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Introduction
This paper considers research and practice relating to listening in instructed classroom settings, limiting itself to what might be called unidirectional listening (Macaro, Graham & Vanderplank 2007) - in other words, where learners listen to a recording, a TV or radio clip or lecture, but where there is no communication back to the speaker(s). A review of the literature relating to such listening reveals a tendency for papers to highlight two features in their introductory lines: first, the acknowledged importance of listening as a skill underpinning second language (L2) acquisition more broadly, and second, the relative paucity of research into listening compared with the skills of speaking, reading or writing. In the last ten years or so, however, there has been a growth in the number of studies conducted in the field, as evidenced in Vandergrift's review in 2007 and Vanderplank's more recent overview (2013). Consequently, my view is that it is possible to identify from that research certain key principles in relation to listening within instructed settings, particularly regarding listening strategies. These are outlined in Graham, Santos & Francis-Brophy (2014) and can be summarised as follows:
1.. Without instruction in how to improve listening, learners are very slow to develop effective listening strategy use, if at all; by contrast, it is possible to develop that effective use through instruction, with potential benefits for learners' listening proficiency.
2.. The development of metacognitive strategies and metacognitive awareness in relation to listening can be particularly helpful and can be achieved through learner discussion of strategy use.
3.. Attention to the development of bottom-up and top-down strategies is important for helping learners to develop their listening.
4.. Prediction/pre-listening strategies need to be combined with strategies for verifying and monitoring predictions.
Two other arguments also feature in recent discussions. On the one hand, while listening arguably needs to be taught, in many contexts teaching takes the form of testing. That is, learners' comprehension is assessed, rather than there being a focus on the processes they used to achieve that comprehension (Field 2008; Goh 2010; Graham, Santos & Vanderplank 2011). Or, listening occurs as an activity to be completed, a form of practice, but with little or no attention to its improvement as a skill. On...