The Importance of Listening in Establishing a Ma...
It has been observed that“Listening has emerged as an important component in the process of second language acquisition”(Feyten，1991)，and Larry Vandergrift has further claimed that“listening has become‘pre-eminent’in instructional methods，especially in the early stages of language learning.”Theories on the importance of listening in language learning have been around for a long time，but it is the implementation of listening practices in the classroom setting to produce positive learning outcomes that should be our focus.Wipf has pointed out that“listening is an invisible mental process，making it difficult to describe.Listeners must discriminate between sounds，understand vocabulary and grammatical structures，interpret stress and intention，retain and interpret this within the immediate as well as the larger socio-cultural context of the utterance.”(Wipf，1984)In addition to its importance in the early stage of language acquisition，listening practices in language teaching must also allow for a diversity of individual learning styles and habits among students.In the absence of an understanding or experience of the significance of tones among our students，the role of listening becomes even more essential at the early level of learning.