Teaching listening
Certainly, let's analyze these multiple-choice questions on listening comprehension.
1. Comprehension of spoken language
- Correct Answer: c. situation, linguistic information, and intention of the speaker
- Explanation: Effective listening comprehension involves understanding the context (situation), decoding the linguistic information (words, grammar), and interpreting the speaker's intended meaning.
2. Listening comprehension lesson should
- Correct Answer: c. receiving the ideas
- Explanation: The primary goal of listening comprehension instruction should be to help learners effectively receive and understand the main ideas and messages conveyed in spoken language.
3. In listening comprehension, the area
- Correct Answer: b. auditory memory
- Explanation: Auditory memory refers to the ability to retain and process sounds and spoken language.
4. According to some studies on listening,
- Correct Answer: d. Wide recognition vocabulary
- Explanation: A broad vocabulary is crucial for effective listening comprehension as it enables listeners to understand the meaning of words and phrases in the context of the message.
5. According to Rivers, in learning to
- Correct Answer: b. recognition and selection
- Explanation: Rivers suggests that effective listening involves two primary stages:
- Recognition: Identifying and understanding individual sounds and words.
- Selection: Focusing on the most important information and disregarding irrelevant details.
6. Many people believe that ............
- Correct Answer: d. world knowledge
- Explanation: Prior knowledge and world knowledge significantly facilitate listening comprehension by providing context and enabling listeners to make inferences and fill in missing information.
7. The
- Correct Answer: c. listening and reading
- Explanation: Top-down and bottom-up processing are crucial for both listening and reading comprehension. Top-down processing involves using prior knowledge and context to understand the overall meaning, while bottom-up processing involves decoding individual sounds and words.
8. Minimal pairs are usually applied for
- Correct Answer: b. aural recognition of phonemes
- Explanation: Minimal pairs are pairs of words that differ by only one phoneme (e.g., "ship" and "sip"). They are used to help learners distinguish between similar-sounding sounds.
9. Since real language includes much
- Correct Answer: d. redundancy
- Explanation: Natural speech contains redundancy, meaning that the same information is often conveyed through multiple channels (e.g., intonation, stress, repetition). This redundancy helps listeners to understand the message even when some information is missed or unclear.
10. The aim of the listener in real life
- Correct Answer: a. be able to recreate meaning
- Explanation: The ultimate goal of listening is to understand and interpret the intended meaning of the speaker, not just to identify individual sounds or words.
11. Material used for listening
- Correct Answer: c. simplified in the early levels
- Explanation: In the early stages, listening materials should be simplified to match learners' current level of proficiency. As learners progress, they can gradually transition to more authentic and challenging materials.
12. When planning post-listening
- Correct Answer: a. does not mean ability to discuss content
- Explanation: While comprehension is essential, it does not automatically imply the ability to discuss the content in detail. Post-listening activities should assess various aspects of comprehension, including identifying main ideas, recalling details, and making inferences.
13. Which of the following statements
- Correct Answer: c. Our memory is selective in storing the message in the long-term memory.
- Explanation: Our memory is not a passive recorder. We selectively store information that is relevant, meaningful, and important to us.
14. Listeners benefit from a large amount
- Correct Answer: a. redundancies
- Explanation: Redundancies in speech, such as repetition, paraphrasing, and intonation, provide valuable cues that help listeners understand the message, even in noisy or challenging listening environments.
15. In teaching listening comprehension,
- Correct Answer: d. emphasize comprehension along with remembering content
- Explanation: While remembering specific details can be important, the primary focus should be on understanding the overall meaning and message of the listening text.
16. To provide comprehensible input in
- Correct Answer: c. a little beyond the learner's present ability
- Explanation: Comprehensible input refers to language that is slightly above the learner's current level, challenging them to stretch their understanding but still providing enough support to make it comprehensible.
17. Listening comprehension can be divided
- Correct Answer: c. discrimination, perception of message, auditory memory, comprehension
- Explanation: This sequence reflects the stages of listening comprehension:
- Discrimination: Distinguishing individual sounds.
