14

JAMES R. NORD

Finally, the frontal lobe comes into play for spontaneous, expressive narration, just as it was necessary to comprehend continuous, complex narrative speech.
As I stated above, narrative expressive speech or expression begins with an intention
or plan which subsequently must be recoded into a verbal form and moulded into a
speech expression. It is clear... that both these processes call for the participation of the
frontal lobes, an apparatus essential for the creation of active intentions or the
forming of plans. If this motive of the expression is absent, and no plan is actively
formed, naturally there can be no question of spontaneous active speech, although
repetitive speech and naming of objects remain intact.⁷⁷
Does this neuropsychological analysis help us understand both the cause and the cure for some of the speech performance problems we have faced in the past? While many echoic mimicry memory drills may activate certain brain functions, they do not usually involve the abstract frontal lobe function. As a consequence, many drills sound just like conversations with patients with a marked frontal syndrome.
Whereas their responses to questions permitting a simple echolalic response ("Were
you drinking tea?"--"Yes, I was drinking tea") cause little difficulty, questions
requiring the introduction of new connections into the answer ("Where have you
been today?") give rise to considerable difficulty.⁷⁸
What may well be necessary is extensive listening drills designed to create an abstracted schema in the frontal lobes as well as in the parieto-occipital cortex zone. Active and attentive listening overa period of time and to a variety of speech patterns can be considered an abstract modelling process.
In abstract modelling, observers extract the common attributes exemplified in diverse
modeled responses and formulate rules for generating behavior with similar
structural characteristics... General features can be extracted through repeated exposure
to individual exemplars which share common properties. ⁷⁹

If we eventually expect language students to spontaneously express their thoughts, then we must help them build up their abstract model of the world and of the language.
To take an example, a model generates from a set of noun sentences containing the
passive construction ("The dog is being petted" "The window was opened", etc.). The
sentence examplars vary in content and other features, but their structural property--
the passive voice--is the same. Children later are instructed to create sentences from a
different set of nouns with the model absent, and their production of passive
construction is recorded.⁸⁰
If we do not do this through extensive listening, we may be left with students of limited language facility similar to those who are physiologically impaired.
The transition from the general plan to narration requires the recoding of the plan
into speech, and an important place in this process is played by internal speech with its
predicative structure ...providing what is known in syntax as the "linear scheme of the
sentence"... It is this formation of the "linear scheme of the sentence" which is
substantially (sometimes completely) disturbed in patients with lesions of the inferior
postfrontal zones of the left hemisphere. Asa rule these patients have no difficulty
whatever in repeating words or in naming objects. They can also repeat relatively
simple sentences. However, as soon as they are required to express a thought, or even
to produce an elementary verbal expression, they are completely unable to do so. ⁸¹ This does not imply that there are not some other brain functions necessary for speech performance, or that listening alone can automatically create both a language competence

DEVELOPING LISTENING FLUENCY

15

and language performance. Rather, it appears that the development of listening fluency is both the most effective process of achieving language competence and a good indicator that language competence has been achieved. In addition, there is evidence that once the competence is acquired, transfer to the other performance skills is rapid. What the paradigm of language acquisition involves is the creation of the internal structure which then seems to guide the performance. What may be involved is the creation of a feed forward system which then guides actual performance through feedback. Mowrer indicated a similar concept many years ago.
If we now adopt the "feedback" conception of habit, which holds that behavior is
"selected" and "guided" by the positive and negative emotions which have become
conditioned to response-correlated stimuli, skill reduces to a matter of discrimination.
Evidence from many sources now suggests that the musical virtuoso, the athletic
prodigy, or the "artist" in some other type of behavior differs from the duffer mainly
in being able to make fine distinctions (discriminations) between the feedback from a
performance that isexactly right and one that is only approximately so.^{8 2} In several other studies there is evidence that a focus on the receptive skills has decided advantages over a focus on response practice; and that discrimination training can be used in place of response practice to help shorten the total learning time. For example, in one research study⁸³the researcher believed that teaching the students to observe more accurately would help them guide their own behavior. He gave pre-school children practice in discriminating well-formed numbers from those which were badly formed. It was found that these children were able to write the numbers well much sooner than those who had been given either response guidance or response practice from the beginning. Similar techniques have been used to teach machine operation. ⁸⁴By using discrimination training to show proper equipment set-up, the students first learned the proper appearance of the outcome and, thus, were able to monitor their own behavior in acquiring the skill. This same procedure has also been applied to problem-solving in mathematics.⁸⁵This technique allows the student to interact with the uniqueness of each problem and avoid the redundancy of problem solving, thus reducing long response practices and reducing overall time of learning. This stimulus-orientedapproach is the heart of the Suzuki talent education method.

