have news comprehended wholly. One
of the most effective ways is to borrow places and persons to replace the country and
institutions concerned. Here let us look at an example.

US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick says Washington is moving

aggressively to reduce global trade barriers by seeking bilateral trade agreements and
by pushing for progress in the global negotiations launched in Doha in 2001. [1]
Washington refers to the U.S. Government, while Doha refers to the WTO conference
held in Qatar in 2001.

Sometimes buildings are ushered in to replace concrete things. For example,

the Pentagon refers to American Ministry of National Defense, while the Buckingham
Palace refers to the British royal family, the White House representing the US
president or American government. Addresses are occasionally used. Downing Street
No. 10 indicates the British government or the Prime Minister, °Madison Avenue
American ads industry or business, °Hollywood American filmmaking.

Selecting simple and easy-to-understand words

Compared with the language in the newspaper, wording in broadcasts is simpler and
tends to be more oral to ensure that the audience is able to comprehend every word
and sentence from the very beginning. Therefore, great efforts are made to single out
plain and short expressions, for instance, the words with frequent appearances and
fewer syllables rather than those recondite abstract ones. The following comparison
can give a clear understanding of different wording in two media.

Both the British and French governments had registered initial objections to
German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Gensher’s plan to provide alternative scientific
work for thousands of skilled people left unemployed and unpaid by the collapse of the
Soviet military-industrial complex, which was first floated two weeks ago, but have
withdrawn them as the idea has evolved The New York, Feb.18, 1992.

Britain and France have now agreed to German foreign minister Gensher’s plan
to give a wide choice of scientific work to thousands of skilled but jobless people left
over but the falling down of the Soviet Union. Gensher’s plan got support two weeks
ago except that Britain and France expressed their disagreement.

The VOA, Feb.17, 1992

It is easy to tell that the broadcast scripts turn to more comprehensible and earthly
words than the newspaper. Similar midget words are scattered in the broadcasts:

agreeb accord aid assist

aim purpose arms arsenal

ban prohibit blast explosion

clash controversy crash collision

cut reduce drive campaign

due schedule mark celebrate

pullout withdrawal rallymass assembly

talk negotiation or conference tie relation

 top surpass or exceed

Employing accurate verbs

When listening to broadcasts, we can often detect that the phrase Mr. So-and-
so Says is frequently heard, because reporters have the need to retell or quote what
the figure interviewed has said in a covert or frank way. In fact, however, the mood
and tone of the interviewee concerned changes greatly based on different occasions
and atmosphere. So the word say’ seems impotent to reveal the real feelings of the
speaker. In such cases, reporters are likely to spare no efforts to opt for synonyms so
that the weakness can be made up, and then the article can sound more appealing.
Here we view four examples.

EU Employment and Social Affair commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou warned

that when fundamental human rights and traditions collide, traditions must change.
South Korean President Roh MooHyun vowed this week to take a hard line on labor
unrest and his tough talk appeared to bear fruit. United States has promised inancial
assistance to boost Kenya’s economic recovery and security programs. Mr. Greenspan
acknowledged that there is a threat of a general decline in the price level known as
deflation. 1 it is easily seen that these underlined words have more vivid implication
than

the only word °say.

More examples can be given below:

admit affirm

allege assert claim challenge

conclude confess

contradict declare

deny disclose

elaborate emphasize

imply maintain
object pledge

reiterate remark

refute retort

reveal stress

urge suggest

Making use of fuzzy terms

In English such words as tall, beautiful, now and recently, are generally considered
fuzzy terms, because they are hard to be determined as definite. We run frequent
encounter with this kind of words and expressions. Making good use of these terms in
reporting can bring positive effects as follows:

First, it increases the credibility of the reporting. In the need of broadcasting some
facts without beginning and end time, journalists sometimes have to resort to fuzzy
words to convey the piece of news item. In doing so, it not only makes the reports
more credible but also demonstrates the down-to-earth spirit of news workers. For
example, Pakistan carried out a series of missile tests earlier this month. (The VOA,
Oct.29, 2003). Members of the ousted Taleban and their allies are blamed for guerrilla
attacks on American and Afghan forces that have killed dozens of people in recent
weeks. (The VOA, Oct.20, 2003).

Second, it conforms to the hearing habit of audience. In many cases, only when
reports are mixed with some necessary fuzzy terms can they accord with the aural
habits of listeners. Broadcasting theory has proved that the audience shows interest in
the information which meets some kind of need. In general, listeners tune in to the
news just for the main idea of events happening home and abroad. Provided that he
has no particular interest in the news item, on the condition that the news items has
no direct effect on his living, he will not request for detailed reporting. A piece of news
item stuffed with details seems rather precise at first glance. In effect, it is rather
lengthy. This kind of news has no appealing. Consequently, it loses many listeners.