- Perception of message: Identifying and processing the overall message.
- Auditory memory: Retaining the heard information.
- Comprehension: Understanding the meaning and implications of the message.
18. One of the listening comprehension
- Correct Answer: a. listening for specific information
- Explanation: Scanning involves quickly searching for specific pieces of information within a listening text.
19. Listening comprehension ability tests
- Correct Answer: c. inferencing, induction and problem solving
- Explanation: Both listening comprehension and intelligence tests assess cognitive skills such as inferencing, inductive reasoning, and problem-solving abilities.
20. When listeners use their preexisting
- Correct Answer: c. top-down processing
- Explanation: Top-down processing involves using prior knowledge and context to guide listening comprehension.
21. Which statement is INCORRECT regarding
- Correct Answer: a. Less skilled listeners resort to top-down processing.
- Explanation: Both skilled and less skilled listeners utilize top-down processing to some extent. However, skilled listeners may be more adept at integrating top-down and bottom-up processing strategies.
22. According to Rivers, there are two
- Correct Answer: b. Recognition / selection
- Explanation: As mentioned earlier, Rivers emphasizes the importance of recognition (identifying sounds and words) and selection (focusing on relevant information) in listening comprehension.
23. Students need much practice in
- Correct Answer: c. listening comprehension
- Explanation: Before engaging in sustained conversations, students need to develop strong listening comprehension skills to understand and process spoken language effectively.
24. In preparing students for
- Correct Answer: b. listening
- Explanation: Effective communication relies heavily on strong listening skills. Students need ample opportunities to develop their listening comprehension abilities.
25. Which of the following is NOT a
- Correct Answer: a. Accent in the foreign language
- Explanation: While accent is a factor to consider, it is not necessarily a parameter for selecting language laboratory materials. The focus should be on the overall quality and suitability of the materials for the learners' needs.
26. According to Chastain , the three
- Correct Answer: c. sound discrimination, auditory memory, and comprehension
- Explanation: Chastain's model emphasizes these three key components in the development of listening skills.
27. One of the most useful ways to present
- Correct Answer: a. integrate listening comprehension with speaking
- Explanation: Integrating listening and speaking activities encourages active engagement and meaningful communication.
28. In the early stages of teaching
- Correct Answer: a. short units of the language
- Explanation: In the initial stages, it is crucial to focus on short, manageable units of language to avoid overwhelming learners.
29. The information we possess as a
- Correct Answer: b. script
- Explanation: A script is a pre-existing mental framework or schema that guides our understanding of a particular situation or event.
30. Which of the following activities is
- Correct Answer: d. Establishing a communicative purpose
- Explanation: Establishing a communicative purpose for listening activities helps learners to focus their attention and understand the relevance of the information.
31. Which of the following factors does
- Correct Answer: d. Having redundancy in the input
- Explanation: Redundancy in the input can actually aid listening comprehension by providing multiple opportunities to understand the message.
32. The listening activity in which
- Correct Answer: b. scanning
- Explanation: Scanning involves quickly searching for specific pieces of information within a listening text.
33. The purpose of post-listening
- Correct Answer: d. provide feedback on how well they have understood the passage
- Explanation: Post-listening activities help assess learners' comprehension and provide opportunities for feedback and further discussion.
34. The technique that embodies the
- Correct Answer: d. structured tutoring
- Explanation: Structured tutoring often involves a combination of teacher guidance, student interaction, and meaningful communication activities, promoting active and engaged learning.
35. One of the principle characteristics
- Correct Answer: d. they have a definite communicative purpose
- Explanation: Authentic materials are designed for native speakers and have a real-world communicative purpose, making them more engaging and relevant for language learning.
Certainly, let's continue analyzing these listening comprehension questions.
36. The early stages through which
- Correct Answer: d. developmental
- Explanation: As learners develop their listening skills, they progress through distinct developmental stages, gradually improving their ability to understand and process spoken language.
