The Power of Passive Listening

Hi all.

I recently wrote a short article on my tutoring website about the power of passive listening.

I tell many of my students to simply play some kind of audio in the background whenever they feel unmotivated to actively listen or focus.

What do you guys think?

https://www.joshdtutoring.com/post/listen-listen-and-listen-again-why-listening-is-crucial-when-learning-english

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Re-Listening yes. However, not so sure about ā€˜some kind of audio in the backgroundā€™.
My sense is that the biggest benefits might be with re-listening passive content that I have already learned (or new content that would be easy enough to mostly be understand).

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I appreciate you taking the time to read it.

And yes, I agree that there is a benefit to re-listening to audio youā€™ve passively listened to , particularly when you notice something new.

However I donā€™t see any downside to listening passively. I found it to be extremely helpful when I was learning German, a language I now speak fluently. To what extent passive listening contributed to my fluency, Iā€™m not certain, but it definitely helped me to get a strong feeling for the way a sentence should flow etc.

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Can listening passively be useful? I donā€™t doubt that. For a simple and practical advise, that seems just fine.

Some of the next questions for me would be:

  • How can I make the most out of it?
  • Would I benefit more from known content / easier content / unfamiliar content?
  • How much passive listening would be useful?
  • Would it be more beneficial at beginner or intermediate or advanced stage - or maybe equally in all stages?
  • Is there solid scientific research on this? If yes, what can we learn from it?

I suspect that I could get used to the sound, melody, pronunciation etc. of a language either way (meaning with familiar / unfamiliar content). From what I understand however is, that unnown words would usually not become comprehensible just by passive listening. Therefore, I suspect, that the bigger benefit might lay in already familiar (comprehensible) expressions - where I get the benefit of additional repetition. At a more advanced level that potential benefit might fade (due to the higher percentage of comprehensible words) and using unknown content might just be more practical. Yet even then, somewhat easier content could still turn out to be more beneficial than challanging one.

Furthermore, I differentiate between 2 different types of passive listening:
a) listening to something in the background in a way that I will also understand parts of it consciencously [e.g. passive listening while washing the dishes or driving; I suspect this is what most people would be doing]
b) turning down the volume so low that I could still hear the content if I would concentrate on it, but deliberately doing something else (maybe even watch a video) and leaving the passive listening entirely to my unconscious perception. [This appears to be much less common; Example: >100 repetitions of a short sequence of a new (rather foreign sounding) language - few people would do this with version a), with b) this is no problem at all]

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I like b. oliverā€™s questions.

I read the article, and i agree that something is always better than nothing. Iā€™ve been finding a lot of people want the perfect learning structure and have every learning minute optimized. Truth is itā€™s going to ebb and flow and passive listening is a great way to fill some time if youā€™re just trying to fit in some language time especially while multi-tasking.

I just hate the idea of perfect learning.

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If by passive you mean listening while doing other relatively mindless tasks like dishes, mowing, walking, etc. I think that can be great. I would describe that rather as actively listening while passively doing something else with low cognitive load. I definitely use this to take advantage of the mental downtime those tasks provide.

If you mean have it on in the background while your attention is focused elsewhere, I am skeptical. Research shows that we humans are terrible at multitasking, despite thinking we can do it well. Our attention just canā€™t be split and be effective. If you donā€™t focus, and therefore donā€™t comprehend, the passive input is just background noise. However, if you try to pay attention to both or are distracted by it, the split focus is associated with increased errors, lower productivity, reduced information retention, higher cognitive load, cognitive fatigue etc. So there may well be a downside, depending on the type of task you are trying to execute in parallel.

Sorry. Just another point of view to consider. Iā€™m glad you have found success in German, and I wish you the best of luck teaching English.

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Iā€™ve just read your blog post, and I donā€™t think anyone would disagree that listening is important when learning an L2. Iā€™m not sure someone at B1 would gain much from watching a native French film say, but listening to a clearly spoken documentary might be of benefit. Iā€™m curious what benefit you think we might get. Are you suggesting some mystical subconscious process takes place? Is this learner material, or native L2 material?

There are of course many ways to listen. We can actively translate in real time. We can listen and try to understand as we go along. And then we can just listen without actively trying to understand. That last one is underrated in my opinion.

Iā€™ve also been thinking about the role of incomprehensible input, which might be what you are suggesting. I used to listen to a lot of podcasts in French where I only understood the gist but not the details. I think it helped my recall of words, reinforcing their meaning and automatising their recognition. I still donā€™t know if it is a good approach.

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Thank you everyone for your comments. While I agree with many of your points, specifically when defining the type of passive listening, I still believe that the fundamental point that listening in anyway is better than not listening at all. Even if the effect could be described as ā€œplaceboā€, in some cases.

From experience of teaching various students with differing degrees of fluency, I frequently hear them say the following -

a) I donā€™t feel like I do enough to improve my English
b) If I did more it would keep me motivated in the long term

Therefore, it is not a surprise that apps such as Duolingo are so popular. People like to feel they are maintaining momentum and consequently keeping the students in contact with their L2.

Of course, if the learner is passively listening to audio they have focused on before, the process will yield better results.
However, there are various studies, such as ā€œForeign-Language Experience in Infancy: Effects of Short-Term Exposure and Social Interaction on Phonetic Learningā€, Patricia Kuhl, which have looked at how infants and adults can distinguish sounds from frequent exposure to native language, even passively.

Once more, this would work with active/focused listening too. I donā€™t dispute this. But I do believe that learners must do what is necessary to firstly maintain their exposure to the L2 but to also maintain their motivation.

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I just read your text and I agree with the interesting point: " Listening something is better that listening anything. " However, from my perspective, I find the comprehensible Input, whether in an active or passive way, is powerful. And to apply your approach about passive listening , a good idea is listening during activities like household chores, driving, take care of plants. There are a big range of activities that weā€™re doing which is possible to apply listening. But, thanks for the text.

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Thank you for your view! I am always looking for writers who wish to share their views on my page. Blogs are welcome :blush: (in all languages)

Interesting to note though, that in the mentioned study, the babies who were exposed only to recordings without interpersonal interaction had no result.

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