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Types of Listening

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TYPES OF LISTENING

1. Discriminative listening is where the objective is to distinguish


sound and visual stimuli. This objective doesn't take into account
the meaning; instead the focus is largely on sounds. In a basic level
class this can be as simple as distinguishing the gender of the
speaker or the number of the speakers etc. As mentioned before the
focus is not on comprehending; but on accustoming the ears to the
sounds. If one thinks s/he can see that this is where L1 listening
begins - the child responds to sound stimulus and soon can
recognise its parents' voices amidst all other voices. Depending on
the level of the students, the listening can be discriminating sounds
to identifying individual words.
2. Then there is Comprehensive listening where the focus is on
'understanding the message'. The writers consider this as the basis
for the next three types of listening. However, the problem can
come in the form of 'understanding'. Depending on many factors
(both individual and social) students can end up understanding the
same message in different, different ways. Lot of work in teaching
listening in the classroom has to happen here in facilitating the
students to develop their comprehension skills.
3. The third one - Therapeutic listening - is one kind of listening
where the listener's role is to be a sympathetic listener without
much verbal response. In this kind of listening the listener allows
somebody to talk through a problem. This kind of listening is very
important in building good interpersonal relations.
4. Critical listening is the fourth kind of listening where listeners
have to evaluate the message. Listeners have to critically respond
to the message and give their opinion.
5. The final one is Appreciative listening where the focus is on
enjoying what one listens. Here my students raised the point that
when they listen to English music, even if they don't understand,
they still enjoy thereby challenging the notion of comprehensive
listening as the basis for other three types of listening. Then we
reflected on the practice of listening to songs in the language lab.
Generally my students listen to the songs once and try to make out
the lyrics before listening a second time with the lyrics. Then they
recalled that they appreciated the song better during the second
time and were able to see the relation between how one would
enjoy something that s/he is able to make sense of

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