PART 1

1. Introduction

Listening is a hidden activity, ‘an invisible mental process’ of handling auditory input
and processing it. Although it used to be considered a passive skill and, in that sense, of
secondary importance, its value as an integral part of a successful linguistic
communication – whether in native or in a foreign language - has become obvious. Its
dynamic and active nature is also proven by the complexity of mental procedures during
an auditory event and the necessity for conscious involvement of the listener in order to
achieve listening comprehension.

This assignment presents the general theoretic framework for teaching the listening
skill in english and also describes and evaluates the application of certain criteria within a
classroom context, where english is taught as a foreign language. In order to implement
theory, an original listening lesson was created with an authentic-in-nature listening
input. This lesson plan was put into practice and its final outcome was evaluated with
reference to the relevant theory.

2. The teaching context

Being a teacher of English in a Technical Vocational School is rather demanding. The

teaching situation presented below involves a class of 25 students attending the first
grade of a TEE (Technical Vocational School) in Heraklion, Crete where English is taught
twice a week. The class consists of both girls and boys around the age of 16. Students are
of mixed abilities in the sense that there isn’t any separation according to level of
knowledge. On the contrary, students’ level ranges from upper intermediate to basic or
even less.

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 In general, one could say that the majority of students is around average and they bear
no eagerness to learn English due to the fact that this subject is considered of secondary
importance to them. That is also reinforced by the technical orientation of the school’s
curriculum where the emphasis is put on technical subjects.

The English coursebook is designed by the Greek Ministry of Education specifically

for TEE students to cater for their needs with reference to greek reality . It emphasizes the
communicative aspect of the language and has a modern approach to teaching english
mostly through task – based learning and projects, promoting group work and
collaboration. The coursebook focuses on teaching vocational vocabulary and productive
skills, in order to prepare students for the growing needs of global communication and
multiculturalism.

2.1.The current teaching of listening

The position of the listening skill in this coursebook is inferior in relation to the other
three skills (reading, writing and speaking) and it is taught in a rather indirect way,
mostly through speaking. There are very few listening exercises and no cassette is
provided; instead there are five or six written texts serving as listening tasks and the
teacher has to conduct them orally, reading the script while students listen. The general
impression is that the coursebook doesn’t provide adequate listening input and it is up to
the teacher to enrich it.

More specifically, the teaching of listening in the TEE coursebook is based on non-
authentic, fully scripted texts, which one can find in the end of the book. The content of
the listening input is mostly transactional, conveying information about topics such as
‘the psychology of students and their parents’ (App. I), the ‘Athens Metro Regulations’
(App. II), ‘Phone Messages’ (App. III) or ‘Announcements in a department store’ (App.
IV). There are also a few pre-written dialogues, an example being ‘an interview with a
graffiti artist’ (App. V), which bear no elements of genuineness or authenticity
whatsoever.

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 One could say that the topics handled in the coursebook, although referring to modern
reality, are not of great interest value to these specific students, with the exception of
psychology of students and the art of grafiti maybe, since there is not a metro station or
big department stores in Heraklion and students don’t often get phone messages on their
answering machine. But at least the texts are not so difficult in terms of cognitive
processing; on the contraty, one could say that they are rather simplified and teach basic
structures of the english language.

The scripts are not genuine and their form is fully sketched and written out in
advance. Since there is not a listening cassette available, the listening tasks are conducted
mostly by the teacher (monologues, narratives and descriptions) or the students
themselves when the chance is offered (dialogues or problem-solving texts with different
parts/aspects ect.)

One positive element though is that the book follows a modern teaching approach and
offers pre-, while and post- listening activities in an attempt to motivate and activate
learnenrs and engage them in the whole listening process, using a top-down and bottom-
up approach. The ‘given’ – already active – and ‘new’ – newly activated – knowledge
(Chafe) are intermingled in order to enhance the listening comprehension. Furthermore,
the topic of the listening task is usually connected with reading, speaking and writing
activities, thus reinforcing practice in all skills and creating an integrated skills lesson (for
an example of the coursebook’s listening activities see App. VI).