Third, it makes reports vivid and interesting Fuzzy terms in the English broadcasts, if
employed properly, will not evoke vague image and doubtful feeling. On the contrary, it
enlivens the reporting in some way and achieves unpredictable effect without precise
wording. For instance:

As share prices crashed yet again on Friday, criticism mounted over the refusal of the
Stock Exchange’s new style market-makers to make a proper market. Criticism of the
lack of liquidity in the Stock Exchange’s new electronic marketplace gathered
momentum through last week’s equity bloodbath. These underlined terms have
replaced figures to demonstrate the fluctuations in the stock market. Listeners can
experience the changes as if they were at the spot. It is the result of the use of fuzzy
terms. They also play an important role in reporting, in particular, affairs concerning
diplomatic relations. In conclusion, accuracy we usually lay much emphasis on in the
script writing is by no means equal to precision. So, in reporting, we should allow
some space for fuzzy expressions sometimes. It should be stressed that accuracy is a
question of true-or-false, not a principle instructing people to tell anything in exact
figure, which is actually impossible and unnecessary. Generally speaking, precise
wording is overwhelmingly used in science reports and hard news, while fuzzy terms
are mainly used in soft news,

Grammatical features

Some people compare grammar with a pair of clutches in studying a foreign language,
because it will help better understand the language. To this purpose, we had better get
acquainted with a set of grammatical rules existing in news reporting. With these rules
in mind we can appreciate the reporting fairly easily and benefit us in writing an item
of news some day.

Main use of present tense and active voice

The present tense and the active voice are often used in radio news reporting. News is
about movement, change and action. To achieve this effect, the active voice can play a
better role by letting subjects take some action, whereas passive voice could be said to
be lacking something of the snap of the original. The present tense and active voice are
tighter, crisper and more concrete. For example: it would be grammatically right to
say, °Each body was put into yellow mountaineering bags by a pair of rangers. But it
would be more effective, as well as grammatically correct, to say, °A pair of rangers put
each body into yellow mountaineering bags. As far as the tense is concerned, using the
present tense heavily in broadcasts can make events fresh and new and give a deep
impression upon audience, who therefore feel closely related to the mentioned events.
In most cases, the present or the present perfect is used in the journalistic reporting
to indicate an obvious past action, especially in the lead. This is one of characteristics
in news reporting. Typical examples can be observed as follows:

President Bush has called on Palestinian leaders Arafat to do everything in his power
to end terrorist attack against Israelis. (The VOA, Feb. 8, 2002) Researchers in
Australia say increasing drug using in Asia is leading to the rapid spread of AIDS. (The
VOA, Feb. 8, 2002) An argentine congressional committee has taken the first step
toward impeachment proceedings against the nine members of the supreme court
facing accusations of colonialism and corruption. (The VOA, Feb. 8, 2002) Former
Enron Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Skiing has told Congress he was completely
unaware of efforts to conceal the energy trading giant in pending bankruptcy. (The
VOA, Feb. 8, 2002) President Bush has welcomed the new security agreement between
Israel and Palestinian authority. (The VOA, Feb. 8, 2002) Sometimes, the simple
present is used in the lead whereas the simple past is used in the content. The reason
is that the former can make events fresh and new and the latter can give a clear
account of the events. US official say the White House wants weapons-grade Uranium
removed from 24 nuclear research reactors in 16 countries to keep it out of the hands
of terrorists. The official who asked not to be named made the comment on Friday.
One day earlier, Russia, Yugoslavia and the United States completed a secret
operation to remove 60 kilograms weapon-grade Uranium from a facility near
Belgrade. (The VOA, August 24, 2002) To achieve going-on effects, the present
continuous can be encountered occasionally in the news broadcasts. For example,
Swollen Dongting Lake in Central China is continuing to recede after the Yangtze River
flood crest passed through without any major breaches in the dike surrounded the
lake. Authorities are closely monitoring the situation with more rain expected and
some 10 million people still under threat. (The VOA, August 26, 2002) More than one
million people have been mobilized in China to keep the dikes around huge flood lakes
that have been compared to a water-filled balloon about to burst. Waters from the
flooded Yangtze River are sweeping in the Central China’s Dongting Lake. (The VOA,
August 24, 2002) It is estimated that the objective clauses account for 46% in
diversified sentence patterns in news broadcasts. A particular grammatical
phenomenon can be seen that the tense of the objective clause doesn’t seek
grammatical concord. The White House is downplaying speculation that talks
President Bush will hold with his national security team on Wednesday will amount to
a war council on Iraq. The White House spokesman says President Bush, Vice
President Richard Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others will focus
on the big picture of US military needs, but spokesman made it clear Iraq will be
covered.

Earlier Monday, the spokesman said it again Mr Bush believes Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein should be ousted before he can use weapons of mass destruction. The New
York Time reported Monday the Pentagon is shipping arms to the Middle East for use
of possible US attack on Iraq. (The VOA, August 20, 2002) In news broadcasts,
reporters determine what kind of tense to use in the objective clauses by putting him
in the shoes of the audience when listening to the reported events. In all, the simple
present, the present continuous, the present perfect and the future indefinite are
usually employed to make news sound vivid and fresh.

Careful use of pronouns

Using pronouns in broadcasting requires a special discipline to get round the problem
of muddling the listener who cannot go back over what has been said. Consider the
following example. Football star David Beckham was involved in an ugly fight with
fellow player Alan Shearer in a bar today. Beckham called Shearer a has-been, and
Shearer responded by casting doubt on Cruise’s parentage. He said he would sue. At
the last sentence, there is no doubt that the audience would have in mind the
question: Is Shearer suing Beckham or versus? The solution is to replace the pronoun
for a specific name: Beckham said he would sue.

