Minimal response as the aid strategy to develop listening comprehension in a beginning level

MINIMAL RESPONSES AS THE AID STRATEGY TO DEVELOP LISTENING COMPREHENSION IN A BEGINNING LEVEL.

STRATEGY

Aplan action designed to achieve a long-term or overall aim

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/strategyc goal or result

METHOD

An established, habitual, logical, or prescribed practice or systematic process of achieving certain ends with accuracy and efficiency, usually in an ordered sequence of fixed steps. See also scientific method and procedure.

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/method.html#ixzz3pQzkX0o6

LISTENING SKILL

Listening is the ability to accurately receive and interpret messages in the communication process. 
http://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/listening-skills.html#ixzz3pQvqo2wO

READING SKILL

It is a cognitive process of decoding symbols to derive mening from texts( as in reading a book or reading music).

http://es.slideshare.net/fernanlopez/the-reading-skills

WRITING SKILL

Writing skills are an important part of communication.  Good writing skills allow you to communicate your message with clarity and ease to a far larger audience than through face-to-face or telephone conversations.

: http://www.skillsyouneed.com/writing-skills.html#ixzz3pQyDMlRU.

SPEAKING SKILL

Speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information.(Brown, 1994; Burns & Joyce, 1997).

http://area.dge.mec.pt/gramatica/whatspeakingis.htm

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Beginning students  have rarerly some idea about the content that they are going to hear as well as sometimes the  information is  not according  to  the level of the students because they do not know how to pronounce and neither the meaning of certain words from the content so  they are not going to be able to make minimal response and either listening comprehension what the speaker  is saying.Moreover, the speaker role is very important to make emphasis because the speaker is who conveys the message to the listener so If the speaker does not have accuracy and fluency, the listener will not be able to understand anything from the conversation.

Such ideas are based on what J.C.Richards calls "Script competence"  ,that is the knowledge we possess in advance about the subject-matter or context of the discourse (Richards,1983,pag17) .

Furthermore, the relation between listeners expectations and their purposes in listening comprehension of each are differents.For example if they want to know the answer of a question, they will ask and expect to hear a relevant answer so  they have to pay attention to certain key words or phrases which  lead to use their "listening out".

As you could see there are some problems that the students  face to get an effective listening comprehension in a conversation.For instance, they need a strategy that  help them to  understand what is said in a conversation so I am going to use the minimal response as  an aid to develop listening comprehension because this strategy prepares them in different situations in the real life as compliments, greetings, apologies, compliments. invitations,etc., and in this way they can predict what they have to response  in a conversation and also they are indicators that the listener is understanding what the speaker is saying as well as they are going to get  self-confidence to participate even at the end or while the speaker is talking. (Zimmerman & West, 1975)

PURPOSE

This research is intended how minimal responses are useful as the aid to develop listening comprehension inca conversation for beginners.

RESEARCHES QUESTIONS

Here is where emerge the next questions: How do minimal responses help to the beginners students in a conversation? But for that is necessary to know what are minimal responses? And i am going to explain those concepts in the next paragraph.

Minimal responses are small answers that the listener makes while the speaker talks in a conversation and these are very practical and useful because they can use in different situations and they can memorize easily.

we have two different kinds of making the minimal responses:

 First, listener makes responses while the current speaker is talking.

Second, listener makes responses after the current speaker finishes the talking (Zimmerman & West, 1975)

There are some rules for defining minimal responses: First they are not to introduce as a turn. Secondly they do not answer the current speaker´s questions. Thirdly these are very brief and the last they are made as responses to the current speaker.

Minimal responses are indicators which shown that the listener is receiving and understanding  the message and also indicate that the speaker can continue talking.

The following forms are  examples of minimal responses:

a)      Verbal responses such as yeah, uh-Hu.

b)      Nonverbal responses such as nods and shakes of the head.

c)      Single words as response such as yes, no, okay.

d)      Phrasal utterances such as oh, really; oh,my god.

e)      Short clauses such as that´s right, that’s true, I agree.

f)      Longer utterances such as clarification request with the question:"what?".

g)      Smile and laugh.

Now that i explained all the elements of minimal responses in a conversation.It is necessary to mention the role of the teacher which is  to guide and monitor to  the beginners and for that he needs to know, what kind of activities does he has to implement in a classroom?

The teacher can use some communications situation as a script,greetings, apologies,compliments,invitations and other functions which are associated with a predictable set of spoken change.For example, the script, Greetings,apologies,compliments,invitations and other situations.These are influenced by social and cultural normal and also can anticipate what the speaker is going to say as well as what the listener is going to hear and at the same to answer in that conversation.The learners only need to practice in managing and varying the language from different scripts.

Bibliografía

Baker, J., & Westrup, H. (2003). Essential Speaking Skills. New York: the tower building.

Andersen, P. A. (1999). Nonverbal communication: Forms and Functions. CA: Mayfield Publishing Company.

Cohen, A. (1996). Developing the ability to perform speech acts:in second language adquisition.

Knapp, M. L., & Hall, J. A. (1997). Nonverbal communication in Human.

Reid, J. (2008). Gender Differences in minimal Responses. La trobe papers in LIinguistic.

Reppen, R., Fitzmaurice, S. M., & Biber, D. (2002). Using corpora to explore linguistic variation. Publishing Company.

Ruddel, R., Unrau, N., & R.Ruddell, H. (1994). Reading as a meaning-construction process:The reader,the text,and the teacher.

Sacks, H., Schegloff, E., & Fishman, P. (1973). Open up closings. Candace West.

Zimmerman, D., & West, C. (1975). Sex Roles,interruptions and silences in conversation.