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ENGLISH TEACHING essentials
LISTENING by Jeremy Harmer
Students need to be exposed to the
English language if they want to learn it,
and one of the best ways of doing this is
through listening. Listening can be of
many different kinds, and there are many
different ways of helping students to
become better at it, despite the difficulties.
What
There are three main kinds of listening in
ELT classrooms.
Recordings
Students listen to an audio cassette or
CD-ROM (or watch and listen to a video
or DVD). They usually have some tasks to
perform while they are listening, which the
teacher then organises feedback about.
‘Live’ listening
In this type of listening, students listen to
(and interact with) a live human being in
front of them – eg the teacher, sometimes
playing a role, or, perhaps, a visitor to their
class (see Jacqueline McEwan’s article on
page 43). Unlike working with pre-recorded
tapes, students can ask for clarification,
produce follow-up questions, and help to
direct the course of the listening.
Teacher talk
Perhaps the most useful kind of listening
is that which takes place on a daily basis
when teachers talk to students. This may
involve teachers organising the lesson (eg
giving classroom instructions), chatting to
students in an informal way, or facilitating
conversations and discussions. Because
experienced teachers are particularly
good at rough-tuning their speech (that
is, talking at their students’ level of
comprehension, which is nevertheless
often above their productive level), this
kind of listening is especially useful.
Why
There are a number of reasons why
teachers involve students in listening (either
to pre-recorded material or in live listening).
1 Listening is an essential skill.
2 The more students listen to English the
better they become at listening to it.
3 Methodologists are persuaded that the
more students listen, the better their
speaking becomes. In particular,
pronunciation improves for many students.
• www.etprofessional.com • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • Issue 26 January 2003 •
4 Pre-recorded listening allows students
to hear a large variety of voices, not
just their teacher’s.
5 All listening, if understood, gives
students opportunities for noticing
language and, therefore, for acquiring it.
6 Listening material, especially when pre-
recorded, allows students to study
aspects of spoken English – which are
often very different from those of
written grammar, for example.
7 Many listening activities are good fun.
Why not?
There are a number of difficulties and
problems surrounding the use of listening
material.
1 Unlike reading, listening to pre-
recorded material goes at the speed of
the tape or CD, for example, not at the
student’s speed. For this reason, we
need to persuade students to listen for
general understanding. And of course,
we can always rewind parts of the tape
or re-run the CD track for students to
listen to again.
2 Students are frequently put off when
they try too hard to understand the
words they hear, and as a result of
focusing on that, lose the thread of
what comes next. This is what one
writer once called the ‘dropped barrier’
syndrome. However, if we give
students the right kind of task – and if
we have persuaded them that they
don’t have to understand every single
word first time around – then they can
get past these barriers.
3 Some tapes and playback machines
are inadequate for the task, and
students find it difficult to hear
properly. However, we can turn even
this situation to our advantage, with
some students listening and telling
others what they hear; or we can make
it a ‘noisy bus’ experience, where
students have to see how much they
can pick up despite background noise.
4 Some commercially recorded material
is rather unnatural in terms of language
and speaking speed and, even in the
21st century, tends (in British-based
material anyway) to consist largely of
A new series looking at
things we need to know,
things we thought we knew,
things we tend to forget and
things to think about.
people speaking in standard southern
English. Of course, this frequently has
the advantage of being readily
understandable for many students.
Nevertheless we should try to ensure
that students hear a range of accents
where possible and appropriate.
5 Live listening is a wonderful ideal, but
many teachers find it very difficult to
find visitors to take into class.
However, the teacher can roleplay, as I
have suggested above, and there are
many other possibilities.
How
In order to help students cope with the
demands of listening material and tasks,
a number of tasks and approaches can
be recommended:
Choice of material
Try to choose pre-recorded material
which sounds as natural as possible in
terms of speed, accent and the language
used. Make sure students have a chance
to listen to a variety of listening genres
(eg conversations, monologues, stories,
dramas, etc).
Preparation
Allow students to prepare for the listening
by predicting what they are going to hear
or studying the listening task (questions,
etc) before they listen. This helps them to
know how to listen and what to listen for.
● Show them some pictures connected
to the listening before they listen, to
allow them to predict the content.
● Give them some of the words they will
hear so they try to guess what’s coming
● In the case of an interview, give them
some of the interviewer’s questions.
● If and when you take a visitor into the
class, make sure students have enough
time to prepare their questions (if that is
the activity you are aiming for).
