Teaching ListeningTeaching Listening

• Why does listening seem so difficult for students?

• What do we listen to in everyday life?

• What are the characteristics of the listening process?

• What are the principles and models of teaching listening?

• What are the common activities in teaching listening?

Why does listening seem so difficult for Why does listening seem so difficult for students? students?

• Quickly forget what is heard.• Do not recognize words they know.• Understand the words but not the intended message.• Neglect the next part when thinking about meaning.• Unable to form a mental representation from words

heard.• Do not understand subsequent parts of input because of

earlier problems.

the total time an individual is the total time an individual is engaged in communicationengaged in communication

• 9% is devoted to writing

• 16% to reading

• 30% to speaking

• 45% to listening

listening can be more difficult listening can be more difficult than readingthan reading

• different dialects,accents, stresses, rhythms, intonation, mispronunciations, etc;

• little or no control over the speed

listening can be more difficult listening can be more difficult than readingthan reading

• cannot go back and listen again

• cannot pause to work out the meaning of the heard material

listening can be more difficult listening can be more difficult than readingthan reading

• background noise

• other tasks:

• note-taking, writing down directions or messages

Characteristics of the listening Characteristics of the listening processprocess

• Listening in real life

• Spontaneity

• Context

• visual clues

• listener’s response

• speaker’s adjustment

Principles and models of teaching Principles and models of teaching listeninglistening

• Focus on process

• Combine listening with other skills

• Focus on meaning

• Grade difficulty level appropriately

Bottom-up modelBottom-up model

• Listening comprehension is believed to start with sound and meaning recognitions.

Top-down model Top-down model

• listening for gist and making use of the contextual clues and background knowledge to construct meaning are emphasized.

Interactive Model

• listening involves both • ‘bottom-up’ processing—recognizing sounds of

words, phrases or structures• ‘top-down’ processing— referring meaning from

broad contextual clues and background knowledge.

• Comprehension is ‘the result of integration of the information conveyed by the text with information and concepts already known by the listener’ (Rost, 2002:60).

Three teaching stages of teaching Three teaching stages of teaching listeninglistening

• Pre-listening

• While-listening

• Post-listening

Pre-listening activityPre-listening activity

• Listening for the gist

• Listening for specific information

Pre-listening activities Pre-listening activities

• Pre-listening activities should aim to motivate students

• activate their prior knowledge

• teach key words or key sentences

While-listening activitiesWhile-listening activities

• No specific responses

• Not giving students any task

• Listen and tick

• Tick items as they hear them

While-listening activitiesWhile-listening activities

• Listen and sequence

• Find out the order of things  

• Listen and act

• listen and respond to commands or directions.

While-listening activitiesWhile-listening activities

• Listen and draw

• Drawing pictures, diagrams, etc. amusing variations, geometric shapes. 

• Listen and fill

• Listen and take notes

• Listen and summarize

types of post-listening activitiestypes of post-listening activities

• Multiple-choice questions

• The multiple-choice questions 

• Answering questions

• Open-ended questions

types of post-listening activitiestypes of post-listening activities

• Note-taking and gap-filling

• Tidy up the notes

• Complete the summary

• Dictogloss

• Traditional dictation exercise