1. Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
Certificate IV TESOL
Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
10317NAT
Session 16
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2. In this lesson we will look at:
Unit 6 Session 20
In this lesson we will look at:
Planning lessons using authentic or simulated real-life listening texts
Listening without written activities
Monitoring ESL learners' listening
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3. Principles for teaching listening comprehension
Active participation – demand active, overt student participation written or verbal response
Simple questions – easy to understand. Break it down.
Accompany with communicative tasks – class discussion about the questions related to the listening. This gives them motivation to remember and concentrate.
Teach, don't test! – We want to accommodate for the needs of our class. We want to help them learn by giving them all of the tools necessary to complete the task! There should be no pass/fail attitude. Give praise and encouragement for what they can hear, don't focus on what they can't hear.
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4. Principles for teaching listening comprehension
Reliable equipment – recordings and equipment must function reliably e.g. laptop, smart board. Volume should be such that it is heard by all students. Check with your class.
Preparation – listen to the recording beforehand, the whole way through, to anticipate any problems and to judge whether it is manageable for your level. Check the response activity too, is it manageable?
Prepare your students for listening by building discussion around the topic, through vocab, examples through pictures and reading the listening activity questions BEFORE they listen.
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5. A suggested procedure for listening activities
1. Introduce the topic – through discussion, Q&A and brainstorming vocab on the topic. Ss are activating existing knowledge about the topic and adding to knowledge base through discussion. This helps Ss to predict what they might hear.
2. Give guiding questions - focus Ss attention on the main points of the dialogue. E.g. What are the talking about? How do they feel?
3. First listening – listen for the main idea only and answer the guiding questions (Macro)
4. Check Ss comprehension – ask the guiding questions and ask students if they noticed anything else in the dialogue that stood out to them.
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6. A suggested procedure for listening activities
5. Give instructions to complete the task – they need to understand what they need to do BEFORE they listen. Explain the task and give students time to read through the task. Underline any vocab they may not understand and clarify.
6. Second and subsequent listenings – listen for detail (Medio). Monitor your students, be aware of the cues. Be sensitive to their attitudes, do they need to hear it 1, 2, 3 or more times? Ask your students. You don't want to frustrate nor bore them.
7. Check Ss' comprehension – check via the task. Ask follow up questions E.g. How to you come to this conclusion? Why? What did the dialogue say? 6

7. A suggested procedure for listening activities
8. Students read the text/transcript – to find any answers they did not pick up through listening. Ss could note down any phrases they feel are worth memorizing. Analyzing the language found in the transcript can also be used to focus on grammar and sentence structure. 7

8. Listening without written activities
Process listening – where students are not expected to answer written questions, but engage with the text in a more natural listening process.
In groups of two or three, discuss how your students could respond to a listening text without written activities. 8

9. Listening without written activities
Suggested questions:
how many people are speaking?
what do you think they are talking about?
what words did you hear that helped you identify the topic?
can you think of any other words you might hear when people are speaking about this topic?
Further activities:
listen again and see if you can hear any of the words that you brainstormed earlier being associate with the topic.
discuss your ideas with your partner
write some questions about what you heard, hand to a partner
listen again to answer the questions your partner wrote. 9

10. Monitoring ESL learners' listening
One of the most unhelpful questions a teacher can ask is, “Do you understand?” depending on their cultural background, many students will probably respond positively whether they have understood or not. We need to ask questions that SHOWS they have understood.
Discuss with a partner:
- What are some questions we can ask our students to gauge their understanding?
- How else can we monitor our Ss success?
- What cues can we look for in our Ss? 10