Lesson 2

Strategies in Teaching
Listening
Vandegrift (2004) mentioned that students may use either top-down or
bottom-up processes. As one listens , he/she may consciously or
unconsciously use one or both processes. Cahyono and widiati (2009)
mentioned that “successful listeners are those who can use both
bottom-up and top-down processes by combining the new information
and the knowledge that they already know.” Brown (2006) and Yildirim
(2016) elaborated on this:

…students must hear some sounds (bottom-up processing),

hold them in their working memory long enough (a few seconds) to
connect them, and then interpret what they’ve just heard before
something new comes along. At the same time, listeners are using their
background knowledge (top-down processing) to determine meaning
with respect to prior knowledge and schemata”.
 The following are some of the exercises you can use to develop students'
top-down and bottom-up processing:
Bottom-up
Teachers may ask students to:
● point out familiar words from the oral texts
● identify the meaning of unfamiliar words
from texts listened to
● locate the syllable stress from words, and
word stress from sentences
● identify rhyming words listen for pitch levels
and intonation patterns
● determine synonyms and antonyms from
texts listened to
● identify key words that occurred in a spoken
text
● find which modal verbs occurred in a
spoken text
● identify thought groups
● find collocations and idioms
● point out key transitions in a discourse
● identify grammatical relationships between
key elements in sentences
● determine the order in which words
occurred in an utterance
Top-down
● write down as many words and phrases
related to the topic they are about to listen
to
● get the idea from the texts listened to
● discriminate between emotional reactions
● make predictions and inferences from
stories heard
● listen for specific information
● sequence information after listening to a
literature piece
● follow directions
● share one's ideas based on the topic heard
● give synthesis from texts heard
● summarize important points
● generate questions from topics heard
● identify conversation themes
● rewrite the listening texts using their own
words
● share what the speaker's purpose is and
identify his/her speaking attitude
● students to ask about and/or to describe
other expressions they may have heard
● write a journal of their listening activities
Lopez, et (2020) refer to as an 'integrative approach' to teaching
listening, which involves three key stages:

● Before-listening (pre- listening)

● while-listening
● After-listening (post- listening)
 Pre- listening
The before-listening stage prepares students for both types of processing
through activities that require activating, their previous knowledge, making
predictions, and revising key vocabulary.

This stage sets the context of the listening activity that will be given to students.
In this stage, the following will help you in getting your students ready for the
listening task:

● Identifying vocabulary/comprehension needs

● Activating interest
● Putting it in context
● Setting the purpose
 While- Listening
The while-listening stage focuses attention on comprehension through
activities that require selective listening, listening for main ideas (gist
listening), or understanding the sequence of events (sequencing).

In planning the while-listening activities, you may need to consider the

following:

● Listening and re-listening

● Guided listening and scaffold note-taking
● Thinking space
 After- Listening (post-
listening)
The post-listening phase, students should express their opinions on the topic and
respond to comprehension. This stage may also include a detailed analysis of some
sections of the text that could not be understood by the students.

As there are many post-listening activities that you can give, remember that this stage
serves as a follow-up to the listening activity done while taking into account the primary
purpose of the listening task. Thus, post-listening activities may focus on:

● Responding to the text

● Analyzing linguistic features of the text
● Integrating speaking and writing
STRATEGIES AND EXAMPLES
IN TEACHING LISTENING
(PRE-LISTENING)

● Listening well and successfully takes a lot of

practice, and you need a lot of it. As a language
teacher, you need to give your students
opportunities to listen in and out of the
classroom that are varied and useful.
 IDENTIFYING VOCABULARY/COMPREHENSION
NEEDS:
● Word webs: Inform the students of the listening topic using semantic
webs. Ask them to provide words, topics, or sub-topics with which
they are expected to come up during the listening activity
● Ask me: Give the students words or expressions and let them explain
these to a partner.
● Words on the board: Write different words and students will choose
two-three words. From these words, they will have to create one
sentence.
● Gap-fill: Write sentences with missing words. Ask the students to
choose one of the sentences and complete it with their ideas.
 ACTIVATING INTEREST
(PRE-LISTENING)

● Brain walking: Put posters around the classroom. Ask students to

move around and go over each poster then talk about what comes to
mind after taking a look at the poster.

● Sing along: Provide certain lines, expressions, and words from the
listening text and ask volunteers to sing a song containing the words
or expressions.

● Meme it: Show students some memes from the listening activity to
arouse their interest.

● Discussion Questions: Students may work in pairs or in groups.

