Remedial Instruction in English (Teaching oral skills)

 Oral skill is the ability to speak well. More specifically, ability to articulate one’s
knowledge and understanding, use language creatively, use and present material
effectively in spoken form, whether in one’s own language or foreign language, in the
latter case, to display a command structure, appropriate pronunciation, use of register,
and range of vocabulary.
 The communication process conducted through spoken words is referred to as Oral
Communication. Oral communication is defined as the effective interpretation,
composition, and presentation of information, ideas, and values to a specific audience.
 Communication is the exchange of thoughts, messages, or information, as by speech,
visuals, signals, writing, or behavior. Derived from the Latin word "communis", meaning
to share. Communication requires a sender, a message, and a recipient, although the
receiver need not be present or aware of the senders intent to communicate at the time of
communication; thus communication can occur across vast distances in time and space.
Communication requires that the communicating parties share an area of communicative
commonality. The communication process is complete once the receiver has understood
the message of the sender.
 How to Teach Oral Skills: The Five Golden Rules• Give students as much opportunity as
possible to practice speaking. • Provide ample listening practice. Create opportunity for
real communication. Expand the range of topics students practice talking about. Build
discussion skills.
 Other Rules in Oral Skills: •Pronouncing the words clearly is an important thing to be
remembered. The need to repeat a particular word/sentence affects the flow of
presentation. To emphasize the importance of a particular thought, words have to be
pronounced by changing their tones. •Avoiding fillers while speaking is necessary. The
sound of fillers (um, ah, etc.) could be irritating for listeners.
 While in a face-to-face communication process, interrupting the speaker is considered a
sign of poor communication. Careful listening is as important as speaking clearly while in
the process of oral communication. It helps respond in a proper manner. One should
always make an eye contact with the listeners; this way, the attention of listeners is not
lost and their interest is kept intact.
 •Asking questions in order to obtain information is one of the important aspects. One
should keep the questions precise in order to get a clear answer. Same is the case when a
person has to answer a question. Answering the question with correct details and also in
quick time is of great importance. It is not advisable to carry on the communication
process without understanding a particular point. In a communication process, body
language of a person is considered as important as the spoken words. Body language of
the speaker has a great impact on the listener(s). This is because it gives them an idea or
indication of the direction in which the communication process is heading. The listener
either gets positively or negatively influenced by the body language of the speaker.
 Different Settings for Oral Communication Interpersonal communication is one of the
best ways to start with the process of developing your communication skills. You can
speak freely and without getting tensed when you just have to speak to a single person at
a time. Through interpersonal communication, a person learns how to phrase his/her ideas
clearly and also listen to others carefully.
 Group discussion exercises play an important role in developing the communication
skills. People get to know each other’s views and thoughts through such exercises. More
importantly, discussing on a particular topic compels the participants to listen to each
other carefully. Group discussion exercises can be used both at school/college level and
professional level.
 Speaking in front of a large audience for many of us, is quite difficult. It is okay to feel
nervous in front of a large audience. However, you can overcome the fear of public
speaking completely by making presentations on a regular basis. This form of oral
communication is very different from interpersonal communication. Here, you must
speak precisely and present the topic in a concise manner. Holding the attention of
listeners is the key to become a proficient public speaker.
  It is necessary to develop oral communication skills in order to survive in today’s
information- oriented world. Dissemination of information can be conducted in a proper
manner only if you possess good communication skills.
 OUR QUEER LANGUAGE When the English tongue we speak, Why is break not
rhymed with freak? Will you tell me why it’s true, We say sew but likewise few ?And the
maker of a verse, Cannot cap his horse with worse ?Beard sounds not the same as heard,
Cord is different from word’s - o - w is cow but l - o - w is low; Shoe is never rhymed
with foe.
 Think of hose and whose and lose, And think of goose and yet of loose, Think of comb
and tomb and bomb; Doll and roll and home and some; And since pay is rhymed with
say, Why not paid with said, I pray ?We have blood and food and good, Wherefore done
and gone and lone? Is there any reason known? And, in short, it seems to me, Sounds and
letters disagree.
 What Makes Speaking Difficult?
 •Clustering
 •Redundancy
 •Reduced forms•
 Performance
 •Variables
 •Colloquial language
 •Rate of delivery
 •Stress, rhythm and intonation
 •Interaction
 Clustering also known as branching or mapping‘ is a structured technique based on the
same associative principles as brainstorming and listing. Redundancy superfluous
repetition or overlapping, especially of words. Reduced forms usually use during native
speakers conversations.Performance.The accomplishment of a given task measured
against preset known standardsof accuracy, completeness, cost, and speed.
 Variables Hesitation, pauses, backtracking and corrections. You actually teach learners
how to pause and hesitate. (think time).Colloquial language is informal language that is
not rude, but would not be used in formal situations.Ex. "The stench was really gross" is
colloquial language. If talking formally, you would say "The stench was really
disgusting"...
 Oral Speech Corrections •Affective feedback •Cognitive feedback •Avoiding fossilization
Effective feedback, development of teacher intuition
 Principles for Designing Speaking Techniques•Cover learners need of accuracy,
intention, meaning andfluency•Be intrinsically motivating•Encourage the use of authentic
language in meaningfulcontexts•Provide appropriate feedback and correction•Focus on
the natural link between speaking and listening•Give opportunities to initiate oral
communication

