Integrating Listening with Reading， Writing and Speaking in EFL Class

Liu+Lin

【Abstract】As the communicative purpose of language is taken into consideration， the focus of the listening classroom changes from developing comprehension to communicative competence. The whole paper investigates this issue from the view of integrating speaking and reading skills in a listening class. Language is an integration of diverse aspects. Thus， in some literature， speaking/reading is claimed to benefit listening in various ways when applying in the classroon. On the other hand， they are also in support of improving communicative competence.

【Key words】integration of listening； one-way listening； two-way listening

1. Introduction

The importance of listening was neglected for a long time in the English foreign language teaching field since listening takes place unconsciously and naturally in L1 acquisition. A child begins to listen much earlier than learning to speak. Morley （1972， 7） also mentions， ‘listening is a reflex， a little like breathing，listening seldom receives overt teaching attention in ones native language has masked the importance and complexity of listening with understanding in a non-native language. Nowadays， listening as one of the four skills （listening， reading， writing and speaking） plays a more central role in English. Both teachers and learners struggle for listening improvement. Listening competence has turned into a significant issue in EFL teaching. An increasing number of linguists devote themselves to investigating an effective approach to facilitate listening. However， language itself comprises different linguistic and non-linguistic aspects. To improve listening competence does not simply involve training comprehension skills. It also requires an overall development in diverse skills such as pronunciation and intonation.

I am going to investigate how to improve listening comprehension by an integrated-skills approach which combines listening with speaking/reading. This paper is divided into six parts. In the first part， there will be an introduction to the integration of listening which discusses the reasons for integrating listening with reading/speaking. Then， I am going to investigate the relationship between listening and speaking/reading in the third and fourth parts. Two examples will be given to demonstrate the integration of skills in the listening class in the fifth part. In the end， a conclusion will be provided to summarise the main idea of the paper.

2. Awareness of the Integration of Listening

Traditionally， listening， along with reading， speaking and writing， is regarded as one aspect of English in curriculum and syllabus. It is an essential way of knowing a language. As Krashen （1983， 23） states in his input theory， after people receiving comprehensible input， languages are acquired. Listening， which is one of the main sources of comprehensible input， inevitably contributes to second language acquisition. However， before the 1970s， listening was recognized as a receptive language skill in which listeners were viewed as passively accepting the messages which speakers present （Morely， 1984）. Nunan （1999， 15） has also described it as ‘the Cinderella skill … which is overshadowed by its big sister， speaking. People always ignore the importance of listening in English teaching since it is an accessory which serves for the productive skills such as speaking and writing.

When the communicative goal of EFL learning is taken into consideration， the value of listening becomes noticeable in daily communication. More and more linguists， such as Murphy （1991）， suggest that ‘listening comprehension is an interactive， interpretive process in which listeners engage in a dynamic construction of meaning. It indicates that listeners performance considerably affects the messages that aural input provides. Listeners are supposed to respond to the aural texts actively so as to achieve comprehension. The level （skills， strategies， proficiency etc.） of listeners also produces varying interpretation of input. Thus， the listener is encouraged to apply the skills at which they are proficient to help with understanding. On the other hand， when the listener is engaged in a listening task， he/she is supposed to predict topic development， activate the schemata， and ‘creatively react to what speakers say （Murphy， 1989）. These actions are raised to activate the background knowledge， relate the schemata of listeners， and then turn out responses to the input. Consequently， listening is not a skill which simply occurs to transfer spoken language passively； it contains interaction between listener and input. In the classroom， after understanding the aural message， learners are supposed to produce some responses to it so as to check whether the understanding is appropriate or not， and then modify the comprehension. As a result， listening curricula are not lessons which only involve listening behavior. Other skills （such as speaking and reading） which construct interactions are also inevitably included in a listening class.

Language rarely occurs with the application of only one skill. Eli Hinkel （2006， 5） mentions that， ‘in meaningful communication， people employ incremental language skills not in isolation， but in tandem. What we listen to and read greatly affect what we say and write. For instance， if you attend a lecture in college which is over an extended period and contains plentiful information， you need to construct meaningful groups with the help of noting key words by writing. It is a practical example which happens normally in real-life communication. This kind of activity effectively enhances listening comprehension by integrating writing in a task. Also， people cannot speak to others without listening to the speaker in a conversation. Thus， if skills are applied depending on each other in this way， it is useless to teach them respectively （Harmer， 2008）. In fact， we can rarely teach listening without incorporating reading and speaking， even writing in the classroom. During the listening process， learners are always required to predict the content by discussing with classmates， to read the script of audio material， and then to approach a comprehensive goal after listening. Otherwise， learners are demanded to discuss the information in listening material so as to check or modify their understanding.

