Practicing Aural Comprehension Skills at Department of English, GSTU on the basis of John Morley's Listening 'Comprehension Instructional Models-Matching Theory and Practice': Classroom Implementation, Benefits and Challenges

Abstract : This study aims to investigate the implementation of practice models of Listening Comprehension proposed by John Morley in his article “Listening Comprehension Instructional Models-Matching Theory and Practice” (Morley, 1995). Morley has suggested four types of models of aural comprehension for all types of students and all four models are outlined for the foreign language learners. This paper will discuss how these models can be followed inside class sessions of English Language Learning. What are the advantages and problems of applying these models in classroom. The classroom environment is different from outside and that is why some syllabus-oriented materials should be modified according to the needs of the students. In this case, Hilda Taba’s (Taba, 1967) inductive approach is followed to identify and talk about students’ needs. From model numbers 1 to 4 of Morley, the procedures and techniques have been followed in English Masters of Arts (MA) in Applied Linguistics and English language Teaching (ALELT) classroom to investigate which model is the best one to be followed. The adults 17 learners are the targeted group. The course title assigned is “Teaching Different Areas and Skills of Language”. The students were asked to listen to two songs- “Secret Love Song” and “Don’t Cry Joni”. Then they were asked to do several activities based on Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and Eclectic approach. The effects of implementation and some positive and negative outcomes will be critically analyzed and discussed in this article. The method of the data collection is a case study of students’ performances, classroom observation, note taking and video-recording from pair and group discussion sessions of student’s collaborative tasks given by the teacher. The data is then organized by the researcher and discussed in findings. How theory and models of instruction can be effectively practiced in real classroom and what results are found.