First time round
With pre-recorded listenings, make sure
students do their best to get a global
understanding of what they hear the first
time around. It will help them to feel more
relaxed about listening if they feel they
can cope, in general, with what they hear. 
29
 LISTENING by Jeremy Harmer
 Second time round
Always go back and let students listen
again so that they can understand more
details and, where appropriate, analyse
the language they hear.
Follow up
Prompt students to ask follow-up
questions. Of course, this is particularly
important if you have a visitor – students
can learn even more from the person you
have introduced to them.
Exploitation of material
Be creative with the tasks you give
students. Try not to be confined by the
suggestions in the coursebook – there
are many other possibilities.
● You can play little bits of a tape and
ask students what, if anything, they
understood.
● They can listen to tapes and, rather
than responding to what the speaker
says, they can try to describe the
speaker in terms of their appearance
and age.
● Students can listen to different
sections of the tape (jigsaw listening) in
order to piece it together, or follow the
material on a tapescript.
● Some students can read part of a
tapescript while others listen to a
different section of the tape. The
teacher can stop the tape at various
points and ask students to predict
what comes next.
And, finally ...
It is probably best not to have students
practise listening in isolation, but rather
as part of a multi-task event. Listening, in
this view, can lead onto such things as
discussion, reading, roleplay or language
study. We will also want to try to
persuade students to listen to English as
much as possible on their own – in self-
access centres, on their personal stereos,
p
in their cars or at home. E T
Jeremy Harmer has
written How to Teach
English and The
Practice of English
Language Teaching,
both for Longman. He is
the General Editor of the
Longman methodology
list and hosts a teacher
development website at
www.eltforum.com.
Currently he teaches at
Anglia Polytechnic
University.
jeremy.harmer@btinternet.com
30 • Issue 26 January 2003 • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • www.etprofessional.com •
IN THE CLASSROOM
Paul Bress addresses a problem
that many might find enviable.
Managing the
megamotivated
T
raditionally, teachers have been
very concerned about the learner
with low motivation. In an effort
to overcome the problem, they have
typically adopted one or more of the
following strategies:
● Be ultra careful about the choice of
target language and choice of activity.
● Do a large number of varied activities.
● Use a variety of different media for
language presentation and practice.
● Look for and use sources of language
input from outside the classroom.
● Track the students’ progress
meticulously and show them their
results.
Do you find yourself employing these
techniques even with students who don’t
lack motivation? Do you worry that you
should be doing even more to keep these
particular students interested in
learning? It isn’t often that you hear
teachers express any concern about the
‘megamotivated learner’ (MML), or,
indeed, the class composed exclusively
of MMLs. Is it possible that such an
apparent godsend could pose any sort
of problem?
Well, it could be that teachers are
usually so concerned with making
learning interesting that they don’t fully
meet the needs of the MML. Because
MMLs find language and learning
intrinsically interesting, they may well
feel they are wasting their time when
teachers pour all their energies into
arousing interest instead of, in their
view, ‘getting on with the job’.
Some ideas for dealing with MMLs:
Speed and intensity
Make language-focused teaching both
intensive and speedy. When teaching a
vocabulary item, for example, exploit it
for all it is worth: elicit from the
students its exact meaning, stress
pattern, pronunciation and collocational
partners. You could also ask for
examples of derivatives of that word in
different word classes.
Delegation
Get the students to do most of the
work. Allow them, for example, to take
over the role of the teacher from time to
time and to teach each other things.
You might like to get them to write
exercises and short tests for each other.
Involvement
Encourage students to shape the course.
Ask them to comment on or improve
the syllabus and methodology. This will
get them reflecting on the way they
learn and what method works best for
them. As well as making them feel that
their opinions count, it will give you a
good insight into what kind of things
are likely to be successful in class.
Increased expectations
Get students to do longer, more
demanding pieces of work. Examples of
things they could do include projects,
presentations and dissertations.
Homework
Give students plenty of homework to
do. If you do this, you might want to tell
them that it is up to them whether they
do the homework or not. Trust them –
you already know that they are anxious
to learn, and they may wish to spend
their time learning in another way.

In conclusion, if you are lucky enough
to have a class of MMLs, it’s not a
question of making lessons interesting,
but of recognising (as soon as possible!)
the fact that these students are really
champing at the bit. They are eager to
learn and you need to find a way to
help them achieve maximum results by
p
the end of the course. E T
Paul Bress is a freelance
ELT lecturer, assessor,
examiner, writer and
reviewer. Amongst other
organisations, he works
for the Universities of
Cambridge and Leeds
and Cambridge
University Press.
paulbress@tinyonline.co.uk