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Don't Dissolve English In Adrenaline----- A Biometric Perception

Don't dissolve English in adrenaline----- A biometric perception Professor Dr.S.Elangovan. PT Lee College of Engg & Tech, Kanchipuram

 

Abstract

English language is a bull to the non native speakers like their domesticated one and as such they should take the bull by the horns. Language learning is so much fun and not formidable. Man is the master of the language and language is not the master of the man.. If one wants to become proficient in English, he must become the "Linguistic Dictator. In this regard Biometrics comes handy to diagnose the fear psychosis which is needless. Biometrics is the recognition process based on one or more intrinsic anatomical, physiological and psychological characteristics. Recently, computational bio-electrography based on gas discharge visualization (GDV) technique has been proposed as one of the biometrics tools for investigating physiological and psycho-emotional functional states of an individual. In this paper, we present an application of computational biometrics based GDV for visual and quantitative evaluation of anxiety in the process of learning English as a Second Language (ESL). The integration of biometrics in the education paradigm has been investigated in a pilot study involving foreign students enrolled in the ESL course at the ESL Institute, VIT University. We measured the electro- photonic emission (also called GDV-grams) of students' fingertips before and after language activities, specifically listening comprehension tasks and showed that the anxiety index in listening comprehension paradigm corresponds to the increase of entropy level of left hand corresponding to the right hemisphere. Our pilot data confirms the recent findings of correlation of right hemisphere involvement in second language acquisition at the level of language proficiency. Thus, computational biometrics based GDV tool may be used to evaluate and potentially identify anxiety present in ESL learners.

Key Words

Adrenaline, English, take the bull by the horns, Biometrics, Bio-electrography, GDV technique, Anxiety, ESL, Entropy, Right hemisphere

1. Introduction

Biometrics is an automated process of recognizing the individual features based on one or more intrinsic anatomy, physiology and psychological characteristics. A typical biometric system is comprised of 5 components: a sensor, signal processing algorithms, data storage, a matching algorithm and a decision process. The purposes of the biometric models are recognition, identification and verification. Recognition is knowledge of a previously enrolled individual; identification is the process of determining the identity of an individual, where as verification is a process by which the system confirms the

 

existence of an individual. The biometric models existing nowadays are based on fingerprint, face, iris, voice, signature, hand geometry, palm and vascular pattern recognition, performance evaluation and novel sensors [1;

2]. For example, the palm and fingerprint models combine ridge flow, ridge characteristics and a ridge structure of the raised portion of the epidermis. Vascular pattern recognition models use near-far infrared light reflected or transmitted images of blood vessels of a hand or finger for personal recognition. Dynamic models use anatomic and behavioral characteristics for recognition purposes [3]. There exist other biometric models that are based on speaker recognition, dynamic signature measures, key stroke dynamics, retina recognition, gate/body recognition and facial thermography.

The main areas of biometrics applications can be classified into the following four groups: 1) Medical biometrics, which is related to the use of biometrics in medical applications such as medical diagnosis and is based on the extraction of biomedical pattern and its association to possible diseases; 2) Forensic biometrics, which refers to the use of biometrics for criminal and body identification; 3) Convenience biometrics, which is related to maintaining the convenience level during the use of biometric services, 4) Security biometrics to reduce frauds and control the access to restricted areas [4].

Computational bio-electrography has been recently proposed and used as a promising method for complex evaluation of the functional state of an individual using the fingertips and electro-photonic emission in a high intensity electromagnetic field [5]. The method involves capturing and analyzing the electro-photonic emission of fingertips using an electro-photonic impulse analyzer based on gas discharge visualization technique (GDV) [5]. Several studies tried to determine what exactly forms the fluorescent glow (also called GDV-grams) around fingertips. Krizhanovsky et al. [6] determined that the human central nervous system plays a crucial role in the formation of skin glow in a high intensity electromagnetic field. The ATP (Adenosine Tri-Phosphate) molecule acts as a neurotransmitter in the autonomous neuromuscular junctions, the ganglia and the central nervous system. Therefore, in case of normal operation of the organism,

 

 

 

the ATP diffusion exchange (and the electron stream) must be regular, thus ensuring the regularity and uniformity of the fluorescence (glow) that occurs during the interaction of the skin (i.e. of a finger) with the high intensity electromagnetic field. Another study conducted by Williams [7] claims that specific structural-protein complexes within the mass of the skin provide channels of heightened electron conductivity, measurable at acupuncture points on the skin surface. Stimulated impulse emissions from the skin are also developed mainly by transport of delocalized electrons. Optical emissions amplified in gaseous discharge, are registered by optical sensors in the electro-photonic impulse analyzer [7]. The areas of application of GDV technique include medicine, sports, psychology and cognitive study. The correlation of GDV data and the data obtained from the other diagnostic devices showed that GDV is a very fast, at the same time, accurate real-time diagnosis technique [8-12].

The GDV technique has been successfully used in psychology and cognitive studies mainly to assess the psycho-emotional state of an individual and evaluate the changes that take place in a human organism over a period of time. Based on GDV parameters such as form and size of electro-photonic emission, symmetry and relationship of the captured image with the rest of the GDV-grams of all fingertips, the presence or absence of aggressive signs and defects with the organs/organ systems can be predicted and hence it becomes possible to conclude about the functional state of an individual at the moment of study [13; 14].

Second language learning is a process by which a person learns a language in addition to his/her native language. English is the current lingua franca for communication in the modern era of globalization and has been widely studied for adaptation as an international language [15]. In the United States of America, a majority of the population speak English as their native language. International students usually experience cultural shock when they are exposed to a native English environment, such as the United States, and it takes time for them to overcome the language barriers. It has been demonstrated that native English speakers perform significantly better than non-native English speakers in all the major subtests (on Writing, Reading and Listening) of an English Language Proficiency test [16]. The relatively poor performance of non-native speakers of English is mainly attributed to anxiety, which is a prominently documented psychological phenomenon in second language learning. It has been recently reported that one third to one half of international students experience debilitating levels of anxiety while performing in their second language [17].

