Academic Listening

CHRISTINE C. M. GOH

­Framing the Issue: Nature of Academic Listening

Academic listening (AL) involves attending to and comprehension of spoken texts

in academic settings, such as lectures, tutorials, small group discussions, and semi-
nars. Although, strictly speaking, students in first language contexts engage in AL,
the term “academic listening” is more commonly used in the ESOL context to refer
to a special set of skills required for processing academic spoken discourse by sec-
ond language users. One of the earliest discussions of AL was by Richards (1983),
who identified a list of 18 AL abilities that included identifying topic, purpose, and
scope of lectures, identifying relationships among units within discourse (e.g.,
major and supporting ideas, hypotheses, generalizations, examples), and making
inferences about relationships (e.g., cause and effect, conclusion). Since then similar
lists of AL skills have also been identified by other authors (see, for example, Buck,
2001; Flowerdew & Miller, 2005). Recent psychometric studies have also shown AL
to be a multi-divisible macro skill with discernible interrelated subskills.
While AL is often associated with lecture comprehension, other forms of listen-
ing are just as essential (Lynch, 2011). For example, besides taking notes during
lectures, students also need to interact effectively in oral communication with pro-
fessors, peers, and other people in the academic community. These include engag-
ing in transactional talk in order to understand explanations of course requirements,
obtain academic services at universities, take questions during seminar presenta-
tions, and listen to others during group discussions. In this regard, students would
also need to develop effective communication strategies in order to seek clarifica-
tion, ask for repetition, and confirm comprehension.
It has been suggested that the cognitive processing skills required in AL are
in fact fundamentally similar to general L2 listening (i.e., bottom-up, top-down,
and interactive processing), but AL requires additional skills due to the distinctive
features of the academic context (Flowerdew & Miller, 2005, 2014). For example, in
AL students need to combine comprehension processes, such as listening for
details, and listening for global understanding with abilities to take notes, sum-
marize, report, and ask questions. They need to stay attentive longer, learn new

The TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching, First Edition.

Edited by John I. Liontas (Project Editor: Margo DelliCarpini).
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
DOI: 10.1002/9781118784235.eelt0595

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 2 Academic Listening

discipline-related vocabulary, develop oral communication skills for new genres

of interaction, and use strategies to distinguish relevant information and make
informed inferences by drawing on background knowledge of the discipline or
topic (Flowerdew, 1994).

­Making a Case: Challenges of AL Learning and Instruction

AL processes involve the integration of listening comprehension and oral com-

munication skills with academic learning skills, and many students may find the
integrative nature of AL skills to be a challenge. AL is also a specialized listening
ability and this can be seen, for example, in the way basic comprehension skills
such as the ability to listen for details is demonstrated. In general L2 listening,
learners attend to a variety of specific information according to their communica-
tive purposes. Typically, these are small units of information (e.g., names, dates,
time) that are important to the listener. In AL, listening for details would also
include attending to genre-specific details such as the presence of discourse mark-
ers and markers of importance. Discourse markers are words or phrases that sig-
nal the organization of monologic and dialogic discourse. In extended texts such
as lectures, for example, discourse markers could be words or phrases that indicate
to listeners how and when the topic is introduced and the way in which the lecture
unfolds and ends. By noticing these markers, listeners can prepare themselves
mentally to anticipate or predict what is coming up next. For example, a contrast-
ing view is signaled by “on the other hand”, “however,” “in contrast,” while addi-
tional ideas to an earlier point may be signposted by “furthermore,” “in addition,”
“on top of that.” Markers of importance, as the term suggests, are words, phrases,
and even complete sentences that alert listeners to key information and explana-
tions that are about to be conveyed or have just been mentioned. Examples include
“importantly,” “one important factor/point/reason is,” “You need to bear in mind
that…,” “Remember this point.”
McDonough (2010) reviewed instructional materials for listening in English
for specific purposes (ESP), of which AL is a component, and noted the disjunc-
tion that existed between teaching and research. AL being the most researched of
all forms of ESP listening has benefited from research insights concerning lecture
comprehension. In particular there is now greater awareness of what L2 speak-
ers in English-medium learning environments experience and need. In this
regard, valuable findings have been drawn from a series of qualitative studies
conducted by John Flowerdew and Lindsay Miller in Hong Kong among
Cantonese-speaking university students. They identified several similarities in
students’ and lecturers’ perceptions about lecture comprehension, in particular,
with regard to the importance of modifying spoken language for lectures, and
the value of lecture handouts and use of examples. Their findings, however, also
revealed mismatches in p ­ erceptions. For example, students often perceived their
lecturers as speaking too fast while the lecturers thought that they had been
slowing down their speech to accommodate the students’ difficulties. The

