RECEPTIVE SKILLS: LISTENING HOW CAN YOU HELP STUDENTS TO IMPROVE THEIR LISTENING?

* Think about what you say in the classroom. The teacher is an invaluable source of listening practice. * Encourage students to talk and listen to each other. * Provide texts and activities which will develop listening skills and strategies at the same time.

HOW CAN YOU CHOOSE A SUITABLE LISTENING TEXT? When selecting a text with the purpose of practicing your students listening skills, ask yourself the following questions: * What is my main aim? * Will the students find the topic and the text interesting? * Is the text at the right level? * Will it be useful? * Is it generative? * What kind of text? * What type of listening do I want them to do? * Am I going to use a recording or use my (or another speakers) voice. * How difficult will the text be for the aim I have? * How much of the text do the students have to understand in order to achieve the aim? * How much support will I have to provide in order for the aim to be achieved?

WHAT MAKES A LISTENING TEXT EASY OR DIFFICULT? Generally, listening texts are easier if: * They are fairly short;

* They have only one speaker, or two speakers who are easy to tell apart; * The speaker speaks slowly, in a standard accent, and uses simple grammar and vocabulary; * The speakers can be heard clearly; * The speakers can be seen and are live or on video rather than recorded solely on audio; * The topic is familiar. * The structure of the text is simple and straightforward. * The students are interested and prepared for what they will hear.

HOW CAN YOU HELP THE STUDENTS TO UNDERSTAND A LISTENING TEXT? Choose a text which will interest the students and formulate aims that are suitable for their level and needs Focus en general or global understanding before detailed understanding. Encourage the students to use what they already known to help them infer meaning Remind students of the listening strategies they employ in their own language. Encourage them to guess how the speakers are feeling by their intonation To get information about the structure of the text from the intonation (are the speakers asking or answering questions? telling a series of events?) To guess the situation from any background noises. Give plenty of support especially with lower level students or those who are not confident about listening. Motivate your students by choosing texts that are interesting and that provide a real incentive for the students to understand and to contribute their own ideas and opinions. Choose tasks for the students to do before and while listening rather than afterwards. In that way you are focusing on understanding rather than just memory. Make it clear what degree of attention is required in order to accomplish a particular listening task. Get feedback from the students about the text, the tasks, any problem, etc.

WHAT ARE THE MAIN STAGES IN A LISTENING SKILLS LESSON? Before listening 1. - Arouse interest and set the scene Create a need to know by encouraging the students to think about and discuss what they are going to hear. Use prompts such as realia, visuals, questions references to your or the students experiences, a sort discussion task to activate any language they have about the topic and to help them predict what they are going to hear. On the other hand, do not worry about mistakes during these lead-in activities- the aim here is not to focus on accuracy but rather to create real interest which will motivate the students to listen. 2.-Teach key words /phrases before listening. It may be helpful to teach a few key words- without which the listening would be very difficult to understand. Even if you do not provide this support it is important that you recognize the troublesome words and have a strategy for dealing with them. Proper names, such as the name of people or places, can really throw low-level students, so it is useful to pick those out, write them on the board, and tell the student how they are pronounced. First listening 1.-Set a task to help focus on overall understanding. This can be in the form of two or three questions, or a task. Do not make the completion of the task dependent on the students catching every detail. You may want to tell the students that you dont expect them to understand every word. 2.-Give the listening text for the first time (either play the recording or read the text) Whether you do read the listening text yourself or play a recording, it is probably better not to pause it so that it be more realistic and students get the whole picture. 3.-Feedback. Possibly ask the students to discuss their answers and opinions in pair or groups before you elicit them. Second listening. 1.-Set a task to focus on more detailed understanding. Whether you are going to use published materials or devising your own activities, try to vary the tasks.

2.-Give the listening text for the second time. This time you may want to make the task easier by pausing. Moreover, monitor and assess how well students are doing the task. 3.- Feedback. Again, encourage students to work together before eliciting their responses. 4.- Personal response. Try to encourage a personal response from you students by asking questions; in this way listening work can be naturally integrated with speaking practice. Finally, it would be useful to let the students read the transcript while they listen to all or part of the text again.

IS LISTENING TO A VIDEO DIFFERENT FROM LISTENING TO AN AUDIO TAPE? If you want to use a video, there are many differences that you need to thing about when planning a listening skill lesson. * Video is generally easy to understand because of the visual clues available. * Video is useful if more than one person is speaking: in a conversation with overlapping dialogue, unfinished sentences, interjections, etc. * Video is more like real life because we can see the person we are listening to and this is motivating. * The viewer has to watch the screen to get all the information so is not easy for them to complete while-viewing tasks that require a lot of writings. * Video tends to be long so you must to be careful with the length of it in order not to give students an excuse to go to sleep.

Can you use a listening text to introduce or practice language? Yes. After helping students get a general understanding of a text you may want to examine some of the language in the in the listening: a point of grammar pronunciation: a functional or vocabulary focus.