The anxiety phenomenon in the field of second language learning has been the focus point of different

 

studies and research projects. It has been established that (i) anxiety can occur at any stage of language acquisition and can influence speed and accuracy of learning, (ii) language anxiety can be one of the predictors of language proficiency, (iii) learners with higher language anxiety avoid interactive communication more often than less anxious learners, (iv) anxiety arousal can negatively influence the communication output as it can be interrupted by the "freezing up" moments which learners experience when they are anxious, (v) language learning under anxious circumstances can become traumatic to the identity of a learner [18]. Young [19; 20] determined several aspects as potentially interrelated sources of anxiety from the perspective of the learner, the teacher and instructional process. Therefore, he claims that the possible causes of anxiety may be (i) personal and interpersonal anxiety, (ii) learner beliefs about language learning, (iii) instructors beliefs about language teaching, (iv) instructor-learner interactions, (v) classroom procedure and (vi) language testing.

In this paper, we hypothesize that language activities such as listening comprehension, speaking, reading and writing may involve anxiety factor which can be quantified and visualized using the GDV method. The psycho-emotional aspects of language learning and performance, such as anxiety and stress, are manifested at the physiological level by increased sweating of palms and fingers and muscle tension. An electro-photonic impulse analyzer based on GDV can make use of these manifestations, especially those revealed through the fingertips, for quantifying and visualizing the anxiety level of an ESL (English as a Second Language) learner. The GDV technique is non-invasive and provides a real-time measurement of the signals of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system [21]. Thus, using this biometric model of GDV, one will be able to quantify and visualize unique biological features in psychological and physiological parameters pertaining to anxiety with respect to ESL learning. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 reviews the literature on relationship between learning English as a second language and anxiety. Section 3 provides an overview of the origin of computational bio-electrography based on the GDV technique and describes the actual procedure used to obtain the GDV-grams. We also describe the analysis of the GDV-grams using the built-in GDV software of the Electro-photonic impulse analyzer. Section 4 describes a pilot study, the first of its nature, which has been conducted by us to quantify and visualize the anxiety levels of the student learners of English as a second language at Jackson State University. Section 5 concludes the paper.

 

 

 

2. English as a Second Language and Anxiety

With the increase of popularity of English language in the world and its usage in almost all spheres of social, economic and cultural life, the need to learn English as a Second Language (ESL) has increased among the populace whose native language is other than English. The education goals pursued by non-native students in English speaking countries, like the United States of America, require certain level of English language proficiency which can be achieved through preparation and taking a TOEFL test. Some students have to start English study from the beginner's level and advance slowly due to the peculiarities in their cultural background. For example, it has been established that English language learners from Confucian Heritage Cultures (CHCs), such as China, Korea and Japan, are more anxious when learning, performing and communicating in ESL [22]. It is a very challenging task for teachers and counselors in U.S. schools to address the specific needs of the students for whom English is not a native language.

Scovel [23] was the first to associate the inconsistency in second language learning with anxiety. Horwitz was the first to clearly define the concept of foreign language anxiety. Horwitz's Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) was the major contribution to the field of second language learning and acquisition [24]. The major ways of anxiety measurement include behavioral observation, physiological assessment such as heart rates and blood pressure, learners' self-report on their internal feelings and reactions as well as structured interviews, follow-up interviews and questionnaires [25; 26]. The negative relationship between anxiety and achievement or performance has been confirmed in several subsequent studies involving all four language skills: speaking [27-29], writing [30], reading [31] and listening [32; 33].

A student who suffers from reading anxiety can exhibit a variety of symptoms that result from the inhibition of their intellectual curiosity, aggression or independence. It has been shown [34] that (1) reading anxiety shows a stronger negative correlation with reading achievement compared to general anxiety; and (2) although general anxiety and reading anxiety correlate substantially, reading anxiety measures something beyond general anxiety. Listening anxiety is a type of anxiety that comes from listening to others, such as in a foreign language situation. Thus, listening anxiety may negatively influence the learning process and affect performance [35].

Foreign language learners typically experience considerable anxiety about taking listening tests. The results in [36] indicated that foreign language anxiety and listening anxiety are separate but related phenomena that both correlate negatively with achievement. An English

 

Writing Anxiety Scale was developed in [37] and it identified four contributing factors for writing anxiety in English: fear of writing tests, anxiety about making mistakes, fear of negative evaluation and low confidence in English writing. The results have showed that the scale has adequate psychometric properties. Another study [38] evaluated the anxiety of students over a ten year period, using FLCAS. The FLCAS scores measured the students' perception about their language learning skills and showed that anxiety plays a primary role in performing and successfully accomplishing using a foreign/second language.

The first attempt [39] to use GDV technique in education was realized in the experiment to teach listening skills in English as a foreign language. The eyes of the student participants in this experiment were closed. The GDV technique was used to assess the functional state of the individuals and the biological dynamics in the process of perception and processing the information in English [39]. In 2007, Bulatova et. al. [40] reported the results of investigation of school children with GDV technique. According to the interpretation of the GDV-grams obtained in their studies, only 36% of children had normal psycho-emotional and physiological state; 42% have shown deficiency in electro-photonic emission and 17% were in a critical state. A positive correlation was found between the level of performance of the students and the results of GDV test. Children with deficiency in electro- photonic emission had lower performance level. Due to the active effort of psychologists, family, teachers and children themselves, over a five month period of counseling, regime, daily exercise and correct nutrition,

82% of children had their electro-photonic emission in the

normal range. This experience has established that GDV technique can be helpful in education process, mainly because of instant and real-time assessment of the functional state of an individual and also anxiety and stress that accompany a learning process. Taking cue from this research, we will employ the GDV method to identify the unique physiological and psycho-emotional signatures associated with anxiety in ESL learning process.

