How to teach listening

 Why is teaching listening important?  What kind of listening should students do?  What is special about listening?  What are the principles behind the teaching of listening?  What are the stages of listening lesson?  Listening activities

Why is teaching listening important?  To provide students with the opportunities to hear different varieties and accents.  Develop students’ pronunciation.  Listening helps to acquire the language subconsciously.  Students get better at listening.

What kind of listening should students do?  Realistic (not authentic) listening materials.  Short listening activities.  Considering the level of students.

What is special about listening?  Recording go at the same speed for everybody.  Spoken language is used in listening activities, which includes a number of unique features, such as using incomplete utterances, repetitions and hesitations.

What are the principles behind the teaching of listening?  Students should be able to listen to the recording clearly.  Preparation is vital.  Once will not be enough.  Students should be encouraged to respond to the content of a listening, not just to the language.  Different listening stages demand different listening tasks.

 Good teachers exploit listening texts to the full.

What are the stages of listening lesson? 1. Pre-listening stage: (5 – 6 minutes)  Setting the scene.  Warming up students.  Presenting the key words.

2. While-listening stage:  Give clear and short instructions and check that every student understands the instructions.  Play the recording without asking questions.  Play the recording again.  Play the recording and then answer the questions.

3. Post-listening stage:  Check the students’ answers. (evaluation)

Listening activities  Listen and draw a picture.  Listen and complete sentences.  Students listen to a story. They have to put some pictures in the correct order to match the story. More suggestions on page 109

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