AUDIO AND VIDEO MATERIALS FOR TEACHING PROFESSIONALLY ORIENTED LISTENING IN TECHNICAL UNIVERSITIES

The article examines the potential of online audio and video materials for teaching professionally oriented listening and formation of students’ English communicative competence in technical universities. The introductory part of the article highlights the relatively low profile of listening in ESP and EAP research, and as a consequence, low quality and small quantity of audio and video listening materials used in teaching professionally oriented listening in technical universities. In the main body of the article it is emphasized on the necessity of allocating equal time for the formation and development of all language macro-skills in close integration and on the basis of authentic professionally oriented materials. The role of listening in the development of students’ English professionally oriented communicative competence is determined. The potential of authentic audio and video material as a source material for all activities in the process of teaching all language skills is demonstrated. There are also suggested online sources of authentic professionally oriented audio and video materials and key criteria for their selection. In the final part of the article we consider the formation and improvement of English professionally oriented listening competence of students in technical universities through the merging of extensive and intensive listening, and using listening lesson sequences.


Introduction.
Nowadays students of technical universities can participate in a variety of English specialism-and study-related communication events: lectures, tutorials, seminars, workshops, webcasts, webinars, international conferences, roundtable discussions, debates and team projects.The success of professionally oriented communication greatly depends on students' listening and speaking skills.Their effective development and use, in turn, is determined by a wide range of factors.One of them is the application of professionally oriented audio and video materials, namely their quality, quantity, systematic and cyclic use.In the majority of published ESP and EAP books the least represented activity is listening and the other four macro-activities do not have accompanying them audio and video support.
However, up to now the formation of competence in professionally oriented listening on the basis of authentic online professionally oriented audio and video materials in technical universities still remains the least researched of all macro language competencies.Among the basic reasons for ignoring and episodic use of listening by ESP and EAP teachers are: 1) listening is considered by teachers as an additional product of speaking in the system of language teaching; 2) inherent psychological and linguistic complexity of listening, its perception levels, ways of their determination and 3) the complexity of listening research [2, p. 161; 9, p. 80].In the past the process was hindered by the absence of appropriate authentic professionally oriented listening materials.Currently, the situation has changed dramatically due to the development of new information technologies and the availability on the Internet a wide range of free authentic audio and video materials.As a result the role and place of listening in learning and teaching foreign languages has also undergone significant changes.The accessibility of free online audio and video materials has opened up opportunities for the development of totally new teaching language sequences.Thus, the objective of this article is to examine the current potential of online authentic professionally oriented audio and video materials for teaching listening and formation of students' English communicative competence in technical universities.The tasks of this study are: 1) to define the role and place of listening in the system of teaching and learning ESP and EAP, 2) to determine why, what and how audio and video materials should be used for teaching ESP and EAP in technical universities.
Professionally oriented listening in ESP and EAP learning and teaching.Among the guiding methodological principles of teaching English as a foreign language in higher schools are 1) the principle of integrated teaching of all language skills, activities and aspects of language; 2) the principle of professional orientation and 3) the principle of authenticity of learning materials [5, p.74].Adhering to them means the simultaneous development of all language skills (listening, speaking, writing, reading and translation) according to students' professional needs and on the basis of authentic materials.
In communication activities the most frequently used language skill is listening.Almost every speaking activity involves listening.It facilitates acquiring other language skills and can significantly improve them [10, p.168].The more students listen to intelligible audio and video materials, the more English they understand, learn and practice.For example, the best way to teach students how to make and give effective presentations is to show them real presentations and help them analyze their structure, style, advantages and disadvantages.
There are a lot of reasons to listen.Exposing students to listening to a variety of authentic materials we can help them enrich their vocabulary, improve grammar knowledge, pronunciation, listening, speaking and writing skills.Listening to professionally oriented materials will satisfy students' needs and help them expand their speciality knowledge.Furthermore, the use of authentic audio and video material in teaching languages provides the ideal opportunity for students to listen to not only their teacher and classmates, but also native speakers of English and foreigners with different accents and speech fluency.The foregoing reasons for listening to authentic professionally oriented materials at all stages of the language teaching and learning will contribute significantly to the increase of students' interest and motivation, and consequently ESP and EAP learning and teaching will become more effective.