3. Computational Bio-electrography Based on Gas

Discharge Visualization Technique

The first world-wide discoveries of the phenomenon of bright fluorescence around human body in a high frequency electrical circuit belong to Nicola Tesla in 1880. The understanding of the significance of this discovery began in 1939 when Russian technician Semion Kirlian noticed the florescence around his fingers when repairing the high frequency equipment in the hospital. He and his wife Valentina investigated this "mysterious glow" till

1978 and it became famous under the name of "Kirlian

Photography". During the 1980s, different approaches for

 

 

the applications of bio-electrographic technique in medicine were developed (e.g., by Dumitresku I. in Romania, Mandel P. in Germany, Milhomens N. in Brazil, Lerner A. in France, Oldfield H. in England, Konikevich A. in the USA and many others). Many books and research articles have been published on Kirlian Photography and statistical correlations with interesting observations worldwide. In 1995, the Gas Discharge Visualization (GDV) technique, based on optical methods, modern electronics and computer processing of data, gave a new dimension to Kirlian Photography and lead to the foundation of a new scientific field called computational bio-electrography.

Figure 1: A Setup of the Electro-photonic Impulse

Analyzer Operated through a Laptop

Figure 2: Actual Procedure of Covering the Hand with a Black Cloth for EPE Capture

The GDV assessment of the functional state of an individual comprises of static snapshots (also called GDV- grams) of the electro-photonic emission (EPE) of the 5- fingers from each hand (a total of 10 finger EPE snapshots) which are collected with and without using filters on the glass surface of the Electro-photonic Impulse

 

Analyzer. The filter is a thin plastic film that prevents the direct contact of the skin of the fingertip on the glass surface of the analyzer. The rationale behind using the filter is to capture the EPE that represents the physiological parameters of the person; whereas, the EPE captured without using the filter represents the psycho- emotional parameters of the person. Figure 1 demonstrates a setup of the Electro-photonic Impulse Analyzer operated through a laptop and Figure 2 illustrates the actual procedure of covering the hand with a black cloth to prevent the penetration of light onto the glass surface. A GDV-camera underneath the electrodes captures the EPE (i.e., GDV-grams) of the fingertips placed on the glass surface of the analyzer.

 

Figure 3: Sample GDV-grams of the Thumb and Index Fingers on the Left and Right Hands illustrating the Different Sectors representing the Organ Systems and their Energy Coefficients (L – Left, R – Right)

 

 

 

Figure 4: A Sample GDV-diagram obtained using the static GDV-grams of the 10 fingertips

 

The electro-photonic impulse analyzer has an in-built GDV-software to analyze the GDV-grams. The GDV- software quantifies the activity status of the different organs/organ systems in the form of energy coefficients. The energy coefficient of an organ/ organ system in a GDV-gram is characteristic of the energy state (i.e., the activity) of the organ/ organ system and is obtained by normalizing the image to the standard GDV-grams. The GDV software that computes these numerical energy coefficients has been pre-calibrated with the standard GDV-grams collected from about 10,000 people with normal health. The range of the energy coefficient values for an organ/organ system in normal state is [-0.6, … ,

1.0]; whereas, the organs/organ systems with energy

coefficient values below -0.6 are said to be hypo- functional (low energy) and organs/organ systems with energy coefficient values greater than 1.0 are said to be hyper-functional (excess energy). Figure 3 illustrates the GDV-grams obtained for the (1) thumb and (2) index fingers on the left (L) and right (R) hands for a human subject. The energy status observed for the organs/organ systems has been visualized (in Figure 3) by highlighting their energy coefficient values in green, pink and yellow colors – representative of the normal, hypo-functional and hyper-functional states respectively.

Using the energy coefficients obtained from the GDV- grams of all of the fingertips from the left and right hands, the GDV-software constructs a GDV-diagram that presents a comprehensive view of the energy states of all

 

the organs/organs systems. The GDV-diagram of a person (a sample is shown in Figure 4) is represented using two curves (of red and blue color) and each of these curves is divided into different sectors whose radius correspond to the energy coefficient values observed for the sector. Each sector in the GDV-diagram is characteristic of a particular organ/organ system. The curve with the red color represents the GDV image taken without using the plastic filter and it captures the functionality of the organs/organ systems characteristic of the psycho-emotional status of an individual. The curve with the blue color represents the GDV image taken using the filter and it captures the functionality of the organs/organ systems characteristic of the physiological status of the individual. For better visualization of coefficient distribution, the circles are presented in three colors: pink, green and yellow corresponding to the levels below norm (i.e., hypo- functional), norm (normal) and above norm (hyper- functional) respectively.

In addition to static snapshots of the fingertips, one

could also collect dynamic GDV-grams to monitor the changes in the physiological and psycho-emotional states of a person while performing a particular activity. The dynamic GDV-grams can be used to monitor an individual over a period of time during certain activities such as watching a video, test, public speaking; investigate the psycho-physiological dynamics that may take place and correlate them with the content. The GDV-grams are a series of static snapshots of the fingertips collected at a

 

 

regular interval. In Figures 5 and 6, we show a sequence of GDV-grams (collected for every minute), illustrating the energy status changes of non-native and native speakers while watching a 3-minute movie in English. A visual interpretation of the two sets of GDV-grams indicates that the non-native speakers undergo serious changes in their energy states while watching a movie that affects their emotional anxiety, while there are no significant changes in the energy states of the native speakers watching the same movie.

