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|  | Introduction
The new AP Italian Language and Culture Exam has two parts that include listening comprehension. In the multiple-choice section, the listening component comprises comprehension of spoken Italian in a variety of formats and registers, for example, formal and informal dialogues, descriptive narratives, announcements, and instructions. Likewise, the free-response section contains a directed response section with thematically linked oral prompts designed to evaluate a student's ability to engage in discourse. Thus it is important that AP Italian instructors include listening comprehension instruction in the AP Italian course. In this article, I shall discuss a few aspects of listening comprehension that will help you in your instructional goal of enhancing your students' listening comprehension in your AP Italian course.
Types of Listening Contexts
It is important to recognize that listening involves different types of listening contexts. Michael Rost (1990, 11) has created a classification of listening types and corresponding purposes, reproduced here in Table 1. This classification points out that we listen differently in distinct contexts. Therefore, classroom listening activities must provide opportunities for diverse input in order to prepare students for these differences. Practice that involves different types of listening activities will help students to prepare for the AP Italian Exam.
Table 1: Types and Purposes of Listening (Rost 1990, 11)
| Type of Listening |
General Purpose |
| Transactional listening |
Learning new information |
| Interactional listening |
Recognizing personal component of message |
| Critical listening |
Evaluating reasoning and evidence |
| Recreational listening |
Appreciating random or integrated aspects of event |
Four Modes of Spoken Speech
Heidi Byrnes (1984, 319) points out that it is important to realize that spoken language occurs in four modes: (1) spontaneous free speech, (2) deliberate free speech, (3) oral presentation of written texts, and (4) oral presentation of a fixed, rehearsed script (film, television, theater). Once a student is able to recognize these formats, it is easier to develop critical listening skills.
Differences Between More- and Less-Proficient Listeners
Jane Berne (2004, 525) uses the following table (Table 2) to illustrate the results of her findings about the important differences between more- and less-proficient listeners. Berne (2004, 528-29) also notes that previous studies of listening problems indicate that listeners are aware of them. These obstacles occur at a low processing level, yet the listeners seem unable to act on them. For this reason, listening practice needs to focus on these problems early on.
Table 2: Differences Between More- and Less-Proficient Listeners
| More-Proficient Listeners |
Less-Proficient Listeners |
| use strategies more often |
process input word by word |
| use a wide range of strategies |
rely heavily on translation/key words as strategies |
| use strategies interactively |
are negatively affected by linguistic and attentional constraints |
| are concerned with the overall rhetorical organization of text |
are concerned with definitions/pronunciation of words |
are better able to:
- attend to larger chunks of input
- monitor/redirect attention
- grasp overall meaning of input
- relate what they hear to previous experiences
- guess meanings of words
|
make fewer inferences/elaborations |
| use existing linguistic knowledge to aid comprehension |
do not verify their assumptions |
| do not relate what they hear to previous experiences |
Reprinted from Foreign Language Annals, vol. 37, no. 4, with permission from the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.
General Recommendations for Preparing and Developing Listening Activities
While it is easy to point out the issues and problems related to listening comprehension, it is far more important to introduce strategies and techniques to develop good listening skills. The following are some general guidelines to accomplish this in the AP Italian course.
- Choose, acquire, or develop texts for listening activities in the Italian classroom. These may include texts gleaned from various sources such as newspapers and magazines, the Internet, film, and radio. It is best to select authentic materials because they prepare the students to listen to real-world speech.
- Determine the person or persons who will produce the listening materials. It may be you, a colleague, or a person from the community.
- Decide on the length of the text. This may be a single word, a phrase, a sentence, or a longer text.
- Pay attention to the voices to be heard by students, for example, the quality and type of the voice to read the materials (see Paul Davis and Mario Rinvolucri[1988, 9-10] for valuable recommendations for reading a text). At the beginning of the year it is best to have the instructor do the oral components since students are more comfortable with a familiar voice. Subsequently, it is appropriate to introduce other voices -- men and women, younger and older adults -- in formal and informal situations.
- Institute a regular context for listening exercises in the classroom. It is important to note that certain activities require minimal directions, while others may require more time and explanation to achieve a successful result.
- Specify the behavioral objectives for each listening activity so that students understand exactly what is expected of them.
- Introduce a variety of activities that address different types of listening contexts and the specific microskills (see Richards 1983, 228-29) required for purposeful listening at all levels (phonetic, syntactic, and lexical).
- Recycle listening activities to allow the instructor to assess progress and results.
- Evaluate the outcome of the listening experience by using predetermined and explicit standards such as correct spelling, specific answers to content questions, Total Physical Response reenactment of a series of commands, and so forth.
Concluding Remarks
Listening comprehension is essential to developing communicative skills. It is not possible to interact effectively without it. The information provided here will give you a point of departure to develop your own materials as you prepare your AP Italian students for the two parts of the AP Exam that contain listening comprehension.
References
The following is a selected list of useful references for additional information on listening comprehension.
Anderson, Anne, and Tony Lynch. 1988. Listening. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Berne, Jane E. 1988. "Examining the Relationship Between L2 Listening Research, Pedagogical Theory, and Practice." Foreign Language Annals 31: 169-90.
Berne, Jane E. 2004. "Listening Comprehension Strategies: A Review of the Literature." Foreign Language Annals 37: 521-33.
Byrnes, Heidi. 1984. "The Role of Listening Comprehension: A Theoretical Base." Foreign Language Annals 17: 317-34.
Davis, Paul, and Mario Rinvolucri. 1988. Dictation: New Methods, New Possibilities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Joiner, Elizabeth. 1986. "Listening in the Foreign Language." Listening, Reading, and Writing: Analysis and Application. Ed. Barbara H. Wing, 43-70. Middlebury, Vermont: Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.
Richards, Jack C. 1983. "Listening Comprehension: Approach, Design, Procedure." TESOL Quarterly 17: 219-40.
Rost, Michael. 1990. Listening in Language Learning. London: Longman.
Rubin, Joan. 1994. "A Review of Second Language Listening Comprehension Research." The Modern Language Journal 78: 199-221.
Underwood, Mary. 1989. Teaching Listening. London: Longman.
Ur, Penny. 1984. Teaching Listening Comprehension. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Vogely, Anita Jones. 1998. "Listening Comprehension Anxiety: Students' Reported Sources and Solutions." Foreign Language Annals 31: 67-80.
Frank Nuessel has been a professor in the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Louisville since 1975. He holds degrees from Indiana University, Bloomington; Michigan State University; and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has written about the teaching of Italian as a second language and the work of Giambattista Vico.
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