Real Listening

  It is hard these days to take some of my time and invest it solely on listening comprehension. I do solve a lot of problems that focus on getting the questions right on real exams such as TOEFL or TEPS. Nonetheless, exams do not reflect accurately the exact linguistic competence of a specific person. One might score low on a certain language test owing to fatigue or lack of concentration on the test day. Test apprehension is also considered a crucial factor that plays a role when he is taking a test. As he may have scored high on mock exams at home, he might not do so on the test day. Either he could have too high of an expectation of himself or he could fail in managing himself as he is taking the test.

Conversely, one may score low on mock exams taken at home but he might score high on the real test. Thus, it is evident that simple exams do not, if at all, completely account for one's overall listening ability in second languages. In that aspect, I have resorted to my official listening comprehension score a few years ago. And yet, I realized that I had a sort of listening comprehension problem when I was watching an American drama, "The Guardian". I could make out what the theme or plot was by attending to the protagonist's facial expressions and body movements. However, I had issues with local grammatical problems. In other words, I could catch what the whole discourse was about, but I could not sort out the very details that compose the entire discourse. Maybe it was due to the terminology that the main character use since it is a legal drama. Maybe it was because of my lack of concentration when I was watching the drama. (Not everyone gives all their attention when he or she is entertaining himself or herself). Whatever the predicament is, I still have some time to figure it out and address it in time before it works against my linguistic development.