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Academic listening: Reasearch perspectives
Reviews
77
REFERENCES Berkenkotter, C. & Huckin, T. (1995). Genre knowledge in disciplinary communication. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. MacDonald, S. P. (1992). A method for analyzing sentence-level differences in disciplinary knowledge making. Written Communication, 9, 533~569. Swales, J. (1990). Genre analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Greg Myers is a Lecturer in Linguistics at Lancaster University (UK), where he directs the Culture and Communication programme. His publications include Writing Biology: Texts in the Social Construction of Scientific Knowledge (1990) and Words in Ads (1994). He is currently working on a study of environmental discourse.
ACADEMIC LISTENING: RESEARCH PERSPECTIVES. John Flowerdew (Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, 306 pp.
Reviewed by Dana Ferris Academic Listening is a collection of original papers (11 research reports, one review of research, and one opinion paper) on the subject of the academic lecture and its demands on the listening comprehension abilities of second language learners. As Flowerdew notes in his introduction, compared with academic literacy skills, second language lecture comprehension has been largely neglected in the literature on EAP. The stated purpose of the volume is therefore "to fill this gap" by "presenting a state-of-the-art set of research findings concerning the comprehension of aural discourse in a second language" (p. 1). This goal is served admirably through a purposeful mixture of studies representing the major research paradigms operating in applied linguistics. The first section, a single chapter written by Flowerdew, is an overview of previous research on L2 lecture comprehension. Part II consists of four original experimental studies on various aspects of the lecture comprehension process. Part III considers specific lectures through applying three different discourse analytic models. The fourth section presents three ethnographic studies, while the final section contains two chapters on "pedagogic applications" related to research on L2 academic listening comprehension. In the Introduction, Flowerdew specifies the target audiences of the book as "teachers of English for Academic Purposes, lecturers in the content areas to non-native speakers of English, researchers in second language lecture comprehension and discourse analysis, and students on post-graduate courses in
78
Reviews
TESOL" (p. 3). Though all four of these populations would no doubt find interesting and helpful insights, this book seems most suited to the latter two groups (researchers and graduate students), due to its in-depth and sometimes challenging scholarly content. Academic Listening is a book with considerable strengths and few weaknesses. A notable strength is Flowerdew's extremely capable editing of the volume. His own main contributions--the review of research in Chapter 1, the editor's introductions to Parts II-V, and the conclusion--are so thorough and well written that they alone justify the purchase of the book. Chapter 1 offers a comprehensive and well structured review of the major issues covered by previous research in both L1 and L2 lecture comprehension. The conclusion offers a well-focused summary of the pedagogical implications of the various papers and a thought-provoking agenda for future research in L2 academic listening. Particularly compelling are Flowerdew's careful comparisons of the various contributions in the volume, in which he points out similarities and differences between authors' viewpoints and both raises and responds to challenging questions which result from these comparisons. Although every paper in the collection raises important questions and offers insights to the researcher and teacher of listening for academic purposes, the final two sections (Part 1V on ethnographic research and Part V on pedagogic applications) are especially strong. Benson's paper (Chapter 9), offers a comprehensive overview of the issues and questions to be considered in examining academic lectures from an ethnographic perspective. Mason's ethnographic interviews (Chapter 10) of foreign graduate students and their instructors at Georgetown University raise many issues of interest to teachers and researchers of academic listening/speaking skills. This paper was an inspiration for and is an important in-depth complement to my own recent survey research on similar questions (Ferris & Tagg 1996a; Ferris & Tagg 1996b). King's study (Chapter 11) of the interaction of visual and oral messages in lecture note taking raises some serious challenges to experimental listening comprehension research on the grounds that such studies do not consider academic listening in naturalistic settings, nor do they examine adequately the impact of visual input (from the blackboard, overheads, slides, or handouts) on the listening comprehension process. In Part V, Hansen and Jensen's paper (Chapter 12) makes important contributions in several areas: it discusses the need for and feasibility of assessing academic listening comprehension by using authentic lecture material (in contrast to the listening sections of the Michigan Test and the TOEFL); it carefully explains the design of a lecture comprehension assessment instrument used at the authors' own institution; and it provides strong evidence that the instrument is valid, reliable, and offers more authentic information than the aforementioned standardized tests. A test developer could easily utilize the information contained in this chapter to design a similar instrument for a particular context. The final paper, an opinion essay by Lynch (Chapter 13), discusses an issue which is rapidly becoming crucially important in EAP: the need to make subject-matter lecturers more aware of and prepared for audiences which include second language listeners. As Flowerdew notes in his introduction to
Reviews
79
