TEACHING

LISTENING
DR. MARK JOSHUA D. ROXAS
Program Chair, BSED
The situation with the listening skill
Skill
Order Extent Order The time an individual is
learnt of use taught
engaged in
Listenin First First Fourth
communication:
g approximately 9 per cent is
devoted to writing, 16 per
Speakin Second Second Third cent to reading, 30 per
g cent to speaking, and 45
per cent to listening.
Readin Third Third
Second
g
Writing Fourth Fourth First
Listening comprehension: the
neglected language ability
For many years listening was neglected or poorly taught in
the EFL classroom.
Why?
• Passive: students’ exposure to spoken language provides
adequate instruction.
• Easy in comparison to speaking and writing, causing less
anxiety to students.
• Practical complexities in bringing spoken texts
appropriate for listening to the classroom.
Listening instruction today:
limitations
• It tests rather than teaches listening comprehension.
• Purposeless listening to audio texts.
• Responding to a series of course book activities without
preparation.
• Feedback is given in the form of the ‘right’ answer.
• It does not prepare learners for real-life listening.
• Scripted texts written and recorded especially for teaching
purposes.
Why is listening comprehension an
important ability? (1/2)
• It is vital for language learning as it provides essential input
for the learner.
• It is necessary for communication “since we cannot
communicate face-to-face unless speaking and listening
are developed in tandem” (Anderson & Lynch, 1988: 3).
Why is listening comprehension an
important ability? (2/2)
• It is significantly different from the other three language
abilities in view of characteristics that are unique to
listening (i.e., speech rate, accent, elision, the placement
of stress and intonation, redundancy and hesitation).
Listening: True OR False? (1/3)
• Reading and listening comprehension require us to be
passive, whereas speaking and writing require us to be
active.
• Reception skills do not need to be explicitly developed in
the foreign language classroom, since learners can
transfer the comprehension skills they have developed by
using their mother tongue.
• Oral interaction involves both listening and speaking as
meaning making practices.
Listening: True OR False? (2/3)
• Listening comprehension is more difficult than reading
comprehension. It involves very complex skills.
• Listening and hearing are the same.
• Good readers are good listeners.
• Smarter people are better listeners.
Listening: True OR False? (3/3)
• Listening improves with age.
• In our mother tongue, first we develop our reception skills
and then we develop our production skills, whereas in
second language acquisition it is the other way around.
What is listening comprehension?
(1/2)
• Listening is not a ‘passive” skill but a “receptive” active
skill. It requires as much attention and mental activity as
speaking.
• Listening comprehension is the act of understanding an
oral message. Listening comprehension is an extremely
complex activity (Buck, 2001) that requires much more
than simple perception of the acoustic signal.
What is listening comprehension?
(2/2)
• It involves speech decoding and comprehending.
• Listening comprehension is not something that happens
because of what the speaker says, but “the listener has a
crucial part to play in the process, by activating various
types of knowledge and by applying what he knows to
what he hears and trying to understand what the speaker
means” (Anderson & Lynch, 1988: 6).
How do we listen?

Bottom-up process Top-down process

We use our knowledge of We infer meaning from
language and our ability contextual clues and from
to process acoustic signals making links between the
to make sense of the spoken message and
sounds that speech various types of prior
presents to us. knowledge which we hold.
Bottom-up processes (1/2)
• Retain input while it is being processed.
• Recognize word divisions.
• Recognize key words in utterances.
• Recognize key transitions in a discourse:
• Another interesting development was…
• One of the problems was… / In contrast…
Bottom-up processes (2/2)
• Recognize grammatical relations
between key elements in
sentences.
• Recognize the function of word
stress in sentences.
• Recognize the function of
intonation in sentences.
Top-down processes (1/2)
• Use key words to construct the schema of discourse.
• Infer the role of the participants in a situation.
• Infer the topic of a discourse.
• Infer the outcome of an event.
• Infer the cause and effect of an event.
• Infer unstated details of a situation.
Top-down processes (2/2)
• Infer the sequence of a series of events.
• Infer comparisons.
• Distinguish between facts and opinions.
Listening skills
• Understanding single utterances.
• Understanding relations between utterances or parts of a
text.
• Obtaining the gist or a general impression of the text.
• Extracting specific information from text.
• Deducing unfamiliar or missing meaning.
• Understanding information not explicitly stated.
• Understanding the text so as to perform a task.
Types of listening (1/2)
Participatory Listening:
• Interactional (for the purpose of engaging in
social rituals).
• Transactional (for the purpose exchanging
information).
