Fostering and Assessing Critical Listening Skills in the Speech Course

In this article we present the results of two listening assessments conducted in spring 2013 and fall 2013. Our primary goal is of a pedagogical nature and is concerned with the design and the testing of a tool that could measure students’ critical listening skill improvement during the span of a semester. A total of N = 370 students participated in two quasi-experimental studies in which we developed a program to foster and measure critical listening skills. Results show that students’ listening skills improved in specific aspects of critical listening at both times. Effects were larger in the second round due to adjustments to both the course curriculum and the assessment tool. Results support the impact of the intervention by modest to high effect sizes and the construct validity of the assessment tool. We consider the improvement that was found in the current study an important beginning and recommend that the practice of listening skills becomes an integral part of the curriculum at the undergraduate level.     

Taxonomy of Lecture Note-Taking Skills and Subskills

Note taking (NT) in lectures is as active a skill as listening, which stimulates it, and as challenging as writing, which is the end product. Literature on lecture NT misses an integration of the processes involved in listening with those in NT. In this article, a taxonomy is proposed of lecture NT skills and subskills based on a similar list developed for listening comprehension skills, which is in turn based on a taxonomy of reading comprehension skills proposed by Ferguson (1973) and Gray (1960). The proposed list can shed light on the complexity of the skill of NT in lectures and help teachers provide systematic, brief, and controlled skills training for their students, especially L2 college or university freshmen.     

Assessing Critical-Analytical Listening Skills in Math and Engineering Students: An Exploratory Inquiry of How Analytical Listening Skills Can Positively Impact Learning

In this article, the researchers discuss the implementation of the Ferrari, Lynch, and Vogel Listening Test (FLVLT) to two STEM areas: Mathematics and Computer Science. The goal of the present study was to assess the improvement in students’ mastery of critical listening skills and how listening can help students to retain information. After students were introduced to the subject matter, two specifically tailored listening assessment tools were designed. Pretests and posttests were then administered in an introductory algebra (n = 29 students) and a network fundamentals course (n = 13 students). These tests were administered approximately four weeks apart. The data show that the FLVLT model is reliable for judging students’ critical listening skills and curricular knowledge. Furthermore, a 12% and 20% improvement in students’ ability to match the content pattern to a spoken message was found. In addition, a correlational analysis suggested that improvement in critical listening skills helped students’ learning.     

Life Skills,Mathematical Reasoning and Critical Thinking: A Curriculum for the Prevention of Problem Gambling

Previous studies have shown that youth are two to three times more likely than adults to report gambling related problems. This paper reports on the development and pilot evaluation of a school-based problem gambling prevention curriculum. The prevention program focused on problem gambling awareness and self-monitoring skills, coping skills, and knowledge of the nature of random events. The results of a controlled experiment evaluating the students learning from the program are reported. We found significant improvement in the students' knowledge of random events, knowledge of problem gambling awareness and self-monitoring, and knowledge of coping skills. The results suggest that knowledge based material on random events, problem gambling awareness and self-monitoring skills, and coping skills can be taught. Future development of the curriculum will focus on content to expand the students' coping skill options.     

A Survey of Listening Instruction in the Basic Speech Course

This survey of 498 institutions seeks to learn how institutions teach listening in the basic speech course. Respondents included community colleges and four year colleges, with and without degree programs. The results reveal most schools offer some listening instruction in the basic course, averaging 7% of a semester course (approximately three hours). Less than 50% of this time is devoted to skill development. The dominant methods of instruction are lecture and listening activities. Methods of modeling, role playing and the use of audio/video tapes and listening tests increase, as the emphasis on skill development increases. Typically, those who teach the basic course have had little specific training in listening. However, there is a positive correlation between the training of the senior faculty and junior faculty.     

《会议管理》课程技能抽考探讨

《会议管理》课程实行技能抽考,是在湖南省文秘专业技能抽考的基础上．根据与专业技能模块对应的课程教学内容和能力目标,设计《课程技能抽考标准》,确定技能考核范围、合理设计考核模式和考核内容,开发课程抽考试题库,完成技能抽考与课程考核的有效衔接,使课程技能抽考成为课程教学目标完成情况检验的重要依据。通过《会议管理》课程的技能抽考,保证文秘专业学生会议管理能力的整体提高。     

Assessing Listening in Elementary and Junior High Schools: An Examination of Four Listening Tests

The major object of the Calgary Listening Inquiry Project (CLIP) was the undertaking of school-based studies derived from teacher-defined problems and concerns with listening instruction. Another objective was development, implementation, and assessment of effective strategies and materials for teaching and evaluating listening. Four tests—Listening Comprehension Tests (LCT), Alberta Listening Tests (ALT), Test of Adolescent Language (TOAL), and Thinking Creatively with Sounds and Words (TCSW)—were administered. Discussion concerns the nature of these tests and how the use and study of them helped teachers not only to acquire data about students' listening skills but also to develop a vocabulary about listening and to define their questions. Teachers developed a Listening Profile for use as a student checklist for listening skill development and two Listening Awareness Assessment Questionnaires to obtain student feedback and to involve students as participants in CLIP.     

