Hoerverstehenstraining im Anfangsunterricht Englisch in der Grundschule

Examensarbeit aus dem Jahr 2008 im Fachbereich Englisch - Pädagogik, Didaktik, Sprachwissenschaft, Note: 1,0, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main (Neuere Philologien - Institut für England und Amerkastudien), 50 Quellen im Literaturverzeichnis, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: Contrary to the inadequate assumption that listening is a passive operation,since it is among reading a receptive skill, listening or rather listeningcomprehension is proven to be a very active and complex process. Andmore than that; it is the key skill that is fundamental for first and foreignlanguage acquisition. That is why it should especially for English beginnersbe the central skill to be taught in the ESL (English as a Second Language)classroom at school.Therefore this paper starts with a theoretical part including first of all, adescription of how listening comprehension works to show that it is a veryactive process. Before the actual listening process, there is always a purposefor listening to the text and an expectation towards the text is developed.This purpose could be taking part in communication or listening forinformation, fun etc. The listening process itself consists of two parallelprocesses that contain an interaction between text and listener, the bottom-upprocess and the top-down process. During the bottom-up process the listenerabsorbs the text and tries to understand what is said by using their alreadyacquainted phonological, lexical, syntactical and semantic knowledge. Thetop-down process can be seen as an interpretation of the text, where thelistener uses not only their linguistic and cognitive knowledge, but also theirpragmatic, social-cultural knowledge and their assessment of the situationalcontext and the speakers. During these processes a number of listeningstrategies that compensate possibly appearing problems are applied. Theseproblems can be caused by certain features of language that can makeunderstanding difficult and they might be even more serious for the foreignlanguage learner.Furthermore, the importance of listening comprehension in first, secondand foreign language acquisition is portrayed. Many parallels between firstand foreign language acquisition that can and should be accounted for ELT(English Language Teaching) are shown in this context.