Thus, taking all the above mentioned information on the importance of listening into consideration we totally agree with Jeremy Harmer who states that 'we should aim to use listening material for as many purposes as possiblefor practicing a variety of skills and as a source material for other activitiesbefore students finally become tired of it.'[7, p. 310].
Online authentic professionally oriented listening materials.Nowadays the importance and fundamental role of listening in language learning is increasing due to the development of modern information technologies which disclose new opportunities for teaching and learning English owing to the availability of free online authentic professionally oriented audio and video materials.However, the effectiveness and success of using online authentic professionally oriented audio and video materials depends substantially on their quality, quantity and the methodology of their application in ESP and EAP learning and teaching.
Under 'the quality' we mean not only the sound and video reproduction but also the language used in the audio text, its range, accuracy, organization, cohesion, the pronunciation of speakers (the use of stress, rhythm, intonation) and the rate of articulation.The term 'quantity' embraces the volume and duration of the audio and video text represented for listening, the number of its presentations and the frequency of different listening materials' use per unit.Last but not least is the methodology of audio and video materials application.It involves the procedures of planning and designing of listening sequences on the basis of selected audio and video materials.
In order to choose the appropriate audio and video materials we have to define criteria for their selection and we need to know their available sources.According to the National curriculum for universities [6, p. 34, p.54] relevant audio and video materials 1) should correspond to the learning objectives, aims and content of the university ESP or EAP curriculum; 2) be student-centred and take students' backgrounds into considerationtheir previous knowledge, initial and target proficiency language levels, interests, motivation, study and target needs; 3) provide opportunities for students' self-study; and 4) be professionally oriented in order to develop not only language but also professional knowledge and skills.These are general basic selection criteria.The more detailed analysis of audio and video materials should also include the following criteria: materials' topicality, complexity, terminology and content richness, logical completeness, information and communication value, authenticity, motivation power, correspondence to the field of study and students' knowledge in their professional field, the length and volume of the recorded audio or video material [1, p. 67; 3, p. 78; 4, p. 111].
Consequently, the guiding criteria for selecting audio and video are determined by students, the university curriculum and the quality of the authentic audio and video material.
ESP and EAP teachers in technical universities can find a great variety of specialism-and study-related audio and video materials on the Internet.The most widespread and 'reliable' sources (with standard literate language) are lectures given by lecturers of different universities, advertisements placed online by companies promoting their products and services, documentaries, popular science films, webinar-friendly audioslide presentations to scientific articles.An audioslide presentation is a new but gaining popularity format that gives authors the chance to familiarize readers with their research and relevantly appreciate it.Presentations are developed by authors of articles and placed online by world-known publishing corporations.Each presentation lasts from 4 to 5 minutes.Presentations are very convenient for use as they do not require cutting down.Listening and watching them can improve not only listening but also writing and speaking skills which students can apply in the future in order to create audioslides to their own articles and to successfully participate in scientific conferences.Audioslides comprehension can also help students choose the essential for their scientific work articles and orient more easily in the world of scientific literature.
Authentic online audio and video materials represent an influential and powerful tool in teaching and learning languages.However, it is worth mentioning that they can become such a tool only in the case of their systematic and cyclic implementation in the process of formation and development of all macro-skills at all stages of foreign language teaching and learning.Without well-developed methodology of their application in ESP and EAP learning and teaching they represent raw building material for formation and development students' communication competence.
Blended learning and listening lesson sequences.The novel methodology should involve 1) the implementation of blended learning, i.e. studying in the class and self-studying out of the class and 2) the development and application of totally new listening lesson sequences [7, p. 303].