In addition， ‘it is very difficult to test listening without bringing other skills into play when assessing listening （Wilson， 2008， 136）. If the test requires students to give comments on a topic， or to report the main idea， what the final grade reflects will include not only listening competence， but speaking competence. Or， the result of this listening test will be invalid if students are asked to write an essay after listening to a passage， but the score is used to test only listening competence. The unfairness will occur if the teacher scores them in listening but the students problem lies in a different skill. Language competence is a composition of interacting abilities that cannot be tested in isolation （Oller， 1979， 24）.

As a result， the four skills， especially listening， need to be integrated in an EFL class. In terms of listening， Lynch （2009， 108） also defines listening as ‘a(chǎn) prime example of integration since it incorporates a number of sub-skills. Effective listening requires not only linguistic skill， but non-linguistic skills. Apparently， listening occurs in combination with the other three conventional language skills. In brief， there is a need to integrate listening with a variety of skills which contain both sub-skills and conventional skills in order to reach mutual development.

3. The Relationship between Listening and Speaking

3.1 One-way listening and two-way listening

In an EFL listening classroom， learners are assumed to listen to a relatively longer recording， and then figure out the main idea. It places a strong emphasis on comprehension work during listening. This kind of listening task improves comprehension competence effectively so as to deal with common listening activities such as listening to the radio or a lecture in the real world. One-way listening enables learners to engage in the comprehension process of a longer input without replying to it. Nevertheless， people listen more often to a speaker who is involved in a conversation with them. This kind of two-way listening happens more frequently in daily communication. Reciprocal listening is needed in an interaction situation （Lynch， 1995， Buck， 2001）. The main difference between one-way and two-way listening lies in whether the response is needed to process the interaction. Two-way listening involves an interval where there is a demand for the listener to produce an appropriate response to what is heard in a short time. Besides， listener and speaker exchange their roles automatically during the conversation. Lynch （1988） also points out that if the L2 learner intends to become a proficient partner， he/she should be proficient in both speaking and listening. In a word， listening and speaking are two crucial skills which are tightly interrelated in communication. As the importance of interactive listening is noted， the integration of listening and speaking is given priority in listening class. Listening and speaking are mutually interdependent and beneficial during their process （Lynch， 1996， 110）.

For EFL learners in Chinese universities， teachers still focus on one-way listening. The whole lesson concentrates on comprehension with both top-down and bottom-up process. Activities are designed to help understand listening material which contains various types of recording， such as conversations， news reports and passages. Learners are placed in such a situation where L2 conversation rarely takes place in the classroom， and they seldom talk with L2 speakers outside the classroom either. The accessible L2 resources are from television， newspapers， magazines and the Internet. Thus， EFL teachers intend to equip learners with efficient comprehension competence which is helpful to deal with messages from the resources above. This point of view gives an extra weight to one-way listening and leads to the neglect of communication， especially speaking in listening teaching. Even if one-way listening draws most attention from EFL teachers in China， combining listening with speaking is useful for students as well. Integrating listening with speaking is more than a balanced improvement of these two skills. What is more， the integration contributes a lot to listening comprehension. The discussion during a listening activity provides an effective way to check understanding of aural texts. Nevertheless， the L2 environment outside the classroom should be taken into consideration. As Lynch （1995） mentions， two-way listening relies on the ‘interaction situation. The chance of interacting in English for EFL learners in UK is not equal to that of the EFL learners in China. Therefore， tasks and approaches of integrating the two skills should be carefully designed， rather than put together randomly.

3.2 The sub-skills in both listening and speaking

There is a claim that a target can be divided into a number of small actions which could be completed respectively so as to fulfill the big task （Field， 2008， 98）. It is convincing to apply this perspective to language teaching. Listening， along with speaking， is a complex skill which embodies diverse components. It claims that listening comprises both linguistic characteristics like grammar and vocabulary， and non-linguistic ones such as schemata and contextual knowledge. Thus， sub-skills are indispensable to serve these components. Some linguists such as Field （2008， 98） suggest that the teacher adopts a sub-skill approach to practise single skills before exposing learners to the completed input. Richard （1983， 100） has identified some sub-skills such as ‘a(chǎn)bility to recognize the vocabulary used in core conversational topics and ‘a(chǎn)bility to recognize the rhythmic structure of utterances. Since these micro skills focus on spoken language， they are also included in speaking practice where learners are supposed to produce a native-like outcome. That is to say， learners need to apply components of listening such as the vocabulary in core conversational topics or the rhythmic structure of utterances which they acquire in listening when practising speaking. One of the sub-skills which draws attention from some linguists is pronunciation. It is an overlapped feature shared by both listening and speaking. Growing numbers of linguists hold the opinion that pronunciation should be taught within both speaking and listening activities （Gilbert， 1984 &1987； Acton， 1984； Celce-Murcia， 1987； Pica， 1984）. In Murphys （1991） research of oral communication in TESOL， he identifies ‘two major currents that run through any ESL course in oral communication. The first one is the ‘elements of phonological accuracy， a subset of both speaking and listening skill development. The second is on ‘broader aspects of interpersonal communication， namely fluency in speaking and listening （p.60.） Once an EFL class involves communicative activities， listening and speaking are inevitably integrated in the activities.