https://www.slideshare.net/darlingniugibac9/teaching-oral-skills

A. What makes speaking difficult (Brown, 2001)

by: Precious Angel A M. Bariquit
1. Contextualized practice. This aims to establish the link between form and function.
2. Personalized language. Personalized practice encourages learners to express their ideas,
feelings, and opinions.
3. Building awareness of the social use of language. This involves understanding social
conventions in interaction.
4. Building confidence. The key is to create a positive climate in classroom where learners are
encouraged to take risks and engage in activities.
B. Teaching Pronunciation
1. Speak at Standard speed . This means providing more and slightly longer pauses to give
students more time to make sense of the utterances.
2. Use more gestures, movement, and facial expressions. These provide emphasis on words and
give learners extra clues as they search for meaning.
3. Be careful with fused forms. Language compressions or reduces forms can be difficult for
learners.
4. Use shorter, simpler, sentences.
5. Use specific names instead of pronouns.
1. Clustering
2. Redundancy
3. Reduced forms
4. Performance variables
5. Colloquial language
6. Rate of delivery
7. Stress, rhythm, and intonation
8. Interaction
C. The Use of Accurancy-based Activities
1. Listen and Imitate. Learners listen to a model provided by the teacher and then repeat or
imitate it.
2. Phonetic training. Articulatory descriptions, articulatory diagrams, and a phonetic alphabet are
used.
3. Minimal Pair Drills. These provide practice on problematic sounds in the target language
through listening discrimination and spoken practice. Drills begin with word-level then move to
sentence - level.
4. Contextualized minimal pairs. The teacher established the setting or context then key
vocabulary is presented. Students provide meaningful response to sentence stem.
5. Visual aids. These materials are used to cue production of focus sounds.
6. Tongue twisters
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. How many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?
Can you can a can as a canner can can a can?
9. Reading aloud/recitation. Passages and scripts are used for students to practice and then read
aloud focusing on stress, timing, ad intonation.
10. Recording of learners' production. Playback allows for giving of feedback and self-
evaluation.
8. Practice of vowel shifts and stress shifts
related by affixation
Vowel shift: mime (long i) mimic (short i)
Sentence context: Street mimes often mimic the gestures of passerby.
Stress shift: PHOtograph phoTOGraphy
Sentence context : I can tell from these photographs that you are very good at photography.
D. Talking to Second Language Learners in the beginning level. Cary (1997)
7. Developmental approximation drills. Second language speakers take after the steps that
English-speaking children follow in acquiring certain sounds.

https://prezi.com/vxv-d8pzakkz/remedial-instruction-in-speaking/
 Remedial instruction in English is an academic course designed for students and aspiring
teachers aimed at improving reading comprehension. There are four basic parts of this type of
program that involve many aspects of reading, speech and listening skills development.

Students listen to short phrases and are asked to repeat them, in order to familiarize themselves
with or brush up on the English language. They are then given information and asked to
demonstrate their understanding of it, as opposed to being asked questions and providing
answers. Eventually dialog lengthens until full sentences form a complete conversation they can
understand.

Basic wants and needs can be expressed, and interactions can be fully understood. Real life
scenarios are practiced in class that involve actions and reactions. Listening to the radio and
television news gives an authentic perspective to communication that is likely to take place for
most students and can be topics for discussion in class.

By broadening vocabulary students are able to further develop writing and speaking skills that
allow them to fully communicate outside the classroom with people in general who may have
slightly different dialects. Over time, this enhances social skills, leads to confidence and is
helpful when applying for jobs.

https://www.reference.com/world-view/remedial-instruction-english-98794fb8eda122f8
Remedial Instruction in SPEAKING
A. What makes speaking difficult (Brown, 2001)
1. Clustering
2. Redundancy
3. Reduced forms
4. Performance variables
5. Colloquial language
6. Rate of delivery
7. Stress, rhythm, and intonation
8. Interaction

B. Teaching Pronunciation
Below are techniques and practice, materials (as cited in Murcia, Brinton, and Goodwin, 1996) in
teaching pronunciation which have been used traditionally and continues to be utilized in
speaking classes.
1. Listen and imitate. Learners listen to a model provided by the teacher and then repeat or
imitate it.
2. Phonetic training. Articulatory descriptions, articulatory diagrams, and a phonetic alphabet
are used.
3. Minimal Pair drills. These provide practice on problematic sounds in the target language
through listening discrimination and spoken practice. Drills begin with word-level then move to
sentence-level.
4. Contextualized minimal pairs. The teacher established the setting or context then key
vocabulary is presented. Students provide meaningful response to sentence stem.
5. Visual aids. These materials are used to cue production of focus sounds.
6. Tongue twisters
7. Developmental approximation drills. Second language speakers take after the steps that
English-speaking children follow in acquiring certain sounds.
8. Practice of vowel shifts and stress shifts related by affixation
Vowel shift: mime (long i) mimic (short i)
Sentence context: Street mimes often mimic the gestures of passersby.
Stress shift: PHOtograph phoTOGraphy
 Sentence context: I can tell from these photographs that you are very good at
photography.
9. Reading aloud/recitation. Passages and scripts are used for students to practice and then read
aloud focusing on stress, timing, and intonation.
10. Recording of learners’ production. Playback allows for giving of feedback and self-
evaluation.

https://letreviewereducation.blogspot.com/p/majorshiparea-englishfocus-remedial.html

 Why should we teach speaking skills in the classroom?

o Motivation
o Speaking is fundamental to human communication

 Dealing with the arguments against teaching speaking skills

o Student's won't talk or say anything
o When students work in pairs or groups they just end up chatting in their own language
o When all the students speak together it gets too noisy and out of hand and I lose control of the
classroom

 Conclusion

 References

Why should we teach speaking skills in the classroom?

