Acquiring Listening through Intuitive Heuristics

Abstract

Language acquisition happens with the exposure of the learner to the four skills namely Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing.  Of these, listening and reading are considered passive skills whereas speaking and writing are active skills.  The key elements of listening are listener function and listener response.  Function is a psycholinguistic process and hence it can be measured by the listener response.  Listeners are allowed to pay attention to some aspects of the codes (words) which are carefully designed as tasks.  This intuitive heuristic activity involves the learners in recognizing the familiar words and differentiating their parts of speech.  Since it is heuristic, the learners acquire the skill at a fast phase.  The article states the end result of the applied heuristics performed in an English language classroom.  The result has proven that the task which is focused to the single activity provokes the learners to respond.  In short, the learners at the initial stage can be trained to inculcate listening skill using this closed response to the given task