Despite the current enthusiasm for teaching critical thinking and the need acknowledged by many educators to improve students' speaking and listening skills, very few schools have actually put critical listening skills into their curricula. One reason listening skills have been so slow in becoming a part of the formal instruction program at most…

Discusses the use of the communication media (radio, television, films) in assisting second-language students of Spanish in developing their listening comprehension. (nine references) (GLR)

Perspectives on and methods in second language teaching have changed rapidly during the past 10 years. So also have the role and function of the language laboratory and the laboratory instructor. One area of concern, listening, has been somewhat neglected; generally it has been taught toward the end of increasing speaking proficiency. A review of…

Emphasizes that listening is the primary skill for the student attending a theatrical performance. Identifies the active listening process as: (1) attending, (2) hearing, (3) comprehending, (4) remembering, and (5) responding. (NKA)

Although listening comprehension has been identified as the first and most important foreign language skill, research has shown that little class time is devoted to developing more than very basic listening skills. Early practice in listening in a foreign language helps to develop both language skills and confidence in communicating in the target…

Makes a case for the continued emphasis on the incorporation of reading and listening skills in the second language proficiency movement and considers ways in which this movement has advanced such skill development. (CB)

Listening remains generally unappreciated while being the communicative skill most used and essential to the human condition. There is no name for the condition of being unable to listen, but the term "illistenacy" could be used. An individual who can hear but cannot consciously attend, understand, and respond to non-written messages in…

Adult English as a second language (ESL) students must develop listening comprehension skill for two reasons: they need it for survival purposes immediately and it is the first step toward acquisition of English. These two needs reflect the distinction between listening for comprehension and listening for acquisition; they must be accounted for in…

The rationale for delayed oral practice in language teaching is that the same rules underlie both speaking and listening and that the student has to understand how a language works before being capable of creating a sentence in the language. Having to focus on speaking performance as well as on listening comprehension distracts the learner from…