“Living language should be taught as living speech that should be taught orally. The teachers should provide an opportunity for class drills and oral work.”

Listening skill is the first language skill when the child starts learning the language listener tries to see and hear.

“Listening is an active process and involves subtle interpretation of the spoken message”. -Mendel Sohn (2011:249)

Student pays attention to the teacher’s teaching to perceive through the eyes or the mind. He becomes aware of the teacher words and sentences. Listening involves making sense of the spoken language. Familiarity with the English sound system and an ability to articulate English sounds, prepare the students for listening to English utterances with understanding, Listening must be preceded with speaking, for it paves the way for the students to develop oral fluency and accuracy..

Listening implies exposure to a wide variety of structures and sounds. This will enable the students to listen with understanding of English later in real life situations. Listening is an ‘active’ process and good listeners are just as active when listening, as speakers are when speaking. Active listening is an interpretative process and is not merely the exact decoding of a message. Listening comprehension needs some processes that are,

v  recognition of the sounds uttered by the specter,

v  Perception of the intonation patterns showing, information.

v  Interpretation of the relevance of what is being said on the current topic.

Listening skills provide enough opportunities to the students to express their ideas, knowledge and feelings. Listening serves a variety of purpose. We listen t learn, to relate to others, to influence the attitudes, beliefs and behaviors of others. Listening helps to acquire knowledge and wisdom of others. Listening helps to acquire knowledge and wisdom of others, genius people, the students face in day to-day lifer in teaching and learning process. Listening influences the attitudes and behaviors of others. Listening is more specialized process, a type of perception, by which one receives and deals with auditory signals.

Listening in English is attending to and interpreting oral English. Listening is necessary to develop the speaking skill. The student listen to oral speech in English, then separates into segments the stretch of utterances he / she hears, groups them into words, phrases and sentences. And finally he / she understand the message. Listening prepares the students to understands the speech of the native speech of the native speakers of English as they speak naturally at a normal speed and in a normal manner.

Multimedia technology gives a sense of reality. If cultivates students’ interest and motivation in study and active participation in the class activities. Multimedia provides greater incentives. PPT course ware helps them to transform English communication into capacity cultivation. Multimedia based teaching inspires students positive thinking abundant information is got through multimedia learning. If offers rich content, which an text can’t give Grasping information through various channels can equip. the students with knowledge and bring about information sharing among students and make them actively participate class discussion and communication.

            Multimedia technology goes beyond time and space, creates more vivid and visual, authentic environment for English learning, stimulates students’ initiatives and economizes class time, meanwhile increases class information. A major feature of multimedia teaching is to train and improve students’ ability to listen and speak, and to develop their communicative competence. Multimedia creates a good platform for the exchange between the teacher and students.

            The three tests are conducted for the conducted for the students’ in order to develop and measure their listening skill through the use of multimedia technology. The three tests result show pupils gradual development in the listening comprehension. Each test represents the performance of the learner’s standard. The learners showed a good improvement in their listening activities. Listening skill through multimedia technology creates appropriate environment for learning the language because it is the foundation of language development and understanding when spoken. The listening skill can be developed through systematic teaching. To cultivate listening ability, it is desirable to give a good practice in listening – intensive and extensive. Extensive listening implies exposures to a wide variety of structures and sounds. Intensive listening is conserved with just one or two specific points.

“The ultimate goal of the speaking skill in English is to enable the learners to communicate his or her thoughts, ideas, and falling via oral language to meet the needs faced by him or her”

The effectiveness of language means that when students learn English they should aim at a degree of language proficiency, both in speech and in writing. They should be able to express themselves in English in the right ways on the right determines what kind of formal or informal language will be most appropriate. For informal English, and for the formal ones, a more formal version of normal, customary English should be used.

According to Robert Lado, (1989:11) “Learning a second language is ........................ acquiring the ability to use is structure within a general vocabulary under essentially the conditions of normal communication among native speakers at conversational speed”.

He further says, “...................... it means the acquisition of the ability to use, in speaking, , the units and patterns of expression of the second language associated with the units and patterns of content when listening to the second language”. It means, learning the expression, the content and their association for rapid use in the proper positions within the system of the target language.

In speaking there are five functions which communication ought to achieve. First, there is the personal function of revealing oneself: then there is the direct utterance in which one attempts to control the listener: a third one is what the anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski calls ‘Phatic communion which means establishing relationship by speaking in a ritualized way. The another function of language is seen in the referential utterance in which information is convey to listeners. Last, there is the creative use of language as in poetry, songs etc.  If English has to be used for communication by an Indian student, he should achieve the competence to suit the language to the occasion and also to listen with understanding to other speakers and interprets them to the full. -          C.Paul verghese(2011;16)

Zhang points out (2006 : 11) through multimedia and network technology we can offer students not only rich sources of authentic learning materials, but also an attractive and a friendly interface vivid pictures, and pleasant sounds, which to a large extent overcomes the lack of authentic language environment and arouses students’ interest in learning English communication skill.

Multimedia computer software combine the text, sound and colorful, moving images can be used to provide challenging and authentic content that will engage the students in learning process. Multimedia based teachings compel the students, and induce a kind of attraction towards it to listen and become involved in the lessons being delivered. Computers with internet connectivity can increase turner motivation as it combines the media richness and interactivity of other multimedia technologies with the opportunity to connect with real people and to participate in real world events. Multimedia based teaching – learning motivates the learner, stimulates imagination, create and sustain interest, and keeps the concentration going.

