Bridging Gaps in Teaching Listening for Integrated Control in English

Summary: This paper addresses the issue of enhancing what Palmer (1979) has termed integrated control (1) in English, which has been missing from the linguistic competence of the majority of Japanese students ( Kakita, 1984). The first part of this paper deals with some of the difficulties that impede students from the desired goal of integrated control in English. These difficulties include the matter of speech rate, levels of student language knowledge, and issues of background information regarding the teaching material. In addition, the lack of integrated control in English among Japanese students is discussed, with reference made to statistical data. The second part introduces the basic philosophy of the teaching materials and teaching procedures in the listening Course at Tottori University. Material preparation relates to the importance of written scripts in aiding student's comprehension in listening. the organization of each class is based on the theory put forward by Oka (1996), which is a modification of Krashen's Input Hypothesis.