Types of listening (2/2)
Non-Participatory Listening:
• Listening to live conversations without taking part.
• Listening to announcements to extract information.
• Listening to or watching films, plays, radio and songs
where the purpose is enjoyment.
• Following instructions in order to carry out a task efficiently.
• Attending a lecture or following a lesson.
• Listening to someone give a public address.
Factors affecting listening
comprehension difficulty (1/3)
• The way information is organized. For example, there are
some indications that listeners/readers remember more of
the content of an expository text when it has informative
title and when the main points come before the
illustrations of main points.
• The reader’s/listener’s familiarity with the topic and way of
delivery, his/her concern with the issues involved and
his/her interest in the topic under consideration.
Factors affecting listening
comprehension difficulty (2/3)
• The reader’s/listener’s familiarity with the particular type of
discourse and genre.
• Purposefulness of text for the reader/listener.
• The nature of the text. Texts describing objects/giving
instructions (“static”) are supposed to easier to understand
than texts that focus on people’s opinions and ideas
(“abstract”).
• Processing load (amount of information that needs to be
processed and time available).
Factors affecting listening
comprehension difficulty (3/3)
• Visual support (graphics, photographs,
tables) plays an important role in the
interpretation of what readers/listeners are
reading/listening to.
• Type of reading/listening task: Evaluative
listening tasks (writing summaries or
distinguishing fact from opinion) are more
difficult than those involving immediate
response.
How?
• How can we enhance our students’ listening abilities in the
classroom and at the same time prepare them for real-life
listening experiences?
• By incorporating authentic oral texts.
Listening to authentic texts
Listening to authentic texts is demanding because:
• knowledge of the language is limited.
• not used to everyday language being spoken naturally.
• have little or no control over the speed of speech delivery.
• cannot refer back to the text so that all that remains is a
memory of what was said.
• have very little time for working out meaning.
Using semi authentic texts (1/2)
Simulated (semi-scripted) texts:
• produced through improvisation on the basis of scenarios,
• exhibit features which have a high probability of
occurrence in genuine acts of communication (Geddes
and White, 1978: 137).
Using semi authentic texts (2/2)
Rewards for the learner:
• exposed to discourse incorporating features of authentic
speech, but in a controlled manner.
• presented with learning and practice tasks designed with
their level and abilities in mind.
• prepared for exposure to language in uncontrolled
situations outside the classroom.
Criteria for adjusting authentic
listening input to the classroom (1/3)
• Audio text repetition rate: The lower the level the more
times the students will need to listen to the texts.
• Simplification of context the role of pre-listening
activities (i.e., preview key lexis, help students tune in).
Criteria for adjusting authentic
listening input to the classroom (2/3)
• Length of input: The shortness of a text simplifies the
task of comprehension - chunking the input into
manageable segments (one to three-minute
segments).
• Provide support: use of visual stimuli (i.e., picture, map,
diagram).
• Topic familiarity: choose passages that address your
Ls’ needs and experiences and lie within their field of
interest.
Criteria for adjusting authentic
listening input to the classroom (3/3)
• Type of language: lexical difficulty & grammatical
complexity.
• Text type: transactional vs. interactional speech
(Brown & Yule, 1983).
• Paralinguistic features: accent, rate of speech,
number of speakers, background noise.
Usefulness of Lund’s Taxonomy of
listening skills & tasks
• Helps teachers plan their listening lessons.
• Guides teachers in structuring effective tasks at any level
of language proficiency and any stage of the listening
lesson.
• Allows for wide variation in task difficulty for any given text.
• Enables the use of authentic texts even at novice levels.
• Focuses on students’ development of listening skills.
Lund’s Taxonomy of listening skills &
tasks (1/3)
Listener Functions Listener responses
Identification (recognition & Doing (the listener responds
discrimination) physically rather than
Ex.: recognising familiar words, linguistically), e.g. movement
looking for categories of directions, build sth, pantomine a
words, discriminating product).
between phonemic pairs.
Orientation (tuning in; getting Choosing (activities that involve
ready to process the selection), e.g. matching with
message) pictures, placing pictures in order,
Ex.: determining facts about selecting titles for a story.
the text, i.e., participants, their
role, attitude, the genre, the
context.
Lund’s Taxonomy of listening skills &
tasks (2/3)
Listener Functions Listener responses
Main idea comprehension Transferring (receiving information in
(understanding main ideas in the one form and transferring it into
message). another), e.g. drawing a sketch, trace a
route on a map, fill in a table or chart).
Detail comprehension (getting specific Answering (answering questions about
information from the text). the text).