One the other hand， in the field of listening teaching， there is an argument which is presented by Ridway （2000） and Field （2000） on whether listening should be practised as a skill or strategy. It seems that real-life activities are prone to improve communicative skills. In interactive listening situations， the tasks target practising both listening and speaking skills with a focus on what happens in the real world. However， one advantage of practising listening is that the listener has opportunities to ask for help when understanding is broken down （Ridgway， 2000）. Asking for help is involved in communicative strategies as well. Learners need to be taught when and how to use these strategies to help with listening comprehension in order to keep the communication proceeding. Therefore， integrating listening with speaking can not only be applied in a skill-based class but also a strategy-based class.

4. The relationship between listening and reading

Listening and reading are defined as receptive skills by many linguists such as Harmer （2008， 265）. He points out that ‘receptive skills is a term used for listening and reading skills where meaning is extracted from the discourse. Learners are inevitably engaged in the comprehension process so as to extract meaningful messages from the input. Nevertheless， although both listening and reading are considered as possessing similar processes， the relationship between these two receptive skills is still discussed in both L1 and L2 learning. A lot of linguists， such as Lynch （1983， 1991）， Reves & Levin （1988）， Lund （1991）， have conducted some research in this field to figure out the similarities and differences between them.

Although both listening and reading are comprehension skills， they are not obvious parallel comprehension processes. In terms of dealing with information， listening and reading share different decoding processes. For example， listening has a relatively higher demand of short-term memory and concentration since other conscious operations require limited time and mental capacity to conduct listening at the same time （Ridgeway， 2000， 181）. The aural texts are characterized by time and speed of spoken discourse. Listeners usually do not have the opportunity to go back to the previous part， so listening requires the learner to make full use of their short-term memory. On the contrary， when reading a passage， readers can choose to review any part of it. They have more time to think about the texts and what authors are trying to convey. Likewise， Flowerdew （1994b）， Rost （1990）， and Thompson （1995） also identify the significant differences between these two skills.

In order to investigate the similarity between listening and reading， some linguists have conducted several experiments in this field. Lynch （1983） carried out a study to provide activities to practise and integrate listening and reading skills， and develop learners autonomy. He designed a series of tasks which can accomplish the two goals above then apply them into classroom. He found out that a learner who is better at reading than listening is prone to apply their understanding of written texts to help with listening to a cassette or radio recording. Conversely， a learner who is better in listening than reading tends to apply their understanding of listening material to help with reading written texts. It indicates that listening and reading can mutually benefit when one of the two skills is effectively used by the learner. He （1988） also mentions that even for a native speaker， exercises of improving listening skills would be encouraged and beneficial both for listening itself and also to facilitate the reading skill. However， as Harmer （2008， 109） points out， ‘a(chǎn)ge is a key variable in the relative dominance or strength of the two skills in first language learning. When children are learning reading， listening has been worked as a more efficient way to cope with text. But， when they enter secondary school， reading tends to be more efficient than listening. The subjects of Lynchs study are college students who are at an advanced level， and he pays less attention to the effect of listening and reading of elementary learners. So， the result of Lynchs research is appropriate to advanced learners who have mastered adequate linguistic knowledge and language competence. The language proficiency of advanced learners is comparatively higher than primary and intermediate ones.

Then， Lund （1991） carried out a study on listening and reading recall by first， second and third year college students of German. The result shows that， from the viewpoint of quantity， readers can recall more information than listeners based on the improvement of language level； from the viewpoint of quality， listeners can recall much higher order ideas and creative constructions. It shows little evidence of which comprehension process can recall better， but highlights the opinion that the cognitive ways of listening and reading are the same. Later， Hirai （1999） carried out a study of ‘the Relationship between Listening and Reading Rates of Japanese EFL Learners. It adopted a more precise perspective on cognitive process. In his study， he identified that listening and reading both adopt a bottom-up process to recognize words at the first stage of comprehension. From Hirais research， ‘the cognitive processes engaged in listening and reading comprehension are interdependent. Also， at some points， they share a common channel to approach comprehension.

All in all， except for the discourse features which they shared， listening and reading not only mutually benefit， but also adopt similar comprehension processes. The relationship between them provides some possibility for learners to improve both listening and reading by integrating them in a lesson.

