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 L I S T E N I N G
Scaffolding
Vesna Nikolic supports her students in becoming better listeners.
H
ave you ever tried to juggle
three or four tennis balls
simultaneously? If so, you
know that it isn’t an easy
task. Some of the balls probably ended
up on the floor pretty quickly, and the
experience soon made you realise that
the skill requires practice and training.
For ESL and EFL students,
listening to recorded materials is often
like juggling many balls. Why? Because
it involves an array of mental tasks. Just
think about what students have to do
while listening. They have to store what
they have heard in their short-term
memory, decode the words, mentally
visualise them and spell them out,
translate them into their own language,
figure out the overall meaning of the
message, and, at the same time,
complete the task. That’s like juggling at
least six balls simultaneously!
In order to master listening
comprehension, students need a great
deal of practice. They also need you,
their teacher, to train them.
The aim of this article is to assist you
with the training part of your listening
activities. It outlines the difficulties
students encounter while listening and
offers practical tips on how to help them
cope with the toughest listening materials,
and still remain in control of the process.
A challenging skill
Listening has always been a difficult
skill to come to grips with, both from
the teachers’ and the students’
perspective. Let’s dig a bit deeper into
the reasons why this is so. Awareness of
what makes listening difficult will help
us address its challenges.
For teachers, preparing for listening
activities involves considerably more
work than preparing for any other type
of activity. You have to track down the
18 • Issue 57 July 2008 • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • www.etprofessional.com •
material on a CD or tape, listen to it,
decide what needs to be pre-taught,
determine whether the task is
appropriate for your students’ level and
check out the answer key. You also have
to think about how best to teach
listening strategies, and how to monitor
your students’ success while listening.
For students, the speed of delivery,
lack of background knowledge,
abundance of information, speech
overlaps in dialogues, unfamiliar idioms
or vocabulary and lack of control are
some of the reasons that make listening
challenging. While decoding one piece
of information, they miss the other
pieces. They may understand individual
words but not the overall meaning.
They may also have trouble
understanding what the speaker is
referring to because of a lack of
cultural or background knowledge.
Features of spoken English, such as
fuzzy word boundaries and reductions,
also add to the challenge. Unstressed
words, such as prepositions and
conjunctions, are rarely pronounced
clearly. They get attached to the stressed
words (for example, the word in attaches
to touch in let’s keep in touch). Since
students have difficulty dividing streams
of speech into separate words, they
often misidentify a word and end up
with a meaning entirely different from
the intended meaning. A good example
is a thank-you letter which an adult
student in Canada wrote to his teacher.
It ended with Let’s keep and touch.
Another challenge our students have
to cope with is the limited capacity of
short-term memory. According to the
psychologist Miller, we can only process
seven (plus or minus two) chunks of
meaning or pieces of information at any
one time. They can be stored in our
short-term memory for 60 seconds to
several minutes, depending on our level
of education. We cannot keep them for
longer than that unless we do something
with them. In the teaching context, this
means that if students do not do
something with the piece of information
they have just heard (eg write it down,
repeat it to themselves, think about it,
comment on it, etc), it may be lost in as
little as 60 seconds. The implication is
that if a listening passage is too long,
the additional information students
hear will just pile up in their short-term
memory. Due to cognitive overload, all
this information will eventually be lost.
The final challenge is our attention
span. In general, people listen attentively
for only three out of ten seconds, and
students are no exception. If the text is
long, they will inevitably tune out after a
while, allowing their minds to wander.
They will also listen selectively. In that
respect, humans are like dogs, who often
miss the Come here! command, but
never miss the sound of the fridge door.
As a teacher, you can help your
students deal with all these challenges
by offering scaffolding. Let’s explore
ways of doing so.
Scaffolding
Grade the tasks
More than ten years ago, I came across
an enlightening article by Randall Lund
on material–task relationship, which
helped me get to the core of the
problem with listening activities. At that
time, I was teaching a high-intermediate
class of adult immigrants in Toronto. I
tried using authentic listening materials,
such as news broadcasts and talk shows,
but my attempts were far from
successful. The students were
discouraged by the challenges they
encountered – the same challenges we
listed in the previous section. I realised I
was doing something wrong.