37. The first stage that Rivers suggests
- Correct Answer: a. identification
- Explanation: Rivers emphasizes the importance of initial sound identification as a foundational step in listening development. Learners must first be able to distinguish and recognize individual sounds before they can understand words and phrases.
38. The use of . . . . . language is
- Correct Answer: b. live
- Explanation: Listening comprehension activities should utilize authentic, "live" language whenever possible. This includes natural speech from native speakers, real-world conversations, and authentic recordings.
39. Decoding is primarily a/n. . . . . .
- Correct Answer: a. analytic
- Explanation: Decoding involves breaking down the speech signal into individual sounds and identifying their meaning. This is an analytical process that requires careful attention to the individual components of the language.
40. The comprehension of speech requires
- Correct Answer: b. a whole sequence of sounds
- Explanation: Understanding speech requires processing a continuous stream of sounds and recognizing how they combine to form words, phrases, and sentences.
41. The information possessed as a background to what is comprehended is called a ...........
- Correct Answer: b. script
- Explanation: A script is a pre-existing mental framework or schema that guides our understanding of a particular situation or event. It helps us anticipate what we are likely to hear and interpret the information accordingly.
42. Muscular habituation refers to the
- Correct Answer: b. repeating the words
- Explanation: Muscular habituation refers to the physical process of repeating sounds and words, which helps learners to internalize the pronunciation and improve their production skills.
43. Segmenting in listening comprehension refers to. . . . . a. breaking the message into discourse units
- Explanation: Segmenting involves dividing the continuous stream of speech into meaningful chunks, such as words, phrases, and clauses.
44. Comprehension in language processing
- Correct Answer: c. cognition, reception and integration
- Explanation: Comprehension involves:
- Cognition: Using background knowledge and cognitive processes to interpret the meaning.
- Reception: Perceiving and processing the incoming auditory information.
- Integration: Combining the perceived information with existing knowledge to construct meaning.
45. In listening comprehension, the
- Correct Answer: b. identify the sounds and the elements of meaning
- Explanation: The initial step in listening comprehension involves identifying and decoding individual sounds and words, which are the building blocks of meaning.
46. The process of listening comprehension
- Correct Answer: a. sensing
- Explanation: The process of listening begins with sensing the auditory input, which involves perceiving the sounds and recognizing them as speech.
47. In one of "listening for
- Correct Answer: a. scanning
- Explanation: Scanning involves quickly searching for specific pieces of information within the listening text.
48. Listening to lectures can be the
- Correct Answer: c. fifth
- Explanation: Listening to lectures is a complex listening activity that typically occurs at a later stage in language learning, after learners have developed basic listening skills.
49. In one of listening for meaning
- Correct Answer: c. matching
- Explanation: Matching activities require learners to select the correct written response that corresponds to what they have heard.
50. In comprehension approach, the primary
- Correct Answer: a. listening comprehension skills
- Explanation: The comprehension approach emphasizes the development of listening comprehension skills as a foundational aspect of language learning.
51. Giving a bare outline to be filled by
- Correct Answer: c. fifth
- Explanation: Providing a bare outline for learners to fill in after listening to a passage is a more advanced activity that requires a higher level of comprehension.
52. .......... exercises are those in
- Correct Answer: a. Transferring
- Explanation: Transferring exercises require learners to receive information orally and then express it in a different form, such as writing, drawing, or summarizing.
53. When the students listen to passage
- Correct Answer: a. condensing
- Explanation: Condensing involves summarizing the main points of a listening text in a concise and concise manner.
54. Tasks in which the students listen for
- Correct Answer: b. scanning
- Explanation: As mentioned earlier, scanning involves searching for specific pieces of information within a listening text.
55. Actually, listening comprehension can
- Correct Answer: c. four/selection , perception, understanding and retention
- Explanation: Listening comprehension can be broken down into four key components:
- Selection: Focusing on relevant information.
- Perception: Identifying and processing sounds and words.
- Understanding: Interpreting the meaning of the message.
- Retention: Remembering and storing the information.