Pontifical Xaverian University

Communication and Language Faculty

Bachelor of Arts in Modern Languages
Foreign Language Teaching
Camila Andrea Sarmiento Rojas
November 9, 2015

Improving Listening comprehension skills in a language beginner course: An autonomous

and strategic learning

It is well-known that learning a second or a foreign language (L2) is a difficult thing to

do, since it implies to learn a whole new language system, different, or not so much, from the
one of our mother tongue. As a language learner, I have experienced that difficulty.
Nevertheless, it was until this semester that I had the opportunity to do my participant
observation, as part of my studies for being a language teacher, which has brought me closer to
what actually happens in real educational contexts. It has been four months since I started to be a
participant-observer at a first level French services class (French classes open to all of the
faculties of the university) of the Pontifical Xaverian University of Bogotá, Colombia, whose
teacher is a non-native French speaker of 20 – 22 students of different careers such as
international relations, arts, engineering, business management, among others.

After observing different classroom factors, I have found that one of the major difficulties
that students present is listening or the oral comprehension of the language, which is the skill that
learners claimed to be struggling with, and that teacher refers to being, in general terms, the
biggest challenge for them in comparison to the other skills (writing, speaking and reading),
according to the surveys applied respectively to the students and to the teacher. After reviewing
the theoretical aspects related to this issue, and having done the correspondent analysis, I believe
that students may improve their listening comprehension skills by doing an autonomous work at
home.

First of all, it is important to see what the literature understands for this skill. In
accordance with many authors, listening is an essential skill in order for people to accomplish
successful communication, since it allows students to not only receive language input, but also to
interact with it, making it easier for them to develop the other skills related to language
(Anderson, A. & Lynch, T., 1988; Vandergrift, L. & Goh, C., 2012). In spite of its importance,
these same authors mention that given that this skill receives limited attention in language
classrooms, it is difficult for learners to handle it.

Following the ideas mentioned before, and based on what I observed, I have seen that that
is not the case of the classroom I am observing. Actually, the teacher tries out to carry out
different listening activities in the same day, or at least, once a week (one of the three days they
have class). Besides, she assigns different oral comprehension exercises for students to do at
home and emphasises all the time on the importance of doing autonomous work. In fact, she
believes that by practicing by their own, students can get over their difficulties and improve their
performance in listening, as she mentioned in the survey. Additionally, it is important to
understand that the teacher has to teach and help students to develop all the four skills in a
limited time, which impedes many practice of each skill during the sessions. Nevertheless, she
does her best to include and work on each one of them in the given time for the class, and to
assign work for the learners to do autonomously, and to provide tools, such as links, videos, etc.,
which can complement the students’ preparation and practicing of the skill.

Likewise, what appears to be of utmost importance for students of this class to improve
their oral comprehension is the autonomous work that they do outside the classroom. In fact, this
is an aspect that the University itself considers in the syllabus of the course: students must
accomplish 9 hours per week, of which 6 hours are in the classroom, and the other 3 are of
autonomous work (Syllabus de cursos area de francés, 2013). Therefore, the independent work of
students it is of great importance for achieving the intended level of the course, which is an A1
level of language, according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages
(CEFR, 2001). This level, in terms of oral comprehension, says that the learner is able to
recognize basic and common words and expressions related to himself, his family and his
immediately context when people speak slowly and clear (p. 30). For this reason, the course
prepares the students for developing the initial skills for listening, speaking, reading and writing
in bicultural communicative-simulated contexts, in order for them to be able to comprehend short
and simple texts, from which they could understand names, and common basic words (Syllabus
de cursos area de francés, 2013).

In that sense, seeing that that is what the course is intended for, the practices of the
teacher in charge are well-focused and directed to that utmost goal, by giving such the
“introduction bases” for all the four skills, including listening, to the learners. Nevertheless, since
students have the desire of comprehending every single word of the audios played in class, they
must work on it by their own, which leads us, again, to autonomous work as a way for improving
their listening skill.

As it could be seen above, we can say that listening skills may be improved if the learner
carries out independent work at home. For that reason, before going into detail, it is important to
understand what is meant by “autonomy”. According to André (1989), who refers to B.
Schwartz, “L’autonomie (…) dans L’Éducation domaine, est <<La capacité de prendre en
charge la responsabilité de ses propres affaires>>. Dans le contexte, qui est le nôtre, de
l’apprentissage des langues, l’autonomie est donc la capacité de prendre en charge son propre
apprentissage.” (p. 31). Therefore, an autonomous learner is who takes the responsibility for its
learning and who makes concrete decisions regarding to it, taking into account its capabilities
(André, 1989).

