Teaching Listening

Why does listening seem so difficult for students?

What do we listen to in everyday life?

What are the characteristics of the listening process?

What are the principles and models of teaching listening?

What are the common activities in teaching listening?

Why does listening seem so difficult for students? Quickly forget what is heard. Do not recognize words they know. Understand the words but not the intended message. Neglect the next part when thinking about meaning. Unable to form a mental representation from words heard. Do not understand subsequent parts of input because of earlier problems.

the total time an individual is engaged in communication 9% is devoted to writing 16% to reading 30% to speaking 45% to listening

listening can be more difficult than reading different dialects,accents, stresses, rhythms, intonation, mispronunciations, etc; little or no control over the speed

listening can be more difficult than reading cannot go back and listen again cannot pause to work out the meaning of the heard material

listening can be more difficult than reading background noise other tasks: note-taking, writing down directions or messages

Characteristics of the listening process Listening in real life Spontaneity Context visual clues listener’s response speaker’s adjustment

Principles and models of teaching listening Focus on process Combine listening with other skills Focus on meaning Grade difficulty level appropriately

Bottom-up model Listening comprehension is believed to start with sound and meaning recognitions.

Top-down model listening for gist and making use of the contextual clues and background knowledge to construct meaning are emphasized.

Interactive Model listening involves both ‘bottom-up’ processing—recognizing sounds of words, phrases or structures ‘top-down’ processing— referring meaning from broad contextual clues and background knowledge. Comprehension is ‘the result of integration of the information conveyed by the text with information and concepts already known by the listener’ (Rost, 2002:60).

Three teaching stages of teaching listening Pre-listening While-listening Post-listening

Pre-listening activity Listening for the gist Listening for specific information

Pre-listening activities Pre-listening activities should aim to motivate students activate their prior knowledge teach key words or key sentences

While-listening activities No specific responses Not giving students any task Listen and tick Tick items as they hear them

While-listening activities Listen and sequence Find out the order of things   Listen and act listen and respond to commands or directions.

While-listening activities Listen and draw Drawing pictures, diagrams, etc. amusing variations, geometric shapes.  Listen and fill Listen and take notes Listen and summarize

types of post-listening activities Multiple-choice questions The multiple-choice questions  Answering questions Open-ended questions

types of post-listening activities Note-taking and gap-filling Tidy up the notes Complete the summary Dictogloss Traditional dictation exercise