Motivation
Many students equate being able to speak a language as knowing the language and therefore
view learning the language as learning how to speak the language, or as Nunan (1991) wrote,
"success is measured in terms of the ability to carry out a conversation in the (target) language."
Therefore, if students do not learn how to speak or do not get any opportunity to speak in the
language classroom they may soon get de-motivated and lose interest in learning. On the other
hand, if the right activities are taught in the right way, speaking in class can be a lot of fun,
raising general learner motivation and making the English language classroom a fun and
dynamic place to be.

Speaking is fundamental to human communication

Just think of all the different conversations you have in one day and compare that with how
much written communication you do in one day. Which do you do more of? In our daily lives
most of us speak more than we write, yet many English teachers still spend the majority of class
time on reading and writing practice almost ignoring speaking and listening skills. Do you think
this is a good balance? If the goal of your language course is truly to enable your students to
communicate in English, then speaking skills should be taught and practiced in the language
classroom.

Dealing with common arguments against teaching speaking skills in the classroom
Students won't talk or say anything
One way to tackle this problem is to find the root of the problem and start from there. If the
problem is cultural, that is in your culture it is unusual for students to talk out loud in class, or if
students feel really shy about talking in front of other students then one way to go about breaking
this cultural barrier is to create and establish your own classroom culture where speaking out
loud in English is the norm. One way to do this is to distinguish your classroom from other
classrooms in your school by arranging the classroom desks differently, in groups instead of
lines etc. or by decorating the walls in English language and culture posters. From day one teach
your students classroom language and keep on teaching it and encourage your students to ask for
things and to ask questions in English. Giving positive feedback also helps to encourage and
relax shy students to speak more. Another way to get students motivated to speak more is to
allocate a percentage of their final grade to speaking skills and let the students know they are
being assessed continually on their speaking practice in class throughout the term.

A completely different reason for student silence may simply be that the class activities are
boring or are pitched at the wrong level. Very often our interesting communicative speaking
activities are not quite as interesting or as communicative as we think they are and all the
students are really required to do is answer 'yes' or 'no' which they do quickly and then just sit in
silence or worse talking noisily in their L1. So maybe you need to take a closer look at the type
of speaking activities you are using and see if they really capture student interest and create a
real need for communication.

Another way to encourage your students to speak in English is simply to speak in English
yourself as much as possible in class. If you are shy about speaking in English, how can you
expect your students to overcome their fears about speaking English? Don't worry if you are not
completely fluent or don't have that elusive perfect native accent, as Swain (1985) wrote "We
learn to speak by speaking" and that goes for teachers as well as students. The more you practise
the more you will improve your own oral skills as well as help your students improve theirs.

When students work in pairs or groups they just end up chatting in their own language.
Is the activity or task pitched at the right level for the students?
Make sure you give the students all the tools and language they need to be able to complete the
task. If the language is pitched too high they may revert to their L1, likewise if the task is too
easy they may get bored and revert to their L1. Also, be aware of the fact that some students
especially beginners, will often use their L1 as an emotional support at first, translating
everything word for word to check they have understood the task before attempting to speak. In
the case of these students simply be patient as most likely once their confidence grows in using
English their dependence on using their L1 will begin to disappear.

Are all the students actively involved and is the activity interesting? If students do not have
something to say or do, or don't feel the need to speak, you can be sure it won't be long before
they are chatting away in their L1.

Was the timing of the activity good? The timing of a speaking activity in a class can be crucial
sometimes. How many teachers have discovered that their speaking activity ended up as a
continuation of the students break-time gossip conducted in the L1? After break-time, why not
try giving students an activity to calm them down and make them focus before attempting
speaking activities that involve groups or pair work. Another way to discourage students
speaking in their L1 is to walk around the classroom monitoring their participation and giving
support and help to students as they need it. If certain students persist in speaking in the L1 then
perhaps you should ask them to stay behind after class and speak to them individually and
explain to them the importance of speaking English and ask them why they don't feel
comfortable speaking in English in the class. Maybe they just need some extra reassurance or
they don't like working with certain students or there is some other problem that you can help
them to resolve.

When all the students speak together it gets too noisy and out of hand and I lose control of the
classroom
First of all separate the two points a noisy classroom and an out-of-control classroom. A
classroom full of students talking and interacting in English, even if it is noisy, is exactly what
you want. Maybe you just feel like you are losing control because the class is suddenly student
centred and not teacher centred. This is an important issue to consider. Learner-centred
classrooms where learners do the talking in groups and learners have to take responsibility for
using communicative resources to complete a task are shown to be more conducive to language
learning than teacher-centred classes (Long & Richards 1987). Nevertheless, many classrooms
all over the world continue to be teacher centred, so the question you have to ask yourself is, how
learner centred is my classroom?