Cautious use of punctuations

A news item that makes sense on paper where the punctuation is visible can have a
completely different meaning when read aloud. If a clause is used, we should avoid
such a kind of misunderstanding by reading the script after writing it. For example:
(1)Opposition activists in Ivory Coast say 10 militants have been abducted by security
officers in the capital. The original meaning is expressed by (1). Who are abducted or
who releases the information is quite clear. When it comes down to a matter of
punctuations, different choices of punctuations can completely alter the fact. (2)
Opposition activists, say 10 militants, have been abducted by security officers in the
capital.. For broadcast, (2) can cause ambiguity among the listeners. The fact is
reversed by two commas. So we should use punctuations correctly. They help prevent
the forgoing problem.

Punctuations are more functional in broadcasting than in other types of media.

Punctuations tell the audience where to start and stop. They indicate whether there is
to be a pause, an emphasis, a question tone, and other time and inflection cues. Read
the following four sentences, and then we can better understand the importance of
punctuations when they are used correctly in a context.

She thinks he is a good actor.

She thinks he is a good actor!

She thinks he is a good actor?

Full pronunciation of abbreviations

Abbreviations generally make sense to the eye, but not to the ear. So except the most
commonly used ones, such as Mr, Prof and Dr, all the other abbreviations are
supposed not to be appeared in the script. Names of organizations should be spelled
out unless they are formed by initials, for instance, the BBC. Meanwhile a rule should
be borne in mind that listeners are not supposed to interpret any abbreviations based
on their own understanding. If a news term comes up, the audience should be given
the follow-up explanation in order to ensure that there is no mistake or
misunderstanding. Take IAEA for an example. This abbreviation can only be
interpreted as International Atomic Energy Agency (International Atomic Energy
Agency). In consideration of those who are not familiar with this term, the explanation
must be spelled out.

Prudent adoption of inverted sentences

Because listeners have to retain in their memory what has been broadcast, inverted
sentences such as the one listed below should be avoided. Because of the fall in the
mortgage rate, which has stimulated home buying, house prices are going up again.
An inversion often requires listeners to retain information that is without meaning for
the time being until it is put into context. By the time that context becomes clear,
listeners may have forgotten what they were supposed to remember or may have got
confused. So the sentence above is better presented like this: House prices are going
up again. The fall in the mortgage rate has led to increased home buying. State the
point at the beginning, then explain it and try to avoid starting a sentence with
because or according to. Listeners are never able to reverse the process when listening
to news.

Stylistic features

After the discussion of lexical and grammatical features, it comes to stylistic

features, which are the most significant characteristics. People can distinguish
different types of articles mainly through their styles. Here is an example to illustrate
this point. Once upon a time, a man called at his friend’s house and noticed that the
kitchen range had a very straight chimney and beside it was stacked a great deal of
firewood.[2] A license suspension can occur in several different way. The most
common way to lose a driver’s license is by accumulating traffic tickets for moving
violations. With ONLINE purchase of select new Dell Home systems. Offer ends
Wednesday, August 4th 11PMCT.

From the above examples, it is easy to recognize the styles of texts. In terms of
radio news, it also has its particular style.

The structure of news

The biggest difference between news writing and ordinary writing lies largely in the
structure. News, in general, is written in a so-called inverted pyramid way. That
means that the news is arranged according to importance from beginning to end. The
most significant, spectacular, eye-catching factor is put at the beginning of the news
item. For example, A delegation from the International Monetary Fund has arrived in
Jakara to begin talks with government officials about economic reforms. The talks are
to begin Wednesday. The IMF has delayed the release of a $ 3,000 million loan to
Indonesia. IMF officials are not satisfied with the slow action of the Suharto’s
administration in carrying out the reforms. (March 18, 1998)
Figure 1

The above news is consistent with the inverted pyramid structure. The first sentence
makes clear the main content of the news, WHO, WHAT, WHERE’, while the second
one illustrates the time of action, WHEN’. The latter part gives a lot of background
information, elaborating the lead in detail. As is concluded by ZHONG Daolong, a
famous English educator, all sentences in radio news reporting are designed to answer
six questions: Who, What, When, Where, Why and How.

Highlighting lead writing

The lead is usually the first paragraph of the information and highlights the core part.
Because the broadcasts are written for ears, the writing of lead has formed some
characteristics different from print reporting. Let us analyze two leads in the same
event reported by The Guardian and The BBC about UN sending peacekeeping forces
to Croatia. Butros Butros Ghali, the United Nations secretary generals, yesterday
strongly recommended the deployment of the first UN peacekeeping force on the
mainland of Europe, a larger than expected contingent of 11,500 Blue Berets’ to police
three Serb enclaves in Croatia on the advice of Cyrus Vance, his special envoy to
Yugoslavia, after heavy pressure from European countries fearful that the current
ceasefire in Croatia might soon break down.

The Guardian, Feb.14, 1992

The United Nations has considered sending a larger UN peacekeeping force with
nearly 12 thousand soldiers to Croatia.