The essence of Lund’s article is that
students’ success in listening depends on
task complexity, not listening passage
complexity. For example, if the students
listen to a news item, and their task is as
simple as to tick off the topic or circle a
picture, they are likely to be successful,
regardless of how challenging the news
item is. However, if they are asked to take
notes and write as much as they can, they
will be overwhelmed and will eventually
tune out. In other words, students of any
level can deal with almost any short
listening passage, providing that the task
is simple enough for them to experience
success. In every text, there are always
some words which students can
recognise or understand. They can
make guesses about the rest. It’s not the
material that is difficult, Lund argues,
it’s the task – it’s what we ask students
to do with the listening material.
How does Lund’s argument help you,
the classroom teacher? If you realise
that the task in your coursebook is too
challenging for your students, simplify it.
If you are using radio or TV broadcasts,
create a very simple task for the first
round of listening/watching. Instead of
having students answer questions or take
notes, write a list of words that appear in
the listening passage on the blackboard,
add a few distractors, and have students
copy the words and circle the ones they
hear. If your students are at a very low
level, don’t use distractors and keep the
words in the same sequence as they
appear in the text.
The beauty of this teaching strategy
is that you do not need to stay with such
low-level tasks all the time. Instead, you
can use graded tasks, increasing the task
complexity with each consecutive round
of listening. With each time they listen,
the students will become more and more
familiar with the passage, which means
that the task can move beyond the
simple identification level. During the
course of four consecutive rounds of
listening, the students might identify the
topic, discuss the main idea or details,
identify exactly what one of the
speakers is saying, or even write the
transcript of a short segment.
Create pre-listening activities
Another way of offering scaffolding is
through the use of pre-listening
activities. By addressing likely
difficulties before listening, you will
prepare the students for the task.
Discussing the topic or offering some
background information will familiarise
them with the likely content of the text.
If the text includes a great deal of
difficult vocabulary, providing some of
it in advance can also be very helpful.
When teaching listening
comprehension, I sometimes extract the
key vocabulary from a news item and ask
the students to create a story in groups
before listening. They present their
stories, then listen to find out how the
original story differs from their own.
Note: writing clusters of words as they
appear in the listening passage works
better than giving only individual words.
Address the pronunciation issues
In order to address pronunciation
problems, such as reductions and
blending, which make it difficult for the
students to identify exactly what a
speaker says, select a segment of the
text where these features are apparent
and focus on it during one of the final
rounds of listening. Play this short
segment several times and help students
identify what the speaker is saying,
word for word. Writing a transcript of a
sentence or two with the whole class is a
great awareness-raising strategy.
Awareness is the key. If students
know where the changes typically occur,
they will be better able to anticipate
them and recognise them in the future.
Students need to learn new words, but
they also need to learn how these words
change when people speak them fast. In
order to allow them to do this, I often
have to play a recording many times. It
is through these repetitions that my
students not only figure out the changes
that common words can undergo, but
also get a good grasp of their
pronunciation in context. After all, it is
not the pronunciation of individual
words or sounds, but correct
pronunciation at sentence or word
cluster level, that makes one sound like
a native speaker.
In order to create activities to go
with radio broadcasts, I often listen to
recordings in the car on my way to
work. Numerous repetitions of the
same segment not only shorten my long
drive to work, but also help me improve
my own pronunciation. I feel that my
in-car planning sessions have helped me
improve my pronunciation considerably
more than any other resource.
• www.etprofessional.com • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • Issue 57 July 2008 •
Chunk the listening passage
An additional problem students
encounter during listening is the limited
capacity of short-term memory. We can
address this challenge in two ways. First,
a listening passage needs to be short.
Second, if the passage is more than
three sentences, divide it into chunks.
Students cannot process information if
it’s coming at them like a waterfall.
Chunking can be done at clause or
sentence level, or at any logical point.
Stop the recording, then discuss it with
the whole class or have the students
discuss it in groups. Give them time to
process the information. Elaborate on
it. Ask questions. Write something on
the board. Tell a short anecdote related
to the topic. Then continue with the
recording. The short breaks you build in
will help prevent cognitive overload.