Figure 5: Dynamic GDV-grams of a Non-native Speaker while Watching a Movie in English

Figure 6: Dynamic GDV-grams of a Native Speaker while Watching a Movie in English

4. Pilot Study of ESL Learning Process Using GDV Technique

Four international students of Turkish, Vietnamese and Chinese origin (right hand dominant) at the English as a Second Language Institute (ELSI), Jackson State University, volunteered to participate in our study. We have chosen to initially study auditory comprehension anxiety because of our conjecture that listening skill is the hardest to master in second language learning. Our hypothesis in this pilot study is that being non-native speakers, these individuals will have increased expression of anxiety associated with language tasks in English, especially with the listening comprehension section. All the students were enrolled in the medium level of English as a Second Language course at ELSI. The students signed the consent form in compliance with the human Institutional Review Board (IRB) and the purpose of the procedure was explained to them according to the guidelines of the human IRB. Seven individuals were recruited and participated in the first phase of GDV recordings; however, only four participants completed the experimental protocol. Three students did not show up because of lack of understanding of instructions given in English language.

We recorded two sets of the static images of electro-

photonic emission around the students' fingertips in a high intensity electromagnetic field generated by electro-

 

photonic impulse analyzer, before and after the listening comprehension tasks.

 

Figure 7.1: Activation Coefficient for Student 1

 

Figure 7.2: Activation Coefficient for Student 2

 

Figure 7.3: Activation Coefficient for Student 3

 

Figure 7.4: Activation Coefficient for Student 2

Figure 7: The Distribution of the Activation Coefficient in the Four ESL Participants Before and After Taking the Listening Test

The recording of the images was done with and without filter. Two integral parameters, activation coefficient and integral entropy, were analyzed and were considered as potential indicators for the measure of anxiety of the student participants. According to Korotkov

 

 

 

[5], activation coefficient is an average of the absolute magnitude of difference of the energy coefficients of diagrams created using GDV images captured with and without filter taking corresponding dispersions.

The proposed 0-10 scale of anxiety based on the

activation coefficient is divided into four main parts: 0-2 (low level of anxiety), 2-4 (normal level of anxiety, 4-8 (high level of anxiety) and 8-10 (distress, altered state of consciousness). The activation coefficient of the four ESL participants before and after taking the listening comprehension test is shown in Figure 7. As seen in this figure, the activation coefficient of three of the four participants was high before the test and low after the test. The activation coefficient of these participants decreased from 5.37 to 4.66 (a 13% decrease), 2.43 to 2.12 (13% decrease) and 5.42 to 2.06 (62% decrease). For the fourth participant, the activation coefficient increased after the test (from 2.97 before the test to 3.28 after the test – 10% increase). We would expect the anxiety to go up after the listening comprehension activities. However, for 3 out of the 4 ESL participants, we do not observe an increase in the activation coefficient after the listening test.

 

Figure 8.1: Integral Entropy for Student 1

 

Figure 8.2: Activation Coefficient for Student 2

 

 

Figure 8.3: Integral Entropy for Student 3

 

Figure 8.4: Activation Coefficient for Student 4

Figure 8: The Distribution of the Integral Entropy in the Four ESL Participants Before and After Taking the Listening Test

Thus, the proposed anxiety scale 0-10 after Korotkov cannot be used for the evaluating anxiety in the ESL listening comprehension task, though we do not exclude the possibility of using the activation coefficient as a measure of evaluating anxiety for other language activities such as speaking, reading and writing.

On the other hand, the distribution of integral entropy

has shown very promising results. Integral entropy is a measure of the deviation from the physiological and psycho-emotional balance. The proposed scale of anxiety based on integral entropy is divided into four main parts:

0-1 (low level of anxiety), 1-2 (normal level of anxiety, 2-

4 (high level of anxiety) and > 4 (very high level of anxiety). As presented in Figure 8, the integral entropy level of all the four ESL participants, measured using the GDV-grams for the left hand corresponding to the right hemisphere of the human brain, increased after the test when compared to the values obtained before the test. The integral entropy level of the student participants increased from 1.77 to 2.08 (18% increase), 1.77 to 1.90 (7% increase), 1.73 to 2.06 (19% increase) and from 1.58 to

1.76 (11% increase). Hence, we contemplate on using integral entropy as a measure of the anxiety of learning English as a Second Language, at least for the listening tasks, vindicated by the results in our pilot study.

 

 

Our preference for integral entropy as a measure of anxiety is also justified by the following observations from the literature on Chaos/ Complexity Science and Second Language Acquisition [41] and the recent discovery in the literature that the right hemisphere is more involved in second language learners who are less familiar and less trained in the language [42].

According to Larsen-Freeman [41], language learning

is a dynamic, complex, open, self-organizing, feedback sensitive task, and is constrained by strange attractors. It is complex, because a multitude of interacting factors are involved in the ESL learning process. Learning new vocabulary is a nonlinear process, for example, the student can listen to the text with familiar words and feel comfortable in performance, but the moment the teacher introduces new words, rather than making progress, the student's performance becomes less proficient, because after the introduction of new unfamiliar words, the system the student has constructed in his mind implodes. Therefore, orderly periods are very frequently followed by periods of chaos, especially when something new is introduced and students have to adjust a new content to their understanding and awareness. Order, eventually, can be restored through interaction with others. The integral entropy metric captures the fluctuations in the physiological and psycho-emotional parameters of the individual from an orderly status to a disorderly status and vice-versa.

The results of a very recent study demonstrated the significant difference between the proficiency level and hemisphere involvement in language processing. It has been shown that the right hemisphere of the human cerebrum is more involved and hence contributes to an increase in the entropy in second language learners with less experience and less training [42]. The results of our pilot study provide empirical evidence to the above finding and show that listening comprehension tasks in English as a Second Language activate functioning of the right hemisphere of the human brain, which is responsible for parsing and analyzing the semantic and phonetic characteristics of the language.

