How to Build Listening and Speaking Skills in Young Learners

Young learners soak up knowledge like sponges. When they start learning a second
language, children will often pick up everything a teacher says. It is important to have
clear and correct pronunciation since young learners will often repeat everything they
hear. Although repetition of phrases doesn’t mean that children are learning the
language, it is still an important aspect of the learning process. Repetition prepares
children for more meaningful conversation and it helps them get used to English.
Repeating certain phrases also gives children the chance to practice the intonation
pattern and boosts their confidence especially if the teacher praises them
adequately.

Teachers should remember that in teaching young learners, the students come with
varied abilities, expectations and preferred learning dynamics. Teachers need to vary
their approaches and offer as much opportunities for the class to grow and develop.

Nurturing Learners’ Listening Skills

Developing listening skills should include the use of a variety of listening activities.
These activities should aim at fostering certain microskills such as short-term
memory retention, recognition of English stress patterns, and the awareness of
grammatical word classes, patterns and rules. Activities that support the development
of these microskills include songs, charts, role playing and drama. These activities
give learners the real world context that make language useful. Teachers should pick
listening activities that are appropriate for the age of the learners.
Listening strategies can be developed by asking young learners to guess the context
and reinforcing their listening comprehension through the use of visual aids and facial
expressions. Using real life context that are of interest to the learner can make the
lesson more effective. Songs are a great teaching tool since they give examples of
everyday language and present the opportunity for meaningful repetition.

Speaking out

Teaching speaking skills to young children is relatively easier since kids are natural
chatterboxes. They love to talk and look for chances to communicate meaningfully.
Teachers should find the right balance between controlled activities and letting
children talk naturally in the classroom. Teachers should take care that children talk
accurately and correct their linguistic errors. However, no correction should be done
when children are talking in free speaking activities. These types of activities help
children achieve fluency and develop communicative competence.

Young learners should get as many speaking and listening opportunities as possible
in the classroom. Their speaking time should steadily increase as the teacher
prepares them for various communication situations. Combining different approaches
and using various methods and tools should give students plenty of opportunities to
take part in communicative situations and help them internalize certain vocabulary
terms or grammatical points.
Good listening skills are essential for any ESL learner. Here are some tips for an
ESL teacher to keep in mind when teaching their students listening skills:

1. Make sure the listening material is at the right level

If the material is too difficult, students can spend hours listening without making
any improvement at all. They won’t just “pick up” the language if it is too hard.
Imagine yourself listening to native speakers talk in a language you don’t
understand at all. It just sounds like noise and you won’t learn much if anything
from it. Many expats who have lived in China for over 10 years can barely utter a
few sentences in Chinese even though they hear it all the time. If the material is
too easy, students won’t learn much either. Their listening speed might improve a
bit, but that’s about it. The key is to teach students to listen to something that
challenges them but doesn’t overwhelm them. The first time through,
understanding the general idea is great. After the second time, they should be
able to understand more than the first time. After listening 3 or 4 times they
should be able to understand about 70-90% of what is being said. That level will
allow them to get the gist of new words in context.

2. Make the enjoyable and interesting to listen to.

Listening to sentences like, “Today is a beautiful day. I feel so happy when it is

warm and sunny” is boring. No one talks like that anyway. Just because the
students aren’t great English speakers yet, doesn’t mean deserve to be bored to
death. Sentences like “That girl is really good looking. I always get nervous when
I see her” is more interesting but no easier. You should make things age
appropriate of course, but just remember that easy doesn’t mean boring.
3. Teach students to discuss what they heard

After getting the students to listen to something 3 or 4 times, ask them some
questions about what they heard. You can start by asking some simple content
questions to give them some confidence and make sure they understood the
main idea. Then slowly add more thought provoking and opinion type questions.
You can ask the boys if they get nervous around pretty girls for example. Then
you can ask they girls why they think the boys might be nervous. Again, you need
to know your class and what kind of content they would like. Just make sure you
are providing interesting and relevant material to listen to. Don’t forget that we are
in the 21st century. Listening to old fashioned language and opinions is not a
great way to teach.
Try listening to some of the podcasts on this website and give your students a
chance to hear them too. They are designed with all of the above points in mind.
Tens of thousands of students from around the world listen daily. The talk show
style of each show makes the listening experience enjoyable, and the students
soon forget that they are even learning.
 Listening for young learners
The nature of listening

The importance of understanding this concept of listening being an active

engagement. That is, as a listener, the mind is actively searching for meaning.

