emilychen
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Listening Processes and Listening Purposes
1) Based on your English (or other foreign language) learning experience, what type of listening processes do you use more often, bottom-up or top-down? In your opinion, what type of knowledge can CALL programs better help learners to develop, linguistic or background knowledge? Why? Please give examples.
2) In everyday language use, we often carry out both interactional and transactional functions of language at the same time. Can you always distinguish which language function you are using? If it is difficult to distinguish them, then why do we have to learn these two functions separately?
3) In your opinion, which language function do you think CALL programs can better help students to learn? Why? Please give examples.
Note: Groups 4 and 8 are required to answer these questions.
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10/25/2004, 12:32 pm
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Christine1117
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Group 4 Re: Listening Processes and Listening Purposes
Group members: Christine, Randi, Glenn, Gary, Raymond
1.Based on your English (or other foreign language) learning experience,
what type of listening processes do you use more often, bottom-up or top-down? In your opinion, what type of knowledge can CALL programs better help learners to develop, linguistic or background knowledge? Why? Please give examples.
Based on my personal English learning experience, top-down process is usually used by me. Because the listening comprehension test often took are tended to top-down process, such as GEPT, TOFEL, TOEIC, etc. When I am preparing for those tests, I’ll find some materials for practicing such kinds of listening comprehension. But I remember I did a little of bottom-up practice when I was at the very beginning when learning English phonics.
In my opinion, CALL program can do both of linguistic and background knowledge developments. But it would do better in linguistic knowledge because linguistic knowledge mainly focuses on phonological, lexical, and grammatical knowledge which are essentials for intro learners and have to be repeatedly played during students’ practicing. Like Emily’s Pronunciation Class, it elaborates on vowels, consonants, word stress, and sentence rhythm, and of course provides audio function which is a program (Windows Media Player). Students can listen clearly and have ample time to follow the model sound.
2.In everyday language use, we often carry out both interactional and
transactional functions of language at the same time. Can you always distinguish which language function you are using? If it is difficult to distinguish them, then why do we have to learn these two functions separately?
Yes, I can distinguish which language function I’m using. Interactional functions focus on harmonious communication in social contexts which might be used most commonly. Most of my English talking is on interactional functions; I think I don’t have that many opportunities for using transactional functions. When I am in class, such as CALL class, writing class, translation class, or any other proficient courses, I will have the opportunities for transactional functions of language.
Actually, I don’t think the two functions are difficult to be distinguished. In my personal point of view, interactional functions would be mainly learned by intro learners; on the contrary, transactional functions of language would be learned by advanced learners. Intro learners always start from harmonious conversations, including greeting, small talk, things like non-controversial topic; on the other hand, advanced learners mostly learn uses of language include listening to lectures, taking notes, and practicing dictations and cloze exercises that require understanding of details, which are much more difficult. Therefore, they should be separated when being learned.
3.In your opinion, which language function do you think CALL programs can better help students to learn? Why? Please give examples.
The same personal opinions as top-down process and bottom-up process, for me I think CALL programs also can do both interactional and transactional functions. But it would be better do transactional functions because it is much more difficult and students have to spend much more time to digest the content, who can practice for several times with CALL program.
Like in Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab, it provides Listening Quizzes for Academic Purposes, and there are three levels of difficulty which are medium, difficult and very difficult. In each level, there are eight topics included. In each topic, besides the listening quiz itself, it has pre-listening exercises and post-listening exercises as well. You can decide whichever you want and get complete information for the academic purposes.
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10/31/2004, 6:17 pm
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Rolf99
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Re: Listening Processes and Listening Purposes
Group 8 members: Charlotte, Rolf, Erica, Maureen, Fanny
1. Based on your English (or other foreign language) learning experience, what type of listening processes do you use more often, bottom-up or top-down? In your opinion, what type of knowledge can CALL programs better help learners to develop, linguistic or background knowledge? Why? Please give examples.
A: Based on my English learning experience, I use top-down listening process more often. I remember that I took a listening and comprehension course when I was the fourth year in the junior college. The textbook my teacher used contains practical issues and is presented by conversations. Students can know about what kinds of situation they probably encounter when they go abroad for business. For example, students can learn about the process of boarding in the airport, doing check in when they arrive the hotel, arranging the schedule as a secretary for your boss, and so on. My teacher gave us extra information about every lesson as well. She wanted us to focus on speaker's purpose and the discourse topic, and gave students more background information. We think CALL programs can better help learners to develop linguistic knowledge better than background knowledge, because no CALL programs can provide all background knowledge for English learners. After learners spend much time practicing through CALL programs, the effect is still limited. However, since pronunciation practices are more narrowed down, not like the various background information, through CALL programs learners can better develop their linguistic knowledge. For example, in the website, American English Pronunciation Practice, at first learners can choose to practice the sounds in a minimal pair which they don’t familiar with, and then listen to them again and again until they can tell the difference between the sounds. Finally, after finishing the practice below the two sounds, they can examine if they understand. If they still don’t understand, they can continue listening to the sounds again and again. After completing a few lessons, they will get a more clear idea of the differences between minimal pairs. Though CALL program can support both linguistic and background knowledge developments, I myself think it's more helpful to linguistic development. Of course a CALL program could be definitely designed for background knowledge, but learners could acquire from books, too. Besides, a CALL program, which is definitely designed for background knowledge is not suitable for beginners. There's no possible if we learn any foreign languages without grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation that are all belong in linguistic domain. Constant practice is boring, whether for teachers or learners, but the only way to learn those linguistic factors well. A CALL program is happened to be qualified to the tiresome job. It not only provides learners video and audio contents, but infinite repeat which is the most important and essential function. As a result, I think CALL programs are relatively more helpful for linguistic development than background knowledge development.
2. In daily language using, we often carry out both interactional and transactional functions of language at the same time. Can you always distinguish which language function you are using? If it is difficult to distinguish them, then why do we have to learn these two functions separately?
A: Since we often carry out both interactional and transactional functions of language use at the same time, it is sometimes hard to distinguish which language function we are using in everyday language use. To take the news we listen to as an example, the broadcasters might have a relevant topic before the main information comes up. Afterward, they will sometimes give a brief conclusion about the main information. Thus, the process of it will be interactional function, transactional function, and then interactional function. However, the information that the broadcasters give us might be too general and hard to distinguish what main message, transactional purpose, they want to convey. It therefore confuses us. Therefore, we got to adequately use these two functions. If we do not understand some necessary transaction, we can use interactional function to clarify it. Also, the interactional function can help others understand the transactional function easily if we use it before we convey our main message. That is why we have to learn these two functions separately. Only if we understand how to use these two functions well do we can convey or get message properly.
3. In your opinion, which language function do you think CALL programs can better help students to learn? Why? Please give examples.
A: We think the language function that CALL programs can better help students is ”Transactional function.” We don’t think that computers or other artificial programs can do interactional function very well since they cannot perfectly imitate or create a real life situation; there must be much different between the assumption and the real life. In this case, learners just got general ideas instead of details, and this kind of programs’ content would be not enough for learners to use since in real lives there are too many things and all kinds of conversation to deal with. In this kind of programs, the way of using the target languages may never be enough or clear for users to learn. But the Transactional function CALL programs offer could be better since this kind of programs focus on its conveying messages. Learners listen the information and get clear ideas, guides or instruction. So, learners can find rules or specific information to use and learn easily. Learners can find the exact information they want to learn to follow in this kind of CALL programs while the other CALL program may not perfectly meet learners’ need.
Last edited by Rolf99, 11/8/2004, 10:24 am
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11/1/2004, 5:51 am
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