Ways and techniques of comprehension of dialogue and monologue by ear. Using of the mechanical teaching aids in teaching listening comprehension.

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The term “auding” means hearing and comprehension. To aud means to recognize and to comprehend the content of speech. Auding is a receptive kind of language activity. It is both an aim and a means of teaching.

LC as a means of teaching is used as :

1. a way of introduction of the language material in oral form (in a talk, in speech patterns);

2. a means of forming well-set acoustic images of language phenomena(words) together with their meanings, which is ensured by multiple perception of the same material by the ear;

3. a means of acquiring pronunciation habits, because instruction only won’t help pupils to pronounce a sound strange to their mother-tongue if they don’t hear how it is pronounced by a teacher or by the speaker;

4. a major means of teaching speaking. Psychologists and methodologists (beginning with H. Palmer) have admitted the necessity of auding coming before outstripping speaking;

5. and skills in a an effective means of developing habits foreign language;

6. a means of mastering the (teaching) technique of reading aloud, as the mechanisms of reading aloud comprises also acoustic images. The year controls correctness of reading a text aloud.

LC as the means of teaching permits multiple listening of one and the same speech material; while LC as a language activity constitutes a skill of comprehending speech by ear at single (presented but once) perception (presentation).

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The psychological mechanisms of auditory perception of the living speech:

Mechanism I - physical perception of speech.

Mechanism II – auditory memory,i.e. ability of keeping the accepted images in memory. Short-term memory provides preservation of the coming information during the perception phase.

Long-term memory preserves the articulatory images of words, word-combinations, constructions, rules, which ensure comprehension.

Mechanism III – mechanism of inner speech. It is of broken (interrupted) character. The more familiar the coming information is, the more broken inner speech will be.

Mechanism IV – recognition on the basis of language experience, the limits of the active and passive vocabulary, intonation.

Mechanism V – anticipation. It sets the listener to logical understanding, comprehension.

Mechanism VI– Logical comprehension. It requires some interest to what is being said (to the subject), a definite tempo of mental activity, attention and concentration.

Difficulties of listening and comprehension of the living speech

and factors influencing the success of LC

According to prof. Buhbinder, auding is influenced by following factors:

· Inner factors : (interest, level of attention and concentration,

· conviction of significance of the information,

· degree of development of phonemic memory,

· individual peculiarities of pupils’ quick-wittidness, reaction and quick transfer from one intellectual operation to another, etc) which are strictly personal;

Outer factors (the linguistic structure of an audiotext, its content, some situational factors).

Some methodologists specify some other difficulties of auding – psychological extralinguistic and extra linguistic ones.

a) phonetic (phonemic oppositions, or contrast sounds: short-long, voiced-voiceless, different intonation patterns and their meaning), tempo, indistinct (defective) pronunciation;

b) lexical (antonyms, lexical constructions, interruptions etc are difficult to comprehend); homonyms, paronyms;

c) grammatical (tense forms, elliptical words and sentences, analytical forms);

d) compositional structure of a text (description or narration or reflection, the beginning or the end of the story);

g) a major linguistic difficulty is the extension of sentences in a text for LC. The more complicated the syntax of a sentence is, the more difficult it is to comprehend it, because it requires a retentive shorten memory. (7+-2 lexical units deep).

h) peculiar stylistic devices, implication, dialectical words (dialectisms), slang words, jargonisms, euphemisms.

Modern methodological literature contains directions as to usage and influence of a context in comprehension of a text. It may be of 3 kinds:

-favourable;

Favourable influence is produced by a text, which:

· Is interesting to the pupils of a particular age-group from the point of view of emotional colouring;

· Has a simple plot;

· Is logically characterized by the development of events;

· Is free from too many details;

· Doesn’t contain too many proper and geographical names, terminology;

· Has but several evidently unfamiliar words distributed, preferably presented not at the beginning of the text or a context (Context is a sentence or a group of sentences united by a sense – common idea).