English Listening C2

[Novella Poinsett]

Theself-study lessons in this section are written and organised by English level based on the Common European Framework of Reference for languages (CEFR). There are recordings of different situations and interactive exercises that practise the listening skills you need to do well in your studies, to get ahead at work and to communicate in English in your free time. The speakers you will hear are of different nationalities and the recordings are designed to show how English is being used in the world today.

Take our free online English test to find out which level to choose. Select your level, from A1 English level (elementary) to C1 English level (advanced), and improve your listening skills at your own speed, whenever it's convenient for you.

Listening involves complex affective, cognitive, and behavioral processes.[3] Affective processes include the motivation to listen to others; cognitive processes include attending to, understanding, receiving, and interpreting content and relational messages; and behavioral processes include responding to others with verbal and nonverbal feedback.

Listening is a skill for resolving problems. Poor listening can lead to misinterpretations, thus causing conflict or dispute. Poor listening can be exhibited by excessive interruptions, inattention, hearing what you want to hear, mentally composing a response, or having a closed mind.[4]

Listening is also linked to memory. According to one study, when there were background noises during a speech, listeners were better able to recall the information in the speech when hearing those noises again. For example, when a person reads or does something else while listening to music, he or she can recall what that was when hearing the music again later.[5]

Listening also functions rhetorically as a means of promoting cross-culture communication. Ratcliffe built her argument upon two incidents in which individuals demonstrated a tendency to refuse the cross-cultural discourses.[clarification needed][6]

Listening begins by hearing a speaker producing the sound to be listened to. A semiotician, Roland Barthes, characterized the distinction between listening and hearing. "Hearing is a physiological phenomenon; listening is a psychological act."[7] People are always hearing, most of the time subconsciously. Listening is done by choice. It is the interpretative action taken by someone in order to understand, and potentially make sense of, something they hear.[7]

Listening differs from obeying. A person who receives and understands information or an instruction, and then chooses not to comply with it or not to agree to it, has listened to the speaker, even though the result is not what the speaker wanted.[8]

Listening may be considered as a simple and isolated process, but it would be more precise to perceive it as a complex and systematic process. It involves the perception of sounds made by the speaker, of intonation patterns that focus on the information, and of the relevance of the topic under discussion.[9]

All three levels of listening function within the same plane[clarification needed], and sometimes all at once. The second and third levels overlap and intertwine, in that obtaining, understanding, and deriving meaning are part of the same process. In this way anyone, on hearing a doorknob turn (obtaining), can almost automatically assume that someone is at the door (deriving meaning).

Active listening involves listening to what is being said and attempting to understand it. It can be described in many ways. Active listening requires that the listener be attentive, nonjudgmental, and non-interrupting. An active listener analyzes what the speaker is saying for its implicature or subtext as well as for meanings contained explicitly in the verbal communication. An active listener looks for nonverbal messages from the speaker in order to comprehend the full meaning of what is being said.[11] Active listening has many benefits. It is more effective listening. It also strengthens one's leadership skills.[12]

Active listening is an exchange between two or more individuals. If they are active listeners, the quality of the conversation will be better and clearer. Active listeners connect with each other on a deeper level[clarification needed] in their conversations.[12] Active listening can create a deeper, more positive relationship between individuals.[13]

Active listening changes the speaker's perspective. Active listening is a catalyst in one's personal growth, which enhances[specify] personality change and group development. People will more likely listen to themselves if someone else is allowing them to speak and get their message across.[13]

Active listening allows people to be present in a conversation. "Listening is a key factor in cultivating relationships because the more we understand the other person, the more connection we create, as taught in nonviolent-communication Dharma teachings. As someone recently stated, 'We should listen harder than we speak.'"[14]

Along with speaking, reading, and writing, listening is one of the "four skills" of language learning. All language-teaching approaches, except for grammar translation, incorporate a listening component.[15] Some teaching methods, such as total physical response, involve students simply listening and responding.[16]