Losing control of the classroom, on the other hand, is a different issue. Once again walking
around and monitoring the students as they are working in groups can help, as you can naturally
move over to the part of the classroom where the noise is coming from and calm the rogue
students down and focus them back on the task without disrupting the rest of the students who
are working well in their groups. If students really get too rowdy then simply change the pace of
the class and type of activity to a more controlled task, for example a focus on form or writing
task where students have to work in silence individually. Once the students have calmed down
you can return to the original or another interactive group activity.

Conclusion
These are just some of the problems that teachers with large classes face when teaching speaking
activities in the classroom. These problems are not new nor are the solutions offered above.
Teachers all over the world continue to face the same hurdles, but any teacher who has overcome
these difficulties and now has a large class of energetic students talking and working in English
in groups together will tell you it is worth all the trial and error and effort at the outset. If you
believe in the importance of teaching speaking skills in the classroom but are having difficulties
making speaking activities work in your classroom why not contact your local teaching
associations or branch of TESOL. Maybe they run workshops for teaching speaking skills, or
maybe they can put you in contact with other teachers in similar situations but with more
experience teaching speaking skills who will be willing to share their experiences with you.

References
1. Celce-Murcia. M. (2001). Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language (3rd ed). USA:
Heinle&Heinle.
2. Long M.H & Richards, J.C. (1987). Methodology in TESOL. USA: Heinle&Heinle.
3. Nunan. D. (1991) Language Teaching Methodology. UK: Prentice Hall International (Chapter
two & three)
4. Tanner .R. & Green.C.(1998) Tasks for teacher education. UK. Addisson Wesley Longman.
Ltd.

Fiona Lawtie, ELT teacher, British Council, Caracas

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/teaching-speaking-skills-2-overcoming-classroom-
problems

How to Improve Students’ Listening Comprehension

1. Teach pronunciation, stress, and intonation of the critical sounds of English
2. Practice sound discrimination, liasions, and incomplete plosives
3. Recognize stressed and unstressed words
4. Enrich vocabulary
5. Teach grammar
6. Practice inferring information not directly stated
7. Improve skills in predicting
8. Teach note-taking skills

https://letreviewereducation.blogspot.com/p/majorshiparea-englishfocus-remedial.html

12 Strategies That Help Improve your Listening Comprehension in English

Let me begin with a personal example. When I started to learn English several years ago, the
hardest part for me was listening comprehension. I tried very hard to understand what people
(especially native speakers) were saying to me, but my attempts did not seem to be very
successful. When I came to the United States to study English in an English program, my
problem did not magically go away, and in fact, the oral communication class was one of the
challenging classes for me because of the listening activities that our teacher made us do. But
the most disappointing thing happened at the end of that semester when I failed the listening test!
But instead of grieving about my failure, I decided to develop a plan for overcoming this
challenge. First of all, I downloaded several speeches on my MP3 player and listened to them
every day while walking to school or on the way to a grocery store. Some of those talks had
written scripts, which allowed me to become familiar with the content of the speeches to better
understand them while listening.
This daily exercise helped me tremendously! I started to notice that my comprehension skills
were getting better and better. And faster than I anticipated! As a side advantage, I was also
able to learn quite a few authentic English expressions while listening to the talks on a variety of
topics.
This was not the end of the story. The English program I was attending belonged to the
university that regularly offered free lectures and talks for anyone interested. As soon as I found
out about it, I could not miss the opportunity! Attending those talks became my new
hobby. However, I was not just sitting there and listening to the speaker—I was practicing
various listening skills by applying the strategies that I learned in class. I would like to share
some of these strategies and I hope they will help you just as they helped me.
1. Getting the Main Idea from the Introduction
Before jumping in the depth of the discussion on the subject of their talk, speakers tend to
provide an introduction in which they explain the topic and provide an overview of what they are
going to discuss.

