Module 12: Receptive Skills - Teaching

Listening

Introduction
Remember: Integration of skills is paramount!
Once learners have started to develop their listening skills, they will start to feel as though their
English is improving. They will hear more and be able to build their own vocabulary, which will
ultimately make them independent learners.
Listening is a receptive skill, which means that learners will respond to the listening material, unlike
speaking and writing which are productive skills where students practise and produce language. 
Barriers to listening:
Listening is a difficult activity for students and it's important that you introduce tasks in small bite size
chunks so that students do not become overwhelmed by the material.
Here are some substantial barriers to listening that you need to be aware of at all times:

 the speed of the language means words are unclear for some of the listeners

 they may misunderstand the context due to the speed or particular sounds or words

 they may be unable to cope with accents

 they may misunderstand colloquialisms

 they may be unable to distinguish particular sounds

 they may be unfamiliar with commonly used vocabulary

 they may be unable to distinguish the key elements from the unimportant parts of the
message

 the sentence construction may differ radically from their own language

 unlike native speakers, they may be unable to predict the speaker's message before it has
actually been completed

And here are some substantial barriers to listening, specifically related to authentic speech.
Authentic speech - barriers:
Most of the spoken language we listen to is informal and spontaneous. This spontaneity presents
problems for the language learner.
Brevity of 'chunks': Speech is typically broken into shorter chunks. In conversation, for example,
people take turns to speak, usually in short turns of a few seconds each.
Pronunciation: The pronunciation of words is often blended or slurred, and noticeably different from
the phonological representation of a given word in the dictionary.
Grammar: Informal speech tends to be somewhat ungrammatical. Utterances do not usually divide
neatly into sentences; a grammatical structure may change in mid utterance; unfinished clauses are
common.
Redundancy: The speaker normally says a good deal more than is strictly necessary for the
conveying of the message. Redundancy includes such things as repetition, paraphrasing, and the
use of fillers such as I mean...well...er.
Non-repetition: The discourse will not be repeated verbatim.
Therefore, it's extremely important to explain context and give your learners grammar points and
vocabulary in the Presentation stage. 
It's also vital for your students to get in the mood for listening. Using a relevant warmer to begin the
lesson will also help to get your students in the mood. 
Once your learners are focussed, you will need two or three listening activities based on the same
text. The first should be straightforward and the others can be a little more challenging so that
students can build confidence.
As with teaching speaking, you and your learners will have more success if everyone is relaxed and
focussed. 
The structure of a listening lesson is slightly different from the way you teach grammar, vocabulary
or speaking because the focus of the lesson is on comprehension of the material and not practising
and producing.
However, we will still use the PPP technique to structure the lesson. 
Let's now have a look at how to structure a listening lesson. 

Unit 1: Lesson Structure

Introduction and Warmer:
Like any other lesson, you will introduce yourself and write the lesson objectives on the board. Then
use a warmer activity to get your students in the mood and focussed. 
Pre-Listening Activity (Presentation):
In this part of the lesson, you will introduce a topic which must have context to motivate your
students to want to listen. You will also introduce new grammar and vocabulary so that students can
focus on listening to the text and not on having to think about learning a new item. 
In the pre-listening activity, it's a good idea for you to ask students to make predictions about the
material they are going to listen to. For example, you introduce the topic of a 'movie star' or a
'movie'. (The text will be an interview with someone famous)  Ask your students to predict what the
person is going to say and create a mind map on the board. 
By the time they listen to the text, they will have the key grammar and vocabulary and will have
made predictions, so they are motivated to check whether they have guessed correctly. 
Initial Listening Task: 
You are aiming to play the text 3 times, or maybe 4 times if your students need to hear it again. 
The first time you play the text, tell students to work in pairs (communicative activity) and ask them
to answer quite straightforward questions, so that they can get a general understanding of the
material and build confidence. You could ask 2 or 3 questions. Let the students compare their
answers with each other. Also, you should try to check all answers at the end of this stage.
The second time you play the text, ask your students to listen for more detail. The students should
be able to answer your detailed questions using true or false, multiple choice or one-word answers. 
You do this so that your learners are not consumed with a lengthy reading and writing exercise at
the same time as listening. Again, you should try to check answers at the end of this stage.
The third time playing will be used for checking answers and filling in any gaps in understanding in
preparation for discussion and feedback in the post- listening part of the lesson.
Post-Listening Summary and Reflection:
An excellent way to finish the listening activity is to have a discussion about what they have heard.
Also, you could discuss any difficulties with words or points of grammar. Depending on the number
of difficulties, you could immediately resolve the problems or have a follow up lesson on the analysis
of the language. 
Cooler:
Finish the lesson with a mini activity. 

