We listen to a wide variety of things, for example; what someone says during a conversation, face to face or on the telephone; announcements giving information, for example, at an airport or railway station; the weather forecast on the radio; a play on the radio; music; someone else�s conversation (eavesdropping); a lecture; professional advice, for example, at the doctor�s, in the bank; instructions, for example, on how to use a photocopier or other machinery; directions; a taped dialogue in class (Lindsay and Knight, 2006: 45)
Listening is a psychological phenomenon, which takes place on a cognitive level inside people�s heads, and a social phenomenon, which develops interactively between people and the environment surrounding them. It considers listening as a complex process, which needs to be understood in order to teach it, and subsequently, evaluate it before integrating it with phonological aspects and with the skill of speaking. (Bueno, Madrid and McLaren, 2006:282).
Rivers (1966: 196) claimed, �Speaking does not of itself constitute communication unless what is said is comprehended by another person. Teaching the comprehension of spoken speech is therefore a primary importance of the communication aim is to be reached�.
However, Morley (1972: 7) notes, �perhaps an assumption that listening is a reflex, a little like breathing - listening seldom receives overt teaching attention in one�s native language � has marked the importance and complexity of listening with understanding in a nonnative language�.
According to Nunan, (2001: 23) Listening is a six-staged process, consisting of Hearing, Attending, Understanding, Remembering, Evaluating and Responding. These stages occur in sequence and rapid succession.
The firstone is Hearing and has to do with the response caused by sound waves stimulating the sensory receptors of the ear; hearing is the perception of sound, not necessarily paying attention, you must hear to listen, but you need not listen to hear.
For this, we have Attention. It refers to a selection that our brain focuses on. The brain screens stimuli and permits only a select few to come into focus.
The thirdstage is Understanding, which consists of analyzing the meaning of what we have heard and understanding symbols we have seen and heard. We must analyze the stimuli we have perceived. Symbolic stimuli are not only words, they can be sounds like applause or even sights, like a blue uniform that have symbolic meanings as well. To do this, we have to stay in the right context and understand the intended meaning. The meaning attached to these symbols is a function of our past associations and of the context in which the symbols occur for successful interpersonal communication: the listener must understand the intended meaning and the context assumed by the sender. 13 After following with the next stage, it is necessary to make a remark: as it has mentioned previously, the background knowledge is important and people have to take into account several points: general factual information, local factual information, socio-cultural knowledge and knowledge of context. With these factors, the information will be correctly received.
The next step, Remembering, is an important Listening process because it means that an individual, in addition to receiving and interpreting the message, has also added it to the mind�s storage bank, which means that the information will be remembered in our mind. But just as our attention is selective, so too is our memory, what is remembered may be quite different from what was originally heard or seen.
In the penultimate stage, Evaluating, the listener evaluates the message that has been received. It is at this point when active listeners weigh evidence, sort fact from opinion and determine the presence or absence of bias or prejudice in a message. The effective listener makes sure that he or she does not begin this activity too soon, as beginning this stage of the process before a message is completed results in no longer hearing and attending to the incoming message and, as a result, the Listening process ceases.
Finally, we have Responding, a stage in which, according to the response, the speaker checks if the message has been received correctly. This stage requires that the receiver complete the process through verbal or non verbal feedback, because the speaker has no other way to determine if a message has been received. Therefore, it is sometimes complicated as we do not have the opportunity to go back and check comprehension (Nunan: 2001, 23).