The BBC, Feb.13, 1992

By comparison, we can conclude differences on lead writing between broadcast and

print reporting as follows: First, lead in print news tends to be comprehensive, trying
to include all the elementary facts and highlighting six elements’ of news, that is to
say, WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY and HOW’. As lead in The Guardian shows,
all of them are covered. WHO, Butros Butros Ghali; WHAT, recommended the
deployment of ; WHEN, yesterday; WHY, on the advice of; HOW, strongly; however, the
lead in broadcast news attaches importance to one point rather than all six elements.
For example, the lead in The BBC has touched upon one point WHAT’, The UN has
considered sending troops’. The reason why broadcast lead writing adopts this way is
wholly determined by the mental state of listeners. People listen to the radio news
usually at leisure time, such as chatting with friends, doing households and dining
etc, therefore the information received by brain is limited. Only when a person shows
an interest in one piece of news item does he concentrate his attention on the news. If
all six elements were aired at the very beginning, the audience would undoubtedly
have difficulties in comprehending the news without any preparation. Even they would
have no responses in such a short time. In all, the lead in broadcast serves as a
sketch to arouse the interest of a listener in hopes of making him prepared for the
upcoming details and facts.

Second, the sentences in broadcast news are shorter than those in print news.
The latter ones have to turn to long sentences in order to cover all six elements, as the
lead in The Guardian having more than 60 words; however, the former ones use short
sentences to be prominent, as the lead in The BBC with no more than 20 words.

Third, in most cases, the lead in broadcast uses the present perfect or the
present to describe the event occurred in an aim to add timeliness, freshness and
immediacy to reporting. On the contrary, the lead in print often uses past tenses to
account the past incidents. For example, The Guardian and The BBC use the simple
past strongly recommended’ and the present perfect has considered’ respectively to
depict the past facts.

Using a unique way to process data

When it comes to data treatment, broadcast news adopts different way from print
news. In print news exact figures will be listed in the paper as they are, but in
consideration of habits of listening broadcast news will only give out a general number
with some words having the meaning of vagueness, such as roughly, about, some,
average, nearly, just over and just below so on and so forth.

Saudi Arabia and Iran, Opec’s two senior members, signed the agreement late
on Saturday but expressed reservations about the output ceiling of 22.98 million bpd,
undermining the latest attempt to drive oil prices closer to a target of $21 a barrel.

The Times, Feb. 17, 1992

 Opec’s two senior members Saudia Arabia and Iran have voiced their
reservations about the new agreement’s daily maximum output of nearly 23 million
barrels. The two countries feared this will endanger the latest effort to push oil prices
to a little over 20 dollars per barrels.

The BBC, Feb. 16, 1992

Making quotes sound for ears

After we have discussed the stylistic features, let us look at an example first.
The speech below is quoted from a government official talking about the refugee
surging into Miami. Last time, everybody pitched in and absorbed them into the
economy. But it hurt. It really hurt, according to Dede County Commissioner Mary
Collins, we just can’t withstand another major refugee influx without assistance from
the federal government.

The USA Today, Jan 31, 1992

A Miami official says they just can’t cope with another major flooding of Haitian
refugees without help from the federal government.

The VOA, Jan30, 1992

From the above comparison, we come to conclusions:

First, unlike print news, broadcast news reporting always uses indirect
speeches when there is a need to quote (except for live reports or on-the-spot reports).
But print news is free and flexible to select both indirect speeches and direct speeches.
Besides, it is necessary to point out that indirect speeches used in broadcast news
tend to be short and brief, otherwise, the audience is likely to get perplexed, unable to
detect the quotes. The indirect speech in The VOA is no more than 20 words, whereas
the direct speech in The USA Today has more than 30 words.

Second, to highlight the content of news, print news reporting usually puts
source attribution at the end of the news; however, broadcast news has to reverse the
order to meet the aural customs by placing the source attributions at the start of the
news, because it sounds natural for ears, as in The VOA shows, a Miami official says
Four Factors Affecting Listening Comprehension

 The process of listening comprehension

Listening comprehension is anything but a passive activity. It is a complex, active

process. Listeners must distinguish between sounds, understand vocabulary and
grammatical structures, interpret stress and intonation, retain what is

gathered and interpret the information within immediate and larger social and

cultural contexts of the utterance. Coordinating all of these factors involves a

great deal of mental activity on the part of listeners.

Such conception has been strongly supported by Brown (1990: 11). Brown thinks,

°Listeners are not simply passive processors who undertake automatic signal

recognition exercises as acoustic signals are fed into them and so construct

meaning. He explains, ° When listening, the listeners are active searchers for

meaning. The active listeners will use all relevant background knowledge----

knowledge of the physical context of the utterance (the immediate surroundings,

the place, the time), knowledge of the speaker (gender, age, known opinions),

knowledge of the topic. Armed with this activated knowledge, the listener

monitors the incoming acoustic signal, which will simultaneously shape and

conform his expectations. The statement confirms that listening is an active

process rather than a straightforward matching of sound to meaning as it was

assumed.

Anderson has proposed a cognitive framework of language comprehension in 1995.

