How Do We Know? Support for the Principles

In this section, let’s dive deeper into the theory and research on second language listening (or viewing for signed languages), and think about how these apply to the principles we just covered. This section is not a comprehensive overview of all theories, research, or approaches regarding L2 listening/viewing. However, these helped inspire our principles, and they might help you come up with other listening strategies of your own. The goal of this section is to highlight some of the research that supports our principles and to provide ways for you, the reader, to discover more.

First, let’s talk about choosing content slightly beyond our current level in order to challenge ourselves but still be able to understand what we are listening to. This idea became popularized by Stephen Krashen in 1982 in his book Principles and Practices of Second Language Acquisition. He observed that children are not explicitly taught the rules of their first language(s). Rather acquire learn language systems implicitly through extensive exposure to language in context, and they only acquire language when it is meaningful to them in that context. Krashen proposed that adults can acquire language this way as well, saying “We acquire […] only when we understand language that contains structure that is ‘a little beyond’ where we are now” (p. 21).

Krashen’s work had an enormous influence on the field of language learning, and research since then supports the idea that meaningful language input (comprehensible input in Krashen’s terms) is key to successful second language learning. Vygotsky’s Sociocultural theory (see Chapter 7 on Speaking/Signing) also states that learners will only learn when they are in the zone of proximal development, or ZPD. Being in the ZPD means that you are learning with the help of someone (a teacher, mentor or peer) or from learning materials, that push you beyond what you can do on your own. Companies that make language learning apps and publishers of modern language textbooks follow this idea of scaffolding very carefully. They control the new language items that learners see and hear so that the learning process is never too overwhelming at once.

You can think of this process as like planting a garden. The seeds of language take root when the conditions are right, and with water and sun (comprehensible input and the ZPD) the garden can grow at its own pace and become a beautiful, diverse ecosystem over time. When you are exposed to language input far beyond your level, however, it might feel like being thrown into an unfamiliar jungle! You have no clue what the names of any of the plants or animals are, and might not feel comfortable or safe. These feelings can block you from exploring and understanding the language more. This reaction was described by Krashen as the affective filter. This term, originally conceived by Dulay and Burt in 1977, refers to how our learning is filtered through our emotions (our “affect”) and that the success of our learning is directly tied to factors like anxiety, motivation, and more.

To keep our affective filter from slowing us down, socio-affective strategies can help us to worry less and get more out of our language learning. A lot of our principles reflect socio-affective strategies, such as choosing content you like and staying calm when you don’t understand. As Syfari writes, “socio-affective strategies strongly consider the students’ relation to society promoted by the affective factors” (2016, p. 1). This means that learners’ feelings are now brought to the forefront and there is more recognition of how feelings, not just instruction, affect learning. Syfari elaborates on this, saying, “Affective factors, such as attitudes, motivation, anxiety, and self-esteem, have [a] great influence on the success of [language] learning” (2016, p. 3). These affective strategies also go hand in hand with social strategies such as asking questions, cooperation, and empathy, which is why they are called “socio-affective” (Oxford, 1990, p. 17). Altogether, socio-affective strategies can allow you to relax, lean into the process of language learning and have more tolerance for ambiguity.

Another way to increase your tolerance for ambiguity is to get used to content from diverse speakers. This can help train your ear (or eye for signed languages) to understand what is being said even when it is said in a different accent or with a different turn of phrase. Studies like Kartushina et al. (2022) and Levy et al. (2019) show that children who are exposed to more dialects at home can recognize words better in differently accented speech and learn better across different accents than mono-dialectal children, even when a dialect is new to them. Moreover, a large survey by Dewaele and McCloskey (2013) of over 2000 adults in England indicated that more exposure to different accents and multicultural environments resulted in more positive attitudes towards their own and others’ second language accents. Studies like these indicate that experience with diverse language input can help you become a more flexible and open-minded listener.

Using the technological tools available to you can be a way to practice many of our recommended strategies. Hubbard (2017) notes that one important function of computers “is to provide enhanced input through increasing salience, input modification, or input simplification or elaboration” (p. 97). For example, slowing down the speed of a video, using subtitles, or listening/viewing more than once allows you to have some control over the input you are getting, and make it more comprehensible even if it is a little beyond your level the first time you listen or watch. Ruhm et al.’s (2016) large scale research on 1266 novice and intermediate English learners in Austria, for example, showed that listening to something twice almost always increased the students’ ability to understand it. Moreover, Field’s (2015) interviews with 36 English learners from a wide range of L1 backgrounds shows that students who were able to listen twice during listening tests were able to understand the broader context of what they heard and experienced less listening anxiety.

Using context, multimodality, and prior mental schemata are ways to find meaning beyond the words while listening. In other words, we learn something new more easily when we are getting clues from context and recognizing ways that the new information fits into what we already know or are familiar with. Research by Farangi and Kheradmand Saadi (2017) shows that when learners tapped into prior schemata, this strategy correlated with stronger listening test scores. The authors followed two groups of native Persian/Farsi speakers who had nearly identical levels of English proficiency through classes that used different learning strategies. One group used vocabulary mapping and related phrases that helped them study English using prior schemata. Both groups showed growth, but the schemata group improved more. They could learn more independently by relying on their prior knowledge and working together, embodying Constructivism (see Chapter 2).

For multimodality specifically, research has also given us plenty of evidence that listeners can benefit, since different modalities provide additional contextual information to what we hear or see. For example, Dahl and Ludvigsen (2013) show that language learners could understand a story in their second language much better when they could see the speaker’s gestures. Similarly, research on 8-9 year old children learning unfamiliar words in their first language showed that they learned these words more easily when they could listen to a story and read it at the same time, compared to children who only read or listened to the story separately (Valentini et al., 2024). Remember that we discussed the usefulness of multimodal learning in Chapter 2. So, don’t hesitate to use your prior knowledge, context, and any clues you have at your disposal! It will make you progress much quicker.

Check out this video from the Center for Applied Second Language Studies (CASLS) to see more about the usefulness of multimodality in both interpretive and interpersonal modes.