Intensive listening is listening for the elements (phonemes, intonation, etc.) in words and sentences. This form of listening is often assessed in an ESL setting as a way to measure an individual’s phonological, morphological, and ability to paraphrase. In this post, we will look at these three forms of assessment with examples.
Phonological Elements
Phonological elements include phonemic consonant and phonemic vowel pairs. Phonemic consonant pair has to do with identifying consonants. Below is an example of what an ESL student would hear followed by potential choices they may have on a multiple-choice test.
Recording: He’s from Thailand
Choices:
(a) He’s from Thailand
(b) She’s from Thailand
The answer is clearly (a). The confusion is with the adding of ‘s’ for choice (b). If someone is not listening carefully they could make a mistake. Below is an example of phonemic pairs involving vowels
Recording: The girl is leaving?
Choices:
(a)The girl is leaving?
(b)The girl is living?
Again, if someone is not listening carefully they will miss the small change in the vowel.
Morphological Elements
Morphological elements follow the same approach as phonological elements. You can manipulate endings, stress patterns, or play with words. Below is an example of ending manipulation.
Recording: I smiled a lot.
Choices:
(a) I smiled a lot.
(b) I smile a lot.
I sharp listener needs to hear the ‘d’ sound at the end of the word ‘smile’ which can be challenging for ESL student. Below is an example of stress pattern
Recording: My friend doesn’t smoke.
Choices:
(a) My friend doesn’t smoke.
(b) My friend does smoke.
The contraction in the example is the stress pattern the listener needs to hear. Below is an example of a play with words.
Recording: wine
Choices:
(a) wine
(b) vine
This is especially tricky for languages that do not have both a ‘v’ and ‘w’ sound, such as the Thai language.
Paraphrase recognition
Paraphrase recognition involves listening to an example and being able to reword it in an appropriate manner. This involves not only listening but also vocabulary selection and summarizing skills. Below is one example of sentence paraphrasing
Recording: My name is James. I come from California
Choices:
(a) James is Californian
(b) James loves Calfornia
This is trickier because both can be true. However, the goal is to try and rephrase what was heard. Another form of paraphrasing is dialogue paraphrasing as shown below
Recording:
Man: My name is Thomas. What is your name?
Woman: My name is Janet. Nice to meet you. Are you from Africa
Man: No, I am an American
Choices:
(a) Thomas is from America
(b)Thomas is African
You can see the slight rephrase that is wrong with choice (b). This requires the student to listen to slightly longer audio while still have to rephrase it appropriately.
Conclusion
Intensive listening involves the use of listening for the little details of an audio. This is a skill that provides a foundation for much more complex levels of listening.