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Making the Case: The Importance
of Listening in Language Learning
It has taken many years to bring the language teaching profession around to realizing the importance of listening in second and foreign language learning. As observed by Rivers, long an advocate for listening comprehension, “Speaking does not of itself constitute communication unless what is said is comprehended by another person”. Teaching the comprehension of spoken speech is therefore of primary importance if the communication aim is to be reached” (1966, pp. 196, 204). The reasons for the nearly total neglect of listening are difficult to assess, but as Morley notes, “Perhaps an assumption that listening is a reflex, a little like breathing - listening seldom receives overt teaching attention in one’s native language - has masked the importance and complexity of listening with understanding in a non-native language” (1972, p. vii).
In reality, listening is used far more than any other single language skill in normal daily life. On average, we can expect to listen twice as much as we speak, four times more than we read, and five times more than we write.
(Joan Morley,. In: Marianne Celce-Murcia, (Ed.). Teaching English as a
second or foreign language. Boston: Heinle&Heinle-Thomson, 2001. Adaptado)