The Innate Relationship Between Listening and Spea...

The Innate Relationship Between Listening and Speaking in Second Language Learning Process

A person who can utilise two languages has bilingual ability.However，only very exceptionally does a person possess equivalent proficiency in two languages.For Chinese learners who are English-speaking，bilingual ability includes at least the following four components:

(1)the ability to produce and understand the base language(English[E]);

(2)the ability to produce and understand the target language(Chinese[C]);

(3)the ability to translate from the target language(Chinese[C])to the base language(English[E])([C→E]);

(4)the ability to translate from the base language(English[E])to the target language(Chinese[C])([E→C]).

We can then use the equation，[EC]=[E]+[C]+[C→E]+[E→C]，to denote the composition of maximal English-Chinese bilingual ability.It is worth noting that second language ability is not the same as full bilingual ability.A person is fully bilingual only when being able to perform translation“in both directions”:receptive translation([C→E])and productive translation([E→C]).

The four components of bilingual ability are hierarchical:at the beginner level，one’s bilingual ability is mainly reflected in①[E]and②[C→E].It is relatively easy to master the receptive translation skills([C→E]).At the intermediate levels of language learning，productive translation([E→C])will improve，but the judgements of usage(language intuition)will remain unreliable.Even at advanced levels of language learning，productive translation([E→C])(into the second language)lags behind receptive.Bilingual abilities are not static:they evolve with time，but they will remain skewed in favour of translation out of the target language into the base language.

Based on our previous discussion that second language learning is a bilingualisation process，coupled with three modes of communication，i.e.，interpretative mode，presentational mode and interpersonal mode，the relationship between the learner’s role，modes of communication，target language skills and language switching is illustrated in Table 5.1:

Table 5.1　The relationship between learner’s role，modes of communication，target language skills and language switching

From the perspective of information transmission，listening is a receptive skill，while speaking is a productive skill.The process is different for second language learners comparing with native speakers of a language.In the case of second language learners，transmission is to a certain degree mediated by their base language，in this context，English.In other words，second language learners switch between languages when transmitting information，as shown in Table 5.1.