examination, teachers in junior high school conduct typical course book classes, yet the instruction at this level is not without problems. For instance, students are habitually taught the target language in their L1. In reading comprehension tasks, students are asked to read texts aloud, sentence by sentence, and then translate them into Polish. Finally, listening comprehension is limited to the tasks provided by course books, which means it is infrequent and devoid of the pragmatic aspects of authentic communication. Since this essay focuses on L2 listening, some difficulties Polish students face while developing this skill should be mentioned. First of all, Polish learners complain about the speed of delivery, performance variables (e.g. false starts), reduced forms in spoken discourse and the presence of background noises, which constantly impede L2 comprehension. As far as listening tasks go, they appear to be long, tiring and stressful. Given this evidence, it can be inferred that Polish learners’ problems stem from insufficient practice of L2 listening, which has resulted in “underdeveloped echoic memory representations for spoken discourse in English” (Dakowska 2005: 219). Junior high school education finishes with a written examination which consists of three parts, a modern language being one of them. The language part, English in most cases, comprises listening, reading and TL interaction sections, all of which reflect the A2 level of language proficiency, as described by the Council of Europe. Thus, the listening comprehension part checks students’ understanding of basic phrases and high frequency words connected with areas of most immediate personal relevance such as personal and family information or the local area. The reading comprehension part examines students’ understanding of very short and simple texts. The last part of the exam tests students’ ability to exchange information on simple topics and handle short social exchanges. Accordingly, receptive skills are tested by means of multiple choice, true/false and matching tasks, whereas the last part is based on gap-filling and writing short texts. The identified L2 listening problems and the curricular requirements let us conclude that junior high school students need systematic practice of different types of listening. The examination practice needs to focus on understanding specific linguistic nuances of the TL, whereas communication requires real life listening, and thus discourse and the pragmatic aspects of L2. 1.2 A pedagogical model for L2 listening With the teaching-learning context of a Polish junior high school discussed, it is time to construct a pedagogical model for L2 listening (see Figure 1). The model includes both bottom-up and top-down types of processing, due to which “linguistic information, contextual clues, and prior knowledge interact to enable comprehension” (Hedge 2000: 234-235). The former type of processing describes how L2 listeners create understanding by starting with the smallest components of acoustic messages, which are then put together into larger elements such as words, clauses and sentences. In the latter L2 listeners produce perceptions by starting with large concepts, and then work their way down to their tiniest items, always activating formal and content schemata. Nevertheless, it must be clarified that these two types of processing are equally important in this model since they emphasise the concurrence of data- and knowledge-driven processes, guaranteeing individual variation in linguistic processing. Apart from the two types of processing, the model includes five facets of listening, which reflect the complexity of real life listening. For instance, the sociolinguistic facet of listening relates to a listener’s capacity to comprehend concepts and thoughts in L2, as well as the different roles listeners assume while participating in listening tasks (e.g. eavesdroppers). Also, this facet is associated with paralinguistic aspects that accompany social interactions and pragmatic knowledge that helps listeners to infer meanings or attend to implied meanings. The genre facet concerns processing and interpreting new discourse in the context of other texts. The affective facet, influenced by such factors as emotions and motivation justifies decisions to listen. The strategic facet is linked to specific learning strategies helpful in the acquisition of the listening skill (e.g. physical and mental preparation to listen). Finally, the critical facet assists learners in examining both texts and their contexts in order that L2 listeners are able to render judgements about them and explore the points of view of their interlocutors.
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