4oAno, 2020

Didactic of English II

Dufa Hassan Veriua

1. The importance of teaching listening

Research suggests that listening should be the primary skill in learning a new language. There is
evidence that promoting listening comprehension results in increased acquisition of the other
language skills and consequently leads to acquisition of the target language. It is only logical that
one cannot give an output (speak) correctly unless one comprehends the input (listening
comprehension).

According to Rubin (1995:8), “For second language learners listening is the skill that makes the
heaviest processing demands because learners must store information in short term memory at
the same time as they are working to understand the information”.

Listening has an important role not only in daily life but also in classroom settings.
Anderson and Lynch (2003:3) state that “we only become aware of what remarkable feats of
listening we achieve when we are in an unfamiliar listening environment, such as listening to a
language in which we have limited proficiency”.

Rost (1991: 141-142) summarized the importance of listening in second language learning as
follows:
1. Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learner. Without
understanding input at the right level, any learning simply cannot begin.
2. Authentic spoken language presents a challenge for the learner to understand language as
native speakers actually use it.
3. Listening exercises provide teachers with a means for drawing learners’ attention to new
forms (vocabulary, grammar, new interaction patterns) in the language.

2. How to promote listening skills in real life

It is crucially for teachers to understand the nature of listening in order to know the ways which
have to be undertaken as to promote listening skills in real life.

 The nature of listening

Understanding the nature of listening, means to understand its definition, however listening has
been defined differently by many authors.

O’Malley, Chamot, and Kupper (1989:434) define listening comprehension as “an active and
conscious process in which the listener constructs meaning by using cues from contextual
information and from existing knowledge, while relying upon multiple strategic resources to
fulfill the task requirements”.

Vandergrift (1999:168) defines listening as “a complex, active process in which the listener must
discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammatical structures, interpret stress
and intonation, retain what was gathered in all of the above, and interpret it within the immediate
as well as the larger sociocultural context of the utterance”.

Bowen, Madsen and Hilferty (1985:73) defined listening as:

Listening is attending to and interpreting oral language. The student should be able to hear oral
speech in English, segment the stream of sounds, group them into lexical and syntactic units
(words, phrases, sentences), and understand the message they convey.

So from the aforementioned definitions, the teachers should build in mind the needed listening
skills to be acquired in order to know what to do to promote listening skills in real life.

 Promoting listening skills

Listening comprehension is a series of processes that are dependent upon acquiring listening
skills. In order to understand the second language utterances, the learner must draw from his
knowledge of the phonology, syntax, lexicon, culture of the target language, and auditory
memory and apply these fields of knowledge simultaneously while listening at a normal rate of
speech.
In order to promote all aforementioned listening skills, the teachers have to set up effective
activities which must cover all mentioned aspects.

Nida (1972, pp 146-147) proposed selective listening, listening only to certain features at a time.
She also said while we can't possibly make rules for the order in which the learner should listen
to various features in a sentence, "in general the order of features should be 1) phonetic feature
(sounds), 2) vocabulary, and 3) grammars, i.e., morphology and syntax.

Appropriate activities ultimately help students develop their listening skills.

Listening activities come in different forms and formats. They can focus on the main idea of the
text or some specific information, require top-down or bottom-up processing skills, and ask for a
verbal or a nonverbal response from listeners.

So, Rost’s (2011) proposed a framework of different types of listening activities which can
develop students listening skills, such as:

 Intensive Listening activities

Intensive listening activities provide valuable practice in perceiving the nuances of the language;
this involves the following activities:
• Transcription
• Different types of dictations, etc.

 Selective Listening activities

Selective listening activities involve concentrating on specific details with a deliberate purpose in
mind.
To engage in selective listening, students could practice
• following directions and instructions
• taking notes
• answering specific questions about amounts, dates, time, facts, etch
  . Interactive Listening activities
Interactive listening requires the listener to participate in the conversation by alternating between
listening and speaking, such as:
• Interviews
• Discussions
• Partial dialogues, in which students listen to a speaker and respond.

