Optimizing Listening Comprehension: Strategies for Effective Acquisition

Ryan Purnomo', Ana Cristanti', Ruri Fadhilah Kurniati, Evi Mahsunah",

Jeziano

Rizkita Boyas

Universitas Nahdlatul Ulama Sidoarjo

ryan409.pbi@unusida.ac.id

Abstract

Pemahaman mendengarkan, yang sering disalahartikan sebagai pasif, adalah proses kompleks dan
aktif yang memerlukan keterlibatan kognitif yang signifikan. Pendengar harus membedakan bunyi,
menguraikan struktur linguistik, menafsirkan pola intonasi, dan menyimpan informasi untuk
pemahaman kontekstual. Oleh karena itu, mendengarkan melibatkan pengerahan kognitif yang rumit.
Penelitian menyoroti peran penting strategi kognitif dan metakognitif dalam meningkatkan
pemahaman. Studi tentang otonomi pelajar, sejak tahun 1970-an, menunjukkan bahwa pelajar yang
mahir menunjukkan keterlibatan kognitif dan kesadaran metakognitif. Mereka secara efektif
memantau proses pembelajaran mereka, secara proaktif mengelola pengalaman pendidikan mereka,
dan memanfaatkan sumber daya yang tersedia untuk umpan balik dan peningkatan. Diskusi ini
mengeksplorasi integrasi strategi kognitif dan metakognitif dalam mendengarkan bahasa kedua,
dengan menyarankan bahwa pendidik dapat memberdayakan siswa untuk meningkatkan
kemampuan mereka dalam memahami bahasa Inggris lisan. Strategi kognitif mencakup tindakan atau
teknik spesifik yang digunakan pelajar untuk memfasilitasi akuisisi, penyimpanan, pengambilan, dan
penerapan informasi, termasuk pengulangan, ringkasan, dan perangkat mnemonik. Strategi
metakognitif melibatkan keterampilan berpikir tingkat tinggi yang memungkinkan pelajar untuk
merencanakan, memantau, dan mengevaluasi proses pembelajaran mereka, seperti penetapan
tujuan, bertanya pada diri sendiri, dan berpikir reflektif. Dengan mengintegrasikan strategi-strategi ini
ke dalam pengajaran bahasa, pendidik dapat memberikan siswa alat untuk menjadi pelajar yang lebih
mandiri dan efektif. Ini meningkatkan keterampilan pemahaman mendengarkan mereka dan
mendorong keterlibatan yang lebih dalam dengan materi pembelajaran, serta mempromosikan retensi
jangka panjang dan penerapan keterampilan bahasa dalam berbagai konteks.

Kata kunci: Keterlibatan kognitif, Strategi metakognitif, Otonomi pelajar, Pemahaman mendengarkan

1. Introduction

This paper will explain ways in which the use of cognitive and
metacognitive strategies to organize learning and interact with input can
improve learner's comprehension of spoken English, in turn enhance the
process of language learning/acquisition. This paper will illustrate ways in
which listeners can use strategies to facilitate the listening process, and
how instructors can promote the development and use of these strategies
in the classroom.

2. Discussion
2.1 Listening Comprehension and Language Learning Listening
comprehension has often been seen as a passive activity. It is on the
contrary, an active process in which the listener must discriminate among
sounds, understand word and grammar, interpret intonation and other
prosodic clues, and retain information long enough to interpret it in the
context or setting in which the exchange takes place. In short, listening is
a complex activity which requires substantial mental effort.

Listening comprehension as a separate component of language learning

and instruction came into its own only after long and significant debate
regarding its validity. A large volume of research has demonstrated the
critical role of input, and particularly 'comprehensible input' in language
acquisition (Krashen, 1982), (O'Malley, 1985), (Dunkel, 1991), (Feyten,
1991) underlining the primacy of the role played by listening
comprehension in second language teaching.

It has been widely acknowledged for some time that listening

comprehension plays a vital role in facilitating language learning.
According to Garry (1975) giving pre-eminence to the development of
listening comprehension, particularly in the early stages of language
learning (and instruction) provides four main advantages cognitive,
efficiency, utility and affective advantages.

