Teaching Listening Why teach listening? One of the main reasons to teach listening English is to let them hear different varieties and accents – rather than just the voice of the teacher. In today’s world, the students need to be exposed not only to one variety of English as there is ( British English, American English, Australian English, Caribbean English, Indian and West African English etc. When people of different nationalities speak to each other, they use English to understand each other and they might have different accent as well (Japanese , Chinese, Russian Spanish etc) Even in British English there are different accents and dialects as well.

Teaching Listening The main method of exposing students to spoken English is through the use of taped material which can exemplify a wide range of topics such as: ( advertisements, news broadcasts, poetry reading, plays, (pop) songs with lyrics, speeches, telephone conversations and all manners of spoken exchanges. Another major reasons for teaching listening is b/c it helps students to acquire language subconsciously. Listening to appropriate tapes provides such exposure and students get vital information not only about grammar and vocabulary but also about pronunciation , rhythm, intonation, pitch and stress.

Teaching Listening What kind of listening should students do? Teaching listening should be careful as students cannot be exposed to the same listening material ( like political speech). Listening demands and listening engagement too. Long tapes on subjects which students are not interested in, will not only be demotivating, but they might well ‘switch off’ and it becomes difficult for them to tune back into the tape. Extensive listening is when the teacher encourages students to choose for themselves what they listen to and to do so, for pleasure and general language improvement. Extensive listening will usually take place outside the classroom, in the students’ home, car or personal stereo when they travel.

Teaching Listening Intensive listening : the role of the teacher Organizer: we need to tell students exactly what their listening purpose is and give them clear instructions about how to achieve it. Machine operator: we should take decisions about where to stop the extract for particular questions and exercises. Feedback organizer: when our students have completed the task, we should lead a feedback session to check that they have completed the task successfully. Prompter: when students have listened to a tape or disk for comprehension purposes we can have them listen again to notice the variety of language and spoken features.

Teaching Listening What is special about listening? There are a number of ways in which listening activities differ from other classroom exercises. Firstly tapes go at the same speed for everybody. If they fail to recognize the word or phrase, they will stop to think about it and they will often miss the next part of the tape. We as teachers should encourage our students to listen first for general understanding rather than trying to pick out details immediately. Listening is special b/c of spoken language when it is informal ( it has a unique features; incomplete fragments, repetitions, hesitations, the tone of voice, the intonation, the speakers use rhythm, etc.)

Teaching Listening What are the Principles behind the teaching listening? 1.The tape recorder/CD player is as just important as tape/CD –We need to be able to be sure that the tape recorder can be heard all around the class 2. Preparation is vital – Teachers should listen to CD before they take it into the class. In that way they will be prepared for any possible problems; noises, accents etc. They can judge whether students will be able to cope with the tape and the task that goes with it. Students need to be made ready to listen by looking at pictures, discussing the topic or first by reading the questions. Teachers will do their best to get students Engaged with the topic and the task so that they really want to listen.

Teaching Listening 3. Once will not be enough – Students will want to hear it again to pick up the thing they missed the first time. The first listening is often used to give the students an idea of what the listening material sound like. 4. Students should be encouraged to respond to the content of a listening, not just the language. 5. Different listening stages demand different listening tasks – The first listening can be for general understanding. The second and the third listening can be for more details ( information, language use, pronunciation etc.) 6. Good teachers exploit listening texts to the full – This means to play the CD in order to study the material in detail.

Teaching Listening Where does the video fit in? Almost what has been said about the listening can be applied to video too. We have to choose video material according to the level and interests of our students. If we make it too difficult or easy, the students will not be motivated. Video is richer than audio tape ( their body movements give clues, as to meaning, so do the clothes they wear, their location, background information can be filled in visually. A problem of video-watching is that students might watch it as watching TV e.g. uncritically, lazily.

Teaching Listening Some special techniques for videos: Playing the video without sound – students and the teacher discuss what they see, once they have predicted the conversation the teacher plays video material with sound. Playing the tape but covering the picture – While the students listen, they try to judge where the speakers are, what they look like, what’s going on. And when they have predicted they will listen again with visual images. Freezing the picture – the teacher presses the pause button and asks the students to predict. Dividing the class in half – so half of the class face the screen and second half sits with their backs to it. So the first half describes the visual images to the second half.

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