Apart from one or two positive features of the coursebook, the general teaching context
by itself does not help the promotion of the listening skill, since students are negatively
disposed towards listening using mostly their native language during the lesson. In
addition to the poor listening input within the classroom there is also not enough english
input outside the classroom and thus students have great difficulty expressing themselves
in English. For this reason, the teacher has to find ways and implement techniques to help
students engage themselves in listening to oral english input and understand it as much as
possible. There are solutions to improve the situation.

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 2.2.The theory for teaching listening

Krashen’s Input Hypothesis (1985:2) claims that humans acquire language in one way
only: by understanding messages. By receiving input that is progressively more complex
the learner naturally acquires listening ability. Thus, instruction should aim to provide
comprehensible input and expose learners to the english language as much as possible,
allowing them to figure out meaning for themselves and build their competence by not
depending on the teacher; the latter must be a facilitator during this process leaving space
for students to take initiatives and act independently.

To provoke students’ attention, oral input should be based on learners’ needs and likes
and that can be achieved by intoducing interesting topics which are simplified and
adjusted to the level of the students. As Underwood (1989:102) said, motivating inputs
and efficient listening activities ‘not only develop listening skills but will also contribute
to students’ overall language learning’. Students pay attention to what attracts them.
Thus, relevance and appropriacy of input –the ‘right stuff’ according to Beebe – must be
the top priority when teaching listening.

The existance of features of genuine spoken discourse during the lesson is necessary,
both by the teacher and the students and the latter must be urged to produce such patterns.
Learners must also be exposed to various genres of discourse in order to be able to cope
with different communicative situations by adapting their listening strategies accordingly.
The listening activities should be designed in such a way to prove students’ understanding
of the incoming speech signal (i.e. information gap/jigsaw activities) because the
listening lesson must aim to create competent listeners who comprehend the gist of an
oral message or its constructive elements. Furthermore, the teacher should always try to
integrate other skills in the listening lesson, such as speaking (for example in a pre-
listening stage) or writing (as a post-listening activity maybe). In general, for a successful
outcome, students must be urged to become exposed to authentic english language as
much as possible in oder to get familiar with its features and assimilate them.

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 PART 2

3. Implementing theory
3.1.An original listening lesson

Taking all the above criteria into consideration I have created a listening lesson for
the students of the first grade of TEE and taught it with the aim to achieve the best
possible results despite the hindering conditions and practical difficulties that have been
mentioned previously.

Due to the fact that the listening texts of the coursebook are not authentic, the lesson
was created from scratch and had to do with the topic of ‘Presents’. The lesson was
conducted in three stages, the pre-, while and post-listening stage. At first, the general
theme was introduced and students were presented with the word ‘presents’ on the
blackboard, as a helping hint for what is to come. Since Christmas is getting closer and
everybody exchanges presents, the choice of the topic was up to date and attracted
students’ attention, thus triggering their relevant knowledge. The context was created by
brainstorming about feelings that arise when one offers or gets a present. This discussion
led to the implementation of the “schema theory”, where students put into effect their
prior knowledge of the world and predict the content of the text by using the top – down
approach. This whole process is very important as it sets the start of an effective listening
lesson.

To motivate students more, I told them that the reason for bringing up such topic is
that I also had to get presents for three of my friends for Christmas and I needed their
help to choose an appropriate present. I wrote three different kinds of presents on the
board (fashion magazine subsription, theater tickets and a cd collection with classical
music) and I showed them the actual realia, which I had brought along, to create
anticipation and emphasize the co – text.

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 Then I asked students to listen to me talking about my friends. I would mention some
basic information about them, what they liked and disliked and students would have to
take down notes on a grid and figure out which present goes to whom (App.VII a).

Students listened to my monologue based on notes, briefly describing my friends

Mary, Gina and Catherine (App. VIII) and then they found which was the right present
for each of them providing justification for their answers according to what they had
written (example of a student’s notes in App IX). After that they were asked to come up
with other possible presents that could suit each person’s taste and there was a small
discussion about it.

Then I told students that I had tape – recorded another friend of mine, Betty, talking
about what she liked and disliked (App. X). They had to listen to her and write down only
what she liked, that is listen for specific information, and then help me find a suitable
present for her too (App. VII b).

