TEACHING LISTENING COMPREHENSION

Language learners often have a compulsion to comprehend everything [when listening] which
may be the result of a fear of making incorrect guesses.

TASK:
Here are some problems a listener might be confronted with. Sort them into categories of your
own choice and give reasons for putting them together. Add any other problems you might think
of:
- Speed of speech
- Accents
- Background noise
- Memory (trying to remember everything)
- Weak forms
- Predictive ability.
What are the difficulties of listening for a foreign language learner?
- Lack of knowledge of context
- Listening for every word
- Redundancy (repetitions, fillers, etc)
- Distinguishing individual words
- Tension
- Previous learning experience
- Short concentration span
- Lack of background knowledge of L2
- Contractions
- No interest in topic
- Tiring
- Activity overload.
Listening sub-skills:
J. Harmer mentions six sub-skills:
1. predictive skills;
2. extracting specific information;
3. getting the general picture;
4. extracting detailed information;
5. recognizing function and discourse patterns;
Ways by which teachers can help their students to listen successfully in English:

Encouraging the students to exploit the redundancy of spoken English and to guess
meaning from the context;
Encouraging the students to make use of their general knowledge while listening (e.g.: by
asking students to state the type of spoken text);
Introducing and talking about the topic before listening and asking them to predict what
they will hear;
Giving students a reason to listen (by devising simple tasks to be done while listening).

Characteristics of real life situations:

-

The speaker uses short chunks of language

Pronunciation is often noticeably different from the phonological representation
Lang. used in informal situations is often ungrammatical.
Noise can prevent the listener from understanding every word
Redundancy (repetition, use of fillers)
The hearer looks as well as listens, except when listening to the radio or speaking on the
phone.

Real life listening in the classroom:

Though classroom listening is not real life, the listening activities should give learners
practice in coping with, at least, some of the features of real life listening.
The teacher can use CDs and recordings of real life situations for which he/she constructs
tasks.

Principles in the construction of listening tasks

-

Questions should be short and clear because students hear the text only once/twice
Students should not be required to write too much as they do not have enough time
Its much better that questions should first check understanding of gist rather than
specific information.

Stages and examples of listening activities

It is important to mention that listening tasks should be preceded by pre-listening activities and
followed by post-listening activities.
1.
2.
3.
-

Pre-listening activities:
Looking at pictures and talking about them
Looking at a list of items, thoughts, etc
Making lists of possibilities, ideas, suggestions, etc
Reading through questions to be answered while-listening
Labeling
Predicting
Pre-viewing language
Class discussion.
While-listening:
Marking/checking items in pictures
Matching pictures with what is heard
Following story line picture sets
Putting pictures in order
Picture drawing
Carrying out actions
Following a route on a map
Completing grids (forms, charts)
T/F
Multiple choice questions
Gap-filling
Spotting mistakes
Prediction
Seeking specific items of information.
Post-listening:
Form (chart) completing
Extending lists
Extending notes into written responses
Summarizing
Using information for problem solving activities
Identifying relationship between speakers
Establishing mood, attitude of the speaker
Role-play / simulation
Dictation.