5 Conclusions and Future Work

Biometrics are used in the identification of unique features based on anatomical, physiological and psychological parameters of an individual. Computational Bio- electography based on GDV technique is a biometric tool to identify unique signatures expressed by individuals at physiological and psycho-emotional levels. Learning of English as a second language (ESL) is a process that is accompanied by anxiety, which can negatively influence the performance of students. In this paper, we have demonstrated the use of GDV to measure, quantify and

 

visualize the anxiety levels of ESL learners. We identify the integral entropy measured by GDV as the appropriate parameter to quantify and visualize the increase in anxiety. As observed from the results of our pilot study, the integral entropy of an ESL learner who has gone through a listening comprehension task increases by 7%-18%. Our conclusion of the use of integral entropy, based on the images collected from the left hand corresponding to the right hemisphere, is also substantiated by recent findings on EEG (Electro-encephalogram) synchronization in the literature. Thus, GDV as a biometric tool may be used to study anxiety associated with ESL learning and in other areas of education.

We anticipate that the integral entropy can also be used to capture the anxiety levels of ESL learners for other language activities such as reading, writing and speaking and this will be verified in our future work. As part of future work, we would also develop computational models that can identify unique biological signatures that are characteristic of the anxiety level of an ESL learner for a particular language activity.

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About the Author

Teaching ‘listening’ as an English Language Skill

Introduction:

English as a foreign language has the greatest motion in Bangladesh. Status of English as the “library language” and the increased “international inter-dependence” are the two reasons of this which led to a greater focus on face-to-face language usage crossing the margin of pen and paper exercise. As the decline of Grammar-Translation method in 1960s proved that language learning might not be limited to “reading and writing” or ‘literacy’, the provisional continuation of Direct Method confirmed too that ‘listening and speaking’ that is ‘oracy’ is not all that is language. Language must be taught in an integrative way where all four skills are focused.

But most often, even in the modern methods of SL teaching, quite surprisingly, listening skill is ignored in a way or another! David Nunan (1997) commented that listening is the “Cinderella Skill” which is overlooked by its elder sister “speaking” in SL learning. As ‘to expertise the productive skills like speaking and writing’ has become the standard of the knowledge of second language, listening and reading have been turned to be the secondary ones. Besides, in our schools, colleges and even in the higher levels, instructors direct how to read and write, not how to speak or listen. It is believed that these would be mastered by the learners automatically. Although listening had a boost up in 1960s (direct method) and in 1980s (Krashen’s input hypothesis, 1981; James Asher’s Total physical response, 1988 and Gillian Brown, 1988), it turned a fashion in most cases!

In this article, I have tried to show how listening helps EFL learners to develop language skill. Despite the fact that it is not a research article, a small scale survey has been done at Noakhali Science and Technology University, Bangladesh in order to demonstrate that listening practice is insisted by the learners and they find it functional in language learning.

What is listening?

Listening is a skill in a sense that it’s a related but distinct process than hearing which involves merely perceiving sound in a passive way while listening occupies an active and immediate analysis of the streams of sounds. This correlation is like that between seeing and reading. Seeing is a very ordinary and passive state while reading is a focused process requiring reader’s instrumental approach. Listening has a “volitional component”. Tomatis’ (2007) view is, while listening; the desire to listen, as well as the capability to listen (comprehension) must be present with the listener for the successful recognition and analysis of the sound.

What ‘listening’ really means is ‘listening and understanding what we hear at the same time’. So, two concurrent actions are demanded to take place in this process. Besides, according to Mecheal Rost (1991), listening comprises some component skills which are:

• discriminating between sounds,

• recognizing words,

• identifying grammatical groupings of words,

• identifying expressions and sets of utterances that act to create meaning,

• connecting linguistic cues to non-linguistic and paralinguistic cues,

• using background knowledge to predict and later to confirm meaning and recalling important words and ides.

As McDonough and Shaw ( 1993) and Rost (1991) explain that a listener as a processor of language has to go through three processes using three types of skills:

a. Processing sound/ Perception skills: As the complete perception doesn’t emerge from only the source of sound, listeners segment the stream of sound and detect word boundaries, contracted forms, vocabulary, sentence and clause boundaries, stress on longer words and effect on the rest of the words, the significance of intonation and other language-related features, changes in pitch, tone and speed of delivery, word order pattern, grammatical word classes, key words, basic syntactic patterns, cohesive devices etc.

b. Processing meaning/ Analysis skills:

It’s a very important stage in the sense, as researches show, that syntax is lost to memory within a very short time whereas meaning is retained for much longer. Richards (1985:191) says that, ‘memory works with propositions, not with sentences’. While listening, listeners categorize the received speech into meaningful sections, identify redundant material, keep hold of chunks of the sentences, think ahead and use language data to anticipate what a speaker may be going to say, accumulate information in the memory by organizing them and avoid too much immediate detail.

c. Processing knowledge and context/ Synthesis skills:

Here, ‘context’ refers to physical setting, the number of listener and speakers, their roles and their relationship to each other while ‘linguistic knowledge’ refers to their knowledge of the target language brought to the listening experience. Every context has its individual frame of reference, social attitude and topics. So, members of a particular culture have particular rules of spoken behavior and particular topic which instigate particular understanding. Listening is thought as ‘interplay’ between language and brain which requires the “activation of contextual information and previous knowledge” where listeners guess, organize and confirm meaning from the context.

However, none of these micro-skills is either used or effective in isolation or is called listening. Successful listening refers to ‘the integration of these component skills’ and listening is nothing but the ‘coordination of the component skills’.

Nature of listening as a skill:

Besides the division of the skills as ‘receptive’ and ‘productive’, another subdivision focuses on ‘one-way reception’ and ‘interactive reception’ in this age of active learning. Reading and writing are one-way skills where learners don’t get direct feedback. But in speaking and listening, learners may have their understanding and reproduction checked instantly. Thus active and self-learning takes place.

