TED Talks On Extensive Listening
TED Talks On Extensive Listening
TED Talks On Extensive Listening
Asako Takaesu
International Christian University, Tokyo, Japan
https://doi.org/10.5746/LEiA/13/V4/I2/A05/Takaesu
Asian-Focused ELT Research and Practice: Voices from the Far Edge 109
The paper will begin with an overview of some recent trends in the
teaching of listening in the EFL / ESL arena. The definition, purpose, and
benefits of extensive listening practice will be explored, followed by
details of how the TED lectures were incorporated into an English for
Academic Purposes (EAP) course. Finally, survey results on students’
perceptions of the efficacy of the activity and strategies to facilitate the
task for students at lower comprehension levels will follow.
Literature Review
Listening as Part of EFL / ESL Teaching and Views on Listening
Processes
Referring to the paucity of attention allotted to listening practice in
the foreign language classroom, Nunan stated, “Listening is the
Cinderella skill in second language learning. All too often, it has been
overlooked by its elder sister—speaking” (2002, p. 238). Foreign
language teaching mainly focuses on productive skills: speaking and
writing. Listening and reading, considered secondary skills, are often
neglected, although they provide essential input to learners and
therefore are vital to their productive skills. However, listening is
currently receiving more attention (Field, 2002; Nunan, 2002; Wallace,
2010).
The two prominent views on the process of listening influencing
language pedagogy since the 1980s are the bottom-up top-down
processes (Nunan, 2002, p. 239). The former view holds that listeners’
understanding of what they hear begins with the smallest units of
sounds. These sounds are combined to form words, phrases, clauses, and
sentences to become concepts. In this process, listeners apply various
types of knowledge in a “hierarchical” manner in order to make sense of
the incoming message (Flowerdew & Miller, 2005, p. 24). The top-
down-process view, on the other hand, holds that listeners actively
reconstruct the meaning of incoming sounds using their pre-existing
knowledge of context (Richards, 2003).
Most researchers concur that both processes are necessary for
effective learning (Flowerdew & Miller, 2005; Nunan, 2002; Wallace,
2010). As decoding alone allows learners only literal interpretations of
the input, learners need to be guided to use what they already know to
help them make sense of what they hear (Wallace, 2010). When
students appear to lack contextual knowledge, some form of schema-
building activities is recommended before the listening process starts to
help learners prepare for a more meaningful listening experience
(Richards, 2003).
110 TED Talks as an Extensive Listening Resource for EAP Students
to pursue learning on their own and often maintain the new learning
behavior regardless of the presence of teachers and others (Brown, 2002).
Motivation
In foreign language acquisition, motivation plays a pivotal role and is
regarded as the universal principle that prompts learners to take
independent action (Dörnyei, 2001). Learners can be motivated by
intrinsic and extrinsic factors, depending on the situation and individual
traits, but often these two factors are interrelated. In their study on
student blog-making projects, Bhattacharya and Chauhan (2010)
reported that the majority of their students were primarily motivated by
internal factors and illustrated how this is related to autonomy:
Methods
Participants
The course was offered to 468 freshmen whose average age was 18;
349 were upper intermediate (average total TOEFL score: 514; listening:
52) and 119 were intermediate (average total TOEFL score: 443;
listening: 45).
Data Collection
Two student surveys were administered, one at the beginning and
one at the end of the term:
Survey 1. The first survey was given to obtain background
information on students’ habits for improving their listening skills, and
their perceptions of their listening abilities. This survey was used as a
reference and was not thoroughly analyzed for this paper.
Asian-Focused ELT Research and Practice: Voices from the Far Edge 113
Findings
The coding and analysis of the results of the second survey and
students’ listening journals generated the following salient themes: 1)
listening comprehension skills, 2) motivation, and 3) authentic listening
material.
Each of these themes is separately reported for the upper
intermediate and intermediate levels with tables and qualitative data
based on students’ survey responses and journals. Students’ unedited
comments are also provided.
Motivation
Upper-intermediate. Table B1 (Appendix B) shows 85% of upper-
intermediate students wanted to continue watching online lectures in
the future. One student stated that the process of selecting and viewing
114 TED Talks as an Extensive Listening Resource for EAP Students
Speed of Speech
Speaking speed needs to be assessed when choosing lectures,
especially for lower-proficiency students: fast speakers were a big
stumbling block for many of them. Although many upper-intermediate
students appreciated the challenge of the task, some with weaker
listening skills were frustrated or discouraged to the point of giving up.
One intermediate student recounted, “I hesitated to do LLJ at first
because I couldn't catch up with the native speaker's speeds and
couldn't understand what lecturer said. It took me a long time to take
notes and write summary and reactions.”
Some students seemed to reach a certain point where a faster speech
rate first causes lower comprehension, and soon almost no
comprehension (Renandya & Farrell, 2010). At this stage, the task
becomes ineffective and can be counterproductive. The instructors for
this course misjudged the varying degrees of students’ proficiency in
listening comprehension and also applied the same approach to different
levels of students.
Pre-Listening Tasks
The degree of anticipation should be maximized. As Lingzhu (2003)
pointed out, expectation plays a key role in listening comprehension.
Thus, pre-listening activities should precede listening tasks to prepare
students for what they will hear. Such activities should be clearly
demonstrated and rehearsed in class so that students can conduct them
on their own before they view lectures outside the class. A list of
questions such as the following can be used prior to the listening:
What do you know about the topic?
