2. Listening is a crucial part of daily
communication in any language. It
accounts for half of verbal activity
and plays a vital role in educational,
professional, social, and personal
situations. It is also an extraordinarily
complex activity that requires many
different types of knowledge and
processes that interact with each
other.
3. When asked which is more difficult in a foreign
language, speaking or listening, many people would
choose listening. Many teachers consider teaching
listening challenging because it is not clear what
specific skills are involved, what activities could
lead to their improvement, and what constitutes
comprehension. Students are also frustrated
because there are no rules that one can memorize
to become a good listener. The development of
listening skills takes time and practice, yet listening
has remained somewhat ignored both in the
literature and in classroom teaching.
4. In an interactive, four-skills curriculum, teachers should not
overlook the importance of techniques that specifically develop
listening comprehension competence.
Teachers should use techniques that are intrinsically motivating.
In order to appeal to the students’ personal interest and goals,
teachers should take into full account the experiences, goals and
abilities of the students in designing lessons.
Utilizing authentic language and context to enable students to
see the relevance of classroom activity to their long-term
communicative goals.
Carefully considering the form of listeners’ responses to see
whether or not their comprehension has been correct.
Brown (2001: 258-260) summarizes some of the listening teaching
technique principles.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Principles and Theories
5. 5. The last principle in designing listening technique is that
teachers should include both bottom-up and top-down
listening techniques, because both of them can offer keys
to determining the meaning of spoken discourse.
Two processes are involved in listening.
Top-down listening uses background knowledge and
contextualizes words to aid comprehension.
Bottom-up listening uses sounds, words, and other
small units to create meaning.
Principles and Theories
6. • Chain Drill
In a chain drill the teacher asks a question, each learner
answers, then each learner asks another learner.
This activity will help the learners improve their
vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar.
Sample Classroom Activities
7. For students who learn a target language but do not have the language
environment, e.g., students who study English in China, listening in the classroom
is their main source of language input since most of the students do not have
the opportunity, equipment or time to practice listening of a foreign language.
(Peterson 2012)
1. Increase the amount of listening time in the class.
2. Listen before other activities to prepare them for speaking, reading or writing.
3. Include both global and selective listening, the former for gasping from the top
level, the latter for catching details and increase accuracy.
4. Activate top-level skills at every proficiency level to evoke students’ background
knowledge.
5. Work towards automaticity in the bottom-up processing.
6. Develop conscious listening strategies.
Researches