Moreover, there is a traditional labeling for reading and listening as “passive” skills. But linguists believe that a listener is involved in guessing, anticipating, checking, interpreting, interacting and organizing by associating and accommodating their prior knowledge of meaning and form. Rost (1990) thinks, listeners “co-author” the discourse and they construct it by their responses.

Even as a receptive skill, listening differs greatly with reading as reading materials are printed and permanent enough where the learners are required to interact with the next sentence using the knowledge of the previous one while listening involves continuous material presentation where they have to respond to the immediate expression. From the view point of “product” or “process”, listening is more a process than a product which instantly shapes the understanding and utterances of the learners.

Why listening?

No doubt, listening is the most common communicative activity in daily life. according to Morley (1991, p.82), “We can expect to listen twice as much as we speak, four times more than we read, and five times more than we write.”

So, listening, as a skill, is assuming more and more weight in SL or FL classrooms than ever before. Rost (1994, p. 141-142), points out, “listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learner. Without understanding input at the right level, any learning simply cannot begin. Listening is thus fundamental to speaking.”

Limited listening input fails to promote face-to-face communication by shaping their social development, confidence and self-image. Adequate listening practice could give the learners essential contact with handy input that might trigger their utterances. Teacher talk or peer- interaction might be the options for this. But according to Rod Ellis (1990), it’s not only the exposure to L2 that is enough, and learners need L2 data suited to the accurate stage of their development. If the learners don’t have “optimal” exposure in the target language, they can’t transmit the “comprehensible input” into “intake” through “production strategies” where learners attempt to use L2 knowledge. Krashen’s (1981) view is that “acquisition” takes place as a result of the learner having understood input that is a little beyond the current level of his competence that is ‘the i+1 level’. We must take into account that the level of listening input must be higher than the level of language production of the target learners. So, language teaching pedagogy must incorporate academic and designed listening practice.

Obviously listening influences other skills. A theory of Tomatis shows that “the quality of an individual’s listening ability will affect the quality of both their spoken and written language development”. He also views that if the sounds of the target language are presented to the learners before presenting them in written form, the ease with which they integrate those sound will be reflected in their understanding and production of the language. However, a pre-exposure or a following-exposure to listening input is a must on the part of a learner.

It is widely known that individual’s ability to process and analyze the sounds influence their ability to translate the sounds of language into their written form. We know, reading is not only a visual process rather involves the rapid analysis of letters and words that represents sounds and it is sound which gives the words meaning. A learner can decode the graphic images or recognize their meaning efficiently if their auditory processing skills are well developed. In a similar way, sounds are translated into graphic form in writing and if the sounds are poorly integrated their graphic representation will be hampered and problems like spelling mistakes may arise. So, we see the foundation on which reading and writing skills are built is spoken language again listening is the fundamental to spoken language as without listening anything we can’t reproduce or reply.

In a learner-centered approach, it is deducted that listening provides the learners with the following features of the target language:

• How the language is organized

• How native speakers use the language

• How to communicate in the language

Strategies for Listening:

Two types of strategies for listening have been in practice. They are defined so according to the ways of processing the text while listening:

a. In Bottom up processing, like reading, learners utilize their linguistic knowledge to identify linguistic elements in an order from the smallest linguistic unit like phonemes (bottom) to the largest one like complete texts (top). They link the smaller units of the language together to form the larger parts and it’s a linear process where meaning is derived automatically at the last stage. It is absolutely “text based” process where learners rely on the sounds, words and grammar in the message in order to create meaning.

b. Top- down interpretation, on the other hand, requires learners to go to the listening with their prior knowledge of topic, context, and type of text as well as knowledge of language to reconstruct the meaning using the sounds as clues. “This back ground knowledge activates a set of expectations that help the listener to interpret what is heard and anticipate what will come next.”

It is assumed that bottom up process is applied while practicing minimal pairs, taking pronunciation tests, listening for specific details, recognizing cognates and word-order pattern but top-down interpretation is used in the activities like listening for the main idea, predicting, drawing inferences, and summarizing where learners relate what they know and what they hear through listening comprehension.

According to the types of situation where the understanding takes place, listening is divided into:

a. Reciprocal or interactive Listening where the listener is required to take part in the interaction and alternately listens and speaks. Interactive listening situations include face-to-face conversations and telephone calls in which listener has a chance to ask for clarification, repetition, or slower speech from conversation partner.

b. Non-reciprocal or non-interactive Listening where the listener is engaged in listening passively to a monologue or speech or even conversation. Some non-interactive listening situations are listening to the radio, CDs, TV, films, lectures etc. and here listener usually doesn't have the opportunity to ask for clarification, slower speech or repetition.

We believe, this type of listening is not totally non- interactive too. The interaction takes place here is the ‘cognitive’ one where students respond through understanding and creating the meaning. On the other hand, this might be turn to semi- reciprocal if the instructor makes them responding while checking their understanding through question-answer or discussion and clarification in the class or lab.

Methodology:

Methods applied for the survey included questionnaire and group interviews taken with 40 students who attend listening classes in the language lab regularly and it has been observed by the author that they do better in speaking and reading than others. The subjects are the students of 1st year 1st term from the department of Pharmacy and CSTE, ACCT, and FIMS. Although they are really not beginners and have learnt English at their secondary and higher secondary level, they have no exposure to authentic English speaking and listening. Here they have been practicing listening in a language lab using headphone using audio and video for three months. The purpose of the survey was convincingly explained to them and they took 30 minutes to think on the questions and to answer them.

Findings:

30 students claim that listening practice has raised their confidence by throwing away their fear, hesitations, inertia and shyness that they had before to speak in English.

