Listening Skills: Understanding the problem-solution pattern

Understanding discourse patterns is an effective method for you to improve your listening ability. When you are able to identify discourse patterns, you can understand how the text develops and predict what follows, and as a result you can listen with a purpose and follow the listening material more easily. Besides, the discourse pattern can serve as a framework that helps you organize corresponding facts, ideas and concepts, thus helping you assimilate the new information you obtain in a more systematic way.

The problem-solution pattern is one commonly-used discourse pattern. It may consist of four sections which are usually arranged in the following order:

1) Situation, which is in fact the background information about the problem;

2) Problem, which is the problem, dilemma, puzzle, and obstacle the speaker is going to address;

3) Solution, which is the proposed, attempted, or actual solution to the problem;

4) Evaluation, which is the positive or negative evaluation of the solution.

Among the four sections, the sections Situation and Evaluation can be optional.

Then how to identify the problem? You need to focus your attention on words that indicate this concept – not just the word problem itself, but also nouns such as difficulty, dilemma, drawback, danger, hazard, puzzle, obstacle, lack, need, matter, issue, illness, fear, etc. and adjectives like unpleasant, difficult, disorganized, and so on.

Once you recognize the problem in the material, you will expect the speaker to tell you a solution, actual or attempted or proposed things or actions that may avoid or overcome the problem. You can identify the solution by listening for lexical signals like solution, answer, propose, suggest, indicate, solve, resolve, improve, plan, address, tackle, deal with, respond to a need, work out a way, come up with a solution, etc.

Then you may find out how the speaker evaluates the effectiveness of the solution by identifying words and expressions such as excellent, successful, effective, important, quick, unique, failure, fail to solve, succeed, a temporary solution, manage the problem, etc.

Recognizing discourse patterns may require time to practice and apply such knowledge to actual listening. But it is a useful listening skill that is well worth the time and effort.

Next you are going to listen to a speaker talk about the problem in Venice. Try to identify the problem, the solution, and the evaluation of the solution by paying attention to the words and expressions signaling each of them.