In "intensive listening" learners attempt to listen with maximum accuracy to a relatively brief sequence of speech; in "extensive listening" learners listen to lengthy passages for general comprehension. While intensive listening may be more effective for developing specific aspects of listening ability, extensive listening is more effective in building fluency and maintaining learner motivation.[17]

People are usually not conscious of how they listen in their first, or native, language unless they encounter difficulty. A research project focused on facilitating language learning found that L2 (second language) learners, in the process of listening, make conscious use of whatever strategies they unconsciously use in their first language, such as inferring, selective attention, or evaluation.[9]

Factors activated in speech perception include phonetic quality, prosodic patterns, pausing, and speed of input. These all influence the comprehensibility of listening input. A common store of semantic information (single)[clarification needed] in memory is used in both first- and second-language speech comprehension, but research has found separate stores of phonological information (dual)[clarification needed] for speech. Semantic knowledge required for language understanding (scripts[ambiguous] and schemata related to real-world people, places, and actions) is accessed through phonological tagging of whatever language is heard.[18]

In a study, involving 93 participants, investigating the relationship between second-language listening and a range of tasks, it was discovered that listening anxiety was a major obstacle to developing speed and explicitness in second-language listening tasks. Additional research explored whether listening anxiety and comprehension are related, and as the investigators expected they were negatively correlated.[19]

Krista Ratcliffe contended that much literacy teaching in the U.S. emphasizes classical Western rhetorical theory that foregrounds speaking and writing but ignores listening.[6] These theories mainly focus on how the rhetor's speech can persuade the audience. The goal of classical rhetoric studies was to address what the audience should listen for, rather than how they listen.[6]

Western teaching methods maintained the inherited rhetorical Greek noun logos, which means reasoning and logic, while ignoring its verb legein that refers to speaking as well as, in etymological term, to lay down, to listen.[6][20] Listening may occur within two different stances: the divided logos and the restored logos. These differ in how they (re)shape the functions and outcomes of listening. The hearer listens in the divided logos while simultaneously producing their responses to the speaker. Whereas within the restored logos, the listener exploits the listening time to live in someone's else experiences, then reflect on, and make meanings, to offer a response.[6][20]

An example of divided logos was Aristotle's theory.[21] Despite its concern with teaching students the oral discourse that mandates listening to produce and analyze enthymemes, listening was displaced and diminished.[6] The attention given to speaking without listening "perpetuates a homogenized mode of speech based on competition rather than dialogue."[20] Ratcliffe attributed this listening neglect to Western cultural biases that are represented as: 1) speaking is gendered as masculine while listening as feminine; 2) Listening is subjugated to ethnicity: white people speak while people of color listen; in other words, in cross-cultural relationships, there is one superior member in the conversation who does not need to listen as closely;[clarification needed][22] 3) Western culture prefers to depend on sight, not sound, as its primary interpretative trope.[6]

Steven Pedersen highlights the negative impact on communication of stereotypes and prejudices, which cause dis-identification. Conversely, rhetorical listening promotes cross-cultural understanding and allows students and teachers to disrupt reciprocal resistance[jargon].[24]

Based on Krista Ratcliffe's work on rhetorical listening, Meagan Rodgers developed the intent/effect tactic as one way for students to practice rhetorical listening in the English composition classroom. The application of this tool is meant to disrupt racially discriminatory stereotypes and utterances. Rodgers found in her classroom-based research that even if a person does not perceive themselves to be racist, racism or racial stereotypes are subconsciously perpetuated when a majority/dominant group agrees with[clarification needed] or laughs at racial differences of a minority group member. Rather than confronting students and jeopardizing their willingness to participate in classroom discussions, the intent/effect strategy invites students to (1) consider numerous perspectives of a statement, and (2) understand that well-meant comments (intent) can be perceived as deleterious (effect) by others.[26]

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