Listening in the language classroom

TLDR

The review misrepresented the book’s emphasis on decoding skills and downplayed its focus on meaning, prompting the author to clarify the true intent. The author aims to correct misconceptions so readers understand the book’s stance. The author argues that the book does not ignore meaning, contrary to the review’s suggestion.

Abstract

I was disappointed by the recent review of my Listening in the Language Classroom (Field 2008) in this journal (64/1: 103–5). I am certainly not averse to criticism—indeed, I welcome debate on all aspects of L2 listening (there is far too little of it). But I was understandably concerned to see some of my ideas misrepresented. I appreciate the opportunity to set the record straight so that readers do not approach the book with wrong assumptions about where I stand. The review indicates that the book puts forward general guidelines for a listening programme including prioritizing decoding skills and minimizing any meaning-based focus. A brief glance at the contents will reveal that only two chapters focus on decoding skills and how to practise them, followed by one on parsing (employing grammar to extract sentence meaning) and two on constructing meaning representations. It is difficult to see how any reader could construe this as ignoring the importance of meaning.