One of the essential parts of a listening lesson is choosing the right material. Choosing text that
creates interest and a motivation to want to listen will lead to a successful lesson.
Let's consider the choices which are available to you when you choose listening material.
Course Textbook and CD:
Many of the textbooks you will have will contain a CD with listening activities. However, most of the
time these listening activities are completely unrelated to the real world. It's vital that your text has
meaningful context and is interesting.
School Trip:
A good activity is a school trip or excursion with adult learners. Depending on their level, they could
watch a movie or a play, or visit a museum or attraction with an English-speaking commentary. 
Using YouTube: 
Select a short clip and transcribe it for your students. This is a great opportunity for you to add a clip
to your blog or Wikispaces site. Activities might include gap fill exercises in the pre-listening stage.
YouTube has many different clips you can use for listening activities.
Make your own:
If you have time, you could record your own voice and role play
Unit 3: Teaching Listening
Listening is vital. Even if the language learner can speak some English but is unable to
understand what the other person is saying, she will never be able to communicate properly.
We have now looked at how to choose the right material and how to structure a listening
lesson. Let's now consider some of the key elements within the structure of a listening lesson that
you could get your students to do. 
Listening for the basic idea:
This is a great first activity for your students. Ask them one or two questions so that they can
listen for the basic idea of the text. It's also a good idea to ask them to make predictions in the
pre-listening part of the lesson so that they really have the motivation to listen and check their
guesses. It's a good idea to get them to work in pairs so that they can check each other's work.
Listening for detail: 
Once the learners have listened to the text once, you can then begin to ask more detailed
questions.
Intensive listening:
a) Comprehension questions: These types of questions are similar to the reading comprehension
questions but the listener will not have the text in front of her.
We can ask the following types of comprehension questions:
i) Factual: The answer is clearly stated in the listening passage.
ii) Inferential: This type of question is asking the student to make some sort of connection in the
text or use their knowledge of the outside world to make a connection. 
iii) Personal: This type of question is used to find out information about the student's personal
experiences.
b) Summary questions: This is where the students are asked to listen to the complete text and are
asked to make notes. They are then asked to write a summary of what they heard. They could be
asked to write the summary in the form of an email to a friend or as an addition to your blog. 
Extensive listening: 
This is where a student just wants to follow a story. It's a great idea to let students watch a movie
or a video clip and then ask them to write a summary from their notes explaining what they have
just seen.
Finally, you might want to have control over how to make your listening text harder or easier for
your students. You can make a text harder by playing it only twice or you might not pre-teach
certain words. If you wanted to make it easier, you could give your students a script with words
missing that they have to fill in while listening.

Take the Quiz: How to Teach Listening.

  

Listening Activities
Here are a number of activities you could use if you are not ready to introduce authentic listening
activities.
Family Tree: 
Give the students a copy of a family tree and then make up some listening text so that students can
identify members of the family.
Picture Sounds:
Give students some pictures of animals and make up some listening text so that the students can
identify the type of animals. For example, you could make a recording or say 'It has four legs and
you can ride it with a saddle.' The student will choose the picture of the horse. You can also do this
with different types of clothing.
Map Skills:
You could also use a map to teach listening skills and read out directions on a map grid. Play the
game in teams with prizes of M&Ms.
Picture dictation: 
You read out some text and the students attempt to draw what they hear. 
Simon Says:
Use games like Simon Says, where the teacher gives instructions and the students must follow the
direction. 
As students reach intermediate levels, you can move onto more authentic listening work which will
involve some real life scenarios.

Using Songs to Teach Listening

Songs are a wonderful way to motivate students and have fun. One of the most memorable lessons I
have taught was to a class of 50 beginner language learners. We explored the song 'Yesterday' by
the Beatles. It was a super lesson.
The latest research on teaching suggests that using songs in the classroom is one of the best ways
to get students learning. You can use songs to show grammar structure, pronunciation, stress and
rhythm. Certain songs will also allow your students to access culture.
As we said at the start, we want our students to be lifelong learners and to have an interest in getting
better and better at English in and outside the classroom. 
How do you choose a song?
I chose 'Yesterday' by the Beatles because it opened up many possibilities for me to teach culture
and tenses and feelings. 
You could choose:

 Special occasion songs like 'happy birthday', etc.

 Songs and games using children's songs. I am singing 'Old McDonald had a Farm' to my 6-

month-old daughter at the moment!

 Action songs: 'head, shoulders, knees and toes' is a good one.

 Songs that are specially written for teaching.

 Songs which tell a story.

 You can find most lyrics on the Internet as well as many, many songs on YouTube. Have
fun!!

 Songs are a great way to teach listening and can also be used for a myriad of other lessons.

Let's look at how to structure a lesson using songs:

Introduction and Warmer:
Introduce yourself and use a warmer to get your learners in the mood.
Pre-listening Activity:
Present any new grammar or vocabulary that might come up in your song. Make sure you add
context to the lesson by choosing an appropriate song. Explain the song you have chosen and
create a mind map on the board with words that are in the song and ask them to make predictions of
other words they might hear.
Elicit information about the kinds of songs. For example: rock, pop, love, etc. Ask the students what
their favourite songs are. 
Listening Task:
Play the song the first time, asking one or two questions or asking them to fill in the gaps from the
script you have given them.
Play the song a second time, asking more detailed questions.
Post-Listening Task:
Discuss questions 
Cooler:
Get students to do a Karaoke of the song with you providing the lyric sheet.
This type of lesson is great fun.
Top Tips
 The more students listen, the more they will build their own vocabulary.

 Ensure listening practice and activity is delivered in small bite size chunks.

 Get your students in the mood for listening, using interesting and fun warmers.

 Ensure everyone, including you, is relaxed and focussed before the lesson begins. 

 All listening activity must be set in a meaningful context.

 The presentation stage of a writing lesson should be used to introduce relevant vocabulary

and grammar, to set up a meaningful context and to encourage them to make predictions about
the listening activity.

 Ensure they listen to a text at least three times and make your questions a bit more
challenging after each bout of listening.

 A good way to reinforce the listening and check on any listening gaps is to have a discussion
on the topic after the listening activity.

 Choosing the right listening material to suit the needs of your learners will be crucial to the
success of the lesson. 

 Reward all your students with positive feedback, praise and development strategies. 

 Create a warm and friendly environment for your students to work in.