The child receives a recording of the music in Volume 1. His instructions are to listen
to the recording as often as possible. This listening may take place while the child
plays, during his meals, or at bedtime as he is awaiting sleep. Absorption occurs
without static attention, and this music will soon assume the status of an old friend...
perhaps in the category of a much loved blanket or stuffed animal! As he begins to
play the music he has been listening to, he will have an oral memory to aid his
physical learning and a builtin error recognition system that should be infallible.⁸⁶ Young children often have difficulty in acquiring and executing skilled movements such as doing up buttons, shoe laces and the like. This difficulty has been attributed by Zaporozhets and his associates to the haphazard and poorly directed orientation reaction of young children. ^{8 7}
In making this analysis, Zaporozhets is equating the occurrence of the orienting reaction with what many call attention and some call anticipatory response. It is also something we are referring to as feed forward. Zaporozhets is arguing that the children have trouble responding with a motor output because they do not pay attention, they do not know what to look for, in the component steps in the skill.

16

JAMES R . NORD

In support of his view, Zaporozhets reports several experiments in which children have been taught skillsmore successfully when their orientation reaction (attention) (feed forward) has been directed to the components of the skill,rather than on simply the end product.
In one experiment involving teaching children age three to seven years to hammer a
nail into a block of wood, children concentrating on the end result took some 30 to 40
hits, whereas children whose attention was directed to the hand movements could
achieve the results in seven hits.⁹⁸
This same step-wise anticipatory procedure is revealed by Gilbert when he explains his technique of backward chaining. Although he based his approach on reinforcement theory, the actual account seems to describe stimulus anticipation.
The most immediate available source of information about the adequacy of the
mastery response lies in the produce of that response. To teach a child to tie his
shoelaces, we properly begin by teaching him the last act in the sequence; when he
makes the last response he produces a completely tied shoe, and he can see this
immediately. If tying his shoes is an objective of the child, the last response is
reinforced by its own doing. The first exercise used to teach shoe tying demonstrates
this response and its product to the student as he observes the condition of the laces at
the time the response is appropriate. In the second exercise a student is shown how to
make the next to last response, and the immediate product of this response is a
condition of the laces that he learned to be the occasion, the s^dfor the last response.
The s^dfor the last response now serves to reinforce the next to last response and so on
back through the chain. It should be obvious that no independent evidence of mastery
is required by the child, that he can observe the adequacy of his performance directly as
he performs. ⁸⁹
What seems to be inherent in both of these explanations is a building up of a series of feed forward indicators, points to be observed, a "what to look for" at the end of each mini action. Studies on the delay of auditory feedback of speech gives dramatic credence to the position that speech is guided by expectant listening.
The effects of delayed speech feedback include slowing of speech rate, increased
loudness of speaking, elevation of pitch of the voice, and a blocking of the normal
flow of words that results in artificial stutter. Many errors of articulation appear,
including omissions, additions, and substitutions of syllables or words. ⁹⁰ In summarizing the experiments on delayed auditory feedback, it is suggested that children learning to speak their first language do not imitate adults directly, but rather:
The child can imitate words spoken by others because he already has developed the
ability to imitate himself--that is, to control his verbalizations according to the
feedback signals from prior verbalizations. The first words of infancy and childhood
are not exact imitations of adult words but represent patterns similar to adult words
over which the child already has achieved feedback control. ⁹¹
If one accepts the basic assumptions of the new paradigm, then it becomes obvious that the process of teaching becomes the process of providing the proper nutrients at the proper time. We do not feed a six month old child a sixteen ounce steak. The comprehension approach is not inanely prolonged listening for its own sake. Rather, listening activities are the means for helping students grow in their language capacity in the most efficient manner possible. The comprehension approach implies a building of a network which interweaves a linguistic symbol system and a perceptual symbolic system. Therefore, the greatest care in the construction of a listening program is required, if the comprehension approach is to be a viable alternative to the "A-L" paradigm.
The focus of most of the listening fluency researchers in the field has been on developing

