Teaching Listening

           Instructors want to produce students who, even if they do not have complete control of the grammar or an extensive lexicon, can fend for themselves in communication situations. In the case of listening, this means producing students who can use listening strategies to maximize their comprehension of aural input, identify relevant and non-relevant information, and tolerate less than word-by-word comprehension.

Focus: The Listening Process

To accomplish this goal, instructors focus on the process of listening rather than on its product.

• They develop students' awareness of the listening process and listening strategies by asking students to think and talk about how they listen in their native language.
• They allow students to practice the full repertoire of listening strategies by using authentic listening tasks.
• They behave as authentic listeners by responding to student communication as a listener rather than as a teacher.
• When working with listening tasks in class, they show students the strategies that will work best for the listening purpose and the type of text. They explain how and why students should use the strategies.
• They have students practice listening strategies in class and ask them to practice outside of class in their listening assignments. They encourage students to be conscious of what they're doing while they complete listening tape assignments.
• They encourage students to evaluate their comprehension and their strategy use immediately after completing an assignment. They build comprehension checks into in-class and out-of-class listening assignments, and periodically review how and when to use particular strategies.
• They encourage the development of listening skills and the use of listening strategies by using the target language to conduct classroom business: making announcements, assigning homework, describing the content and format of tests.
• They do not assume that students will transfer strategy use from one task to another. They explicitly mention how a particular strategy can be used in a different type of listening task or with another skill.

By raising students' awareness of listening as a skill that requires active engagement, and by explicitly teaching listening strategies, instructors help their students develop both the ability and the confidence to handle communication situations they may encounter beyond the classroom. In this way they give their students the foundation for communicative competence in the new language.

Integrating Metacognitive Strategies

Before listening: Plan for the listening task

• Set a purpose or decide in advance what to listen for
• Decide if more linguistic or background knowledge is needed
• Determine whether to enter the text from the top down (attend to the overall meaning) or from the bottom up (focus on the words and phrases)

During and after listening: Monitor comprehension

• Verify predictions and check for inaccurate guesses
• Decide what is and is not important to understand
• Listen/view again to check comprehension
• Ask for help

After listening: Evaluate comprehension and strategy use

• Evaluate comprehension in a particular task or area
• Evaluate overall progress in listening and in particular types of listening tasks
• Decide if the strategies used were appropriate for the purpose and for the task
• Modify strategies if necessary

Using Authentic Materials and Situations

Authentic materials and situations prepare students for the types of listening they will need to do when using the language outside the classroom.

One-Way Communication

Materials:

• Radio and television programs
• Public address announcements (airports, train/bus stations, stores)
• Speeches and lectures
• Telephone customer service recordings

Procedure:

• Help students identify the listening goal: to obtain specific information; to decide whether to continue listening; to understand most or all of the message
• Help students outline predictable sequences in which information may be presented: who-what-when-where (news stories); who-flight number-arriving/departing-gate number (airport announcements); "for [function], press [number]" (telephone recordings)
• Help students identify key words/phrases to listen for

Two-Way Communication

In authentic two-way communication, the listener focuses on the speaker's meaning rather than the speaker's language. The focus shifts to language only when meaning is not clear. Note the difference between the teacher as teacher and the teacher as authentic listener in the dialogues in the popup screens.

A. The Importance of Listening

1. Listening is the most common communicative activity in daily life: "we can expect to listen twice as much as we speak, four times more than we read, and five times more than we write." (Morley, 1991, p. 82)

2. Listening is also important for obtaining comprehensible input that is necessary for language development.

B. What is involved in listening comprehension?

speech perception (e.g., sound discrimination, recognize stress patterns, intonation, pauses, etc.) word recognition (e.g., recognize the sound pattern as a word, locate the word in the lexicon, retrieve lexical, grammatical and semantic inforamtion about the word, etc.) sentence processing (parsing; e.g., detect sentence constituents, building a structure frame, etc.) construct the literal meaning of the sentence (select the relevant meaning in case of ambiguous word) hold the inforamtion in short-term memory recognize cohesive devices in discourse infer the implied meaning and intention (speech act) predict what is to be said

C. Principles of Teaching Listening

1. Listening should receive primary attention in the early stage of ESL instruction.

2. Maximize the use of material that is relevant to students' real life.

3. Maximize the use of authentic language.

4. Vary the materials in terms of speakers' gender, age, dialect, accent, topic, speed, noice level, genre,

5. Always ask students to listen with a purpose and allow them to show their comprehension in a task.

6. Language material intended to be used for training listening comprehension should never be presented visually first.

D. Ideas and Activities for Teaching Listening

1. Sample Activities in Ur (1996, pp. 115-117)

2. Examples of Listen-and-Do Activities (from Morley, 1991, pp. 93-102)

A. Listening and Performing Actions and Operations 1. drawing a picture, figure, or design 2. locating routes of specific points on a map 3. selecting or identifying a picture of a person, place, or thing from description 4. performing hand or body movements as in songs and games such as "Simon Says" or "Hokey Pokey" 5. operating a piece of equipment, such as a camera, a recorder, a microwave oven, a pencil sharpener 6. carrying out steps in a process, such as steps solving a math problems, a science experiment, a cooking sequence.	D. Listening, Evaluation, and Manipulating Information 1. writing information received and reviewing it in order to answer questions or to solve a problem 2. evaluating information in order to make a decision or construct a plan of action 3. evaluating arguments in order to develop a position for or against 4. evaluating cause-and-effect information 5. projecting from information received and making predictions 6. summarizing or "gistizing" information received 7. evaluating and combining information 8. evaluating and condensing information 9. evaluating and elaborating or extending information 10. organizing unordered information received into a pattern of orderly relationship --chronological sequencing, spatial relationships, cause-and-effect, problem-solution
B. Listening and Transferring Information 1. listening and taking a telephone or in-person message by either transcribing the entire message word-for-word or by writing down notes on the important items 2. listening and filling in blanks in a gapped story game (in order to complete the story) 3. listening and completing a form or chart 4. listening and summarizing the gist of a short story, report, or talk 5. listening to a "how to" talk and writing an outline of the steps in a sequence (e.g.,how to cook something, how to run a piece of equipment, how to play a game) 6. listening to a talk or lecture and taking notes	E. Interactive Listening and Negotiating Meaning Through Questioning/Answering Routines Question Types 1. Repetition: Could you repeat the part about ...? 2. Paraphrase: Could you say that again? I don't understand what you mean by... 3. Verification: Did I understand you to say that...? In other words you mean.... Do you mean ...? 4. Clarification: Could you tell me what you mean by ...? Could you explain...? Could you give us an example of ...? 5. Elaboration: What about ...? How is this related to...? 6. Challenge: What did you base ... on? How did you reach...? Why did you...?
C. Listening and Solving Problems 1. word games in which the answers must be derived from verbal clues 2. number games and oral story arithmetic problems 3. asking questions in order to identify something, as in Twenty Questions 4. classroom versions of password, jeopardy, twenty questions in which careful listening is critical to questions and answers or answers and questions 5. "minute mysteries" in which a paragraph-length mystery story is given by the teacher (or a tape), followed by small group work in which students formulate solutions 6. a jigsaw mystery in which each group listens to a tape with some of the clues, then shares information in order to solve the mystery 7. riddles, logic puzzles, intellectual problem-solving	F. Listening for Enjoyment, Pleasure, and Sociability listening to songs, stories, plays, poems, jokes, an

By : Yoga