PrefaceThis book is a version of Le Chang's thesis, which he suessfully pleted in 2012 in the University of Auckland. The thesis exahe teaching of listening to Chinese university students. In general “listening”has been viewed as a skill that is taught by means of various listening prehension activities. A key feature of Chang's book is that in addition to treating listening in this way he also views it as a medium for developing linguistic coigates both listening prehension and vocabulary acquisition. He was able to show that students can learn new vocabulary incidentally as a result of performing listening tasks.
The book also explores the role of itive awareness in listening cot research places great store on different aspects of itive awareness (for exaal translation and problem solving) based on research that suggests that second language learners with well-developed itive awareness are better listeners and also that training learners in the use of rategies can assist the development of listening skills. However, Chang reported only a weak relationship between itive awareness and both listening prehension and vocabulary acquisition, casting some doubt on the claims other researchers have ing feature of the book is the kind of listening task that Chang used in his study. Traditional listening prehension activities require students to listen to a text and then answer questions to deprehension of it. Chang, however, used inforasks. That is, while students were listening to the text, they were required to plete a chart or a diagraprehension was ent to which they had sueeded in transferring inforo the chart/diagram. This kind of listening activity is raditional type as it requires students to deprehension while listening, not after.
This book has much to offer both researchers interested in investigating listening prehension and teachers interested in exploring new ways of teaching listening. I strongly remend it.
Rod Ellis
Distinguished Professor, University of Auckland
Chang Jiang Scholar Professor, Shanghai International Studies University