They may say: Today, I am going to discuss/talk about _________ or In this lecture, I will
address/cover _________ or I chose the topic of ____________ for my today’s presentation.
Try to be extremely attentive during the first several minutes of the talk—this is when you will
be able to get the main idea. Understanding the purpose and the main idea of the talk given in
the introduction will help you stay focused as well as pay closer attention to details that the
speaker will provide to support the main ideas.
2. Using an Outline to Take Notes
Another helpful activity that you could do when attending lectures or presentations is writing an
outline. Outline is a visual representation of the main points and supporting examples of a
listening passage. Using an outline is particularly helpful on those presentations and lectures
where the speaker presents several points or describes a series of steps. By listing the steps and
jotting down the supporting details for each of them, you will be able to better understand the
speaker.
3. Using Graphic Organizers
As a variation of an outline, you can also draw a graphic organizer. Similar to outlines, graphic
organizers will help you visualize the organization of the presentation and map out the main
ideas and supporting details, as well as see connections between them.
4. Listening for Definitions When you listen to an academic lecture, you may hear specific
terms that you are not familiar with. Speakers have different ways of giving definitions of new
terms. That may use su
ch words as: that is, it means, is.
5. Listening for Supporting Details
To accommodate the diverse needs of the audience, the speaker may also provide examples of
the new terms in the lecture. In addition, they may also provide supporting details to better
illustrate the points they are making or elaborate on the main ideas. It is important to listen for
those supporting details, as they will facilitate your comprehension. Some of the most common
expressions that many speakers use before providing examples are: such as, for example, one
example is, for instance, example includes, to illustrate, one is, take (for example). So try to pay
attention to those signal phrases as you listen.
6. Listening for Similarities and Differences
During their talks, speakers may also compare and contrast different concepts, items, and
terms. They can use certain expressions to indicate 1) similarities, such as: similar to, at the
same time, as well as, both, like, likewise, as, in comparison and 2) differences, such as: on the
other hand, to contrast, despite, although, even though, however, nevertheless, unlike, yet, but,
on the contrary, rather, though, regardless. Listen for those phrases because they tell you that a
similar or a different example is coming.
7. Listening for Referencing Phrases:
In many lectures or presentations, speakers often report on the findings of research or provide the
results of a questionnaire or a survey. They may use phrases that indicate the reporting
information. These phrases are called referencing phrases because they indicate that a reference
to a source will follow. It’s helpful to listen for those phrases, as they will help you notice and
pay attention to supporting details. Some of the most commonly used phrases are: according to,
a study reports, based on the results of, the researcher found that, the findings showed.
8. Listening for Causes and Effects
When speakers try to explain different relationships in their talks or discuss how one item affects
the other, it is very important to distinguish between causes and effects, that is, the reasons and
the consequences. Oftentimes, the speakers would use words and expressions that can help you
recognize cause-effect relationships. The most commonly used words and expressions
are: because, because of, due to, for this reason, so, then, as a result, as a consequence,
therefore, thus, accordingly. For example, in the sentence: Because of the increasing number of
international students, many universities started to offer remedial English courses.

 Cause: Because of the increasing number of international students

 Effect: Many universities started to offer remedial English courses

9. Listening for Solutions to Problems

When speakers describe problems in their talks, they sometimes can also address solutions to
those problems. Therefore, it is important to learn to listen for the solutions. So if you are at the
lecture that addresses a problem, ask yourself the following questions to help you identify the
solution:

 Is there any way to solve the problem addressed by the speaker?

 What may be an appropriate solution to this problem?
 What can we do about this problem?

The examples of phrases listed above are often used by speakers. However, this may not always
be the case. Therefore, you need to pay a close attention to the overall organization of the lecture
and the development of the speaker’s ideas10. Verifying Hypotheses During a talk, you can
sometimes make predictions about the content and the main points discussed by the
speaker. The title of the talk and your background knowledge on the topic will help you form
hypotheses about the presentation. These hypotheses will be either confirmed or disproved in
the process of listening. Forming hypotheses and listening for the confirmation or disproval will
help you stay focused during the talk, which, as we already know, will facilitate your listening
comprehension.
11. Using Keywords to Take Notes
You can also practice taking notes, which will increase your ability to concentrate and pay
attention to the details. When you are listening, do not try to write down everything you hear. It
is impossible! Instead, listen for keywords from the presentation and take notes using those
keywords. Keywords are usually nouns, verbs, and numbers. As you take notes, skip
unimportant words such as be, a, the, and prepositions. Using keywords and leaving out
unimportant words will allow you to take notes much faster and more effectively. For example,
you hear: “Based on the results of this experiment, the researcher made a conclusion that men
are not just driven by money, but by knowing whether they earn more or less than their
coworkers.” You write: “Study: men driven by coworkers earnings (+/- their own salary).”
12. Using Abbreviations and Symbols to Take Notes
As stated above, it’s impossible to write down everything the speaker says. Therefore, you need
to use short versions (abbreviations) of words and phrases, as well as symbols. These
abbreviations and symbols vary among people, and it is up to you what kinds of symbols you
use—as long as they make sense to you. In fact, it would be a great idea to create your personal
system of abbreviations and symbols that you will make use of.Some examples of symbols and
abbreviations:

 Ex. – example
 + - and
  = - means, is, results in
 4 – for
 int. – international
 w/o – without
 vs. – against
 v. – very
 < less than
 > more than

To conclude, many of you would probably agree that understanding a speech in a foreign
language is challenging. But the good news is that there are numerous exercises that you can do
to substantially improve your listening skills. I described just some of them here, and I hope you
will find them useful.
https://www.talktocanada.com/blog/improving-listening-comprehension-12-strategies-that-work

