Handbook of Second Language Listening

Essential insights and strategies for teaching and researching second language listening comprehension skills

The Handbook of Second Language Listening provides comprehensive and authoritative coverage of the processes, challenges, and pedagogy of second language (L2) listening. Designed for researchers, teacher educators, and classroom practitioners, this volume presents a systematic examination of how L2 learners perceive and interpret spoken language across diverse contexts and discusses how instruction can better support the listening process.

The Handbook addresses a broad range of topics essential to understanding and teaching L2 listening, including perceptual foundations, the influence of prosody, speech perception, listening assessment, and metacognitive strategy use. Chapters by leading scholars and emerging voices in applied linguistics bridge theory and practice by offering evidence-based insights into listener variability, instructional design, and the interface between listening and pronunciation. This book brings attention to topic areas often overlooked, such as decolonial theory in listening research and the impact of orthography on perception. Equipping educators and scholars with the tools needed to understand L2 listening as both a cognitive process and a teachable skill, the Handbook of Second Language Listening:

• Integrates current findings from phonetics, psycholinguistics, and applied linguistics
• Connects theoretical models of perception and processing with classroom-based applications
• Addresses foundational and emerging topics, from phonetic decoding comprehension of spoken academic discourse
• Includes dedicated sections on technology-enhanced assessment and instruction
• Covers key pedagogical challenges such as listening in noise, processing of prosody, and strategy instruction
• Provides practical frameworks for evaluating and designing L2 listening tasks

The Handbook of Second Language Listening is ideal for graduate-level courses in TESOL and Applied Linguistics, including Second Language Acquisition, Listening Pedagogy, and Language Assessment, which are core to MA TESOL and Linguistics programs. It is also a critical reference for researchers, teacher educators, curriculum designers, and language assessment specialists.

MARNIE REED is Professor Emerita of TESOL and Applied Linguistics at Boston University. She is co-author of Phonetics in Language Teaching and co-editor of Listening in the Classroom. With John M. Levis, she co-edited The Handbook of English Pronunciation for Wiley Blackwell in 2015.

JOHN M. LEVIS is Distinguished Professor of Applied Linguistics and Technology at Iowa State University. He is the founding editor of the Journal of Second Language Pronunciation and author of Intelligibility, Oral Communication and the Teaching of Pronunciation. Levis has co-edited several seminal volumes including Second Language Pronunciation: Bridging the Gap Between Research and Teaching (Wiley Blackwell, 2022), and is recognized internationally for his research on second language pronunciation and oral communication.