To move into the post – listening stage I told students that I was very anxious to see
whether my friends would like my presents. If not, I would be very disappointed and sad.
In this way, I triggered a discussion about receiving unwanted gifts and we talked about
possible negative reactions. The discussion was connected with a reading activity
concerning two small passages, describing people who received presents they didn’t
really want (App.XI). Students had to skimm through the passages, find the present
mentioned and describe the negative reaction of the person who received it.

Finaly, to conclude the listening lesson, students were assigned a writing activity for
homework. They had to write a card to Santa Claus asking for their Christmas present
and justifying their choice. To make it easier for them, they were given the card with the
basic core of the letter (App XII). That was the final stage of the listening lesson which
lasted roughly 35 minutes (for lesson plan see App. XIII).

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 3.2. Evaluation of the lesson

All the above were done in an attempt to meet the criteria for a successful listening
lesson, although some times theory cannot be followed exactly when put into practice.
Many of the theoretical goals were achieved, but the practical implementation of the
lesson had considerable differences from what I initially planned. The context of the state
school, the attitude of the students towards english and their limited abilities were
difficulties which created a challenging and demanding environment for teaching
listening and I had to try hard to meet the objectives that I had in mind. Still, if I had to
evaluate the lesson’s outcome, I would say that the results were quite positive, in the
sense that students came in contact with listening practice and were recepteive to a
satisfying extent, taking into consideration also the fact that the lesson was carried out
during the last hour of the program.

The topic chosen was stimulating and seemed to motivate students who showed
considerable interest for Christmas presents. I also tried to present the matter as
something that concerned me directly as I had to choose presents for my friends and I
acted as if I really needed their opinion to decide. That made them more engaged because
it involved a possible real life situation and they offered their help willingly. The
language used was over-simplified to activate even weaker students and motivate them as
much as possible.

The pre-listening stage involved the triggering of relevant knowledge for Christmas
presents and a brainstorming discussion for students to enter the context of the lesson.
The basic while listening activity was a teacher – produced monologue based on an
‘ideational framework’ (Burges, 1944: 310-13), a comprehensive set of notes which
contained the key points mentioned, so that the spoken discourse would have all the
characteristics of authentic and genuine speech. Students would have to complete a grid
with the information provided, deducing meaning and detecting specific information.

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 There was also a semi-scripted listening input to reinforce listening for specific
information and present the structure of likes and dislikes as a communicative goal.
Students seemed to cope better with the spoken monologue, which was simplified, but
had difficulty with the tape recorded text, which they considered incomprehensible
mostly due to accent and quality of sound.

During the post-listening stage students dealt with a relevant to the topic reading task
where they practised skimming in order to find specific information (reactions for
unwanted presents) and then a general discussion was conducted to further practise
speaking. A task of writing a card to Santa Claus was handed out to sum up the content of
the lesson and students showed great enthusiasm about it. The task was intentionally
simplified in accordance with the students’ level by providing the basic core of the letter,
otherwise they would probably avoid doing it. The underlying essence of this action
shows that the teacher needs to be flexible at any point during the lesson and adapt to the
circumstances in order to achieve the best possible results. Students must be made to feel
competent in order to respond to the lesson’s challenges.

4. Conclusion

To sum up, the aim of my whole teaching was to create and present an original lesson
with its main focus being listening but also integrating other skills such as speaking,
reading and writing. Students’ preferences and needs were taken into account in order to
create an appropriate listening input, which would entail plenty of learner involvement.

The above mentioned lesson was planned in such a way to meet specific criteria and
accomplish certain objectives according to modern theories about listening
comprehension. I tried to find the appropriate means to help the learners achieve these
objectives in order to become competent listeners. Many external and internal factors
contribute to a more or less effective outcome of teaching listening but that is something
that a “good” teacher should always take into consideration and be prepared for.

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 Words Count : 2580

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REFERENCES

Beebe, L. (1985). Input: Choosing the right stuff. In S. Gass and C. Madden (eds), Input
in second language acquisition. New York: Newbury House.

Burgess, J. (1994). ‘Ideational frameworks in integrated language learning’. System,

22/3:309-318.

Kraschen, S. (1985). The Input hypothesis: issues and implications. Harlow: Longman.

Underwood, M. (1989). Teaching Listening. New York: Longman.

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