 Extensive Listening activities

Extensive listening focuses on general comprehension of the text.
This can be done sa follow:
• summarizing
• Rating content as more or less interesting
• using visual organizers (e.g., K-W-L [know, want, learn] and who/where/what/when charts)
• filling out listening logs, in which students record their listening goals and strategies for each
text

 Responsive Listening activities

Responsive listening makes the listener relate to the content of the text by expressing an opinion,
a feeling, or a point of view.
Examples of responsive activities are
• Problem-solving tasks
• sharing and responding to personal experiences
• Evaluative tasks or making judgments about the truth, probability, and so forth.

 Autonomous Listening activities

Autonomous listening describes any independent listening that is done outside the classroom
Autonomous listening includes all the types of listening such as using Listening technology, as
follow:
• Songs
• Audio books
• Radio (e.g., Voice of America, BBC, CNN, and Spotlight Radio)
• Listening websites for ESOL (e.g., The English Listening Lounge, Randall’s ESL Cyber
Listening Lab, English Language Listening Online, Daily ESL, and Focus on English)

3. listening activity using dialogue

. Summary: greetings and introduction Time 45 minutes
Aim: during the activity students will be able to:
Listen to the dialogue;
Read the dialogue;
Practice listening;
Level: Beginners Aids: chart

• Pre-listening activities
The teacher tells the student that they are going to read a dialogue about “greetings”
And then provide students some vocabularies as to anticipate before they practice or hear.
Also the teacher explains the meaning of the words as to make them familiar to students.
Hello, hi, how are you? Good morning, , goodbye, fine, thanks.

• While-Listening activities
At this stage, the teacher hangs on the chart on the blackboard contemning a dialogue and then
he/she reads two(2x) the dialogue using different intonation.
Then tells the students to get in pairs, and tells them to practice the dialogue.
Dialogue I
Augusto: Hello, Filipe!
Filipe: hello, Augusto!
Augusto: how are?
Filipe: I am fine, and you?
Augusto: I am fine, thanks.
Dialogue II
Mario: good morning, Amelia!
Amelia: good morning, Mario!
Mario: did you go school today?
Amelia: oh, sure. I went, how about you?
Mario: I didn’t go. What did you study?
Amelia: we studied English and Mathematics, so it is not good missing school.

• Post-listening activities
The teacher removes the chart and hangs it on in a contrary as the rest of the class cannot see.
Then calls two group students to practice it,, as they get on practicing the dialogue, the rest of the
class fill in with expressed words.
Dialogue I
Augusto: ______, Filipe!
Filipe: hello, Augusto!
Augusto: _____ are?
Filipe: ___ am fine, and ___?
Augusto: I am fine, ______.
Dialogue II
Mario: _______________, Amelia!
Amelia: good __________, Mario!
Mario: did you ____ to school today?
Amelia: oh, sure. I went _____________________?
Mario: I didn’t go. What ___________________?
Amelia: we studied __________ and _______________, so it is not _________________ school.
 Bibliography
Anderson, A. & Lynch, T. (2003). Listening. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bowen, J. D., Madsen, H., & Hilferty A. (1985). TESOL Techniques and Procedures. Boston,

MA: Heinle & Heinle Publishers.

Nida, E. A. (1972). Selective Listening, In H. Allen and R. Campbell (Eds.), Teaching English

as a Second Language. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill International Book Company.

O'Malley, J. M., Chamot, A. U., & Kupper, L. (1989). Listening comprehension strategies in

second language acquisition. pplied Linguistics, 10(4), 418-437.

Rost, M. (1991). Listening in action. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Rost, M. (2011). Teaching and researching listening (2nd ed). Harlow, England:
Longman

Rubin, J. (1995). An overview to a guide for the teaching of second language listening. In D. J.

Vandergrift, L. (1999). Facilitating second language listening comprehension: Acquiring

successful strategies. ELT Journal, 53(3), 168-176.