Em8 iv. remedial listening - how to improve listening skills

1. Do you believe that ‘listening’ is a neglected skill? Why? I want you to answer this
question… Someone whose birth month is August 
2. IV. Remedial Listening 4. How to Improve Students’ Listening Comprehension
3. Listening Comprehension it is a child’s ability to understand the meaning of the words
he hears and to relate to them in some way.
4. Review: 4. How to Improve Students’ Listening Comprehension 1. Teach
pronunciation, stress & intonation of critical sounds of English. 2. Practice sound
discrimination, liaison & incompetent plosives. 3. Recognize stressed and unstressed
words. 4. Enrich vocabulary
5. Teach Grammar
6. Grammar - The set of rules that explain how words are used in a language.
7. The foundational knowledge of sentence structure, subject/verb agreement, pronoun
use, verb tenses, etc. will be learned by example through listening to other people speak
correctly. Conversely, if poor speech is modeled, it will become the standard.
8. Let’s have an ACTIVITY! 
9. ‘Neither’ or ‘Either’?
10. ‘There’, ‘Their’ or ‘They’re’?
11. ‘Much’, ‘Many’ or ‘A lot of’?
12. 6. Practice Inferring information not directly stated
13. Inference - The act or process of reaching a conclusion about something from known
facts or evidence.
14. One simplified model for teaching inference includes the following assumptions: 1.
We need to find clues to get some answers. 2. We need to add those clues to what we
already know. 3. There can be more than one correct answer. 4. We need to be able to
support inferences.
15. Why Listening? Children who engage in listening activities are free to devote their
attention to the inference-making aspects of the comprehension process. Another reason
for choosing listening over reading as a means for helping a student learn to infer is the
fact that teachers have the opportunity to select instructional materials without looking
upon for the readability of those materials. This makes it possible to use the many fine
trade books written for children, as well as any recordings of those books.
16. Let’s have an ACTIVITY! 
17. Let’s play riddles! 
18. Teaching the skill of listening cannot be emphasized enough in a communicative
classroom. For second language learners, developing the skill of listening comprehension
is extremely important. Students with good listening comprehension skills are better able
to participate effectively in class (Brown, 2001).

https://www.slideshare.net/henryordonezofficial/em8-iv-remedial-listening-how-to-improve-
listening-skills
 Remedial Listening

1.Factors Affecting Students’ Listening Comprehension Internal factors refer to the learner
characteristics, language proficiency, memory, age, gender, background knowledge as well as
aptitude, motivation, and psychological and physiological factors External factors are mainly
related to the type of language input and tasks and the context in which listening occurs

2.Internal Factors Problems in language proficiency (cover problems on phonetics and

phonology like phonetic discrimination, and phonetic varieties; problems in grammar; and
lexicological problems Poor background knowledge Lack of motivation to listen Psychological
factors Other internal factors (age, attention span, memory span, reaction and sensitivity)

3. External Factors Seed of delivery and different accents of the speakers The content and task of
listening materials Context- refers to the spatial- temporal location of the utterance, i.e. on the
particular time and particular place at which the speaker makes an utterance and the particular
time and place at which the listener hears or reads the utterance

4.How To Improve Students’ Listening Comprehension Teach pronunciation, stress, and

intonation of the critical sounds of English Practice sound discrimination, liaisons, and
incomplete plosives Recognize stressed and unstressed words Enrich vocabulary Teach grammar
Practice inferring information not directly stated Improve skills in predicting Teach note-taking
skills

https://www.slideshare.net/keziahombang/remedial-listening

Try These 8 Activities to Improve Listening Skills

1.

Voice blogging

Using a free website (such as Voice Thread) have students record voice journals
about their week. Encourage students with semi-personal topics or hypothetical
questions (e.g. What would you do if you had one million dollars? Describe your best
vacation. etc..) to prompt speaking. This works just like a blog but with student voices
rather than writing. Even if your school doesn’t have computers with microphones or
recording capabilities, with VoiceThread students can use any phone to record their
voice blog.
Students can then be assigned to listen to several of their classmates and give each other
comments. By listening to each other and giving encouraging comments, you are
building a positive classroom environmentand cooperation within the classroom all
while students build their listening skills.

2.

Listen for the hidden phrase

 An engaging whole class activity is to pair students up and give each pair a
"secret" word or phrase. For easier dialogues, give a simple phrase such as “I love
soccer,” or “My father works a lot;” etc… To challenge students, give a slightly more
obscure phrase, such as “John does yoga every Saturday,” or “I saw a UFO in my yard
last night.”

Students are then tasked with developing a dialogue with their partner that somehow
uses this phrase. Students may script the dialogue if they wish, but only give them
limited planning time (5-10 minutes). After they have prepared their dialogue, students
perform the dialogue in front of the class, and the other students listen carefully to hear
which words or phrases seem extra carefully planned to find the secret phase. If you
have individual white boards, have the students write down the phrase as they hear it
and then show their board after the pair has finished the dialogue. If they found the
correct secret phrase, they get a point. If no one finds the pair’s secret phrase, the pair
that developed the dialogue gets a point.

3.

Listen for the word

Using popular culture media is always a good way to practice listening

skills.Using songs, watching TV shows, or even listening to podcasts will help build
skills. To go an extra step, have an additional task while listening to the song or TV
show such as assign students different words to listen for and have them keep track of
how often they hear these words. This is particularly helpful
with reductions like gonna, wanna, hafta.

Listening to various media is also a good time to practice unfamiliar words. Encourage
students to write down words they have never heard before. Without subtitles or lyrics,
students will have to rely on the sounds they think they heard to make a guess at how to
spell this unfamiliar word. Encourage students to write down other surrounding words
to help you decipher what the word might be or to write down the time when they heard
the word so you can go back to the spot and listen again. These are important skills for
students to master so that they can continue learning even outside of the classroom by
hearing new words.
 Student-designed quizzes

If students are in a computer lab or if they have iPads/iPhones, give each student a
dialogue, lecture, or song to listen to. These can be easily found on various free
listening websites. Have students listen to the lecture multiple times and then create a
quiz for another student to take. Students will be excited to “play teacher” by creating
quiz questions, and they will have to rely on their listening skills to write accurate
questions.

4.

Describe the...