This three-phase model proposes that comprehension consists of perception,

parsing and utilization (Anderson, 1995: 379). Perception involves attending to

and recognizing an input; in language comprehension, sound patterns are

translated into words in working memory. Parsing means mentally dividing the

sound patterns into units of meaning. Utilization refers to the disposition of

the parsed mental representation: storing it in long-term memory if it is a

learning task, giving an answer if it is a question, asking a question if it is

not comprehended, and so forth.

General views toward difficulties facing listening comprehension

Many subjects are studies on various levels. Consider, biology, for example.

Molecular biologists study the chemical compounds that make up living things.

Cellular biologists study cells, which are made up of many chemical compounds

and, at the same time, are themselves the building blocks of living organism.

Evolutionary biologists study the many varieties of animals and plants and how

species change gradually over the centuries. We will view difficulties facing

listening comprehension on general levels.

4.2.1 Lack of background information

When tuning in to English news, students occasionally have such perplexing

problems: it is hard to get the gist of the news item. The reason is not because

he cannot catch the linking words, but because he cannot bring up an association

relating to the news, therefore the relevant information in the discourse is

unlikely to be activated, which demonstrates that the two sides lack common

ground, that is to say, background knowledge. For example,

Turkey is pressing Italy to extradite the Turkish kurdish guerrilla leader

Abdullah Ocalan who was arrested on Tuesday. Turkey said it will abolish the

death penalty to persuade Italy to hand him over.

Why extradition is related to the abolishment of death penalty? The reason is

that any person who is sentenced to death after extradition cannot be extradited

according to Italian law. Without such background knowledge, listening

comprehension will be affected to some degree.

Richards1(1990) holds the view that there are two approaches to listening

comprehension: one is top-down process, which means students listen to news as

the source of information. As far as this process is concerned, listeners begin

with the consecutive understanding of phonetic sounds, words, idioms and

paragraphs and make an analysis simultaneously until listeners comprehend the

material to the letter. The other one is bottom-up process, which means students

comprehend listening materials by mobilizing their background knowledge. The

background knowledge can be previous knowledge about the topic, situational

knowledge or schemata, which is stored in the long-memory, concerning the

structure and correlations about the matter.

Therefore, background knowledge plays an important role in listening

comprehension. The contributors to news transcripts are mostly natives. They

have deep understanding of western customs, diversified cultures and historical

backdrop. So, when writing news, they will probably bypass what they conceive is

common sense for natives. But, those who are strange to western society and
cultures cannot wholly comprehend news without the indispensable background

knowledge given by the writer.

Studying other courses can accumulate background knowledge. Though studying

English materials can increase some knowledge, yet the major way to expand

knowledge is to study other courses, read newspapers, browse the Internet and

watch TV instead of focus energy and time solely on English courses, which are

far from enough. It is necessary to point out that most of Chinese students,

especially college students, have possessed the background knowledge for

learning English and for tests. Teachers should exhort those who look for

background knowledge as an excuse to take some listening training.

4.2.2 Lack of good foundations of linguistic knowledge

Lack of solid phonetic knowledge

Sound phonetic knowledge is the good foundation for understanding English news.

A good mastery of phonetic features can help find the correct word in the

dictionary according to its pronunciation, even if the word you have never met.

On the contrary, with poor phonetic ken, you are not able to articulate what you

have met or learned in the book, not to mention the content you are not familiar

with or touch upon for the first time. For reasons, many a people have not got

enough phonetic trainings at the beginning of learning English. Storing

thousands of words and a great deal of grammatical rules, he has no trouble in

reading articles and written materials. But in some sense, he is a °deaf man,

because he can’t comprehend English broadcasts, even if Special English with a

vocabulary of no more than 1500, a widely-recognized program for beginners.

Various problems arising from shortage of phonetic knowledge can be categorized

as follows:

First, his pronunciation is incorrect. . A large number of people are unable to

correlate word pronunciation to word formation. What they have kept in mind is

word formation rather than word pronunciation. Therefore, only when materials

are written down can they determine whether they understand the material.

Otherwise, they are likely to tell they do not know the aired sources. Stress

also plays an important role in listening comprehension. For example, someone

understands resign’/ri’zain/, however, he is puzzled at resignation’ because

of the change of stress. Then, we should take into account the different

pronunciation ways between British English and American English, such as

°schedule, °missile and etc.

Second, in spite of correct pronunciation, he is not so skilled as to respond to

the sound. To grasp the gist of material needs reflection and consideration.

With slow reaction, he is clumsy to interpret the incoming sound.

Third, he is not accustomed to liaison, especially foreigner’s liaison.

Occasionally, learners cannot get what native speakers say. Once one compatriot

repeats what a foreigner has said, he immediately understands. The purpose we

learn foreign languages is to overcome the hurdles and communicate with

foreigners successfully rather than with compatriots, though it is also

necessary. Therefore, we foreign language learners must set the goal of

understanding native speakers without difficulties.

Because of not getting used to liaison, learners usually make following

mistakes. First, they mistaken two words into one, for example, °a part for

apart, °a special for °especially. Sometimes they divide one word into

several components, for example, °underground for °under the ground. Second,

word clipping occurs. It means that a word appears abridged resulting from weak

listening comprehension. For instance, they listen to °set up tent cities for

°set up ten cities, and °freeze the nuclear program for °to free the nuclear

program so on and so forth.