Teachers are not always aware of
how difficult listening tasks can be for
students. In some of my workshops for
teachers, I get the participants to
complete a confusing listening task
from a recognised coursebook,
following the steps the students would
take. This activity helps them quickly
realise how tough it is and how
important it is to spend enough time on
pre-listening activities or to pause the
recording occasionally. I suggest that
they visualise a stop sign before each
listening activity and ask themselves
what needs to be done prior to listening
to make it easier for the students.
Teach strategies
Teaching strategies is another thing that
will help students become better
listeners. David Mendelsohn, one of the
gurus of teaching listening
comprehension, suggests teaching them
explicitly. Explaining to the students
that they need to plan, organise,
evaluate and monitor the process before
and during listening, and then reflect
upon what they could be doing better
next time around will ensure that they
develop metastrategic awareness. If the
students are able to control the process,
and they do it consciously, they’ll
become better listeners.
Use follow-up activities
Once your students complete the main
task, you can move on to do some
follow-up activities. As one of my 
19
 Scaffolding SCAFFOLD YOUR WAY INTO LISTENING
Problems Suggestions
 colleagues says, we need to squeeze the
last bit of language out of a listening 1 The listening ● Create a very simple task (eg circle the words that you
passage. We can do that by creating passage is above hear, circle the topic, listen for one or two pieces of
activities based on the same passage but the students’ information only, complete the sentence that describes
with a focus on speaking, reading or linguistic level. something you hear, etc).
writing. If you think hard enough, you
will always be able to create a related 2 The students are ● Create pre-listening activities to assist the students
activity for a different skill. Roleplays, likely to have with new vocabulary.
mock press conferences, newspaper trouble with the ● Introduce the new vocabulary while discussing the
articles, interviews, surveys or new vocabulary. topic and write the words on the board.
report/letter/paragraph writing make
good follow-ups to listening.
3 Students ● Share background knowledge through pre-listening
 understand activities.
the words but ● Teach listening strategies (guessing, predicting,
Even though listening is a challenging not the overall focusing on the words and information students know,
skill, it can be mastered. Plenty of meaning. focusing on the tone, self-monitoring, focusing only on
meaningful exposure to listening,
what is said clearly or the important information, etc).
combined with carefully thought-out
tasks, simple during the first round of
4 Students ● Get the students to transcribe a short segment of the
listening and then more complex during
cannot divide recorded text.
the later ones, will assist students in
fast speech ● Teach pronunciation (reductions, blending, etc) based
acquiring the skill. Drawing the
into words. on the listening passage.
students’ attention to common changes
in spoken language through repetition ● Use cloze exercises to help the students identify
and the use of transcripts will raise reductions (white out the blended words on the
awareness of pronunciation changes at transcript of the text they’ll be listening to).
sentence level. Finally, teaching useful ● Before listening, have the students study a short text
strategies before listening, and chunking with similar pronunciation changes and identify where
the text while listening, will help students comprehension problems due to pronunciation may
cope with any material. Opposite is a occur.
checklist and on page 21 is a sample
activity that you might like to try with 5 Students ● Chunk the text (stop the recording and allow time for
your students. ETp cannot keep processing).
up with a lot of ● Give the students time to think about the text or to
Lund, R ‘A taxonomy for teaching second information. discuss it in groups.
language listening’ Foreign Language
Annals 23(2) 1990 ● Encourage the students to take notes (key words only).
Mendelsohn, D and Rubin, J A Guide for
the Teaching of Second Language 6 Students find ● Schedule listening at a time in your class when the
Listening Dominie Press Inc 1995
it difficult to students are at their best.
Mendelsohn, D Learning to Listen: A concentrate for
Strategy-based Approach for the Second ● Chunk the text.
long periods of
Language Learner Dominie Press 1994 ● Structure the tasks so that each new task during each
Miller, G A ‘The magical number seven,
time.
new round of listening is more complex than the one
plus or minus two: some limits on our before.
capacity for processing information’ The
Psychological Review 63 1956
7 Students think ● Structure the task so that it does not require complete
Vesna Nikolic, a that they have to understanding of the text in order to do it.
