Teaching of Listening

Teaching of
Listening
John Rae V. Duran
Have you experienced or
encountered this?
How about this one?
“Listening is the Cinderella skill in
second language learning” (Nunan,
2009). Professor Nelson Brooks
(Audio-lingual)
It came in to
fashion during
1960’s when oral
language skills
gave boost and
the declination of
direct method.
Harold Palmer and A.S. Hornsby

(Oral Approach and Situational Language Learning)
2009).
It became
fashionable when
Krashen’s ideas
about
comprehensible
input gained Theory of Second
prominence in Language Acquisition
1980s.
2009).
Teaching listening
was reinforced by
James Asher as
sustenance on
Krashen’s theory.
TPR
2009).
Also in the same year, developing
oracy was given equal importance
with literacy not only to the ESL
learners, but also the native speakers.
What is Listening?
Basis for Comparison Hearing Listening
Listening is something
Hearing refers to
done consciously,
one's ability to
that involve the
Meaning perceive sounds, by
analysis and
receiving vibrations
understanding of the
through ears.
sounds you hear.
What is it? An ability A skill
Primary and Secondary and
Nature
continuous temporary
Act Physiological Psychological
http://keydifferences.com/difference-between-hearing-and-
listening.html#ixzz4plsvRzEi
What is Listening?
Interpretation of the
Receipt of message
Involves message received by
through ears.
ears.
Process Passive bodily process Active mental process
Occurs at Subconscious level Conscious level
Use of senses Only one More than one
What is Listening?
We are neither aware nor We listen to acquire

Reason we have any control over knowledge and receive
the sounds we hear. information.
Concentration Not required Required
Models of
Listening
Bottom-Up Model
Top-Down Model
Interactive Model
The Bottom-up Model
Developed in the year 1940s to 1950s.
 It assumes that listening is a process of