Fourth, they are unable to analyze suffixes and prefixes. A great amount of

English words derive from active words plus prefixes or suffixes. Without the

knowledge of rules relating to adding them, learners will encounter many new

words. As a result, they affect the listening comprehension. For example,

°marine means °relating to sea, °way means °road, but suppose that he

doesn’t know the meaning of °sub, then he seems not to understand submarine,

which means °under the surface of the sea, or naval vessel that can operate

underwater as well as on the surface and °subway, which means underground

railway or underground pedestrian tunnel’

4.2.3 Vocabulary bottleneck

It seems unnecessary and meaningless to stress the importance of vocabulary in

the understanding broadcasts, because it is so evident that even a pupil knows

what predicament he will face without sufficient vocabulary in language

acquisition. However, some students complain that they can still not grasp the

meaning of broadcasts though they have memorized several thousand words.

As far as vocabulary is concerned, the following four aspects should call our

attention when handling the listening comprehension.

First, polysemy causes difficulties in not only understanding written articles

but also comprehending broadcasts.

Second, collocations in broadcasts, such as °make do with, has-been will pose

some challenges.

Third, a great number of new words emerge, such as °netizen, °e-bay.

Fourth, there are a huge number of complicated proper nouns, for example,

°UNDP.

4.3 Psychological elements

So far, we have known that background information and vocabulary etc have

effects on how the learners develop their ability to comprehend the radio news.

We will now examine a number of psychological dimensions. These dimensions are

many and various. °Learners’ preferred ways of learning may influence their

overall orientation to the learning task and the kind of input they find it

easier to work with. 1 we will focus on three of the major dimensions

hereattitude, motivation and personality.

4.3.1 Attitude

The results of listening comprehension are often subject to personal factors,

which are changeable and hard to identify. Suppose that a student has just been
criticized by his teacher for his improper behaviors in class, it is

understandable that his feeling goes up and down to some extent. His spirit must

be very low. When it comes to listening, which requires concentration of his

emotion, the result can be disappointing. Therefore, attitudes toward the

teacher or teaching materials can affect the outcome of the listening

comprehension. According to Krashen, attitude can be categorized into two

groups, positive and negative. The positive attitude can encourage listeners to

acquire more input and ignore distractive factors.

4.3.2 Motivation

Gardener and Lambert1 (1972) define motivation’ in terms of the L2 learner’s

overall goal or orientation. Brown (1981) identifies three types of motivation:

(1) global motivation, which consists of a general orientation to the goal of

learning a L2; (2) situational motivation, which varies according to the

situation in which learning takes place (the motivation associated with

classroom learning is distinct from the motivation involved in naturalistic

learning); (3) task motivation, which is the motivation for performing

particular learning tasks.

The most extensive research into the role of motivation has been conducted by

Gardener and Lambert. Where motivation is concerned, they drew a basic

distinction between an integrative and an instrumental orientation to L2

learning. Such is the case that a child seeks to identify with his parents by

learning their language. The former occurs when the learners wish to identify
with the culture of the L2 group. Instrumental motivation occurs when the

learner’s goals for learning the L2 are functional. For instance, learning

directed at passing an examination, furthering career opportunities, or

facilitating study of other subjects through the medium of the L2 are all

examples of instrumentally motivated learning.

MacNamara (1973) suggests that the real important part of motivation lies in the

act of communication itself rather than in any general orientation as implied by

the integrative/instrumental distinction. It is the need to get meanings across

and the pleasure experienced when this is achieved that motivates the learners.

Motivation that is dependent on the learner’s learning goal is less amenable to

influence by the teacher than motivation that derives from a sense of academic

or communicative success. In the case of communication, motivation can be

developed by carefully selecting learning tasks. They are designed for the right

level of complexity to create opportunities for success and to foster intrinsic

interest.

4.3.3 Personality

In general psychology, personality has been explored in terms of a number of

personal traits, which in aggregate are said to constitute the personality of an

individual. Cattell (1970), for instance, attempts to measure personality using

a series of dichotomies, such as cool/warm, shy/venturesome, not

assertive/dominant. Eysenck (1964) identifies two general

traits---extrovert/introvert and neurotic/stable.

Swain and Burnaby (1976) did not find the expected relationship between their

measures of sociability and talkativeness on the one hand and proficiency on the

other in early grade French immersion and French as second language students.

However, Rossier (1976) did find that his subjects’ oral fluency correlated

significantly with extroversion/introversion measured by Eysenck’s Personality

Inventory.

According to Rod Ellis, °affective factors such as learners’ personalities can

influence the degree of anxiety they experience and their preparedness to take

risks in learning and using an L2.1

One of the intuitively appealing hypotheses that have been investigated is

that extrovert learners learn more rapidly and are more successful than

introverted learners. It has suggested that extroverted learners will find it

easier to make contact with other users of the L2 and therefore will obtain more

input. Kashen (1981a), for instance, argues that an outgoing personality may

contribute to acquisition. Being extroverted, the classroom learner may benefit

from getting more practices in using the L2.