The Role of Maintaining Telephone Contact with Parents During the Teaching of a Personal Safety Program

Although recent evidence suggests that parents can be effective instructors of a personal safety program, the extent to which these results depend on maintaining contact with parents during program implementation has yet to be determined. This study examined the effectiveness of a program when taught by parents who either were or were not contacted during the teaching of the program. Preschool-aged children in both groups demonstrated enhanced knowledge and skill gains relative to children assigend to a delayed treatment control group. Low-income preschoolers learned prevention concepts and skills without being upset by the program, and their parents also appeared to benefit from teaching the program. However, the probability of completing the program was higher for parents who were contacted throughout program implementation, suggesting that personal contact may enhance motivation for some parents. Implications of the study for the child sexual abuse prevention field are discussed.     

The Role of Metacognition in the Development of EFL Learners’ Listening Skill

This study investigated the impact of metacognitive instruction on the listening skill, and metacognitive knowledge of a group of male students (N = 30) who were learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Iran. The study participants spoke Persian as a first language and were high-intermediate EFL learners. The participants received a guided lesson plan in metacognition (planning, monitoring, and evaluation) through a pedagogical cycle approach over a semester (eight weeks). International English Language Testing System listening tests (practice) were used to track the participants’ listening performance. Participants also completed a Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire, which examined their use of metacognitive awareness when engaged in listening tasks. Results indicated that the students improved their listening skill after being taught about metacognition; however, no significant use of metacognitive awareness was reported. This study concludes with a discussion of some potential implications, and provides scope for future research.     

Morality,Relationality, and Listening Pedagogy in Language Education

Listening pedagogy in language education treats listening proficiency almost exclusively as a function or skill, the purpose of which is to generate products or outcomes desired by language users. Though listening is rhetorically acknowledged to be an active and complex process of making meanings within contexts and relationships, in practice teacher education and pedagogical discourse treat listening simply as a linguistic transaction and listening pedagogy as a technical and instrumental process of skill building, with the goal of enabling learners fluently to perform such transactions. Such a means-to-ends orientation, however, is inadequate or insufficient to encompass holistic moral and relational dimensions inherent in listening. These dimensions might be added to language listening pedagogy by, for example, broadening the idea of “dialogue” to include more open-ended perspectives from other disciplines, contextualizing the relationality of typical coursebook listening passages, and working with metaphors such as hospitality that encourage a high attentiveness to communication accompanied by a high moral respect for persons.     

What Makes a Good Listener? Listening Behavior in Instructional Settings

Listening as a language skill is widely required in instructional settings at any level. It is proposed to view listening as an active process, involving patterns of behavior which can be categorized as content-, self-, and speaker-related activities. A questionnaire (N = 554) and a qualitative survey (N = 32) were conducted to investigate the knowledge about listening strategies among university students. Results show that the scope of listening skills is rather limited even among experienced listeners and that there is considerable room for modifying listening behavior. Consequences for conceptualizing listening expertise are discussed and areas for further reaearch, both empirical and theoretical, are addressed.     

A Content-Based Approach to Teaching and Testing Listening Skills to Grade 5 EFL Learners

English education has been officially incorporated into elementary-level education in Taiwan since 2001, with the key objective of reinforcing pupils’ oral communication in class. Although oral interaction involves a degree of listening input from interlocutors, listening has unfortunately remained a marginalized area in Taiwanese elementary education. Little is known about how to improve young learners’ listening comprehension and listening skills in Taiwanese contexts. The present study was carried out with 52 11-year-old elementary school pupils in Taiwan. An English course was designed to integrate pupils’ listening skills into a content-based course with a series of tourism-related topics. The results showed that the teaching of listening skills could be integrated into the content-based course and certain listening skills were greatly improved. Also, the study has implications for designing a topic-based course for teaching and testing listening skills, as well as for developing listening and speaking abilities in young EFL learners.     

Do You Ever Listen?: Discovering the Theoretical Underpinnings of Empathic Listening

The communication skill first learned and used the most, listening still remains one of our least competent abilities. Although communication scholars have researched listening, one critical aspect continually remains neglected, empathic listening. This study investigates the historical research on empathic listening, identihing three theoretical and definitional notions: (1) active emotional commitment, (2) acceptance of role-taking as a necessity, and (3) identification with the other. Despite the definitional and theoretical underpinnings of empathic listening, the need for further studies by communication scholars is still warranted.     