What does the title indicate? What can you infer from it?
Who is the speaker? Do a quick search on the speaker. What is
his / her field and what is he / she noted for?
What do you think the speaker is going to say?
What words can you guess the speaker is going to use? Jot down
the words in English as well as in Japanese, look up the English
equivalent if you have written the words in Japanese, and check
the pronunciation.
Lingzhu (2003) also stressed the importance of giving students
contextual knowledge in pre-listening activities to ensure successful
comprehension. While pre-listening activities are common practice,
teachers should ensure that students integrate this into their own pre-
listening habits.
Post-Listening Tasks
Post-listening tasks should be modified to make them more
manageable for lower level students. Although upper-intermediate
students appreciated the task of summarizing the lectures, claiming it
helped improve their summarizing skills, many lower-level students
stated it was very difficult and took substantial amounts of time, as just
understanding the speakers was a challenge. For them, less demanding
Asian-Focused ELT Research and Practice: Voices from the Far Edge 117
writing tasks, such as listing what they grasped and discussing their
reactions with others, might suffice and be more motivating.
Conclusion
This article illustrates some benefits that can be gained from using
online lectures such as TED Talks for students at lower and upper levels
of proficiency. In addition to most students acknowledging that the
118 TED Talks as an Extensive Listening Resource for EAP Students
References
Al-Sakkaf, N. (2011, July). Nadia Al-Sakkaf: See Yemen through my eyes
[Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/nadia_
al_sakkaf_see_yemen_through_my_eyes.html
Bhattacharya, A., & Chauhan, K. (2010). Augmenting learner autonomy
through blogging. ELT Journal, 64(4), 376-384.
https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccq002
Brown, H. D. (2002). English teaching in the “post-method” era: Toward
better diagnosis, treatment, and assessment. In J. C. Richards & W.
A. Renandya (Eds.), Methodology in language teaching: An anthology of
current practice (pp. 9-18). Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511667190.003
Deci, E., & Ryan, R. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in
human behavior. New York, NY: Plenum.
Deubelbeiss, D. (2008, November 10). Top 10 TED talks [Web log post].
Retrieved from http://ddeubel.edublogs.org/2008/11/10/top-10-ted-
talks/
Dörnyei, Z. (2001). Motivational strategies in the language classroom.
Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511667343
Field, J. (2002). The changing face of listening. In J. C. Richards & W. A.
Renandya (Eds.), Methodology in language teaching: An anthology of current
practice (pp. 242-247). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University
Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511667190.033
Flowerdew, J., & Miller, L. (2005). Second language listening: Theory and
practice. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Lingzhu, J. (2003) Listening activities for effective top-down processing.
The Internet TESL Journal. Available at http://iteslj.org/
Techniques/Lingzhu-Listening.html
Nunan, D. (2002). Listening in language learning. In J. C. Richards & W.
A. Renandya (Eds.), Methodology in language teaching: An anthology of
current practice (pp. 238-241). Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511667190.032
Reinders, H., & Cho, M. Y. (2010). Extensive listening practice and
input-enhancement using mobile phones: Encouraging out-of-class
learning with mobile phones. TESL-EJ: The Electronic Journal for English
as a Second Language, 14(2). Available at http://www.tesl-
ej.org/wordpress/issues/volume14/ej54/ej54m2/
120 TED Talks as an Extensive Listening Resource for EAP Students
Renandya, W., & Farrell, T. (2010). Teacher, the tape is too fast!
Extensive listening in ELT. ELT Journal, 65(1), 52-59.
https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccq015
Richards, J. C. (2003). Current trends in teaching listening and speaking.
The Language Teacher, 27(7), 3-6. Available at http://jalt-
publications.org/tlt/issues/2003-07_27.7
TED: Ideas Worth Spreading. (n.d.). Available at http://www.ted.com/
Wallace, M. (2010). Searching for a new approach to listening. Accents
Asia, 5(1), 8-22. Available at http://www.accentsasia.org/
Waring, R. (2008). Starting an extensive listening program. Extensive
Reading in Japan: The Journal of the JALT Extensive Reading Special Interest
Group, 1(1). Available at www.robwaring.org/el/articles/Starting_
Extensive_Listening_ERJ_June_2008.pdf
Asian-Focused ELT Research and Practice: Voices from the Far Edge 121
Appendix A
Post-Course Survey Questions
Appendix B
Post-Course Survey
III. Listening Skills Results
Table B1
Upper-Intermediate Students
Table B2
Intermediate Students
Questions Responses n Percent
Appendix C
Lecture Listening Journal Form
Name of Lecturer:_________________________________________
Reaction (50 words or more): Write your opinion about a main point in
the lecture.
Reflection: How was this LLJ? How many minutes did you take to
listen? How about writing the summary? Write some short comments
for your instructor and add any questions or suggestions you have.
Note 1: You can type your LLJ and print if you like, or write by hand neatly on this
paper. In some cases, your instructor might ask you to upload it on a class blog.
Note 2: You will need to attach your lecture notes to your LLJ. Any kinds of notes
are fine, but try to take notes well. The notes will not be evaluated for quality. They
are for the instructor’s reference to see how you took notes on that lecture.
Asian-Focused ELT Research and Practice: Voices from the Far Edge 125
Appendix D
Lecture Listening Journal (LLJ) Self-Evaluation Form
This evaluation form was created by Mark Christianson, formerly with ICU.