Listening plays the most crucial role in the entire language acquisition process, due to the following three main aspects:
- Sound is at the beginning of any language acquisition. The innate bioprogram for language acquisition defines the language is first listened and spoken, and then it is read and written.
- Listening elicit prosodic cues. Listening extensively the speech sound of target language would provide direct cues of its underlined acoustic and phonetic properties, which could be of great help to the first steps of its phonological, lexical and syntactic acquisition.
- Though listening itself is not direct function of right hemisphere, the specially designed synchronised multisensory learning approach cultivates language sense which is lateralised in right hemisphere. Put in another way, though adults are not sensitive as infants who discriminate all language sounds with super sensitive right hemisphere, they can still rely on the large hidden right hemisphere language functions in making sense of target language prosodic features as well as comprehend syntagmatic structures through syntagmatic relations of semantic concepts.
Dr. Alfred Tomatis, otolaryngologist, described listening in his Audio-Psycho-Phonology alternative medicine theories of hearing and listening that the desire to listen, as well as the capability to listen (comprehension) must be present with the listener for the successful recognition and analysis of the sound. It is very important for the listener to become engaged in the process of listening and develop a desire to understand what is heard at the same time. A listening-based practice involves sound processing, meaning processing and context processing, which calls for the integration of perception skills, analysis skills and synthesis skills.
For full article of Listening-based Multisensory Synchro Learning (L-MSL) for Second Language Acquisition, CLICK HERE.
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