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COPYRIGHT 2002 Universidad de Costa Rica
Resumen
La habilidad de escuchar ha sido históricamente el área más dejada en la enseñanza de una segunda lengua. Sólo recientemente, se ha empezado a dar más énfasis a esta habilidad tan importante, tanto en la lengua materna como en una segunda lengua. Este artículo presenta algunas ideas sobre c6mo mejorar la escucha a través de las estrategias de aprendizaje. Este artículo intenta promover el uso de ciertas estrategias cuando la persona está escuchando para hacer el proceso enseñanza-aprendizaje más sencillo, rápido, ameno y significativo para el estudiante. El artículo está dividido en tres secciones que responden a las siguientes preguntas: "¿Qué es la comprensión auditiva?", ¿Qué, son y como pueden utilizarse las estrategias de aprendizaje en la comprensión auditiva?", y "¿Cómo pueden enseñarse dichas estrategias en el aula?"
Abstract
Historically, the listening skill has been the most forgotten skill in the teaching of a second language. This basic skill, in both first language and second language, has just begun to receive more emphasis. This article presents some ideas on how to improve the listening ability through learning strategies. It pretends to promote the use of certain learning strategies when a person is listening to make the learning process easier, faster, more enjoyable, and meaningful to the student. The article is divided in three sections that would answer the following questions: "What is listening comprehension?" What are learning strategies and how can they be used in the teaching of listening comprehension?", and "How can strategies be taught in the classroom?"
Introduction
In the areas of second language acquisition research and second language teaching, listening has always been the most forgotten and least researched of the four macroskills (speaking, reading, writing, and listening). In fact, until not long ago listening was not considered a separate and independent skill in itself, with its own characteristics, purposes, and microskills, but as an activity or means by which the other macroskills could be taught and acquired. The focus of this article will be in one of these specific areas, namely, the use of learning strategies in listening comprehension. It will not only identify the kinds of learning strategies used by second language learners while listening, but it will also provide ways in which learning strategies can be taught and learned in an EFL/ESL classroom. In this sense, understanding the learning strategies that more successful students use while listening will permit teachers to provide more and better opportunities for students (both successful and less successful ones) to listen to and practice with different listening segments while making use of different learning strategies. This article will promote the use and teaching of learning strategies for the listening skill as a means of making learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, and even more meaningful to students because they will be aware of what they are doing and why.
What is listening comprehension?
When taking a look at different articles that deal in one way or another with listening and listening comprehension, one discovers many different definitions. In fact, in the journal article, "A content analysis of fifty definitions of listening", Glenn (cited in Dunkel, 1991) analyzed 34 different definitions written in different books, and she found that "there indeed appears to be no universally accepted definition" (Dunkel, 1991, pp.433). One of the most complete and detailed definitions of listening, and the one that will be used for the purpose of this article, is the one provided by James (1984):
... it is not a skill, but a set of skills all marked by the fact that they involve the aural perception of oral signals ... [it] is not passive. A person can hear something, but not be listening ... it is absolutely necessary for almost any other work with language, especially for speaking and even for writing. (p. 129)
Three points should be noted in this definition. First, listening requires full interpretation of oral sounds. In other words, the person should be capable of distinguishing the smallest units of sound of phonemes. This is what lets a listener know that the sounds that he of she is listening to exist in a given language. Second, listening is an active skill, not a passive one as was believed to be some years ago. In other words, when a person is listening to something he or...
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