4.4 Physical barriers

Apart from psychological factors, two physical aspects memory and attention

spanhave been focused on, because they play a critical role in listening to

broadcasts news in author’s viewpoint. We must abide by scientific approaches to

tackle questions rather than disobey them. To improve our listening

comprehension, we must first know what effects they will have on listening
4.4.2 Attention span

Attention span means a period of time during which man is able to mentally

focus, attend and sustain concentration. Attention span in listening means the

time when he can go on listening without feeling bored and distracted. Attention

span is subject to internal and external factors. Internal factors are hard to

be identified as people vary. But it is fairly easy to eliminate the external

distractions. Stuffy classrooms make listeners listless and sleepy. Noisy

surroundings disrupt the speech from time to time. Other factors such as tapes

of poor quality, lengthy but meaningless listening material should be properly

handled before class. Researchers have found that in the process of listening

comprehension, the highly intensified attention to materials can only last about

15-20 minutes (Bligh, 1983), then fall down to a low level, after a while rise

to the previous level again. The process shows a shape of U. Bligh also found

that students who undertake listening training will show the sign of over

fatigue after focusing on a 50- minute lecture. So any listening training

against the rule of attention span will directly affect the listening

comprehension.

Chapter Five Problems Facing the Teaching of Listening

5.1 Current situations

As the top priority of five skills, listening comprehension seems not to have

got sufficient attention. The scheduled time for listening is much less than

reading and grammar courses. Because of economic reasons, many smaller colleges
are poorly equipped with audio and video facilities. It is difficult to image

that more than thirty students sit in the classroom listening to the speaker. As

a result, students can not undertake enough practices. It is well known that

practices make perfect. Without adequate exercises, performance will not be

satisfactory. According to an informal survey, I have been informed that two

listening materials predominantly prevail in listening course. One is Step by

Step compiled by East China Normal University. The other is Listen to This

series by Beijing International Studies University. The main content of two

textbooks has remained relatively unchanged for decades. Responses from students

indicate that they show no interest in textbooks because of many out-of-date

reports and news. No wonder, there occur absence and truancy in class. As for

the work done by the teacher, it is very limited. He puts a cassette into a

recorder, plays the tape, raises questions, checks answers and then goes on to

next task. The experts and professionals have realized these problems and have

made great effort to improve the situation.

5.2 Strategies to improve the teaching quality

5.2.1 Selecting proper listening materials

We have to clearly understand the relationship between listening materials and

listening before we determine the best choice of listening textbooks. In daily

life, people have a definite purpose in doing anything. He first makes sure what

his target is, then decides how to approach it. Different targets require

different approaches. On the one hand, people hold various purposes toward
improving listening, so the listening materials in need vary accordingly. For

example, hotel staffs are unlikely to choose technological stuff as their

training materials; technologists will not pick political reports as their

training course. On the other hand, where diversified listening materials are

concerned, though they resemble each other in style, topic and structure to

great extent, yet their focus, orientation of the content and level of

difficulty can only meet the demand of a small group of people. Therefore,

trainees have to make a reasonable choice of listening materials based on their

purposes and present states. To improve listening for specific purpose, it is

important to adopt the right textbooks.

The right’ textbooks can facilitate the rapid improvement of listening and

achieve the goal as expected. In this sense, listening materials are

facilitative. In contrast, the wrong’ textbooks can suppress the progress of

listening, so they are suppressive. The criterion for right or wrong is

determined by the fact whether the textbooks match the purpose or the actual

proficiency of listeners. Take a concrete example. Both A and B enter into the

TOEFL examination. A spent all his time on listening to news reports from

foreign media instead of TOEFL tests during the preparation. The result is not

quite good. B scored high marks by choosing materials designed for TOEFL. The

example illustrates the close relationship between materials and expectation.

Whether the textbooks are facilitative or suppressive is also closely related to

persons’ interests or emotions. It is facilitative when the textbooks can cater

to people’s demands for knowledge, activate interests and provoke thinking.

Listening can be rapidly improved, therefore. Such a kind of textbooks is most

welcomed. If not the case, listeners will find it hard to have a sense of

achievement, then brood a feeling of depression. Objectively speaking, every

kind of listening material has its specialty and strength. The best choice is

that the textbooks can meet our expectation and personal listening capabilities.

Step by Step and Listen to This Series have been used by many colleges for a

decade. Step by Step is compiled by unit on the basis of content and level of

difficulty. It puts materials of similar topic yet various styles together in

order to call up association. This layout facilitates students to comprehend the

content and memorize words. In addition, it designs several kinds of exercises

for students of different capabilities. Volume One and Two lay emphasis on

listening skills such as distinguishing phonemes and recognizing numbers, dates

etc. Meanwhile comprehensive exercises are also paid attention to. Volume Three

and Four aim at improving comprehension and expansion of knowledge, trying to

develop students’ inductive and deductive ability and judgment. The content

shifts from daily conversations to discussions, lectures and news reports.

Responses from students indicate that the contents are quite interesting and

knowledgeable.

Listen to This Series touches upon aspects of daily life and society, enabling

students to improve communication skills. What is worth mentioning is

supplementary readings from teacher’ book. Excerpted from English and American

newspaper and books, closely related to the content, these readings not only

provide teachers with historical and cultural background information, but also

serve as extra reading materials to enlarge their knowledge.