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 Academic Listening 3

researchers also found that students preferred a more didactic style of lecturing
but lecturers preferred more interactive lectures which they believed could
facilitate comprehension and learning, something that has also been supported
by AL experts (Flowerdew, 1994).
Overall, the challenges of AL can be grouped in terms of student factor, discipline
factor and lecturer factor. Of these, the student factor seems most critical. These
would include specific reasons such as students’ inadequate language and general
listening proficiency, and unfamiliarity with the specialized nature of the topics,
technical vocabulary, and discipline-specific structure of lectures. For lecture com-
prehension, students need an integrated skill set and knowledge in order to recog-
nize discourse cues, take notes, and integrate incoming message with information
from other sources such as lecture notes and reference materials (Richards, 1983;
Flowerdew, 1994). To these challenges, we can also add the need to cope with
multimedia (text, audio, video, graphic) input in technology-enabled lecture
­
­presentations. Students will have to focus their attention on different forms of
input at the same time and this can tax their already limited cognitive processing
capacity. Compared to students in AL contexts two decades ago, students today
would need to add to their AL skills repertoire abilities to attend to these diverse
forms of inputs while listening to the aural input from lecturers. In light of today’s
technologically enhanced learning environments in many parts of the world, AL
instruction will certainly need to address the cognitive demands of this high level of
skill integration and research is also urgently needed to inform better AL instruction.

­Pedagogical Implications: Developing AL as a Set

of Integrative Skills

McDonough (2010) noted that ESP materials are mainly aimed at students with an
approximately intermediate level of English proficiency. There is an assumption
therefore that AL instruction should focus more on learning the subject matter and
specialized vocabulary of a discipline through listening instead of strengthening
general listening skills. This has probably resulted in some AL assessments that
focused too narrowly on testing knowledge of subject matter instead of assessing
listening skills in the context of the discipline. In spite of this, vocabulary knowl-
edge is indeed a factor affecting AL proficiency (Flowerdew & Miller, 2014).
In Britain, for example, overseas tertiary-level students had problems following
lectures because they could not understand colloquial and idiomatic expressions
their lecturers used (Littlemore, 2001).
Listeners in general L2 and academic context face many similar problems such
as accents, speech rate, unfamiliar vocabulary, knowledge of discourse structures,
and the pressure of producing quick and appropriate responses during oral inter-
actions. Of these challenges for AL, one that lends itself readily to remediation is
knowledge about schematic structure of lectures. However, as discourse structures
of lectures may vary across different disciplines, some experts have recommended
for AL instruction to be differentiated so that students could learn about these

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 4 Academic Listening

variations directly in each discipline. Flowerdew and Miller (2014) also favored
what they called a narrow-angle approach which is more tightly focused on one
discipline and its language features. The disadvantage of such a focus, however, is
that many AL instructors may not possess adequate subject knowledge and tech-
nical expertise to handle the lecture content.
Flowerdew and Miller (2014) also observed the lack of authentic material in AL
textbooks over the past two decades. The lectures that students listened to, they
noted, had been scripted or semi-scripted and produced for the purpose of ­practicing
AL in the classroom. Students therefore may not be sufficiently p ­ repared for the
challenges of AL in the real world. In addition, the authors have also noted else-
where that AL materials did not develop AL learners’ strategic competence. In this
regard, results from an early study by Olsen and Huckin (1990) merits m ­ ention here.
They identified two types of strategies that students used for recognizing when tak-
ing notes, namely information-driven and point-driven strategies. Students who use
information-driven strategies focused on getting details while those who used
point-driven strategies would try to distinguish major points from supporting ideas.
Based on the foregoing discussions of AL, the following recommendations for
material preparation and instruction are proposed:

1.  Addressing Student Needs

●● Provide learning opportunities where students can attend to and learn about
linguistic features of spoken discourse. These would include structure of ­specific
genres of academic discourse, discourse markers, and markers of importance.
●● Integrate audio forms of lectures with multimedia forms of visuals and written
texts (see Mayer, 2009).
●● Include language activities that address the way the English language is used
in specific academic environments.
●● Help students become aware of lecturing and teaching styles in their
universities.
●● Teach students to use effective learning and listening strategies for academic
interactions and lecture comprehension.
●● Provide training in recognizing the sounds of specialized vocabulary which
students may already be familiar with in the written form.
●● Provide students with tools to self-assess their AL abilities and become more
autonomous and aware of their abilities and limitations (for an example, see
the Academic Listening Self-Rating Questionnaire [ALSA] by Aryadoust, Goh,
and Lee, 2012).

2.  Selecting Texts

●● Use authentic lecture materials, such as YouTube or other video recordings, to
design an AL program or supplement published materials where lectures are
scripted and lack authenticity.

