[senco-forum] Developing listening skills in secondary pupils- references and approaches (long)

Dear Dolfrog -

Hi Eddie
Effective listening is dependent on outside influences as well as
internal ones. Some classrooms are noisier than others, some contain a
greater number of distracting individuals, some teachers have accents,
some speakers have a more monotone delivery etc etc which is why
listening skills can vary in different situations. Although effective
listening is dependent on good auditory processing, pragnatics and good
underlying language skills, environmental issues play a part. Presumably
this is why many mainstream open-plan classrooms are replacing their
walls. You might find some useful information under 'auditory
processing' rather than 'listening'. Joy Stackhouse, Dorothy Bishop,
Maggie Snowling and others make numerous references to this. There are
also specific references, though, to 'listening' although I have
recently discovered that 'Active Listening' is a term which is also used
on Counselling courses - a fact which confused me when I first heard it.
'Active Listening' (as applied to learning) is an idea which has been
around in this country for  10 + years. I went to a very good 3-day
course (in 1997) given by Gillian Benson, Catherine Martin and Elizabeth
Roberts. Their work was based on that of Paul Catherall who had come,
from Canada, to work with them in 1987. Christine Dollaghan and Nomi
Kaston (1986 )- a comprehension monitoring program for language impaired
children: journal of speech and hearing disorders) provided some of the
starting points for Catherall's work. Maggie Johnson also gives some
excellent talks on Functional Language Skills which refer to listening
skills. You may also have encountered an article which I wrote with
Debbie Hollingsworth - 'Listening and Learning (Spring 2001 Special!).
The educational supplier, Learning Materials (Wolverhampton) have also,
for a number of years, supplied activities to develop auditory
comprehension. For those of us who have worked on developing 'Listening'
there are four strands 1. identify behaviours associated with listening
2. identifying and reacting to inadequate signals (background noise,
accents etc) 3. identifying and reacting to ambiguous messages (e.g
incomplete information, contradictory statemenst etc) 3. identifying and
reacting to messages which are too complex for the listener to act on
(e.g unknown vocabulary, too long etc)
References which specifically mention 'listening'  (cited by Dollaghan
and Kaston) include 'Generalization of training for children's listener
skills' (Cosgrove & Patterson 1978: Child Development); 'Learning
Disabled Children's conversational competence: an attempt to activate
the inactive listener' (Dollaghan 1844: Applied Psycholinguistics). 
I hope you will find these references helpful. I realise that most stem
from the field of research into children with speech and language
impairment but, as often happens, there is a view that the research is
applicable also to the 'normal' population. Certainly the work Debbie
and I did was with mainstream classes although the starting point was
with children in the S/L unit. 
Best Wishes - Clare

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-----Original Message-----
From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of Eddie
Carron
Sent: 06 September 2006 11:43
To: Senco Rik; 'dolfrog'
Cc: 'Senco-Forum'
Subject: Re: [senco-forum]Developinglistening
skillsinsecondarypupils-Eddie'sCD

Yes - its always a pity when a potentially interesting thread goes sour
and 
I have to  concede my contribution by responding badly to Aly' s blanket
and 
unsupported condemnation of work which has consumed a large portion of
the 
last two years of my life. What concerns in me particular about
'listening 
skill' is whether or not there actually is such a skill or whether it is

simply a term coined by some whizz kid, which happened to catch on. I
know 
there is an empirical basis to 'attention deficit' because attention 
deficit, like reading deficit, persists in every class with every
teacher.

It is my experience that this is not always the case with 'listening
skills' 
I know of children with a reputation for having poor listening skills
but 
who pose no such problems with certain teachers.  Does anyone know the
basis 
or origin of the term 'listening skills' or any professional papers on
the 
subject?  Skills to me always have at least one mechanical component
which 
can be 'exercised' or 'practiced' I never did establish what the
mechanical 
components of 'listening skills' are. I really would apprectiate any 
assistance here.