Place students into pairs and have them sit back to back. Give one student in the
pair a unique picture with a lot of simple shapes drawn on it. I prefer to draw my own
pictures with randomly placed hearts, flowers, stars, houses, stick figures, etc. Put these
shapes in different places, angles, and with extra features as desired. Give the second
student in the pair a blank piece of paper. The student with the picture must dictate to
his/her partner how to draw the picture. Make sure to emphasize no cheating or
peeking! When finished, change the pictures around the groups and have the partners
switch roles. When everyone has drawn once, the team with the most similar pictures
win!

5.

Put the celebrity in the right place

Similar to the picture describing game, this game has a similar setup but without
the drawing. Give students a chart with many different celebrities in the boxes/grid.
This can be easily done by creating a table in a word processing program and pasting
internet images of celebrities in the table. Be sure to make several different versions
with celebrities in the different spaces. It’s okay if the students don’t know all of the
celebrities; in fact, it may be better if there are some they don’t know, so they have to
rely on describing physical features rather than giving names. Print a second blank grid
 with the pictures of the celebrities cut out into individual pieces but not attached to the
grid.

Students should sit back to back and be instructed to not peek or cheat. The student
with the table with pre-assigned celebrities should give the other student instructions on
how to fill in his table with the celebrity picture pieces. For example, the first student
might say “The picture of Brad Pitt goes in the first square, and Angelina goes in the
square below Brad Pitt.” It may be helpful to pre-teach the vocabulary “columns” and
“rows.”

6.

Stand up/sit down

When working on individual sounds, give students a target sound and then read a
script out loud that contains multiple examples of this sound. For example, if you
are practicing the /ae/ sound (like in “cat,” “hat,” etc…, you could read the following
script. “Yesterday, my cat ate a plastic toy andswallowed it fast.” Whenever students
hear this sound for the first time (cat), they should stand. When they hear it again
(plastic), sit down. Read slowly enough for them to have time to stand up or sit down.
This activity is great because it gets them out of their seats and lets them get some
excess energy out!

7.

Vowel discrimination

Another good activity to do when you are studying specific vowel sounds is to give
students two different color note cards (e.g. one red card and one blue card). For a
review activity, assign one vowel to the red card (e.g. the /ae/ sound as in “bat”) and
another card to the blue card (e.g. the /ei/ sound as in “bay”). When you read a word,
have students raise the card in the air for the correct vowel/sound they heard. For a
more advanced game, give students several colors of cards to correspond with several
different vowels. Also, you could give the students several cards and read a sentence
where each word represents a different vowel. Students must recreate the pattern of
sounds they heard by lining up their note cards in the correct order.
5 Classroom Activities to Improve Listening Skills

In today’s digital world, many teachers struggle to get their students to engage in active listening
while they teach. It’s become much harder to get and keep students’ attention than it was a
decade ago, mostly because students’ minds are filled with texts, emails, social media updates, or
whatever is going on with their friends. If students are struggling to listen, then they can miss out
on some crucial information that can help them both academically and socially. Teaching
listening skills to students doesn’t have to be boring, where the students just have to sit in their
seats and listen to the teacher talk. There are many classroom activities to create engaging
lessons that will help students focus on their listening skills. Here are five classroom
activities to try out that will help build students’ listening skills.

Classroom Activities: The Hidden Phrase

An interactive classroom activity to help improve students’ listening skills is to pair students
together to listen for a hidden phrase. The way this activity works is students must work with
their partner to create a dialog using a secret phrase. Once they have created a short dialog using
the phrase, they must present it to their classmates to see which group can find the hidden phrase.
Prepare the hidden phrase before class and make sure that you have enough for each group to
have a different one. The phrase can be anything that you want from “I saw a dinosaur in my
backyard” to “I like to bake cookies.” Each group’s challenge is to use the hidden phrase in their
dialog, while their classmates’ goal is to listen intently to try and figure out the hidden phrase
within the dialog. Each group that guesses correctly gets one point. If no one can guess the
hidden phrase correctly, then the group that write the dialog gets a point.

Describe the Photo

Another fun classroom activity is to pair students together to listen to their partner describe a
photograph. Have students sit back to back, and give one student a simple photograph and the
other a blank piece of paper. The challenge is for the first student to describe in detail the
photograph, while the second student tries to draw it on their paper. Make sure the photos you
choose are simple, such as a photo of a house, cat, dog, or simple shapes. The group with the
most similar drawings to their photograph wins.

Stand Up and Listen

A fun, active, whole-group activity is to play stand up and listen. For this activity, the challenge
is for students to listen for a repeated sound. For example, you would say a phrase like “A saw
my cat, eat a bat, then a rat, before he ran away.” As soon as students think they hear the
repeated sound, they must stand up next to their seat. Once students get the hang of it, pair them
up and have them create their phases. Once they’ve created their phrase each group must come
up and take a turn playing stand up and listen.

Locating the Square

This activity is similar to the describing the photo activity, but with this activity, students must
listen for where to locate the square and draw the shape. Pair students together and have them sit
back to back. Give one student a blank grid that looks like a Tic Tac Toe board with nine
squares, and the other the same grid but with simple shapes in each of the nine squares. The
challenge is for the student with the filled in grid to describe each shape and its placement to the
student with the blank grid. The goal is for the student to actively listen in order to fill in their
grid correctly. For example, the student may say, “The picture with the heart goes in the first top
left square, and the picture of a circle goes right next to it.” The activity will force students to
listen intently in order to complete the challenge.