this section, "In terms of cost effectiveness, it might well be that a higher level of understanding would be achieved by the lecturers' modifying their lecturing style...than by the learners and their language teachers struggling to improve their level of listening proficiency" (p. 240). Such weaknesses as can be found in this volume occur in Parts II and III (experimental and discourse analytic studies, respectively). All four of the experimental studies investigate interesting and important questions. However, all four studies also employ similar research designs: subjects are asked to respond to extremely brief (5-12 minutes) audio- or videotaped lecture excerpts. Though this methodology appears to be considered standard in listening comprehension research, in that the previous studies cited by the authors also employed it (e.g., Olsen & Huckin 1990) and in that none of the authors felt the need to justify it, serious concerns about the validity of such research are raised later in the volume by both King (Chapter 11) and Flowerdew. Thus, in the introduction to Part IV (the ethnographic studies), Flowerdew poses a rather troubling question: "If listening needs to be viewed as an integral part of a wider culture of learning, where does that leave research which is purposefully focussed on but one small part of the phenomenon?" (p. 179). The discourse analytic studies in Part III provide important and detailed examinations of transcripts of academic lectures, using both established and original research models. These papers should provide guidance and models for other researchers. However, due to the linguistic and rhetorical complexity of the analyses, the papers by Hansen (Chapter 6) and Young (Chapter 8), will likely be extremely rough going for all but the most informed and dedicated readers. Dudley-Evans's paper (Chapter 7), while easier to read, is by his own admission limited in its generalizability, since it examines only four lectures, two each from two subject areas. Even with these potential weaknesses (which only some readers, it should be noted, would find problematic), Academic Listening is an outstanding resource for researchers and teachers interested in L2 lecture comprehension. Flowerdew has clearly accomplished what he set out to do: "fill the gap" in the EAP literature with an up-to-date collection of studies which examine important issues in L2 listening comprehension from a variety of research perspectives. The strength of the individual papers, combined with Flowerdew's masterful editing, have produced one of the most coherent and consistent edited volumes published to date in the applied linguistics/TESOL literature.
REFERENCES Ferris, D. & Tagg, T. (1996a). Academic listening/speaking skills for ESL students: Problems, suggestions, & implications. TESOL Quarterly, 30, 297-317. Ferris, D. & Tagg, T. (1996b). Academic oral communication needs of EAP learners: What subject-matter instructors actually require. TESOL Quarterly, 30, 31-58.
80
Reviews
Olsen, L. A. & Huckin, T. N. (1990). Point-driven understanding in engineering lecture comprehension. English for Specific Purposes, 9, 33-47.
Dana Ferris is Associate Professor in the English Department at California State University, Sacramento, where she coordinates the MA TESOL program. Her research interests are in second language writing and academic listening/speaking.
77
REFERENCES Berkenkotter, C. & Huckin, T. (1995). Genre knowledge in disciplinary communication. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. MacDonald, S. P. (1992). A method for analyzing sentence-level differences in disciplinary knowledge making. Written Communication, 9, 533~569. Swales, J. (1990). Genre analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Greg Myers is a Lecturer in Linguistics at Lancaster University (UK), where he directs the Culture and Communication programme. His publications include Writing Biology: Texts in the Social Construction of Scientific Knowledge (1990) and Words in Ads (1994). He is currently working on a study of environmental discourse.
ACADEMIC LISTENING: RESEARCH PERSPECTIVES. John Flowerdew (Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, 306 pp.
Reviewed by Dana Ferris Academic Listening is a collection of original papers (11 research reports, one review of research, and one opinion paper) on the subject of the academic lecture and its demands on the listening comprehension abilities of second language learners. As Flowerdew notes in his introduction, compared with academic literacy skills, second language lecture comprehension has been largely neglected in the literature on EAP. The stated purpose of the volume is therefore "to fill this gap" by "presenting a state-of-the-art set of research findings concerning the comprehension of aural discourse in a second language" (p. 1). This goal is served admirably through a purposeful mixture of studies representing the major research paradigms operating in applied linguistics. The first section, a single chapter written by Flowerdew, is an overview of previous research on L2 lecture comprehension. Part II consists of four original experimental studies on various aspects of the lecture comprehension process. Part III considers specific lectures through applying three different discourse analytic models. The fourth section presents three ethnographic studies, while the final section contains two chapters on "pedagogic applications" related to research on L2 academic listening comprehension. In the Introduction, Flowerdew specifies the target audiences of the book as "teachers of English for Academic Purposes, lecturers in the content areas to non-native speakers of English, researchers in second language lecture comprehension and discourse analysis, and students on post-graduate courses in
78
Reviews