Provide them with a discussion question related to the listening task.
 PUTTING IT IN CONTEXT
(PRE-LISTENING)
● Post it: Students brainstorm ideas about topics related to the listening
task. They will share what they know of the topic relating it to their
prior schema. Students will write these down on the board on small
pieces of paper and post these on the board.
● Make up a story: Based on what they know, provide students with
some pictures and ask them to put pictures in an order that makes
sense.
● Let's draw: Give students a topic and ask them to draw something
related providing as many details as they can.
 PUTTING IT IN CONTEXT
(PRE-LISTENING)

● Using poll: For listening topics that may involve controversies, you
can have a quick 'anonymous poll' and reveal the result after they did
listening. Students will later know what opinions are voiced in the
listening text.
● KWL: Provide the title of the listening learning activity. Then ask
students to write what they currently know about the topic (K), and
what they want to know (W), after listening you can let them
complete the last column on what they have learned (L).
 SETTING THE PURPOSE
(PRE-LISTENING)
● Brainstorming: Discuss the topic with students and have them
brainstorm headings to take notes under. This will help them to
understand what specific task they will do while listening.

● Listening for pleasure: Inform students of the title of the listening text
and ask them to list down the interesting things that they think they
can find out from the listening activity.

● What would I want to do: Give a listening topic. Ask students what they
would want to do after they are done listening to the text.
 PROVIDE OPPORTUNITY FOR STUDENTS TO
RE-LISTEN (WHILE LISTENING)

● Let me read first: You let students read the listening transcript first for
a very short time. Then work on listening for specific information this
time without the transcript.

● Take two: Read the listening text first, then let the students listen to the
audio recording. This way, you are giving them varied sources of
listening text especially if the audio recording is from a native speaker.
 PROMOTE GUIDED LISTENING AND
SCAFFOLD NOTE-TAKING (WHILE
LISTENING)

● Graphic organizers: Give students a blank graphic organizer which

summarizes the information in the text. Students listen and fill in
keywords that they hear in the correct places.

● Look for the meaning: Provide a list of words to students before

listening. Have them read it and instruct them that as you play the
audio track, they also have to write words that have the same meaning.
GIVE STUDENTS ‘THINKING SPACE’
( WHILE LISTENING)

● Listen and Describe: As the teacher tells a story,

he/she can stop regularly and then ask students to
give or write descriptions.
 RESPONSING TO THE TEXT
( POSTLISTENING)
● True or False: Prepare a series of statements and ask
students whether they are true or false

● Discussions: You can ask students to have a short

discussion about the topic taken from the listening task

● Checking and Summarizing: Teachers can ask students what

they have understood by letting them summarize the
information they heard orally or in writing.
 ANALYZING LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF
THE TEXT (POST LISTENING)
● Synonyms and Antonyms: Let students identify vocabulary and find its
synonyms and antonyms from the listening script.

● Sequencing of events: Students may be asked to sequence events from the

listening passage using appropriate transitions.

● Multiple-choice test: Students listen to passages and demonstrate their

misunderstanding by choosing the correct answer from a multiple-choice
type of test. This may also be used during pre-listening and while-listening
depending on the purpose.
INTEGRATING PRODUCTIVE SKILLS:
SPEAKING AND WRITING
(POST LISTENING)

● Writing a short composition: Students may share what they have

learned from the listening passages and dialogues from the
listening text.

● Retelling: Students are asked to retell what has been heard

incorporating main ideas, supporting details, key phrases and
sequences.
FREE LISTENING TEST AND EXERCISES
WEBSITES
● TALK ENGLISH - You can access free listening lessons from different
levels
@https://www.talkenglish.com/listening/listen.aspx

● ELLO - Offers 3,000 free listening activities. Teachers and students

can access lessons for beginner, intermediate, and advanced learners.

@http://www.ello.org

● IELTS BUDDY - For more listening tasks created by native speakers of

English, you can access the free materials across different levels.

@https://www.ieltsbuddy.com
● ESL LOUNGE - You can also try this website which offers different
kinds of comprehension exercises after listening task

@https://www.esl-lounge.com/student-listening.php

● BREAKING NEWS ENGLISH - On this website, you can listen to

interesting content. This news is presented at different levels and can
be read at different speeds.

@https://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/index.html

● TEDEd - Here you can look for relevant content to use as viewing and
listening texts. Each lesson has pre and post-listening activities and it
has 3 parts. Watch, Think, and Discuss.

@https://www.ed.ted.com/lessons