Listening Comprehension as a Complex Skill and the Sub-Skills Involved in the Process of Speech Perception

Abstract

The skill of listening comprehension (LC) has been studied and discussed by many scholars, who have made it quite clear that it is one of the most influential and important skills that we depend on in learning and communication. However, many language teachers and course designers belittle it as a passive skill among the other three universally understood skills; and if any concentration is given to it, it is far from being sufficient for real improvement. Teachers rarely depend on any objective observation of what the process of speech perception really involves. Not only this. but what is mentioned in most of the discussions related to this issue underestimates the importance of the skills (or sub-skills) involved in LC (i.e. what the listener is expected to do as he listens). This paper is intended to draw attention to the various skills (or sub-skills) of LC. They are those decisions made at the higher levels of LC, they relate to the listeneris ability to make certain judgments about the whole input or to reply to it. The following taxonomy is based on a survey made of the LC sub-skills in the literature: