DEVELOPINGLISTENINGFLUENCY

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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.