Module teaching and integrating language skills lesson 1

Introducing real life aspects of listening
Activity 2. Article discussion. Handout 3.Group work

Group2
Advantages of using authentic listening materials

A. Exposing students to the real language
Compared with inauthentic listening materials, authentic listening materials have the advantage of exposing students to the real language—language used in real life. This can be seen clearly by looking at the different features of the two kinds of materials. According to other people’ research, these different features can be summarized mainly into four aspects.

1. Different redundant features

We know that in the ordinary conversation or authentic listening material speakers tend to say a great deal more than would appear to be necessary in order to convey his message, which appears less in inauthentic listening materials. This is called redundancy. Ur (1984) clearly describes the features of redundancy as redundant utterances which may take the form of repetitions, false starts, re-phrasings, self-corrections, elaborations, tautologies and apparently meaningless additions or fills such as I mean or you know, well, err. Because of the occurrence of these redundancies, the authentic listening materials are often not well organized. Speakers tend to hesitate, to go back to the beginning of an idea and start again, to repeat themselves, to produced ungrammatical utterances, to change their minds in mid-sentence and go off at tangents. The following extract from the utterances of a pop singer may show many of the characteristics of redundancy:

“Yes, um, it, it, it’s very demanding, um, it’s probably like a, an executive job, um, where you can’t come home at a certain nine-to-five, you can’t spend a lot of your time with people around you, you feel detached because you know, it’s like, I, I... I don’t necessarily have a schedule, I might work weekends, um, but... I don’ t actually mind, but it’s like your family, your boyfriend, or your husband, or whatever, they can’t go to see you, it’s like last night, I, er, it’s like I was suppose to be going out to dinner with the old friend, you know with some old friends, and, I ended, I was still at the studio, and I said, oh I should be finished around seven, and of course eleven o’clock came, and I was still at the studio, and everybody was raving mad, and I got there while the...everybody was getting ready to leave the restaurant... Things like that does happen, you know you can’t, you...you are not tied to that, and because of that sometimes you feel you can’t do things that other people, nine-to-five, can do. You might have a day off at Tuesday, and all your nine-to-five friends have got to get up to work, so they don’t necessarily want to go out on the town the way you might want to on a Saturday, and so you find that a lot of the time, to fit into this you’re fr...you, you change, and because their schedules all fit yours...”

(Harmer and Elsworth, 1989:75)

The following forms of redundancy occur in the above extract:

Tautology: you know
Hesitation (filled pauses and empty pauses): um, er...
False starts: while the ...everybody; you’re fr...you, you change
Repetition or stutter: it, it, it’s; I, I, I...
Self-correction; you can’t, you...you are not tied to tha

By comparison, many inauthentic listening materials show nothing of these forms of the redundancy as shown in the above extract.

2. Different grammatical features

The differences in grammar between authentic and inauthentic listening materials can be reflected in the differences between the spoken language and written language. Brown and Yule(1983) summarize these as : a) most speakers of English produce spoken language which is syntactically very much similar than the written language(e.g. few subordinate clauses);b) speakers often use incomplete sentences; c) the vocabulary of spoken language is usually much less specific than that of written language; d) interactive expressions like well, oh, uhuh features are used in spoken language; e) information is packed very much less densely in spoken language than written language. This means that the vocabulary used in authentic listening materials is different from that used in the inauthentic listening materials. The former tend to use the general nouns, thing, person, animal and the verb get, do, make, have, etc. and conjunctions and. It also tends to use colloquial vocabulary. In addition, in the natural communication, the speaker pays less attention to the cohesions and always uses the ungrammatical structures. Sometimes, the referents of cohesive markers such as this, these, and you are omitted in speech. For example,: “well you know, there was this guy, and here we were talking about, you know, girls, and all that sort of thing ...and here’s were what he says...”(Richard, 1983:226)

If we compare the following two extracts （A and B）, it is not hard to see some of the differences in grammar between spoken language and written or between the authentic listening material and the inauthentic listening material. Extract A is from an authentic interview taken from Listen to This, book2, Teachers Book. ( He etc.，1993 ), and may show some of the ungrammatical features of spoken language or the authentic listening materials, while extract B is from the existing textbook Step By Step 2000, book 2, Teachers Book. (Zhang， 2001：80),and may show the grammatical features of written language or the inauthentic listening materials:

Extract A

Interviewer: ... Mrs. Bradly, you and your husband smoke cigarettes I see. What about cigars ...a pipe ... do your husband...?
Mrs. Bradly: Oh he’s never smoked a pipe. He’s is the restless, nervy type. I always associate pipe-smoking with people of another kind...the calm contented type... As for cigars I suppose he never smokes more than one a year-after his Christmas dinner. Of course I only smoke cigarettes.
Interviewer: Right. Now let’s keep to you Mrs. Bradly. When and why –if that’s not asking too much-did you begin to smoke? Can you remember?
Mrs. Bradly: Yes... I remember well. I’m third-two now...so I must have been...er...yes...seventeen...when I had my first cigarette. It was at a party-you know- at that age you want to do everything your friends do. So when my boyfriend-not my husband-when he offered me a cigarette I accepted it. I remember feeling awfully grown-up about it. Then I started smoking...let’s see now...just two or three a day... and I gradually increased.（He etc.，1993:82）
Extract B

Nearly all the sports practiced nowadays are competitive. You play to win, and the game has little meaning unless you do you utmost to win. On the village green, where you pick up slides and no feeling of local patriotism involved, it’s possible to play simply for fun: but as soon as the question of prestige arises, as soon as you feel you and some larger unit will be disgraced if you lose, the most savage combative instincts are aroused. Anyone who has played even in school football match knows this. At the intermediate level, sport is frankly mimic warfare. But the significant thing is not the behavior of the players but attitude of the spectators: and, behind the spectators, of nations who work themselves into furies over these absurd contests, and seriously believe-at any rate for short periods-that running, jumping and kicking a ball are tests of national virtue. (Zhang， 2001：80)

The following is the result of the comparison of the above two extracts:
Extract 1
Language: informal
Incomplete sentence: What about cigars ...a pipe ... do your husband...?
Interactive expressions: you know; let’s see it now

Extract 2

Language: formal
Full of completed sentences
No interactive expressions

3. Different stylistic features

Just as we mentioned, the authentic listening material contains elements of natural and spontaneous spoken language, which seems variable, and is very different from one dialect area to another and very different from people of different identities. We may see the varieties of real and spontaneous spoken language from the following example (spoken by the landlord of a Cambridge pub in England, who has a southern English accent):

“the man you have to watch is the one who becomes quietly belligerent, and you sort of take him gently by the elbow to lead him to the door and the next thing you know is thump-you’ve been you’ve been landed one, and of course without warning you have to collect your senses pretty quickly before he lands you another one!”

(Harmer and Elsworth, 1989:75)
Looking at the underlined parts we can see the informal form (you sort of take) and some idioms and slang in the speech of the pub landlord which is consistently with his identity: to land one in you’ve been landed one and he lands you another one is a slang meaning to hit somebody. However, the inauthentic listening material that has the characteristics of written language does not change very often.

4. 
   Different environmental features
   

Authentic listening materials have background noise while inauthentic listening materials have no background noise. According to Ur (1984), “Noise” is the opposite of redundancy. It occurs when the listener cannot receive or understand information because of interference. “Noise maybe caused not only by some outside disturbance, but also by a temporary lack of attention on the part of the listener or by the fact that a word or a phase was not understood because it was mispronounced or misused or because the listener simply do not know it. In any case, a gap is left which is filled, as far as the listener is concerned, by a meaningless buzz”. In an informal conversation the listener may request a clarification and redundancy may often help him to construct the meaning. However, the inauthentic listening materials are all graded to suit the level of the foreign language learners without any “noise”.

We can see that authentic listening materials reflect the naturalness of spoken language, which can narrow the distance between the learners and the actual social reality. If students constantly receive the authentic listening input, they will find it easier to communicate with native speakers in real life, and their true listening ability can be developed.

B. Stimulating students’ motivation

Authentic listening materials, especially the current popular ones such as clips from media always dealing with topics that are familiar to students and relevant to their personal experience, hence, have been found appealing. Introducing and utilizing natural materials can be a very meaningful experience for students and can capture the interest and stimulate the imagination of students. So students will be more motivated to learn. (Ma, 2005)

C. Accumulating students’ knowledge

Authentic materials contain quite an amount of information covering almost every field of human life. Therefore, applying such materials in language teaching can provide students opportunities to accumulate their world knowledge.
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