The more the activity the more is the interaction of the pupils in English language. This ultimately results in a better and healthy relationship between the teacher and his then pupils on one hand, and among the pupils on the other. The practice in speaking may be started by the teacher with dialogues. For such a practice dialogues on simple, contextualized situations may be used between pair of students. In this the teacher should play the of a guide and most not to curb the freedom of expression. In this way enough opportunities are provided, grammatical and lexical items. The pupils should be taught correct pronunciation and intonation right from the very beginning. If these aspects are neglected at the early stage, it becomes very difficult to get rid of the wrong habits and to cultivate the right ones later on. Learning the communication skill through multimedia technology transform the multimedia technology transform the students from the students from reactive to interactive and from interactive to proactive.

In most of the schools, the English teachers follow translation method. The pupils never know the art of pronunciation intonation or what is meant by stress and soon. They never get a chance to practice the language skills of listening and speaking. Because, most of the teachers know a bit about current technologies but they are not sure about how to use the technology in their teaching. Some teacher may feel insecure with technology and that to too late to learn now. Lack of training in using technology with their learners. So teachers often need training in order to gain confidence in using these new tools in teaching learning process. We have a situation where learners are using technologies themselves out of the classroom, but they are coming to the language classroom and suddenly finding themselves back in a 20^th century environment of chalk and talk. Multimedia enhanced learning recognizes that there are many different learning pathways and many different articulation of knowledge. Multimedia technology allows the learners to explore and discover rather than merely listen and remember. If provides confidence to the teachers as well as to the students. The teachers should use authentic listening texts to form the basis of further classroom activities that will train students to listen more effectively, help them acquire useful grammatical structures and lexis, become familiar with a range of accounts and improve their speaking skills. English language teaching should meet the needs and motivations of students in order to become successful fluent speakers of English language. In India we should lay more emphasis on the communication needs of our students while teaching them English as a second language. Because in many cases interpersonal communication is now more vital than academic usage.

Listening is found to be the most effective when it is done in preparation for a speaking Listening precedes speaking paves the way to develop oral fluency and accuracy. Particular attention should be paid to the following drawbacks which are noticed and hamper their ability to listen and speak.

i)                    Inadequate range of words and phrases that are understood.

ii)                  Misplaced stress on syllables and words.

iii)                Inability to maintain attention

iv)                Inability to understand the English pronunciation other than the regional pronunciation.

v)                  Inability to follow the fast speech

vi)                Inability to recall what they heard

vii)              Inability to guess the meaning if on unknown words

viii)            Confusion between sounds with meaningful contrasts. (e.g.) (bit) v./bit/

ix)                Failure to discriminate between long and short vowels or diphthongs.

x)                  Failure to aspirate (P1,H) and (K)

xi)                Production of the harsh sounds (r) in words like wonderful, ‘far’ etc

xii)              Misapplication of lexis and idiom

xiii)            A tendency to aspirate (h) when not required

xiv)            Some of them feel difficult to produce English speech sounds both in isolation and in combination

xv)              Interference of the phonological system of the mother tongue

Suggestions:

            Following remedial measures can be adopted to strengthen the learners listening and speaking skills.

(a)    Producing intensive listening exercises which help students to identify and recognize words in a stream of speech – perception exercises.

(b)   Enriching the students’ vocabulary by learning five vocabularies per day.

(c)    Dictation helps in sharpening of the importance of intonation

(d)   Raising students’ awareness of the importance of intonation

(e)    Drawing students’ attention to the special features of informal spoken English

(f)    Presenting students with new grammatical structures and lexis in context.

(g)   Focusing on the features of accents of native and non-native speakers.

(h)   Students should be encouraged in conversational in the classroom.

(i)     Keen observation helps them to recall what they heard

(j)     Digital recording equipments, CD can be used for touching English language

(k)   We can use the free software called ‘Audacity’ for listening practice. To select some phrases or sentences of a listening passage for dictation purposes or a listening training gap-till. We can also used Audacity  to add sound effects, speep up or slow down recording and soon.

(l)     The teacher should pause the CD at an opportune moment in a listening text and asks the students to anticipate what word will come next.

(m)  Pre – recorded cassettes can be used for listening practice.

(n)   Teacher‘s role must be changed as a provider, an assistant, a consultant to increase effectiveness in the learning environment.

(o)    Using video in the teaching and learning process will be helpful to achieve listening and speaking skills.

New types of tests for English should be developed and the old essay type questions have to be reduced and replaced.

Teachers need the co-operative efforts of the parents and students. Parents can be highly valuable partner to the teachers to develop the language skills in their children. The student should not remain passive listeners. They must be willing to give – themselves whole heartedly to the difficult task of learning the skills of language. They must throw off all restraint and self consciousness when enacting in a drama, role play etc. The students must be willing to practice the language constantly.

Prof. Kittson put it aptly, “Living language should be taught as living speech that should be taught orally. The teachers should provide an opportunity for class drills and oral work.”

Various drills may be provided to improve their speech. Word order of sentences is learnt automatically through drills. These drills may be made interesting, by drawing the contexts from stories ‘In the beginning there could be controlled vocabulary in speech with reference to a few situations; conversation tags will make the speech natural and free flowing. Question and speech fluency picture composition is a good exercise to teach speech. Role play and dialogue are liked immensely by students. Teachers may organize them. The students may be asked to describe a festival seen by them or a visit made by them.

Young people took an enormous interest in the new technological gadgets but did not use them for educational purposes. Multimedia enhances their learning, as in drafting their work and using it to the study of how words and images are combined to convey meaning. It is teacher’s responsibility to make the students to use the technologies for educational purposes.