The interactive approach: criteria and methods for teaching Vietnamese language listening to foreigners

Abstract

A signifcant proportion of listening activities in practice are interactive in nature, as it has been proven in research studies around the world. All listening activities, except for media listening, speech listening and eavesdropping, are aimed at two-way listening and speaking in direct communication. Traditionally, however, language teaching activities have often adopted a passive approach to listening comprehension, leading learners to perceive listening as a purely receptive act. This approach emphasizes the mere reception of information rather than active synthesis or clarifcation when comprehension issues arise. If learners are placed in communicative contexts, and if they can interact with the speaker to seek understanding, the teaching and learning effectiveness of language listening activities will be enhanced. For these reasons, in this article, we study the application of the interactive approach to teaching Vietnamese listening to foreigners. We review research works on interactive listening teaching and Vietnamese listening profciency tests. Then, the concepts of interaction, interactive listening and their constituent elements are clarifed. On that basis, the methods for teaching interactive Vietnamese listening are proposed. The criteria for assessing interactive listening skills of foreigners in the teaching-learning process and in testingassessment activities are also offered. The obtained results have the potential to build interactive Vietnamese listening textbooks for foreigners as well as assessment standards for interactive Vietnamese listening profciency tests.

In this chapter we research on applying interactive approach to teaching Vietnamese language listening for foreigners. We examine research works on teaching interactive listening and tests for assessing language listening competence. Then, the concepts of interactive, interactive listening, and their constituent elements are clarified. Later, methods for teaching Vietnamese interactive listening are proposed. Criteria to assess the interactive listening skills of foreigners in the teaching-learning process and in testing-assessing activities are also suggested. The results obtained have the potential basis to develop interactive Vietnamese listening course-books for foreigners as well as standards for assessing tests of Vietnamese interactive listening competence.