Most of us will have been through the trauma of a listening exam (or aural) at some point. Until relatively recently prevailing wisdom saw the aural as an adjunct to the oral and teaching methods were geared around that relationship. Michael Rost, however, treats listening as a quite distinct field of enquiry and endeavour.

The book provides a thorough and practical treatment of both the linguistic and pragmatic processes that are involved in oral language use from the perspective of the listener. Through understanding the interaction between these processes, language educators and researchers can develop more insightful, valid and effective ways of teaching and researching listening. The inclusion of a broad range of ideas and practical tools for the construction of teaching and research models will engage and inform all those investigating communicative language use