TESOL" (p. 3). Though all four of these populations would no doubt find interesting and helpful insights, this book seems most suited to the latter two groups (researchers and graduate students), due to its in-depth and sometimes challenging scholarly content. Academic Listening is a book with considerable strengths and few weaknesses. A notable strength is Flowerdew's extremely capable editing of the volume. His own main contributions--the review of research in Chapter 1, the editor's introductions to Parts II-V, and the conclusion--are so thorough and well written that they alone justify the purchase of the book. Chapter 1 offers a comprehensive and well structured review of the major issues covered by previous research in both L1 and L2 lecture comprehension. The conclusion offers a well-focused summary of the pedagogical implications of the various papers and a thought-provoking agenda for future research in L2 academic listening. Particularly compelling are Flowerdew's careful comparisons of the various contributions in the volume, in which he points out similarities and differences between authors' viewpoints and both raises and responds to challenging questions which result from these comparisons. Although every paper in the collection raises important questions and offers insights to the researcher and teacher of listening for academic purposes, the final two sections (Part 1V on ethnographic research and Part V on pedagogic applications) are especially strong. Benson's paper (Chapter 9), offers a comprehensive overview of the issues and questions to be considered in examining academic lectures from an ethnographic perspective. Mason's ethnographic interviews (Chapter 10) of foreign graduate students and their instructors at Georgetown University raise many issues of interest to teachers and researchers of academic listening/speaking skills. This paper was an inspiration for and is an important in-depth complement to my own recent survey research on similar questions (Ferris & Tagg 1996a; Ferris & Tagg 1996b). King's study (Chapter 11) of the interaction of visual and oral messages in lecture note taking raises some serious challenges to experimental listening comprehension research on the grounds that such studies do not consider academic listening in naturalistic settings, nor do they examine adequately the impact of visual input (from the blackboard, overheads, slides, or handouts) on the listening comprehension process. In Part V, Hansen and Jensen's paper (Chapter 12) makes important contributions in several areas: it discusses the need for and feasibility of assessing academic listening comprehension by using authentic lecture material (in contrast to the listening sections of the Michigan Test and the TOEFL); it carefully explains the design of a lecture comprehension assessment instrument used at the authors' own institution; and it provides strong evidence that the instrument is valid, reliable, and offers more authentic information than the aforementioned standardized tests. A test developer could easily utilize the information contained in this chapter to design a similar instrument for a particular context. The final paper, an opinion essay by Lynch (Chapter 13), discusses an issue which is rapidly becoming crucially important in EAP: the need to make subject-matter lecturers more aware of and prepared for audiences which include second language listeners. As Flowerdew notes in his introduction to
Reviews
79
this section, "In terms of cost effectiveness, it might well be that a higher level of understanding would be achieved by the lecturers' modifying their lecturing style...than by the learners and their language teachers struggling to improve their level of listening proficiency" (p. 240). Such weaknesses as can be found in this volume occur in Parts II and III (experimental and discourse analytic studies, respectively). All four of the experimental studies investigate interesting and important questions. However, all four studies also employ similar research designs: subjects are asked to respond to extremely brief (5-12 minutes) audio- or videotaped lecture excerpts. Though this methodology appears to be considered standard in listening comprehension research, in that the previous studies cited by the authors also employed it (e.g., Olsen & Huckin 1990) and in that none of the authors felt the need to justify it, serious concerns about the validity of such research are raised later in the volume by both King (Chapter 11) and Flowerdew. Thus, in the introduction to Part IV (the ethnographic studies), Flowerdew poses a rather troubling question: "If listening needs to be viewed as an integral part of a wider culture of learning, where does that leave research which is purposefully focussed on but one small part of the phenomenon?" (p. 179). The discourse analytic studies in Part III provide important and detailed examinations of transcripts of academic lectures, using both established and original research models. These papers should provide guidance and models for other researchers. However, due to the linguistic and rhetorical complexity of the analyses, the papers by Hansen (Chapter 6) and Young (Chapter 8), will likely be extremely rough going for all but the most informed and dedicated readers. Dudley-Evans's paper (Chapter 7), while easier to read, is by his own admission limited in its generalizability, since it examines only four lectures, two each from two subject areas. Even with these potential weaknesses (which only some readers, it should be noted, would find problematic), Academic Listening is an outstanding resource for researchers and teachers interested in L2 lecture comprehension. Flowerdew has clearly accomplished what he set out to do: "fill the gap" in the EAP literature with an up-to-date collection of studies which examine important issues in L2 listening comprehension from a variety of research perspectives. The strength of the individual papers, combined with Flowerdew's masterful editing, have produced one of the most coherent and consistent edited volumes published to date in the applied linguistics/TESOL literature.
REFERENCES Ferris, D. & Tagg, T. (1996a). Academic listening/speaking skills for ESL students: Problems, suggestions, & implications. TESOL Quarterly, 30, 297-317. Ferris, D. & Tagg, T. (1996b). Academic oral communication needs of EAP learners: What subject-matter instructors actually require. TESOL Quarterly, 30, 31-58.
80
Reviews
Olsen, L. A. & Huckin, T. N. (1990). Point-driven understanding in engineering lecture comprehension. English for Specific Purposes, 9, 33-47.
Dana Ferris is Associate Professor in the English Department at California State University, Sacramento, where she coordinates the MA TESOL program. Her research interests are in second language writing and academic listening/speaking.