{"id":1598,"date":"2012-06-04T16:16:06","date_gmt":"2012-06-04T14:46:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/?p=1598"},"modified":"2019-09-17T19:19:32","modified_gmt":"2019-09-17T17:19:32","slug":"listening-strategies-active-listening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/listening-strategies-active-listening\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese listening strategies: Active listening"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Image source: sxc.hu\/profile\/amiroff<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

In previous articles we have already looked at two kinds of passive listening (the first article was about background listening<\/a>, the second about passive listening in general<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Now, the time has come to look at active listening, which is what I think at least traditionally is what people mean when they say that they’re practising listening ability.<\/p>\n

Active listening simply means that you actively engage all your faculties to try to understand and process the language you hear. To make sure that the processing is as complete as possible, we typically perform some activity which is not listening in itself, such as answering questions about the audio we just heard, taking notes while listening or translating the sentences we heard.<\/p>\n

In this article, I will do two things. First, I will discuss the importance of active listening. I will argue that both passive and active listening are essential and that they should in no way be regarded as different methods where you should use only one.Second, I will discuss various strategies you can use along with some tips and tricks on how to vary your active listening practice.<\/p>\n

If you want to skip the discussion about active listening and dive straight into some real exercises, click here to scroll down<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article is part of a series of articles focusing on listening ability, please read the introduction here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Articles in this series:<\/strong>
\nIntroduction<\/a>
\nProblem analysis<\/a>
\nBackground listening<\/a>
\nPassive listening<\/a>
\nActive listening<\/a> (this article)
\nListening speed<\/a>
\nDeliberate practice and i+2<\/a>
\nDiversify your listening practice<\/a>
\nListening resources<\/a><\/p>\n

Active listening and the 10,000 hour rule
\n<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I think most readers will be at least a little bit familiar with the 10,000 hour rule<\/a>, which basically says that in order to become expert in any given field, you need to invest 10,000 hours. For now, the number is not important, but to me, it’s quite obvious that the amount of time you practise is the main factor determining how much you learn. The number 10,000 is often misinterpreted and people think that simply engaging in whatever activity you want to get good at is enough.<\/p>\n

Deliberate practice<\/h3>\n

That isn’t the case. The original concept refers to 10,000 hours of deliberate <\/em>practice, which in essence means that you’re actively trying to become better, challenging yourself and doing your very best to improve. For instance, simply going to class is not necessarily deliberate practice (depending on what you do in class of course). Background listening is definitely not deliberate practice and probably not passive listening either, although that depends on how passive it is and what you’re listening to. In general, difficult tasks forces you to be very active, so the more challenging a task is the, more likely it is to be considered deliberate practice.<\/p>\n

Language learning isn’t like learning to play the violin<\/h3>\n

In my understanding, language learning is slightly different from, say, learning to play the violin. Languages has an input factor which is extremely important, but which simply isn’t there when we learn to play in instrument. Sure, we might become slightly more proficient at playing the violin by listening to other violinists or even music in general, but the determining factor is still how much we play ourselves, how many hours of deliberate practice we put in.<\/p>\n

Not so with language learning. When we learn Chinese, listening and reading are more important than speaking and writing, depending a little bit on our goals and where we are at the moment in our Chinese learning lives. Still, deliberate practice is the quickest and most efficient way of improving, so if possible, we should strive to be as active as we can.<\/p>\n

If deliberate, active practice is so great, why do I sing the praise of background and passive listening at the same time? Why don’t we invest all our time into deliberate practice?\u00a0 Because we can’t. Various studies into deliberate practice have found that a few hours per day is all we can manage, after that we simply can’t concentrate and maintain the high level of mental processing required. In other words, deliberate practice is very demanding and leaves one exhausted. This is where passive listening enters the picture, because being passive is much less taxing and can be kept up for hours and hours. Thus, there is no opposing relationship between passive and active listening. You do active listening when you can and have the energy to do so. If not, then background or passive listening should be on the menu.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Exercises for active listening<\/h3>\n

The thing that turns passive into active is that we actively engage with the audio we hear. The easiest way to make sure that we’re doing this is to transform what we hear in some way. We’re not simply receiving information, we’re changing it and using it for something else. It doesn’t really matter exactly what we do, but here are some examples:<\/p>\n