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 Academic Listening 5

●● Provide students with video recordings of interactive listening in academic

contexts. For example, recordings of competent speakers engaging in group
discussions, and seminar question-and-answer sessions.
●● Use audio recordings of lectures to help students focus only on aural input to
strengthen perception and other listening skills.
●● Supplement AL practice materials with teacher-made aids that can prepare
students for listening. For example questions and expressions that enable the
use of communication strategies during interaction, additional reading, and
visual material on the lecture topic.
●● The following questions can be used when selecting listening/video texts.
They focus on the academic communicative context and considerations about
features in the texts.
●● What is the original communicative purpose for the material?
●● Who is the intended audience?
●● Who is speaking?
●● What kind of visual support is available?
●● Is the level of language appropriate?
●● Is the length (duration) of the text appropriate and realistic for the proficiency
level of learners?
●● Is the text meant for sustained listening/viewing?
●● Is the language in the lecture scripted? If so, does it demonstrate grammar of
speech as opposed to the grammar of written language?

3.  Designing Tasks

●● Have a good balance of tasks for integrative skills practice (e.g., listening/
viewing and note-taking) and specific skill practice (e.g., listening for global
understanding; sound-word recognition).
●● Design interactive listening tasks that practice academic discussions, question-
and-answer, and so forth.
●● Include language awareness tasks where students notice and learn important
language features (e.g., discourse and importance markers, generic types of
academic lectures, pronunciation of technical vocabulary items, recognizing
their perception errors).
●● Create a pre-listening task where students read notes, watch video clips, and so
forth, before coming to class.

4.  Sequencing Activities

●● AL lessons should have clear stages of activities that prepare students to listen
and support them while they are listening
●● Subject-specific material in lectures should be supported by language-oriented
activities either before or after listening. Before-listening activities will enable
students to recognize technical or specialized vocabulary when listening. Post-
listening activities can help students focus on language features which they
encounter during listening.

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 6 Academic Listening

●● Listening comprehension activities could be interspersed with short reading or

writing activities that can support or consolidate listening comprehension.
●● Include a metacognitive component that helps students to develop their knowl-
edge and strategy use (see metacognition in second language listening).

5.  Planning Extensive AL

●● Extensive listening activities for improving AL should be a combination of
­students’ own initiative and teacher planned activities.
●● Teacher planned activities may consist of the following:
●● Students are assigned the task of selecting a recording and planning an AL
activity for their peers in class.
●● Teachers provide students with a listening package in the form of selected
recordings or URL links to Web sites and podcasts.
●● Students work in pairs to plan a personalized extensive listening program
consisting of schedules and selected recordings or topics for listening/
viewing.
●● Students select a topic in their subject discipline, plan interview questions,
and conduct the interview with senior students in the university.

SEE ALSO: Lexical Segmentation in Listening; Listening Activities

References

Aryadoust, V., Goh, C. C. M., & Lee, O. K. (2012). Developing and validating an academic
listening questionnaire. Psychological Test and Assessment Modeling, 54(2), 227–56.
Buck, G. (2001). Assessing listening. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Flowerdew, J. (1994). Academic listening: Research perspectives. Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press.
Flowerdew, J., & Miller, L. (2005). Second language listening: Theory and practice. Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press.
Flowerdew, J., & Miller, L. (2014). Dimensions of academic listening. In Celce-M. Murcia,
D. M. Brinton, & M. A. Snow (Eds.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (4th ed.)
(pp. 90–103). Boston, MA: National Geographic Learning/Cengage Learning.
Littlemore, J. (2001). The use of metaphor in university lectures and the problems that it
causes for overseas students. Teaching in Higher Education, 6(3), 333–49.
Lynch, T. (2011). Academic listening in the 21st century: Reviewing a decade of research.
Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 10(2), 79–88.
Mayer, R. (2009). Multimedia learning (2nd ed.). Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press.
McDonough, J. (2010). English for specific purposes: A survey review of current materials.
ELT Journal, 64(4), 462–77.
Olsen, L. A., & Huckin, T. H. (1990). Point-driven understanding in engineering lecture
comprehension. English for Specific Purposes, 9(1), 33–47.
Richards, J. C. (1983). Listening comprehension: Approach, design, procedure. TESOL
Quarterly, 17(2), 219–40.

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Suggested Readings

Goh, C. C. M. (2013). ESP and listening. In B. Paltridge & S. Starfield (Eds.), The Handbook of
English for specific purposes (Wiley-Blackwell handbooks in linguistics series) (pp. 77–94).
Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Lynch, T (2011). Academic listening in the 21st century: Reviewing a decade of research.
Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 10(2), 79–88.

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