Full comprehension (understanding Condensing (reducing the
main ideas plus details in a text), e.g.. message), e.g.. note taking,
understand a story to select an ending, outlines, summarizing.
understand a lecture and take notes) .
Lund’s Taxonomy of listening skills &
tasks (3/3)
Listener Functions Listener Responses
Replication (reproduce the message Extending (the listener goes beyond
either in the same or a different modality) what is provided), e.g.. suggesting an
e.g. dictation, transcription, oral ending to a story, predicting.
repetition).
Duplicating (the message is
reproduced).
Modeling (text used as a model), e.g..
role playing after listening to a model).
Conversing (text used as a stimulus for
conversation in the classroom).
The three stages of a listening lesson
• Pre-listening :preparation stage.
• While -listening stage: actual listening & task response.
• Post-listening stage: feedback & remedial work.
Planning a listening lesson: Pre-
listening (1/3)
The purpose of the pre-listening stage is to prepare the
learners for what they are going to hear by:
• activating existing prior knowledge,
• introducing necessary schematic knowledge,
• introducing the language which students will
encounter.
Planning a listening lesson:
Pre-listening (2/3)
The pre-listening stage ensures a higher level of success and
may lead to greater confidence. Pre-listening may involve
reading, writing, speaking tasks or all three, in the target
language or in L1.
Planning a listening lesson:
Pre-listening (3/3)
Objectives:
• to contextualize the text.
• to provide any information to help learners appreciate the
setting and the role relationships between participants.
Activity types for the pre-listening
stage (1/2)
• Predicting content from the title of a talk.
• Talking about a picture which relates to the text.
• Discuss relevant experiences.
• Discussing the topic.
• Answering a set of questions about the topic.
• Agreeing or disagreeing with opinions about the topic.
Activity types for the pre-listening
stage (2/2)
• Associate vocabulary about the topic.
• Predict information about the topic.
• Write questions about the topic.
While-Listening Stage (1/2)
• The purpose of while-listening stage is to help learners
understand the text.
• While learners listen they need to be given in an authentic
purpose for listening and encouraged to attend to the
text more intensively.
While-Listening Stage (2/2)
The purpose of listening activities is to help them develop a
variety of comprehension skills and elicit messages from the
text. In training for listening comprehension, it is important to
develop learners’ ability to understand the message(s), not
every single word of the text. Training often involves moving
from extensive to intensive listening, with texts and tasks that
are interesting for learners, considering their age,
experiences, etc.
While-Listening activities
• Ticking multiple-choice items.
• Filling in a chart.
• Complete a table, map or picture.
• Matching pictures with the text.
• Making notes.
• Answer questions.
• Complete sentences.
Post-Listening Stage
• The purpose of post-listening activities is to help learners
connect what they have heard with their own ideas and
experience.
• Helps learners to move easily from listening to another skill.
Post-Listening Activities
• Give opinions.
• Relate similar experiences.
• Role-play a similar interaction.
• Write a brief report.
• Write a similar text.
• Debate the topic.
Types of listening tasks (1/2)
Task type Example
Multiple matching • Matching descriptions with pictures.
• Matching stories with titles / endings.
• Matching speakers with professions.
• Matching speakers with feelings.
Multiple choice 1. What do you suppose the
(A, B, or C) relationship between the two
speakers is?
A. Boss and employee.
B. Brother and sister.
C. Doctor and patient.
2. We are listening to a man:
A. explaining the values of exercising.
B. giving advice on healthy lifestyle.
C. giving tips on healthy eating habits.
Ordering/Ticking
pictures
Types of listening tasks (2/2)
Task type Example
True/ False This part of England is historically more important
/ Not than any other.
stated
Fill in The story is about two vices: ______ and envy.
The first man in the story wanted to become _____.
Short What’s the speaker’s profession?
answers What’s the speaker looking for?
Listening Make sure that you’ve made sufficient time for this
close meditation and that you will not be (21)
______.During this exercise you will observe and (22)
______different parts of yourself.
Note-taking
Summarizin
g
References
Anderson, A., & Lynch, T. (1988). Listening. Oxford University Press.
Buck, G. (2001). Assessing listening. Cambridge University Press.
Geddes, M., & White, R. (1978). The use of semi-scripted simulated
authentic speech in listening comprehension. Audiovisual
language journal, 16(3), 137-45.
Brown, G., & Yule, G. (1983). Discourse analysis. Cambridge University
Press.
Lund, R. J. (1990). A taxonomy for teaching second language
listening. Foreign Language Annals, 23(2), 105-115.
End