CHAPTER 5: LISTENING
Listening is one of the receptive skills and as such it involves students in capturing and
understanding the input of English. Reading, the other receptive skill, involves students
in understanding and interpreting the written word. Listening is probably more difficult
than reading because students often recognise the written word more easily than they
recognise the spoken word. Furthermore when reading, students can go back and re-
read a phrase whereas with listening they only get one chance. With reading, it’s the
reader who sets the pace whereas with listening it’s the speaker or recording that sets
the pace.
Because of these issues, many students find listening difficult. Listening tasks can be
very disheartening and demotivating, especially if students have had a previous
negative experience. It is therefore important to give our students plenty of
opportunities to practise the skill of listening in a supportive environment that helps
them to learn. We need to design tasks that help them learn rather than merely testing
their abilities. This means that we guide them through the recording, pre-teach
language and highlight the essential points of the recording. This is in contrast to
testing, where the teacher simply plays the recording and the students listen and
answer questions.
We can help learning through a variety of methods including preparing students
carefully for the listening activities they are about to do, pre-teaching difficult language,
by choosing a recording that is suitable for their level. Techniques for teaching listening
can be found in this chapter.
Before describing how to approach a listening activity, let’s look at the skills and sub-
skills associated with listening:
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