1. HOW TO TEACH LISTENING

2. Why is listening difficult?
We have two ears and one mouth so that
we can listen twice as much as we speak.
The message
The delivery
The listener
The environment

3. The message Spoken English Gap btw. words disappears:
a cross I’d bear / a cross-eyed bear
Elision: She sat next to the wall.
Assimilation: Tony’s a heart(p) breaker.
Intrusion:
He doesn’t have an original idea(r) in his head.
Chunked formulaic phrases
Spontaneity

4. Linguistic difficulties
It’s hard to recognize speech.
It’s hard to wreck a nice beach.
Irregular spelling system of English:
Mr. Clough from Slough bought enough dough.
Slips of the ear: mergers and acquisitions –
murders and executions
Unknown words
Lexical density
Complex grammatical structure

5. Non-linguistic difficulties
Familiarity of the topic
Text type
Cultural accessibility …

6. 2. The delivery Reciprocal versus nonreciprocal Organization Duration
Number of speakers
Accent …

7. 3. The listener Students’ individual dispositions
Age factor (younger learners vs. older learners)
Anxiety // tiredness // boredom // physical condition …

8. 4. The environment Temperature of the room Background noise
Defective equipment …

9. Strategies good listeners use
Strategies: cognitive,
metacognitive,
socio-affective
Some points worth our attention
Some – teachable
Repeatable
Compensatory

10. 1. Teachable & Repeatable
What makes a strategy teachable?
S: Recognize a problem – need to take strategic action
T: Exemplify the strategy – show it’s effective
Strategy needs to be repeatable.

11. Why do we teach strategies?
2. Compensatory
Why do we teach strategies?
-- Stu. don’t always transfer L1 listening strategies to L2
-- Stu. need to find ways to cope when faced with elements above their current level

12. Some ideas for teaching listening strategies
Strategy Type of text
Prediction
All listening texts
Announcements and
lists of information
Listening selectively
Noting an approximation of a difficult word/name.
News, discussion of a topic, lectures.
Listening for key words
Factual texts
Stories (fact or fiction)
and anecdotes
Reconstructing orally or in writing
Factual texts or
stories and anecdotes
Listening for transition points

13. listening and language learning
Three myths about
listening and language learning
You can’t teach people how to listen.
Listening is a ‘passive’ skill.
The skills involved in listening to a foreign language are the same as those that we use for listening to our native language.
Language is powerful
not only because there are competent speakers
but because there are competent listeners.