The cognitive advantage of an initial emphasis on listening

comprehension is that it follows a natural order of acquisition, reflecting
the process of first language acquisition. Processing and decoding speech
requires recognition knowledge, which are natural initial step; encoding
and producing speech require retrieval knowledge, which can only occur
after speech has been comprehended and stored in memory. If we insist
that learners take learners place what has not yet been thoroughly
assimilated into memory, it will result in cognitive overload, and the
information will soon be forgotten. This explain to some extent why
learners of limited proficiency have difficulty listening for accurate
meaning and learning to produce speech at the same time. Short term
memory is not capable of retaining all of the necessary information and
learners consequently rely on native language habits when forced to
speak before they have fully comprehended the input. Not only does
placing the emphasis on immediate speech production leave little room
for listening, it leaves little room for language comprehension, i.e.
understanding meaningful messages so that language can be learned and
the development of related language skills. Consequently, an awareness
and deployment of effective listening comprehension strategies can help
leamers make the most of the language input to which they are exposed.
2.2 Listening Comprehension Strategies O'Malley and Chamot (1990) have
validated a body of language

learning strategies and developed an accompanying scheme grounded in

cognitive theory. Their scheme categorizes strategies as being either
cognitive or metacognitive in nature. Meta-cognitive strategies refer to
what learner to do to oversee, regulate or direct their learning and include
planning, monitoring and evaluating stages, which mirror the pre-task, on-
task and post-task activities featured in many texts. Cognitive strategies,
on the other hand, refer to strategies used to manipulate the input or
material, or to apply a specific skill or strategy to a particular task. A third
category, socio-affective strategies, refers to learning that take place
during cooperative interaction with classmates, question addressed to the
teacher, or techniques for the reduction of anxiety.

While second language strategy research has generated an enormous

amount of interest in recent years, the numbers of studies which
investigate the use of strategies in listening is even more limited (Rubin,
1984). Nevertheless, recent studies on the differences in strategy use
between relatively more and less effective listeners underline the
potential metacognitive strategies p the use of metacognitive strategies
possess for enhancing second language listening. Although the research
base is limited, preliminary evidence suggests that the use of
metacognitive strategies helped students manage their learning more
effectively, and thus capitalize on the input they receive to improve their
task performance.

2.3 Problem and Solutions

In teaching listening comprehension we must be careful not to go to

extremes, either by being concerned too exclusively with theorieswithout
thinking about their application to teaching, or by obstinately following
frozen routines-opening the textbook and explaining new words, playing
the tape recorder, and asking/answering questions. It is essential for a
teacher to have an overall understanding of what listening is, why it is
difficult for foreign-language learners, and what some solutions may be.
The vital question is how to bridge the gap

By using "Project Work" model, the students learn to act agent or active
agents instead of passive figure because they have t a topic project tasks
and complete the project by themselves and the
between an analysis of listening and actual classroom teaching. Willis
(1981:134) lists a series of micro-skills of listening, which she calls
enabling skills. They are:

 predicting what people are going to talk about

 guessing at unknown words or phrases without panicking
 using one's own knowledge of the subject to help one understand
identifying relevant points, rejecting irrelevant information
 retaining relevant points (note-taking, summarizing)
 recognizing discourse markers, e.g., Well; Oh, another thing is; now,
finally, etc.
 recognizing cohesive devices, e.g., such as and which, including link
words, pronouns, references, etc.
 understanding different intonation patterns and uses of stress, etc.,
which give clues to meaning and social setting
 understanding inferred information, e.g., speakers' attitude or
intentions

What are some listening problems?The evidence that shows why listening
is difficult comes mainly from four sources: the message to be listened to,
the speaker, the listener, and the physical setting.Many learners find it
more difficult to listen to a taped message than to read the same message
on a piece of paper, since the listening passage comes into the ear in the
twinkling of an eye, whereas reading material can be read as long as the
reader likes.

The listening material may deal with almost any area of life. It might
include street gossip, proverbs, new products, and situations unfamiliar to
the student. Also, in a spontaneous conversation speakers frequently
change topics. The content is usually not well organized.In many cases
listeners cannot predict what speakers are going to say. whether it is a
news report on the radio, an interviewer's questions, an everyday
conversation, etc. Messages on the radio or recorded on tape cannot be
listened to at a slower speed. Even in conversation it is impossible to ask
the speaker to repeat something as many times as the interlocutor might
like. Linguistic Features. Liaison (the linking of words in speech when the
second word begins with a vowel, e.g., an orange /@nOrIndZ/) and elision
(leaving out a sound or sounds, e.g., suppose may be pronounced/sp@uz/
in rapid speech) are common phenomena that make it difficult for
students to distinguish or recognize individual words in the stream of
speech. They are used to seeing words written as discrete entities in their
textbooks. If listening materials are made up of everyday conversation,
they may contain a lot of colloquial words and expressions, such as stuff
for material, guy for man, etc., as well as slang. Students who have been
exposed mainly to formal or bookish English may not be familiar with
these expressions. In spontaneous conversations people sometimes use

