EXTENSIVE READING

Book Review

Arranged by:

Putri Rahma Nami (1105977)

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

THE FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS

UNIVERSITAS NEGERI PADANG

2013

Book Review

            Reviewer has already read five e-books. First, the book talk about teaching listening, the author of the book is John Field and he has published in 2006 by Cambridge University Press. Second, the e-book talks about listening in the language classroom, the author of the book is Steven Brown and he has published in 2008 by United Kingdom University Press, Cambridge. Third, the book talk about learning the secret language of focus groups, the author of the book is Bonnie Goebert with Herma M. Rosenthal and they have published in 2002 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York. Fourth, the book talk about a framework for teaching across differences, the author of the book is Katherine Schultz and she has published in 2003 by Teachers College Press, 1234 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10027 and the last is second language listening: theory and practice, the author is John and M. Lindsay and they have published in 2005 by Cambridge University Press. After I read books, the books are interrelated each other. However, the second book was interested for me. The second book is listening in the classroom.

            This book written by John Field, the book was first published in 2008 by the united kingdom University Press, Cambridge. Field said that there are three formats for a listening lesson. First, pre-listening is pre-teaching vocabulary to ensure maximum understanding. Second, extensive listening followed by general questions on context and intensive listening followed by detailed comprehension questions. Third, post-listening is Teach any new vocabulary and analyses language (Why did the speaker use the Present Perfect here?). Teacher should pause and play audio and students are listen and repeat what they hear.

            Teaching listening by Steven Brown (2006) said that one very important idea for teaching listening is that listening courses must make use of students’ prior knowledge in order to improve listening comprehension. To make this idea clear, this section introduces several concepts from the cognitive view of language learning, including schema, scripts, and top-down/bottom-up processing. At this point, there is a need to introduce one more concept from cognitive psychology: the human as a limited processor of information. Think of the ability to pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time. This is an interesting analogy to apply to listening because it is first a matter of individual differences: Some people can do this better than others. Systematic presentation of listening for main ideas, listening for details, and listening and making inferences helps students develop a sense of why they listen and which skill to use to listen better. Mally and Chamot (1990) said that the idea of knowing the purpose of listening is a very effective first strategy to teach because it helps students organize and reflect on their learning. If students know why they are listening, they are more focused. Think back to the statement that the human mind is limited in its ability to process information.

            The individual and the group for teaching listening are different strategies to learn it. In some respects, listening is a very individual activity. However, the fact that individual activity is not available as one recording, which is played to the group as a whole. As with any group-work activity, a class needs to be prepared for a session of this kind. The teacher should first play the recording to the whole class for general understanding and then introduce and explain the questions or task. There can then be a final whole-class phase where answers are reported back and compared. One of the best ways of fostering independent listening (and indeed of increasing the time which learners give to this critical skill) is to set listening homework. Listening homework requires a degree of preparation. The teacher might play a recording for general understanding, then introduce the task that is to be accomplished or the questions that are to be answered, and check that they have been fully understood.

            One type of listening that needs practice is monitoring what is heard for pieces of information that are of interest or relevance. Learners are then asked to apply that process to the types of input that would normally require it: namely, news headlines, airport announcements, etc. Similarly, listening for details might be practiced in situations where messages or instructions are being given, while listening for main points would be relevant with complete news items and with the output of lecturers and tour guides. Listening types might be expanded by providing classroom activities that promote interactive listening. Interactive listening will be discussed as a general concept, but we should not lose sight of the fact that, in real-life contexts, the degree of interaction varies considerably from one listening encounter to another.

Using technology can be developing listening skill. There are many technologies to get developing listening skill such as radio, audio tapes, language laboratory, video, and Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL). Listening to the radio is one of the most accessible ways a learner has of developing listening skills. Radios are low-tech, and radio broadcasts are continuous. However, is not an activity that is often used in class time. Perhaps this is because radio listening can be done only in real time, and the scheduling of language classes to catch particular radio programs is difficult. Audiocassette players are the simplest and cheapest way to provide listening practice opportunities for students in a classroom. The popular facility in the school is language laboratory the audio-lingual method is able to condition students to learn language.

In conclusion, reviewer invited a teacher must understand subject matter and some basic pedagogical techniques. But that is not enough; the teacher must be able to turn to his/her students to learn how to reach them. This requires listening to them as individuals, to their community, and to their society. Conceptualizing teaching as listening suggests that the teacher is always learning and that this learning shapes decisions in the moment and contributes to the teacher’s growth as a professional. So, teaching listening means teaching students to comprehend what they hear. Teacher should play and pause video and asked students to repeat what they hear. Before teacher play the video when he/she teach, teacher should draw up subtitle of video. So, If students not understand about video, teacher can show the video subtitle.