• All of the 40 students have told that watching video clippings and movie while listening enables to identify the right responses, styles, expressions, behaviors, attitudes and emotions in particular situations through concentrating on gesture, body language, non- linguistic cues, planning utterances, adjacency pairs, turn-taking, repairing utterances by asking for repetition, pre-closing and closing.

• 5 students have said that it has quickened their planning to respond as they listen to faster speaking than their own.

• 35 students opine that exposure to naturally spoken input by native speakers gives them practical experience of using language in target situations.

• 20 students who are highly motivated have found a change in their speaking style.

• 36 students think that listening to dialogues and conversation enriches their vocabulary and teaches how to use them appropriately.

• 10 students have found that intensive listening practice helps to remember the syntactic structures, spelling, accent and intonation.

• 19 students mention about learning of the cultures, feelings, reactions, trend and customs of the English speaking people that helps them feel motivated (integrative) to speak English.

• All of the 40 students opine that watching movie or video clippings draws more attention during the class and add to their learning.

• All of the 40 students believe that interaction with teachers for assessment or other purposes while listening help them greatly to remove confusion and use their newly gained knowledge immediately and make it regular in use.

Teaching listening:

Unfortunately, as I find a very diminutive effort in teaching listening in our country, this discussion may appear too much redundant to read to the language teachers! What we find in a traditional EFL classroom? Most of the classes complete their Language course without practice listening even for a day! Very few ELT trained teachers, now-a-days, in line with the flow of CLT; efforts for listening practice consisted of teacher reading aloud a written text slowly, once or more so that it is understood and than asking some comprehension questions. It seems the objective here is ‘to present the written language in an alternative way’ where characteristics of naturally spoken language is totally absent and listening practice is farther beyond. If the materials used for listening class comply with that in speaking class, it will, certainly, give a fully fledged input to the learners.

Teaching listening requires a bit more on the part of the teacher than that of the learners. One of the main principle of teaching listening, as I believe, should be “ Language material intended to used for training listening comprehension should never be presented visually first.” Good listening lessons go beyond the main listening task itself with related activities before and after the listening. The format may be like the following:

a. Pre-listening Stage: Some activities before listening may serve as preparation or warm-up for listening in several ways. These function as ‘reference’ and ‘framework’ by giving prior knowledge of listening activities. Some recommended per-listening activities include:

a. Introducing the topic and assessing their background knowledge of the topic or content of the material through commenting on a picture or photograph.

b. Activating their existing knowledge through discussion. Reading through comprehension questions in advance, working out own opinion on a topic, predicting content from the title etc. can be done.

c. Clarifying any necessary contextual information and vocabulary to comprehend the text. In this regard showing pictures maps or graphs and may be helpful.

d. Informing them of the type of text, their role, purposes of the listening etc. A short reading passage on a similar topic may help them.

b. While-Listening Stage: activities in this stage must follow the learners’ specific needs, instructional goal, listening purposes and learners’ proficiency level. While listening activities directly relate to the text and listeners are asked to do these during or immediately after listening.

. Some specific cares are required in designing while-listening activities. These are:

a. If the students are asked to give written information after listening, they should have chance to listen the text more than once which makes it easier for them to keep concentration while listening with specific purposes.

b. Writing activities should be to a minimum. As comprehension is the prime target, writing would make the listening more demanding. are samples of this.

c. Global activities like getting the main idea, topic, setting, summary that focus on the content and forms of the text should be given more so that listeners are guided through the text. Listening for the gist is such an activity.

d. More questions should be set up in order to focus student’s attention on the crucial elements that might help to comprehend the text. Following the rout on a map or searching for specific clues to meaning, or identify description of the given pictures might be appropriate here.

e. Attaching predicting activities before listening so that students can monitor their comprehension as they listen. Listening with visuals may serve here.

f. Giving immediate feedback to make the students examine their responses and how it was. Checking off items in a list, distinguishing between formal and informal registers conducted by teacher are examples here.

Listening activities here become varied according to their purposes and objectives. Four major distinctions include Attentive listening, Extensive listening, Intensive listening, Selective listening and Interactive listening.

Attentive listening:

Both of the ideas are true that attentiveness is a prior condition for understanding and listener often lapse attention for various reasons. Losing interest, inability to keep up with, losing track of goals, less confident are some of them. Teacher can help the listeners to hold their attention by personalizing the martial, using the target language while talking to them to keep flow, and lessening their stress and motivating by asking oral responses repeatedly. Activities in this stage would be interesting and easy including face to face interaction, using visual and tangible topics, clear description of the listening procedure, minimum use of written language, and immediate and ongoing responses etc so that learners can easily keep pace with the text and activity.

Listening to short chunks, music image, personal stories, teacher- talk, small question- answer, and interview etc may be applied in this stage.

Extensive listening:

This type of listening has also a greater ease than other types as it is concerned to promote overall comprehension of a text and never requires learners to follow every word and understand them. Learners need to comprehend the text as a whole which is called global understanding. Activities in this section must be chosen in terms with the proficiency level of the listeners.

At the lower level they may have problems to organize the information, so some non-verbal forms in responding might be given such as putting pictures in a right sequence, following directions on a map, checking of items in a photograph, completing a grid, chart or timetable etc.

At the developed stage, some language based tasks requiring constructing meaning, inferring decisions, interpreting text and understanding gist are usually recommended. Completing cloze exercises or giving one or two word answers, multiple choices, predicting the next utterances, forming connected sets of notes, inferring opinions, or interpreting parts of the text are some samples.