Occupations,Human Capital and Skills

Economists have long recognized that occupations can be used as proxies for skills in wage regressions. Yet the potential existence of non-market factors such as discrimination and occupational choice (sorting) on the basis of job attributes that are separate from, but potentially correlated with, wages makes occupations an imperfect control for skills. In this paper, we consider whether inter-occupational wage differentials that are unexplained by measured human capital are indeed due to differences in unmeasured skill. Using the National Compensation Survey, a large, nationally-representative dataset on jobs and ten different components of job requirements, we compare the effects on residual wage variation of including occupation indicators and these skill requirements measures. We find that although these skill requirements vary across 3-digit occupations, occupation indicators decrease wage residuals by far more than can be explained by skill alone. This indicates that “controlling for occupation” does not equate to controlling for only these skill measures, but also for other factors. Additionally, we find that there is considerable within-occupation variation in skill requirements, and that the amount of variation is not constant across skill levels. As a result, including occupation indicators in a wage model introduces heteroskedasticity that must be accounted for. We suggest that caution be applied when using and interpreting occupation indicators as controls in wage regressions.     

A Factor Analytic Study of Four Listening Tests

This paper describes the nature and assessment of an interactive videodisc instructional program on listening. The program is available to other educational institutions seeking to expand cost-effective listening instruction to students. Formative evaluations indicate that students enjoyed the Level III interactive multimedia instruction (IMI). Results of a dummy variable regression analysis indicate that students receiving IMI in listening achieved significantly higher immediate cognitive test scores and listening gain scores than did students in the control group. Regression analysis indicated no significant effect of reported GPA, year in school, previous listening instruction, or time-on-task on listening test gain scores of the IMI treatment group. However, significant effects on cognitive test scores were found for reported GPA, previous listening instruction, time-on-task, and senior versus non-senior standing.     

Managerial Listening and Career Development in the Hospitality Industry

Recent research confirms that communication skills are essential to effective management practice. Less is known, however, about the specific communication activities associated with different levels of management and how these competencies affect career development. This paper reports findings from two related studies of hospitality managers. One reports the differences between middle and upper level managers' perceptions of the frequency and difficulty of specific communication activities. The second study examines upper level managers' perceptions of the communication skills most essential to their career development.

Findings suggest that listening is perceived to be more critical to managerial effectiveness as individuals move into senior level positions, and that listening is perceived by general managers as the most essential communication skill for their career development. The results of this research have implications for educators, practitioners, and consultants as they work to improve managers' communication competence.     

Object Interaction and Walking: Integration of Old and New Skills in Infant Development

Manual skills such as reaching, grasping, and exploring objects appear months earlier in infancy than locomotor skills such as walking. To what extent do infants incorporate an old skill (manual actions on objects) into the development of a new skill (walking)? We video recorded 64 sessions of infants during free play in a laboratory playroom. Infants’ age (12.7–19.5 months), walking experience (0.5–10.3 months), and walking proficiency (speed, step length, etc.) varied widely. We found that the earlier developing skills of holding and exploring objects were immediately incorporated into the later developing skill of walking. Although holding incurred a reliable cost to infants’ gait patterns, holding and exploring objects in hand were relatively common activities and did not change with development. Moreover, holding objects was equally common in standing and walking. However, infants did not interact with objects indiscriminately: Object exploration was more frequent while standing than walking, and infants selectively chose lighter objects to carry and explore. Findings suggest that the earlier appearance of some skills may serve to motivate and enrich later appearing skills.     

Motivational Interviewing: An Evidence-Based Practice for Improving Student Practice Skills

Motivational interviewing (MI) is an evidence-based communication method to assist clients in resolving their ambivalence regarding change. With a school emphasis on evidence-based practice and learning outcomes, a social work department implemented a semester-long course on MI. The purpose of this study was to determine baseline skills and evaluate student skill outcomes. Students in 4 sections of the course (N = 137) completed validated pre- and posttest measures of empathy and MI skills to determine skill acquisition. Results indicated that students significantly increased on all skill measures with 85% scoring at beginning proficiency at posttest. Rationale for including MI in social work education and future research such as the need to determine skill transference into fieldwork are discussed.     

Reviews of Academic English Listening Tests for Non-Native Speakers

This article presents a review of 20 tests designed for assessing the academic English listening skill of second or foreign language learners. The available test information has been systematically condensed in purpose, listening construct, task characteristics, and validity evidence. It was found that most of the tests were developed for proficiency and placement purposes in academic contexts, with few of the tests serving for making workplace decisions. Also, global, local, and inferential skills constitute the construct in most listening comprehension tests. A practical approach for justifying the uses of these tests for different stakeholders is discussed. This review is a valuable resource for educators, administrators, test developers, and researchers looking for a comprehensive analysis of existing English tests that assess listening comprehension in second or foreign language learners.     

NIU Listening Exam: Assessing College Level Listening Skills

The NIU (Northern Illinois University) Listening Exam is a 45-item videotaped exam that assesses eight college level listening skills. This essay describes the criteria that the exam was designed to meet, the procedures used for designing and developing the exam, and the results of its pilot use.