According to Oxford Learner's dictionary [11] 'a sequence is a set of events, actions, numbers, etc. which have a particular order and which lead to a particular result'.Under a listening sequence here we mean a set of tasks to one audio or video material arranged in a definite successive order with the aim to help students get both global and detail audio text understanding, and improve their language skills and knowledge.After performing such a sequence students should get deep and full understanding of the audiotext.
Every listening sequence should include tasks extensive and extensive listening on the studied topic.We share the view of Jeremy Harmer who proposed to blend and use for acquiring and improving listening skills extensive (outside the classroom) and intensive listening (in the classroom) [7, p. 303].Mixing intensive and extensive listening gives students more autonomy and provides opportunities for self-study.ESP and EAP listening sequences developers have to choose and evaluate audiotexts in order to decide what materials, in which order and what tasks to them are suitable for performing in class (intensive listening) and what part of listening sequence is desirable to leave for homework.Due to extensive listening students who have lower language proficiency can listen or watch listening materials at home as many times as they need, doing additional exercises in order to improve their listening [5, p. 182; 8, pp.18-24] skills.
We can also optimize the process of teaching listening through blending in listening sequences two types of text processing (top-down and bottom-up).In topdown processing the accent is on getting a general idea of the audiotext.In bottom-up processing students attention can be focused on more detailed elements of the audiotext such as individual words, phrases or linking devices.The understanding in bottom-up processing is achieved by blending separate elements into a whole piece of information.In the process of listening sequences development it is reasonable to use both types of information processing.As Jeremy Harmer points out [7, p.270] there is an interaction between two types of text processing.Without a full understanding of a wide range of details through bottom-up processing, it would be difficult to come to clear general audiotext understanding.And vice versa without global topic understanding, it would be impossible for students to comprehend the text even if they understand its details.We can start with listening tasks for some general text understanding and then proceed to the tasks which will help students perceive the text with considerably more details, e.g. they can be asked to listen for some specific information or language points.
Developing listening sequences we should follow modern trends in methodology and distinguish three stages of audiotexts processing: pre-listening, while-listening and post-listening [5, p. 182; 8, pp. 18-24].Different listening stages demand different listening tasks.And listening tasks are predetermined by students' language level and abilities.
Before-listening stage prepares students for practice in listening comprehension.The purpose pre-listening tasks is to create motivation and activate students' prior knowledge.The warming-up pre-listening activities can involve making predictions, reviewing key vocabulary and brainstorming ideas.
The while-listening phase is focused on the audiotext comprehension through listening exercises, which depending on the task, can require gist listening or/and selective listening.A wide range of listening exercises include: sequencing main ideas, answering multiple-choice questions, detailed note-taking, summarizing main ideas etc.Their choice depends on the text complexity and students' language level and abilities.
The post-listening stage involves audiotext comprehension assessment or can be used as a basis for speaking or writing competence formation.It can include both classwork and homework activities: giving opinions on the topic, more detailed functional and vocabulary language examining through a series of additional exercises.
The development of listening sequences should be based on a blended learning approach in order to provide opportunities for students' self-study both in class and after class.Moreover, their development and use involves writing clear teachers' and students' guidance for intensive classroom and extensive home listening activities.

Conclusion.
Teaching listening involves a change in pattern, the application of new approaches and the use of a variety of audio and video materials.
Considering the requirements to graduates' proficiency in ESP and EAP, modern trends in education aimed at students' autonomy, interdisciplinary integration into education technologies, and the limited amount of time allocated for classroom training, we believe that the implementation of novel listening sequences with the elements of blended learningthe use of both classroom listening teaching and online learning through the extensive and intensive listening to online authentic professionally oriented materialscan help teachers optimize the learning process.Continuous listening to online authentic materials defines successful learning and teaching outcomes.
The development and use of effective listening sequences with teachers' and students' guidance is a demanding and time-consuming process which 1) requires well-equipped classrooms with good acoustics and the Internet connection; 2) greatly depends on the availability of online well-recorded up-to-date professionally oriented video or audio materials, 3) requires teachers' special knowledge and skills for successful online search, processing, developing and application of such materials; 4) should be based on the novel methodology.