Nevertheless, every coin has two sides. As for Listen to This Series, students

consider it too difficult to get accustomed to as freshmen. Long articles, wide

topics and a load of exercises are not easy to handle with. News reports in both

textbooks have not kept abreast of time, so actually they can’t best serve the

need for improving the comprehension of news reporting completely. To get used

to news reporting, it is not sufficient to resort only to textbooks mentioned

above. At present, there are other options available for teachers and students

in the market, such as Crazy English and Standard English.

As we know, college students are dynamic and active in thinking and eager for

new knowledge. They are sensitive to and interested in novel things. BBC, VOA

and CRI programs are very good supplementary listening materials to textbooks,

partly because they not only keep up with the time, but also help students get

familiar with features of news reporting. It should point out that only when a

student listens to news broadcasts can he truly keep cool-minded facing the

listening comprehension of radio news in the tests.

5.2.2 Taking into consideration individual troubles

All the students can’t be at the same starting point. Therefore, in listening

comprehension, troubles vary from person to person. Many students have

established listening habits which impede the development of effective listening

skills. Some students can listen word by word, phrase by phrase, and sentence by

sentence. They can even repeat sentences they have memorized without knowing

what they mean, but they can’t understand the material as a whole. Some tend to

think about every sound, every word, do grammatical analysis and then translate

them into their own language. They don’t know how to glean the information from

what they have heard and subsequently catch the main idea. They do not even know

what they should obtain from listening to understand the material. Most

probably, they will lose confidence about their listening ability if they cannot

guess the meaning of unknown vocabulary and if they can’t answer the questions

from the material. They are likely to have an incomplete understanding of the

material without the teacher’s help. A problem may rise that students hope to

get the answer only from the teacher. They listen to the material by using their

ears rather than their minds. Teachers should take into account personal

troubles and help students solve the problems.

5.2.3 Giving a role to teachers to play

Teachers should act as motivators of confidence. Since listeners play the

decisive role in the process of listening comprehension, teachers are supposed

to motivate their confidence when teaching. Previous teaching practices have

proved that good learners usually have strong confidence, while poor learners

lack confidence. That is to say, confidence has close relationship with language

acquisition. Listening is the same case. Teachers should set the goal of
fostering and motivating confidence.

Teachers should be creators of linguistic situations and the sources of

information input. It is recognized that language environment is of great

significance in learning foreign languages. For lack of the effective

environment in Indonesia, the classroom seems rather precious. First, teachers must

provide with abundant listening materials, because linguistic competence is

developed through two parallel channels: aural and visual. Teachers are supposed

to increase the information input and create linguistic environment for students

in order to reinforce what they have heard in their brain and enhance their

language feeling. Secondly, linguistic competence is improved with the help of

teachers’ live’ input. The fact that teachers use correct and fluent language

can supply live linguistic information to students. Apart from information

provided in class, teachers should encourage students to expose themselves to

the language and make best use of it after class in order to enhance their

linguistic competence.

Teachers should play as initiators of cultural background and guides of

listening skills. Listening comprehension is subject to speaker’s speed, accents

and habits. Listeners are in the position to receive information, but it is an

active two-way communicative process instead of passive one as mentioned

previously. The listeners require linguistic skills and background knowledge to

judge, deduce, induce and conclude. Teaching practices proved that without

necessary background knowledge, students will have difficulties in

comprehension. What is more, in light of diversified background information, it

is impossible for listeners to grasp all of them overnight. So teachers should

pay much attention to impart knowledge and give guidance to students to reach

the teaching goal. It should be noted that the work should be done at any time

and at random place.

Teachers should be users of multimedia. To create a real linguistic environment,

it seems important to adopt a proper means to supplement teaching. Since the

materials used in listening classes are audio, this nature determines that

teachers must make use of multimedia facilities to carry out listening training

effectively. In language labs, teachers should be users of facilities for

several advantages. First, booths in the lab provide independent and quiet study

space. All of students can clearly and correctly receive the same content. In

the booth students can not only focus attention but also avoid doing oral

exercises before others’ eyes, which can boost their initiative and confidence.

Second, advanced equipment improves teaching efficiency greatly. Teachers are

able to let several students exercise at the same time. Each student has more

time to practise and he can record what he doesn’t understand simultaneously and

study repeatedly.

5.2.4 Combining intensive listening and extensive listening

Intensive listening requires students to master every word, every sentence in

the listening material. Accuracy is emphasized. After repeated listening, they

can do proofreading among groups and correct all mistakes. This kind of practice
helps get used to vocabulary and sentence structures commonly used in news

broadcasts, strengthen abilities of differentiating words, self-correct

pronunciation errors on own effort and cultivate linguistic skills such as

intonation, stress, liaison and etc. On the other hand, extensive listening is

necessary. Students would better form habits to tune in to standard broadcast in

the morning and at night. In accordance with the way of wh-s and h-, they are

required to write down the main ideas of broadcasts. Such practice increases the

rate of repetition of vocabulary, grammatical rules and language points which

have been learned to fight against loss of memory. Extensive listening will

reduce hurdles to study language points. At last, it facilitates deep

understanding and long-term memory of language points. Extensive listening and

intensive listening are complementary.

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