About what I have just stated, and in accordance with the recollected data from a survey
applied to 17 students of the class, I ascertained that on the one side, only 35% of learners
develop an independent work directly related to the formal practice of oral comprehension of the
language. For instance, they develop the listening activities proposed by the coursebook or they
make exercises from the Internet. On the other side, the 58% carries out a more informal practice
by listening to music or watching films in French. Despite the fact that more than a half of
students makes activities at home, associated with listening, according to Krashen’s language
acquisition theory, these could not be as helpful as they are supposed to because the input may be
a way more elevated from their actual level, while, in accordance with the comprehensible input
hypothesis, it must be “one level above that of the learners if it can only just be understood”
(British Council, 2006). In that sense, only the percentage of students who works with the
coursebook or doing exercises from the internet for the intended level (A1) may be having a
better performance concerning oral comprehension. Nevertheless, in the survey, all of the
students reported to have problems mostly with this skill, which led me to think that there was a
deeper problem which makes the autonomous work of not much help for those who, in fact,
practice at home.
 Having said that, based on my observations of the classes, on the data collected from the
same survey and on theory, I have found that students do not count with a wide range of listening
strategies that will help them succeed with their autonomous work. According to Hedge, T.
(2000):

“…encouraging learners to take on a greater degree of responsibility for their own

successful learning, not only by contributing to course or activity design in the ways
described above, but also by continuing their learning outside class, at home or in self-
access facilities. The teacher’s reciprocal responsibility is to ensure that their learners
have effective strategies for planning, performing, and monitoring their independent
learning.” (p. 35).

Consequently, their autonomous work is not helping them so much to enhance their ability to
comprehend oral speech.

Taking into account these mentioned ideas, for doing an autonomous work, it is necessary
that students can count on different strategies, such as the cognitive, the metacognitive, and the
socio-affective strategies for planning, monitoring, evaluating, and for being self-motivated
(Hedge, T, 2000; Lynch, T. 2009). These must be given by the teacher in class, such as TESOL
(n.f.) mentions: “Although listening is an individual activity hidden in one’s brain, the teaching
and learning of how to listen could be taken out of students’ private domain into the public
space of the classroom.” (p. 11). In this respect, and after analysing the way the teacher in
charge approaches to the listening skill, I have witnessed that she has promoted some of the
strategies mentioned before through oral comprehension activities that take place in the
classroom. For example, by making students to repeat what they hear in the audio (imitating a
model), she is promoting cognitive strategies; by applying the auto evaluation provided by the
coursebook to the students, she boosts metacognitive strategies; and by assigning collaborative
work, she makes use of socio-affective strategies.

On the contrary, the analysis of the learners’ responses to the question << ¿Qué
actividades o estrategias le ha enseñado la profesora del curso para mejorar su desempeño en
la comprensión oral?>>, showed that any of those activities I referred to before were considered
as helpful means provided by the teacher for the improvement of their listening skills, even
though such activities respond to the different listening strategies. Therefore, the problem,
apparently, eradicates in the implicitness in which these strategies are introduced to learners.
Accordingly, although some of these strategies can be seen in certain listening activities that the
teacher prepares and carries out in the class, it is recommended for her to work on them in a
more explicit way in order for the students to be more aware of them and to be more prepared for
doing their autonomous work, so that they can benefit of all of the potential this tool can bring to
them and to their learning process of the language.

To conclude, and as it could be seen above, a learner with listening strategies, is a learner
who could carry out a successful autonomous work at home, and so, who could improve its
listening comprehension skills. Hence, it is important that as language teachers we can assure our
students with a variety of strategies, through the explicit introduction of such, so as to make more
helpful and useful the autonomous work of learners.

Furthermore, it is imperative that all of the participants of the learning process are
engaged with it, not only the teacher and the students, but also the educational institution, in this
case Pontifical Xaverian University, who must guarantee the means by which the teacher can
develop her class successfully, or at least, they are obliged to inform of the changes there are
going to be in relation to the installations and the technical or technological systems of the
physical spaces. Because that was not the case, the teacher was obliged twice to lay aside some
listening activities that the coursebook, chosen by the University, includes in the CD.
Fortunately, the skilled teacher could handle it and proceed successfully with the classes.

Besides, I would like to highlight how significant has been for us as future language
teachers to have a space not only for observing a real context, but also for comparing it with a
theoretical background to help us analyse in a critical way, different issues that take place in a
language classroom. Likely, it is crucial for our learning process, since it prepares us for being
active teachers that are always assessing their own practice and diagnosing what is happening
with their students in order to enhance their performance and tailor their practice to the respond
to the needs of each specific context.

Bibliography

André, B. (1989). Autonomie et enseignement/ Apprentissage des langues étrangers. France: Les
éditions Didier- Alliance française.
British Council. (2006). Comprehensible input. Obtenido de
https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/comprehensible-input

Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment.

Strasbourg: Council of Europe. (2001). Common European Framework of Reference for
Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. Strasbourg: Council of Europe, (2001).

Hedge, T. (2001). Teaching and learning in the language classroom . Oxford: Oxford University
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LLMM, D. d. ( 2013). Syllabus de las clases del área de francés. . Bogotá, Colombia.

Lynch , T., & Anderson, A. (1988). Listening. Oxford University Press. .

Lynch, T. (2009). Teaching Second Language Listening. . Oxford University Press.

TESOL. (s.f.). How Can Teachers Teach Listening? Obtenido de

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