Program Consultant for understand every
the Toronto Catholic ● Show the students that understanding every word is
District School Board, word they hear. not necessary to complete the task. For example, give
has been working in
ESL/EFL for 23 years in them a text and have them underline only the words
Croatia and Canada, they understand, then see if they can guess the
teaching all ages from
kindergarten to adults. meaning. A basic-level student might underline the
She has just completed following, ‘When Terry Fox was eighteen years old, he
an MA at the University
of Toronto, Canada. was diagnosed with bone cancer and his leg had to be
amputated to prevent the cancer from spreading.’
Vesna.Nikolic@pcdsb.org

20 • Issue 57 July 2008 • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • www.etprofessional.com •

 SCAFFOLD YOUR WAY INTO LISTENING
A supportive activity
News item
Video and computer game sales in the States have
doubled between 1996 and 2005. In 2004, more than 248
million computer and video games were sold, which means
that every household in the States bought almost two
games. // Who plays video and computer games most?
You may be in for a surprise to hear that the average player
is not your teenage son. The average player is 33 years old
and has been playing for 12 years. Another surprising fact
is that women older than 18 represent 38% of the game-
playing population. There’s one more surprising group:
25% of Americans over the age of 50, who also played
video or computer games in 2005. Almost half of all the
players say they play games online one or more hours per
week. // Obviously, video and computer games are here to
stay, and we have to find ways of reaching out to young
people with educational games.
Procedure
The following procedure can be adapted and used as a template
for any news item. If you wish to use this particular activity,
designed for ages 12 and up, you will need to record the script.
1 Prior to listening, discuss the topic with your students.
Introduce the vocabulary you anticipate will be challenging
for them.
2 Discuss the strategies they usually use when listening. How
do they approach a listening task? Do they focus only on the
words they know and ignore the rest? Do they focus more on
stressed (louder) words? Do they pay attention to how things
are said (tone)?
3 Write the list of words below on the board (in any sequence).
Check if the students know the meanings. Put them into
groups and ask them to create a story or a news item using
all the words. Have them present it to the class.
video and computer game sales teenage son
one or more hours per week women
Americans over the age of 50 two games
average player play
doubled online
4 Dictate the following list of words/word clusters to the class.
Then ask the students to listen and tick the words they hear.
household ten years
tripled girls
three games Americans over the age of 50
average player games are here to stay
• www.etprofessional.com • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • Issue 57 July 2008 •
5 This news item can be divided into three segments (see the
double slashes in the script). Stop the recording after each
segment and have students circle the sentence that best
summarises that part of the text.
Segment 1 a) Video and computer games sell well.
b) Each person in the States bought two games
in 2004.
Segment 2 a) People over 50 play games most.
b) People of all ages play games.
Segment 3 a) Young people like educational games.
b) We need to encourage young people to play
educational games.
6 Play the text, sentence by sentence. Ask a question or two
after each sentence. Ask for details. For example, Where
have the sales doubled? Since when?
7 Provide the students with a copy of the following cloze
exercise. Pause the recording after each chunk to give the
students time to write things down. Play the recording as
many times as they need.
Video and computer game …… in the States have ……..
between 1996 and 2005. In 2004, more than 248 million
computer and video games were …….., which means that
every …….. in the States …………. almost two games. //
Who plays video and computer games most? You may be
…………… to hear that the average player is not your
………… son. The average player is 33 years old, and has
been playing for 12 years. Another ……………. fact is that
women older than 18 represent 38% of the game-playing
……………... There’s one more surprising group: 25% of
Americans over the age of 50, who also played video or
computer games in 2005. Almost …………. of all the players
say they play games ……………. one or more hours per
week.
8 Get the whole class to assist in writing a transcript of the last
sentence. Discuss how the preposition to is pronounced.
9 Do one or more of these follow-up activities:
● Write a paragraph about some of the problems that can
occur if children spend too much time playing video
games.
● Describe a video game you have played or you know of.
● Select a game of your preference (if you play video games)
and say why you feel it’s the best game ever.
● In groups of four, have a panel discussion taking the
following roles: the owner of a company that manufactures
video games, a parent, a teacher, a teenager who loves
playing.
21