ungrammatical sentences because of nervousness or hesitation. They

may omit elements of sentences or add something redundant. This may
make it difficult for the listener to understand the meaning. Ur (1984:7)
points out that "in ordinary conversation or even in much extempore
speech-making or lecturing we actually say a good deal more than would
appear to be necessary in order to convey our message. Redundant
utterances may take the form of repetitions, false starts, re-phrasings,
self-corrections, elaborations, tautologies, and apparently meaningless
additions such as I mean or you know." This redundancy is a natural
feature of speech and may be either a help or a hindrance, depending on
the students' level. It may make it more difficult for beginners to
understand what the speaker is saying, on the other hand, it may give
advanced students more time to "tune in" to the speaker's voice and
speech style. Learners tend to be used to their teacher's accent or to the
standard variety of British or American English. They find it hard to
understand speakers with other accents. Spoken prose, as in news
broadcasting and reading aloud written texts, is characterized by an even
pace, volume, pitch, and intonation. Natural dialogues, on the other hand,
are full of hesitations, pauses, and uneven intonation. Students used to
the former kinds of listening material may sometimes find the latter
difficult to understand.

2.4 Development of Meta-cognitive Awareness

In addition to the preliminary evidence on strategy instruction presented

above, research has indicated the potential metacognition holds for
developing what might be termed a metacognitive strategic awareness
among learners. This approach will combine metacognitive awareness of
the available options and self-regulation strategieswith cognitive
strategies for interpreting and manipulating linguistic input to increase
comprehension.

Means of introducing such that approach to learners are varied. At the

introductory level, a presentation of strategies, the role in language
comprehension and a survey of the skills students employ is suggested.
Another means that has been suggested is to give the students a text or
listening passage, and promotes the strategy of selective attention.

2.5 The Listening Process

The sequencing of listening tasks into pre-listening, task-listening and

post-listening sections has been a mainstay in the teaching of listening
comprehension for better of last years. The orientation is pedagogically
sound, and so far as it serves to direct learners toward a consistent
approach to planning, monitoring and evaluating their comprehension,
highly advisable. If listening tasks are designed in such way as strongly
encourage learners to make consistent use of particular strategies at
appropriate points in the listening process in order to comprehend the
input, and this approach is used systematically, learners will in the end
have chance of improving their listening ability.

The pre-listening component should include activities that prepare

learners for what they will hear, what they will do, and how the task can
be approached. Initially students need to make conscious and knowledge
they have the content, background, setting, participants and goals or
purposes of the exchange they will hear, and the vocabulary to be used in
that setting or situation. Next, a purpose for listening must be established:
what information is required, and in how much detail. Finally in which the
task might be approached can be presented and weighed before listening
begins.

Post-listening activities provide an opportunity for learners to evaluate

their level of comprehension, compare and discuss strategies and reflect
on alternative approach to the task. Pair, small group or class discussion,
in the students' first language where necessary, are the simplest way to
encourage this. More important than getting the right answer the answer
obtained, as this knowledge can become part of the students' skills and
applied to successive tasks and in other contexts. The connection
between pre-listening and post-listening also needs to make explicit, so
that learners can develop the ability to better prepare fo and predict what
they will encounter by broadening the range of strategies they employ.
Performance checklist or listening process can provide a good starting
point for discussions. Such approaches encourage students to reflect on
the steps taken at various points in the listening activity by themselves
and their peers, and enable them to see which strategies they employ
most frequently, and which they tend to neglect. Discussing their
approach with classmates whose approaches listening differ should help
students adjust their strategies and broaden their skills repertoire.

In the process of doing so, and applying what th have learned from their
peers, learners should gain access to more posited something and are
listening to confirm prediction, not simply to gather information.

3. Conclusion

Listening should be presented to learners, particularly beginners, as a

cyclical rather than as a linear process, as students all too often tend to
view it in the latter terms. Interpreted properly "Could you play the tape
again?" might seem to indicate a linear approach; if we present the tape
as a loop, it may in fact encourage learners to take a different view of the
process of listening. It is facility with the process, not simply the final
product that indicates the development of viable skills that will enable
comprehension in other settings and situations. An emphasis on listening
comprehension which incorporates awareness-raising at the
metacognitive level will help learners more successfully capitalize on the
language input they receive and, theoretically, lead them to achieve
greater success in other areas of language learning.