In fact， reading happens frequently in a listening class in Chinese universities. Students always come across such a type of exercise that requires the student to fill in blanks in a passage with words or sentences from audio resources. Besides， when students listen to the teacher， they are expected to learn by reading the material which is related to the course. It cannot be completed if listeners only use the listening skill. These exercises reflect a demand on both listening and reading comprehension simultaneously. Two comprehension processes should be interchanged to understand both written texts and spoken texts. It is also true that listening and reading are interrelated in the listening classroom. The transcripts of recordings are needed for further understanding of the content. According to the discussion above， the reading ability of advanced learners has a significant impact on their listening ability. Since the majority of Chinese EFL learners are good at reading， which enables them to grasp the idea more quickly and thoroughly， reading has been one of the most effective ways to help with listening comprehension in Chinese listening class.

5. Integrating listening with speaking

In accordance with the discussion above， listening and speaking can be integrated in a class. It is a reasonable way to improve these two skills since they share a variety of sub-skills together. Besides， integrating listening with speaking also adds some opportunities for the teaching of communicative competence. In addition， Longs （1978， 1979） research suggests that modification of interaction between a speaker and listener （by conversation checks， expansions， repetition， and clarification） is supposed to improve comprehension more than a speaker modifying his/her own discourse without the help of listener. It shows that modification of input leads to better achievement in comprehension. Therefore， the conversation which combines listening with speaking in a listening class， whether between students or teachers and learners， is effective to increase the understanding of aural material.

Here is an example that Harmer （2008） proposed in his book as a listening activity. However， it is also an example of integrating skills， especially listening and speaking. As Harmer （2008， 315） describes， the task is to listen to a monologue. It is aimed at adult learners who are upper intermediate level and above. At first， learners are provided with a list of words and phrases and asked to look them up by themselves， and then listen to the audio track on which Jan is talking about storytelling. Learners are required to find out the same words and phrases in the previous list. At last， after checking the words and phrases， learners need to discuss the main idea of the audio track， then summaries it in one sentence. It could be identified that when students are engaged in a discussion， application of speaking occurs in this class where focus is on listening. The discussion may take place in groups. In a group， each student will express his/her opinion on the main idea of the aural material， and try to elaborate the topic to others. They will check whether they hold the same opinion as the others， and find out the difference. The others in the group will modify not only the speakers but their own understanding of the material， and work out the main idea. Students employ listening skills in not only while-listening tasks， but the discussion in post-listening tasks. Conversation is a process of combining listening and speaking in one activity which can achieve mutual development.

6. Integrating listening with reading

Based on the discussion in the previous part， listening and reading adopt a similar comprehension process. From this point， one of the comprehension processes has an obvious effect on the other one. On the other hand， both of the two skills have a focus on bottom-up and top-down process in common. Eli （2008） states that all of the material of current textbooks places stress on how to address both bottom-up and top-down abilities （e.g. Adger， Snow， & Christian， 2002； Brown， 2001； Carter & Nunan， 2001； Celce-Murcia， 2001； Larsen-Freeman， 2000； Nunan，1999， 2003）. The integration of listening and speaking provides a model of addressing both top-down and bottom-up processes.

There is an example of integrating listening and reading in a listening class that Lynch （1983） used in his research of ‘A Programme to Develop the Integration of Comprehension Skills. It is an activity which aims to provide practice on both listening and reading comprehension. Lynch （1983） locates this activity for a wide range of students such as English as a foreign language learner（EFL）， or students who are going to start their postgraduate study in the UK. Therefore， this program can be defined as catering for advanced-level learners. During the whole lesson， the teacher applies various types of exercises （i.e. speed-reading， scanning for topic， gist-listening， detailed listening， listening for topic， comparing different spoken texts， relating spoken texts） so as to practise listening from both bottom-up and top-down process. More importantly， the whole program engages the tasks from written texts to spoken texts， and then it goes back to written texts. The shift between spoken texts and written texts encourages the comprehension of the given topic since students can apply one of the skills to help the other one.

7. Conclusion

In a word， integrated listening has drawn the attention of an increasing number of teachers and learners since communication has become recognized as a crucial factor in language development. No matter whether teaching language or using language， the four conventional skills cannot be applied separately. Likewise， teaching listening or assessing listening， no matter which people are concerned， it is impossible to involve only one skill. Thus， integrating skills is significant to teachers when teaching any aspect of English. The four traditional skills （reading， speaking， listening and writing） are interrelated with each other. From the discussion above， reading and speaking also closely associate with listening. Otherwise， they are both of mutual benefit to each other. Therefore， integrating listening with reading and speaking raises the availability of listening in teaching and assessing.

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作者簡(jiǎn)介：劉琳（1988.5-），女，河南人，畢業(yè)于英國(guó)萊斯特大學(xué)，英語(yǔ)教育專業(yè)（TESOL），碩士研究生，目前任講師，主要從事英語(yǔ)教學(xué)及英語(yǔ)語(yǔ)用學(xué)研究。