DEVELOPING LISTENING FLUENCY

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This paradigm developed as a mixture of the basic assumptions of Bloomfieldian structural linguistics and Skinnerian operant conditioning. To Bloomfield, language was an acquired set of conditioned reflexes which could be imparted by a stimulus-response type of training to the desirable point of "over-learning". The relatively good results achieved under wartime conditions, with intensive programmes headed by Bloomfieldian linguists, gave their views an authoritativeness that was largely responsible for the coming large-scale adoption of the "A-L" approach . After the war, B. F. Skinner also appeared on the scene as an authority in educational psychology. Quite understandably, audiolinguists of the neoBloomfieldian orientation were delighted to see that Skinner's principle of operant conditioning appeared to fit in beautifully with the format of audio-lingual drills. Each basic linguistic structure was isolated and drilled in short patterns. The textbooks were designed to be a form of teacher-proof, operant conditioning paradigm. Indeed, the "A-L" method appeared to be an ideal marriage of two approaches converging at the same point though from different directions. The results were a clear set of directions for the teachers to follow. The launching of Sputnik I in 1957 and the agonizing reappraisal of American education which followed resulted in the passage of the National Defense Education Act, with millions of dollars allocated to the improvement of science, mathematics and foreign language instruction. Most of the money allocated to foreign language instruction went to followers of the "A-L" paradigm.

The "A-L" teaching paradigm makes several basic assumptions that are critical to understanding the nature of the paradigm shift. From the linguistic side came the assumption that the nature of language was basically "talk" . It was a communication device between people, and it was primarily auditory rather than written. The dialogue between two people was the manifest form of language most often cited as an example of "language". From the psychological side came the assumption that man was a determinate being in which a man's behavior is a function of his environment in a stimulus-response- reinforcement process. Behavioral psychologists restricted their theories and research to observable events--environmental stimuli and overt behavior. Psychology became known as the science of behavior. Learning was defined as a "change in behavior".

The "A-L" paradigm did not live up to expectations. The early confidence of the 1960's in this paradigm has been eroded by a lack of success in the classroom, by shifts in the basic linguistic paradigm and by shifts in the basic psychological paradigm. A smaller number of students are now taking foreign language courses in a formal school setting.⁵Those who take courses often quit before they are proficient. The dropout rate for students taking foreign language courses in a formal school setting is 70 percent after only two years, and 90 percent after three years of study.⁶ The practice of insisting upon speaking in the early stages of language learning has been identified as one cause of the high dropout rate.⁷

Many classroom teachers of foreign languages recognized the anxiety created by stress on speaking, noticed the boredom of repeating meaningless phrases, and worried about the high dropout rates. Many modified their approach and adopted an "eclectic" posture. Some took a "common sense" approach and noticed how children learn their first language. When observing young children learning their first language, they noted that infants are exposed to hundreds of hours of language without themselves verbally responding. Much of the language that a child hears is uncorrelated with "reinforcers", i.e., people talking to one another in the child's presence, television, radio etc. Finally, observations of normal language development typically note that young children "understand" language before their own use of it.

Classroom teachers looked to the experts, to the publishing houses, to the theoreticians, for

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JAMES R . NOR D

alternatives; but little fundamental change came forth. John Carroll cited the "cognitive code learning approach" as an alternative in 1965. Unfortunately, as pointed out by Postovsky,
... some proponents of the cognitive theory of language acquisition, while rejecting the
mechanistic approach to language teaching still adhere to the behavioristic view of
language as a phenomenon. To them, language is still "talk". It may be defined as
"communicative competence and performance", but conceptually it is exactly the same
as "verbal behavior". It logically follows this essential behavioristic premise that
language learning isequivalent to learning to talk. ⁸
This is not really surprising. Old paradigms die hard.
Normal science, the activity in which most scientists inevitably spend most of their
time, is predicated on the assumption that the scientific community knows what the
world is like. Much of the success of the enterprise derives from the community's
willingness to defend this assumption, if necessary at considerable cost.⁹ It is especially difficult for those who have gained a reputation by adhering to a paradigm to later repudiate it and follow another.
For these men the new theory implies a change in the rules governing their prior
practice of normal science. Inevitably, therefore, it reflects upon much scientific work
they have already successfully completed.¹⁰
Part of being ordinary as a scientist is to resist changes of a certain sort, the sort that question fundamental assumptions, this resistance going under the vigilante activity of "maintaining high scientific standards".

As a consequence, most theoretical texts, most methodological courses, and almost all of the instructional materials on the market today, continue to assume language is "talk" and stress speaking as the primary goal of language teaching. Few seem to argue with Muskat- Tabakowska's assessment: "In a very general and lay sense, language teaching is a process aimed at making pupils speak a foreign language like native speakers". ¹¹

It is with some reluctance that I suggest that now may be the time to change the basic paradigm of language teaching. Now may be the time to shift from speaking to listening as the focal skill; to change from a response-oriented, production-focused methodology to a stimulus-oriented, problem-solving methodology; to move toward a paradigm concerned with competence and away from a paradigm concerned with performance.

"The success of the paradigm", writes Kuhn, "is at the start largely a promise of success discoverable in selected and still incomplete examples. Normal science consists in the actualization of that promise, an actualization achieved by extending the knowledge of those facts that the paradigm displays as particularly revealing, by increasing the extent of the match between those facts and the paradigm's predictions, and by further articulation of the paradigm itself".^{1 2}

This paper will try to provide some selected and still incomplete examples of the potential value I believe can be found in concentrating our research efforts and our teaching practices on the phenomenon of listening tiuency in foreign language learning. As my opinion may appear new and at odds with the vast majority of researchers and practitioners in the field, it is only from a persuasion that it is right and holds considerable promise that I bring it before you. Since my opinion may be different from many professionals of greater fame and repute, I hesitate to counter them, yet my sense of duty as a scholar makes me obliged to present to you at least some of the facts, research and logical argumentation which have