Preface

PrefaceThisbookisaversionofLeChang'sthesis,whichhesuccessfullycompletedin2012intheUniversityofAuckland.ThethesisexaminestheteachingoflisteningtoChineseuniversitystudents.Ingeneral“listening”hasbeenviewedasaskillthatistaughtbymeansofvariouslisteningcomprehensionactivities.AkeyfeatureofChang'sbookisthatinadditiontotreatinglisteninginthiswayhealsoviewsitasamediumfordevelopinglinguisticcompetence.Thusheinvestigatesbothlisteningcomprehensionandvocabularyacquisition.Hewasabletoshowthatstudentscanlearnnewvocabularyincidentallyasaresultofperforminglisteningtasks.

Thebookalsoexplorestheroleofmetacognitiveawarenessinlisteningcomprehension.Currentresearchplacesgreatstoreondifferentaspectsofmetacognitiveawareness(forexample,directedattention,mentaltranslationandproblemsolving)basedonresearchthatsuggeststhatsecondlanguagelearnerswithwell-developedmetacognitiveawarenessarebetterlistenersandalsothattraininglearnersintheuseofmetacognitivestrategiescanassistthedevelopmentoflisteningskills.However,Changreportedonlyaweakrelationshipbetweenmetacognitiveawarenessandbothlisteningcomprehensionandvocabularyacquisition,castingsomedoubtontheclaimsotherresearchershavemade.

AninterestingfeatureofthebookisthekindoflisteningtaskthatChangusedinhisstudy.Traditionallisteningcomprehensionactivitiesrequirestudentstolistentoatextandthenanswerquestionstodemonstratetheircomprehensionofit.Chang,however,usedinformation-transfertasks.Thatis,whilestudentswerelisteningtothetext,theywererequiredtocompleteachartoradiagram.Theircomprehensionwasmeasuredbyexaminingtheextenttowhichtheyhadsucceededintransferringinformationforthelisteningtexttothechart/diagram.Thiskindoflisteningactivityismoreauthenticthanthetraditionaltypeasitrequiresstudentstodemonstratecomprehensionwhilelistening,notafter.

Thisbookhasmuchtoofferbothresearchersinterestedininvestigatinglisteningcomprehensionandteachersinterestedinexploringnewwaysofteachinglistening.Istronglyrecommendit.

RodEllis

DistinguishedProfessor,UniversityofAuckland

ChangJiangScholarProfessor,ShanghaiInternationalStudiesUniversity