If a teacher tells me 'I could teach him to read if only I could get him
to 
listen' I tend to ignore this plea (because I dont know what to do about
it) 
and focus on why the child can';t read. Reading involves a subset of
related 
skills which are identifiable and in many cases, remediable. Just under
one 
child in five leaves school at 16 less than functionally literate. In
real 
numbers this is tens of thousands of children every year. I take the
view 
the reading difficulties of about three quarters of these children could

have achieved at least functional literacy if we ditch the medical model
of 
reading disability (diagnose - prescribe - cure) and focus on those
areas of 
skills deficit, we know we can resolve

If a child cannot decipher, decode or blend letters into coherent words,

surely that deficiency is what needs to be addressed by teachers since
we 
know we cannot resolve physical, social  or mental aspects of a childs 
failure to become literate.

Eddie C.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Senco Rik" <senco_rik at ntlworld.com>
To: "'dolfrog'" <dolfrog at tiscali.co.uk>; "'Eddie Carron'" 
<eddiecarron at btconnect.com>
Cc: "'Senco-Forum'" <senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk>
Sent: Monday, September 04, 2006 6:28 PM
Subject: RE: [senco-forum]Developinglistening 
skillsinsecondarypupils-Eddie'sCD

> Dear Dolfrog -
> I read the APD booklet - along with other references, as it
> has I hope obvious interest to me as a teacher for children
> in a specialist speech & language school.  Hopefully saving
> others the time, the definition you refer to is, I believe,
> the following:
>
> xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> http://www.ihr.mrc.ac.uk/products/leaflets.php#apd
> What is Auditory Processing Disorder?
> Most of us hear well and so don't give much thought to how
> we hear. Hearing starts with a very complex set of actions
> within the outer, middle and inner
> ear. These actions send the sounds to our brain, and our
> brain interprets them so we can understand. For example, it
> tells us the whistling we hear is a bird singing. This is
> what we call LISTENING. The medical term for it is AUDITORY
> PROCESSING. When a child's ears are working well, but the
> child cannot understand the sounds they hear, the child may
> have an 'auditory processing disorder' (abbreviated to
> 'APD').
> Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> So far, so good - the booklet has given one definition of
> "listening".
> Unfortunately, my dictionary, quite a reputable one, has a
> different definition - "Act of concentrating on hearing
> something, taking heed, paying attention". Eddie Carron has
> given another, which you appear to have taken a dislike to.
>
> My own personal working definition is "making sense of what
> you hear". Many of my speech/language impaired children can
> "hear well" - they can hear quiet sounds at many frequencies
> - but are unable to filter out other noises and/or remember
> sounds for long enough to comprehend, or process the sounds
> fast enough etc. Rather like a Head Teacher I worked with
> once, who would ask us for our views and then say "Please
> tell me what you think: I will hear you, but may perhaps
> choose not to listen"!
>
> Language is an organic, changing phenomenon - and part of
> its interest is that we all define words and concepts in
> different ways. Most of us accept that we should not have a
> "thought police" to launch a diatribe against anyone who
> happens not to share our own particular definition of a
> given word or concept. Your email feels to me, perhaps
> incorrectly, as a diatribe written by someone who has
> read(heard) but not listened
>
> Are you saying that my dictionary, and my own working
> definition, are each confusing for everyone else with whom I
> wish to communicate, given that neither concur exactly with
> the APD booklet definition above?
>
> I happen to believe that APD exists. Granted, I also think
> it is a jargon three-letter acronym equivalent to a
> phenomenon that was certainly around when I was learning
> about speech and language: Then, we called it "receptive
> aphasia", and reading the booklet it is at least 95% the
> same thing, though at least APD is easier to spell!
>
> Your email to Eddie below sounds to me more like a diatribe
> against anyone who might wish to disagree with "APD is
> King". You also seem to have managed, like Aly, to "hear but
> not listen" to what Eddie is writing.  I do agree with Eddie
> on one thing. He states:
>
> "I suspect that her motive is simply to get the word APD on
> the screen of often as possible. This is a harmful and not a
> helpful ploy which is damaging the undoubted cause of APD. I
> know that many other, former and current list contributors
> have expressed the same sentiment."
>
> As a current list occasional contributor I will openly agree
> with him. I would be a natural supporter for APDUK but for
> the tone of so many of the emails from yourself and Aly. It
> is difficult to "listen" to your useful postings on APD when
> we "hear" so much else ("noise") in your emails.  I do hope
> that you will moderate your "thought police" controlling
> tendencies before I, too, add you to the "junk sender" list.
>
> Cheers
>
> Rik
> (Original postings snipped, as they are at least a yard
> (almost a metre for younger colleagues) long)!
> 