DEVELOPINGLISTENINGFLUENCY

17

these sound-form perceptual-meaning associations in the brain. Asher, for example, has used the total physical response strategy⁹²as his primary means of developing these associations. Gary⁹³has also used this technique. Gauthier used bilingual teachers and allowed students to respond in either language. ⁹⁴Nord has used visuals extensively in a generalized technique known as the Sens-it Cell.⁹⁵Winitz and Reeds⁹⁶also use visuals extensively.
Postovsky⁹⁷had the studentswrite down the words as they heard them. He also used visuals more extensively in his later experiments. Most of the researchers have also noted that novel expressions were spontaneously generated once listening fluency reached a critical mass or nucleation stage.⁹⁸Asher, for example, has pointed out, "As listening comprehension develops, there is a point of readiness to speak in which the child spontaneously begins to produce utterances".⁹⁹Nord has also noted that students generate novel expressions spontaneously once listening fluency develops. ¹⁰⁰ In practical terms, the utility of listening comprehension has seldom been challenged but rarely fully understood. Over ten years ago Belasco said, "Aural comprehension is the most underestimated and least understood aspect of foreign language learning today".¹⁰¹It is still true today. In order to handle even a simple free conversation, an individual must have a much broader competence in listening comprehension than in speaking. When speaking a language, a learner can manipulate a relatively narrow range of vocabulary at his own pace to express an idea. However, when listening to a reply, he no longer controls the choice of vocabulary, the structure employed, nor the rate of delivery. He must be prepared to assimilate those words which are part of the speaker's active vocabulary and he must adjust to the speaker's rate of speaking This requires much greater fluency in listening than in speaking. This is especially the case when conversing with a native speaker of the language. Most people act upon their "beliefs" or "assumptions" or "theories". When men believed the world was flat, sailors could not sail out far for fear of falling off the edge. When men "believed" the world was round, they sailed around it. For many years now, people teaching foreign languages have "believed" that languages were primarily "talk". Many experts have developed a method called the "A-L" approach based on this belief, that a child learns a language by talking and being praised by parents for correct speech or corrected by parents for incorrect speech. These people believe that learning a language is the same as learning to talk. The best method, therefore, is practicing to talk. Supporters of the "A-L" method believed that people should practice speaking from the first day.

Recently there has been a questioningof this belief, of this assumption, of this theory. Some people now believe that learning a language is not just learning to talk, but rather that learning a language is building a map of meaning in the mind. These people believe that talking may indicate that the language was learned, but they do not believe that practice in talking is the best way to build up this "cognitive" map in the mind. To do this, they feel, the best method is to practice meaningful listening.
This alternative belief leads to alternative practices in language learning exercises. Therefore an alternative methodology is now being developed around the belief that the best way to learn a language is to learn to listen and comprehend that language. ¹⁰² What is emerging from an analysis of these experiments and research findings is a recognition that we need to relook at our basic paradigm, to question some of our basic assumptions, to ask ourselves whether our goal and our focus should be the receptive skills or the expressive skills.

18

JAMES R. NORD

The focus on speaking in foreign language instruction for the past twenty years has, I believe, been detrimental to the field. It has been detrimental not just because it now appears less effective or efficient, but rather because of its corrosive effect. By concentrating public and professional attention on dramatic overt behavioral changes which could be observed by anyone, the focus on speaking has also succeeded in diverting attention away from the more elusive, but more fundamental changes which are going on inside the brain as one learns to "listen" and "think" in a foreign language. The focus on learning to speak has diverted attention, research and money away from the development of theories, methodologies and instructional materials for learning aural comprehension. It is time to change the paradigm.

REFERENCES
1. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), p.5.

2. Ibid., p.6.
3. Ibid.

4. Nelson Brooks, "The Meaning of Audiolingual", Modern Language Journal 59, (September--October 1975):234--40.

5. Richard 1. Brod, "Trends in Foreign Language Enrollments", The Britannica Review of Foreign Language Education, Vot. II (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1970).

6. John H. Lawson, "Is Language Teaching Foreign or Dead?" Modern Language Journal 55, (October 1971):354.

7. T. H. Mueller and R. R. Leutenegger, "Some Inferences about an Intensified Oral Approach to the Teaching of French Based on a Study of Course Drop-outs", Modern Language Journal 48, (February 1964):91--4.

8. Valerian A. Postovsky, "On Paradoxes in Foreign Language Teaching", Modern Language Journal 59, No. I--2 (January--February 1975): 19.

9. Kuhn, Structure of ScientiJic Revolutions, p.5.

10. Ibid.,p.7.

11. E. Muscat-Tabakowska, "The Nature of Competence and Performance in Language Teaching", Language Learning 19 (1969):44.

12. Kuhn, Structure of Scientifc Revolutions, p.23.

13. James J. Asher, "The Total Physical Response Approach to Second Language Learning", Modern Language Journal 53, No. I (January 1969):4.

14. Harris Winitz and James A. Reeds, "Rapid Acquisition of a Foreign Language (German) by the Avoidance of Speaking", IRAL 11, No. 4 (1973):296.

15. Harris Winitz, "Problem Solving and the Delaying of Speech as Strategies in the Teaching of Language", ASHA (American Speech and Hearing Association) 15, No. 10 (1973):586.
16. Ibid .