Listening With Lyrics

Using music lyrics is a great way to keep students engaged while honing their listening skills.
Have students listen to a song that they have never heard before. First, challenge them to listen
for a specific word, then once they’ve mastered that, have them listen for a specific phrase. Next,
play a popular song where all the students know the majority of the words and repeat the activity.
Have students compare how they did on the first song to how they did on the second, popular
song. This is a great activity for students to practice unfamiliar words.

It’s important for students to continually develop their listening skills. Listening is the activity of
paying attention and getting meaning from something that you hear. By having students engage
in a variety of classroom activities like the ones mentioned above, you will help them develop
and build their skills.

https://www.teachhub.com/5-classroom-activities-improve-listening-skills
TOP 10 LISTENING ACTIVITIES

Listening is a really important skill and there are lots of activities we can do in class to help
develop this ability which do not require a formal listening practice set up (CDs, videos,
etc.). Of course, having regular listening in class is great but we can also combine this with
listening to the teacher and fellow students. Below are some fun and interactive ways to provide
listening practice in your lessons.

Listen and draw a story

The teacher reads or makes up a story and as the students listen they draw the different
scenes. You can help them by explaining which scene to draw. This can be done individually or
in small groups on larger paper. This really helps you to see if the students are understanding
and they will often ask questions if they don’t understand (because they’ll be so keen to draw the
picture!)

Adjectives draw

After teaching various adjectives (big, small, long, short, tall, high, low, etc.) give each S a piece
of paper. The teacher says an adjective / noun combination and the students have to draw it (e.g
draw a long snake, draw a big house, etc.). It is fun to make silly words (draw a small
elephant). The teacher should also draw so he/she can compare with the students’ pictures at the
end.

Blindfold walk

This is really fun. Teach: go forward, go backwards, (3) steps, turn right / left. Then place a
blindfold on a student and direct him/her around the room to eventually pick up a flashcard or
object (e.g. “Go forward 3 steps, turn right, go forward 5 steps, now go backwards 2 steps, turn
left, etc.). Finally, have students work in pairs – one blindfolded and one giving directions.

Listening with flashcards

Scatter a lot of flashcards that students have already leaned around the room and have the
students sit on floor. Make up a story and incorporate all of the flashcard pictures … as you say
the flashcard word the student nearest that card must touch it. For example, if students have
learned lots of animal vocab the story could start “Once upon a time there was a farmer who had
some cows (touch), sheep (touch) and pigs (touch). One day he was surprised to see lots of new
animals on his farm. Next to the gate was a zebra (touch) and in the pond was a hippo (touch
…), etc, etc.”.

Secret Message

Make two teams and have each stand in a line (parallel with each other). Take two students from
the front of each line outside the classroom and whisper a sentence to them (e.g. “Tonight it is
going to rain and tomorrow it is going to be sunny”). Then the students come back and whisper
the sentence to the next S, who in turn whispers it to the next, and so on down the line. The
student at the end either writes the correct sentence on the board or says the sentence to the
teacher (depending on the level of the class). Points are awarded: 2 points for a perfect sentence,
1 point for nearly perfect and a bonus point if the team finished first and got the sentence
right. Then do it again with two new students.

Guess what it is

Put students into teams of 3 or 4. Then everyone sits and listens carefully to the teacher for a
description of something or someone (e.g. “This is an animal which lives in Africa and Asia
loves taking baths. It flaps its ears to keep cool. It has a really long nose” – answer:
elephant). Then each team discusses what they think it is before giving an answer. You can give
the description sentence by sentence, encouraging the students to guess each time, until one
group wins. You can start off with easy clues and slow speech but then progressively choose
more difficult words and speak more quickly so the students really have to concentrate.

Put in order

Put your students in teams and have them sit together. Give each group around 10 objects or
picture flashcards – each team must have the same things. The T now says all the words for
items in front of the students … the students listen but mustn’t touch the objects. Finally, the
teacher says “Put the objects in the correct order” and the teams have to put in order the objects
in the order that the teacher said them. Make sure you write down the order as you say it or else
you’ll forget!

Listening dialogs

Before class, prepare some dialogs based on the lesson theme. Also, prepare some
comprehension questions based on the dialogs. In class, have two students read the dialog and
the other students have to listen and then answer the questions. In higher level classes, make
groups and give each group 15-20 minutes to write a dialog and questions (questions on a large
sheet of paper). Then each team reads their dialogs while the rest of the class answers the
questions which have been taped to the blackboard.

Number / Word bingo

Playing bingo requires students to listen carefully. You can use either numbers or words that
they have been learning. Creating the bingo sheets and words takes a bit of time but once done
can be used with other classes, time and time again.

Spelling Messenger

Put students in teams of three. S1 is given a word on a piece of paper and mustn’t show it to
his/her team mates. He/She stands at the end of the room furthest from the board facing the
wall. S3 is at the board facing the board. S2 acts as the messenger. S1 whispers the first letter
to S2 who then runs and whispers it to S3, who in turn writes it on the board. S2 goes back and
forth until the word is written on the board. All the teams compete – they have different words
but all with the same number of letters. The first team to complete the word correct wins a point.

https://www.eslkidstuff.com/blog/top-10-lists/top-10-listening-activities-without-a-cd