Intensive listening:

‘Hearing clearly’ is also a prime aspect of listening as it includes accurate perception without which the second phase of processing meaning becomes very difficult. Listening intensively is quite important to understand the language form of the text as we have to understand both the lexical and grammatical units that lead to form meaning. So, intensive listening requires attention to specific items of language, sound or factual detail such as words, phrase, grammatical units, pragmatic units, sound changes (vowel reduction and consonant assimilation), stress, intonation and pauses etc. Feedback on accuracy and repetition on the teacher’s part promote success here.

Paraphrasing, remembering specific words and sequences, filling gaps with missing words, identifying numbers and letters, picking out particular facts, discriminating the pronunciation of same phoneme in different positions, replacing words, finding stress and boundaries are some good intensive listening practice.

Selective listening:

It involves listening to selected part of a text, as it’s name suggests, to predict information and select ‘cues’ surrounding information. Thus, the listeners may have an assessment of their development in listening to authentic language. Here the focus is on the main parts of the discourse and by noticing these parts listener construct their understanding of the meaning of whole of the text through inferring. As the expectation on understanding is focused and has a purpose, in these activities, listeners have the chance of second listening to check understanding and have feedback repeatedly.

Listening to sound sequences, documentary, story maps, incomplete monologues, conversation cues and topic listening are examples of selective listening.

Interactive listening:

This is a very advanced stag of listening practice as it implies social interaction in small groups which is a ‘true test’ of listening. In interactive listening, learners, either in pairs or in groups, receive new information, identify them continuously. Besides, they have to work out the problems of understanding each other and formulate responses immediately as we are required to do in real life. So, in spite of calling ‘practice’, this goes beyond of it. As this phase involves both comprehension and production, it directly promotes speaking skill. Teachers have a central role in this stage. They have to set up specific goals so that learners can asses their own performance, observe learners’ language in order to provide immediate feedback on their interaction strategies.

Group survey, self introductions, short speeches, chatting and discussing, exchanging news and views, interviewing and being interviewed etc. might be appropriate here.

c. After-listening Stage: post listening activities can be used to check comprehension, valuate listening skill, use of listening strategies and use the knowledge gained to other contexts. So, these are called listening exercises at all and defined as ‘follow-up works.’ The features of these activities are:

a. Related to pre-listening activities, such as predicting.

b. May create a real life situation where students might be asked to use knowledge gained through listening.

c. May extend the topic and help the students remember new vocabulary.

Using notes made while listening in order to write a summary, reading a related text, doing a role play, writing on the same theme, studying new grammatical structures, practicing pronunciation, discussion group, craft project etc. are some post-listening activities.

Variables affecting and effecting successful listening:

Noise: Distractions and noise during the listening segment should be reduced and sound-proof language lab is perfect for this purpose.

Equipment: If the cassette player or CD player being used does not produce acceptable sound quality, it may harm developing skill or motivation.

Repetition: playing the text 2-3 times might be required in respect of the types of texts. In case of no chance of repetition, learners may become anxious about catching it all the first time and that will impede their actual performance.

Content: It is a strong variable to be able to make difference in developing skill. The material should be interesting and appropriate for the class level in topic, speed and vocabulary. Some guidelines for judging the relative ease or difficulty of a listening text for a particular purpose or particular group of students might be:

a. The selected material must be relevant to student’s real life; language of the text should be authentic and would vary in terms of learners’ interest and age group.

b. The storyline, narrative, or instruction should confirm common expectation in organization. It may contain main idea, details, and examples. An informative title might also be helpful.

c. Learners have to be familiar with the topic. They might feel major comprehension difficulties because of misapplication of background knowledge due to cultural differences.

d. At the beginner level of proficiency, the language of listening text should discard redundancy while in the higher proficiency level students may benefit from redundant language.

e. If the text involves more than one individual, the differences between them should be marked conspicuously which can make the comprehension easy.

f. Most texts should have visual supports like clippings, maps, diagrams, pictures or images in video that contextualize the listening input and provide clues to meaning in order to aid their interpretation.

Recording own tape: Any way, recording must be of an English speaker. Copying recording two to three times is preferred in order to avoid rewind which may discrete attention of the listeners.

Using video: Using video clippings with sound off and then asking students what dialogue is taking place is a good practice. Next, the teacher may play sound and check their understanding and interpret them about the discrepancy between their predictions and reality. It may also be done with the video first and giving only sound to guess what the context is can obviously effect comprehending.

Homework: In teaching listening, homework is a must. A listening task between two classes prevent them forgetting. Encouraging public listening and having notes on them is a free pave to walk in teaching listening which leads to success. Providing tape recording with questions, dictation, or a worksheet to complete may bring the expected results.

Using internet: If learners have opportunity to use a computer with internet access and headphones or speakers, teacher may direct them toward some listening practice sites and home works can also be assigned from these accesses

Limitations of the essay:

This essay doesn’t focus on every aspect of teaching or developing listening skill; rather it focuses mainly on the necessity and functions of listening input in learning a foreign or second language. The survey also reflects on the service of listening to the EFL learners who are instrumentally motivated. The context of the assay is this country though it reflects that of some other countries where the features don’t vary much.

Conclusion:

Definitely we have to admit that language learning depends on listening as we respond only after listening something. Listening provides the aural input that serves as the stimuli for language acquisition and make the learners interact in spoken communication. So, effective and ideal language instructors should help the learners to be introduced with native speaking, to be respondent to that both cognitively and orally. In order to do so, first, they should show the students how they can adjust their listening behavior to deal with variety of situations, types of input, and listening purposes.

Questionnaire

Name:

Role:

Department:

Q1: Does practice listening in the language lab help you to develop English skill?

Q2: How does it promote your learning?

Q3: Do watching movies or using video clippings add to your understanding?

Q4: How does interaction with teacher or interference of teacher while listening help you?

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About the Author

Mili Saha & Ali Rezwan Talukdar, Lecturers, Dept. of English,
Noakhali Science & Technology University
Sonapur, Noakhali, Bangladesh.