LISTENING AND COMPREHENDING

CONTENTS
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 Relationship between Listening and Comprehending
3.2 Listening-Comprehension
3.3 Factors Affecting Comprehension
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summay


1.0 INTRODUCTION
In the previous unit, we considered who a listener is, why we have to listen and listening enabling skills. Have you seen yourself as a listener? I think you are now practising some of the enabling skills. In this unit, you are going to study the relationship between listening and comprehending. You probably are familiar with the term listening-comprehension. Indeed, listening is closely related to comprehension. Listening is useless if there is no comprehension.
Get ready to study the unit. You need pen, paper and a tape recorder for the unit. The cassette in your study pack will also be used in the unit.
2.0 OBJECTIVES
At the end of this unit, you should be able to:
 show clearly the relationship between listening and comprehension
 perform tasks on how to comprehend
 state factors affecting comprehension.
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 Relationship between Listening and Comprehending
Do you know the relationship between listening and comprehension? You listen to comprehend and you comprehend, while listening. This section exposes you to the relationship between listening and comprehension.
GST101 USE OF ENGLISH AND COMMUNICATION SKILLS I
198
As you listen, you must always be ready to comprehend. Comprehension is at different levels during the art of listening. Some speeches are to be comprehended, superficially, because the points are not too important. Some need proper attention because what is to be discussed is very important. Flexibility in the art of listening and comprehension is therefore very important.
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE
Listen to passage 2.1 titled Course Requirements casually and bring out the major points.
Use the space below.
The passage is about________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
Since you listened to the passage with minimal comprehension, you are likely not going to put down more than the major points of the passage.
May be you may be able to say that the passage is about what participants will be able to do after the completion of the media course.
Nobody will expect you to say more than this in a casual listening activity. Comprehension is bound to be minimal
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE
Now listen to passage 2.1 again with proper attention. Pay attention to details. After the listening activity, fill in the gap below with the actual words or expressions from the passage.
Participants should be able to:
(a) 1._________and 2._________a wide 3.________of 4._________5._________ 6.__________
(b) Adopt a systematic 7____________to the design of training 8.____________.
(c) Select appropriate 9.________of 10._________to achieve specific 11._______ 12.__________
(d) Perform basic 13.__________14.___________skills 15._________for learning 16.________recording and 17._________
(e) Design and produce 18.___________19.___________ 20.__________
(f) Present 21.__________ effectively to 22.___________
After this exercise, do you think you are capable of intense listening and comprehension ability? You can determine this by checking the progress you have made in intense listening and comprehension activity in the structure below.
1. Set up
2. Operate
3. Variety
4. Instructional
5. Media
6. Equipment
7. Approach
8. Materials
9. Technologies
10. Instruction
11. Training
12. Objectives
13. Media
14. Production
15. Scripting
16. Audio
17. Editing
18. Interactive
19. Learning
20. Packages
21. Instruction
22. Learner.
What did you score out of 22 points?
 If you scored all, you are a very good intense listener.
 If you scored three quarters, you are a good intense listener.
 If you scored half, you are just fair.
 Below half, try again.
In fact, comprehension is more than getting all the words or expressions in a listening passage. You need more than words to comprehend. You need the general knowledge of what you comprehend. The more familiar you are with the topic, the better the comprehension. This brings us to the second part of our study: How can you comprehend what you listened to?
GST101 USE OF ENGLISH AND COMMUNICATION SKILLS I
200
3.2 Listening-Comprehension
So far in this unit, we stressed the fact that listening is closely related to comprehension. In this action, we are going to discuss how to comprehend. In order to comprehend you should:
 listen attentively
 follow the speaker
 posses a wide range of vocabulary related to the subject being discussed
 recognise general speech pattern and major speech divisions such as introduction, main body of speech, transitional clues, change of ideas, shift of emphasis, summary, concluding remarks, etc.
 put your experience of the world to bear on the topic
 show interest in the topic.
The chart below indicates how to carry out all the comprehension steps listed above.
Fig.2.1:Steps to Listening-Comprehension
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE
Listen to the audio recording captioned passage 2.2 and perform the comprehension tasks below. The title of the passage is Factors for Choosing a Mate.
(a) The major points raised by the speaker are 1________2.________3.________ 4._________
(b) _________is commonly valued in our society than __________and ________
(c) Societal expectation is ____________________________________________
(d) Discrepancy often occurs when ____________________________________
(e) What are the arguments for or against the following as raised in the passage?
(i) Age and marriage________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
(ii) Male ego_______________________________________
(iii) Physical attraction_______________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
If you comprehend the passage, you would discover that the major points raised as factors for choosing a mate are:
1. physical attractiveness
physical size
age and
health.
If you pay particular attention to details in the passage you would have discovered that:
2. beauty in women is commonly valued in our society more than intelligence or ability.
If you deeply comprehend the passage you would have discovered that:
3. societal expectation is for the husband (for the male) to be taller than the wife (or the woman).
GST101 USE OF ENGLISH AND COMMUNICATION SKILLS I
202
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE
Listen to the audio recording of passage 2.2 again and give the meaning of the following words as used in the passage.
1. Tolerable
2. Shallow foundation
3. Criterion
4. Incompatibility
5. Trivial
6. Bruising
7. Discrepancy
8. Ego
9. Flexibility
10. Contemplating
11. Affectionate
Although knowledge of all the vocabulary items in a passage does not, necessarily, suggest absolute comprehension of the passage, if you do not know the meaning of all the words listed above, to comprehend the passage may be difficult.
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE
Listen to the audio-recording of passage 2.2 again and list all transitional words found. Some of them are listed for you here:
In our lecture today...
Before ...
Almost ...
However ...
These words are signposts that direct you to the major points of the passage.
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE
Finally, listen to the audio-recording of passage 2.2 again and suggest the experiences you had before the passage that assisted you in comprehending it (the passage).
I do not know your prior knowledge of experiences regarding marriage; but as for me, my knowledge of beautiful women, short men, tall women, old men marrying young women, and disease in a family assisted me very much in comprehending the passage.
Let's go to the last part of this unit and this is a factor that can affect comprehension.
3.3 Factors Affecting Comprehension
This section is directly the opposite of how to comprehend. The following can affect the rate of comprehension.
 Not being familiar with the topic
 Lack of concentration
 Lack of interest
 Limited language and vocabulary of the subject matter
 Inability to think deeply.
Passage 2.1
Course Requirements
On satisfactory completion of the course, participants should be able to:
 set up and operate a wide variety of instructional media equipment
 adopt a systematic approach to the design of training materials
 select appropriate technologies of instruction to achieve specific training objectives
 perform basic media production skills, scripting for learning, audio-video recording and editing, graphic design, photography, and computer literacy
 present instruction effectively to learners.
4.0 CONCLUSION
Comprehension is central to all listening activities. As you listen to lectures, seminars and tutorials in your study centre, make sure you avoid barriers that can hinder comprehension. Remember, listening without comprehension is useless. You must always strive for comprehension whenever you listen.
5.0 SUMMARY
In this unit, you have been exposed to the following:
 the relationship between listening and comprehension, and
 how to comprehend during listening.
GST101 USE OF ENGLISH AND COMMUNICATION SKILLS I
204
We have also given you some of the factors that hinder comprehension; you should put all these points into practice as you study.