 The importance of what we acquire when we understand what people tell us or

what we read, when we are absorbed in the message. Individual progress is
dependent on the input containing aspects of the target language that the acquirer
has not yet acquired, but is developmentally ready to acquire.
o This seems to imply the importance of ensuring that the language level
is matched to the learners, which means teachers must understand their learners'
abilities.
 Acquisition proceeds best when the acquirer's level of anxiety is low and self-
confidence is high.
o This seems to enforce the importance of making the learning
environment in our classrooms non-threatening.

Why we need to develop listening skills

If someone is giving you a message or opinion, then of course you have to be able to
understand it in order to respond.
 Listening skills need to have a 'real-life' meaning. Children need 'purposes and
intentions' which they can recognize and respond to in others 'these human
intentions are the matrix in which the child's thinking is embedded.'
 This implies that we need to carefully select materials and purposes for
practising listening skills and that they need to have an authentic meaning to young
learners.
Keeping in mind that listening is an active process, asking children to listen and
remember can make them anxious, places a great strain on their memory and tends
not to develop listening skills.

The teacher would support children's understanding more effectively, if they direct
their pupils' attention to specific points that have to be listened for using activities that
actively support learners' understanding and guide their attention to specific parts of
the spoken text.

A lot of children's learning is dependent on making connections between that they

know and what they are able to understand in the speech they hear but they don't
learn only listening, motivation for learning language is to be able to communicate
using all the resources they have already acquired to interact with other people about
their needs and interests. This seems to be in line with social constructivist theories.
 Some considerations for classroom listening

 Give the children confidence. We should not expect them to always

understand every word and they should know this.
 Explain why the children have to listen. Make sure the learners are clear about
why they are listening, what the main point or purpose of the activity is.
 Help children develop specific strategies for listening. An important strategy
that the teacher should teach is 'intelligent guesswork'. Pupils are used to
drawing on their background knowledge to work out something they are not
sure of.
 Set specific listening tasks. Try to think of listening in three stages, pre-
listening, while-listening, post listening and have activities for each stage.
 Listening does not have to rely on the availability of a pre-recorded material.
Most listening is teacher talk.

What I do to be more comprehensible

There are a number of ways that I try to make myself easier to understand:
 Keep sentences short and grammatically simple
 Use exaggerated intonation to hold the child's attention
 Emphasize key words
 Limit the topics talked about to what is familiar to the child
 Frequently repeat and paraphrase

Conclusion
Listening is an active process, as the mind actively engages in making meaning. It is
therefore our duty as teachers to ensure that the materials we use are
comprehensible to our young learners, as well as within the range of what they are
developmentally ready for. Listening is also hard work! And can be stressful! So in
order to maximise the potential for acquisition of language, we need to ensure that
our young learners are not stressed about this process.

References:

http://www.esljobfeed.com/teaching-esl

Wendy Arnold, Teacher, Trainer, Author, IATEFL YL SIG, http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/listening-young-learners,

Further reading
Brewster, J, Ellis, G & Girard D (2002) The Primary English Teacher's Guide. New Edition. England: Pearson Education Limited
Donaldson, M (1978) Children's Minds. London:Fontana Press
Ellis, G & Brewster, J (2002) Tell it again! The New Storytelling Handbook for Primary Teachers. England:Pearson Education Limited
Garvie, E (1990) Story as Vehicle. England:Multilingual Matters Ltd
Krashen, S.D. (1997) Foreign Language Education. The Easy Way. California:Language Education Associates
Maybin, J, Mercer, N and Stierer B (1992) Scaffolding Learning in the Classroom. In K. Norman (ed) Thinking Voices. The Work of the National Oracy
Project. London:Hodder & Stoughton
Vygotsky, L.S. (1978) Mind in Society:The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Great Britain:Harvard University Press
Wells, G (1987) The Meaning Makers. Children Learning Language and Using Language to Learn. London:Hodder & Stoughton Educational