decoding the sounds that one hears in a
linear fashion, from the smallest
meaningful units (or phonemes) to
complete texts.
 It follows a traditional view of
communication as the transmission of
information.
The Bottom-up Model
It starts with
 small units of the acoustic message;
 Then combination of small units into
words;
 Then, combination of words into
phrases, clauses and sentences; and
 Finally, creation of ideas and concepts
and relationships from the combined
sentences.
The Top-down Model
 Emphasizes on the use of the prior
knowledge in processing a text rather
than relying upon the individual sounds
and words.
 “listeners rely on more than just the
acoustic signal to decode a verbal
message; they rely on the prior contextual
knowledge as well. “
 Schema Theory is the theoretical
underpinning of this model.
The Top-down Model
 Studies have shown that subjects’ levels
of comprehension are considerably
higher if the subjects are already familiar
with the subject matter.
 Listening is purpose-driven in this model,
and listeners attend to what they need.
The Interactive Model
 The top-down and bottom-up model are
both necessary in listening.
 Rumelhart developed the model.
 The theory used in this model was applied
for reading, but it can also be used in
listening.
 Language is processed simultaneously at
different levels.
 Parallel processing, phonological,
syntactic, semantic and pragmatic
information interact.
The Interactive Model
 Theadvantage of this model among the
other two is that it allows for the possibility
of individual variation in linguistic
processing.
Second Language Listeners
 L2 listeners are less
ENVIRONMENT
privileged than the L1
listeners.
 L1 listeners will able to SENSORY
access automatic MEMORY
processing devices;
while the L2 , if he/she SHORT-TERM
did not acquire the MEMORY
skill yet, needs to rely
on controlled
LONG-TERM
processing. MEMORY
Types of Oral Languages
Adapted from Nunan (1991)
Monologue Dialogue
Interpersonal
Transactional
Planned
Unfamiliar Familiar
Unplanned
Unfamiliar Familiar
What Makes Listening Difficult?
 As you design your lesson plans, you need
to consider the special characteristics of
spoken language. As TESL (Teaching
English as Second Language), you need
to pay special attention of these
characteristics.
 The Eight (8) characteristics of spoken
language are adapted from Dunkel
(1991), Richards (1983), and Ur (1984)
The Eight (8) characteristics of spoken
language are adapted from Dunkel (1991),
Richards (1983), and Ur (1984)
Clustering
In spoken
language, due to
memory limitations and
our predisposition for
“chunking”, we break
down speech into
smaller group of words.
Redundancy
In spoken
language,
redundancy is
always noticeable.
Reduced
Forms
Spoken language has
many reduced forms.
It can be
phonological,
morphological,
syntactic or
pragmatic
Performance
Variables
In spoken language,
hesitations, false starts,
pauses, and corrections
are common, but can
also affect the listening
comprehension
especially ESL learners.
Colloquial
Language
Idioms, slang,
reduced forms, and
shared cultural
knowledge are all
part of spoken
language.
Rate of Delivery
The number and
length of pauses are
more crucial to
comprehension than
sheer speed
(Richards, 1983).
Stress, Rhythm,
and Intonation
English is a stress-
time language.
Intonations, on the
other hand, are very
important in
delivering the content
of the message.
Interaction
the spoken word
is subject to rules of
interaction:
negotiation,
clarification,
attending signals,
turn-taking, and topic
nomination.
Microskills in Listening
1. Retain chunks of language of different lengths in
shot-term memory.
2. Discriminate among the distinctive sounds of
English.
3. Recognize English stress patterns, words in stressed
and unstressed positions, intonation contours, and
their role in signaling information.
4. Recognized reduced forms of words.
5. Distinguished word boundaries, recognize a core of
words, and interpret word order patterns and their
significance.
6. Process speech at different rates of delivery.
7. Process speech containing pauses, errors,
corrections, other performance variables.
8. Recognize grammatical words classes, systems,
patterns, rules, and elliptical forms.
9. Detect sentence constituents and distinguish
between major and minor constituents
10. Recognize that a particular meaning may be
expressed in different grammatical forms.
11. Recognize cohesive devices in spoken discourse.
12. Recognize communicative functions of utterances,
according to situation, participants, goals.
13. Infer situations, participants, goals using real-world
knowledge.
14. From events, ideas, etc., described, predict
outcomes, infer links and connections between
events, deduce causes and effects, and detect
such relations as main idea, supporting idea, new
information, given information, generalization, and
exemplification
15. Distinguish between literal and implied meanings.
16. Use facial, kinesics, body language, and other
nonverbal cues to decipher meanings.
17. Develop and use a battery of listening strategies
Types of Classroom Listening
Performance
• Reactive
• Intensive
• Responsive
• Selective
• Extensive
• Interactive
Reactive Listening
☻requires little meaningful processing
☻This role of the listener as merely “tape
recorder” (Nunan, 1991b:18) must be very
limited, otherwise the listener as a
generator of meaning does not reach
fruition.
☻ the only role that this performance
can play in an interactive classroom is in
brief choral or individual drills that
focus on pronunciation
Intensive Listening
☻ Techniques whose only focus is to focus
on components (phonemes, words,
intonation, discourse markers, etc.) of
discourse
☻ Include bottom-up skills
☻refers to using the incoming input as the

basis for understanding the message
Examples of intensive listening
performance:
• Students listen for cues in certain choral
or individual drills
• The teacher repeats a word or sentence
several times to “imprint” it in the
student’s mind
☻ The teacher asks students to listen to a
sentence or a longer stretch of discourse
and to notice a specified element, e.g.,
intonation, stress, a contraction, a
grammatical structure, etc.
Responsive Listening
☻A significant proportion of classroom listening
activity consists of short stretches of teacher
language designed to elicit immediate responses.
☻The students’ task in such listening is
to process the teacher talk immediately and
to fashion an appropriate reply.
Examples include:
☻Asking questions
☻Giving commands
☻Seeking clarification
☻Checking comprehension
Selective Listening
☻Task of the student is not to
process everything that was said but
rather to scan the material selectively for
certain information
☻Requires field independence on the part of
the listener
☻ Differs from intensive listening in that
the discourse is in relatively long lengths
• Examples of such discourse include:
☻speeches
☻media broadcasts
☻stories and anecdotes
☻conversation in which learners are
eavesdroppers
Techniques promoting selective listening skills
could ask students to listen for:
☻peoples names
☻dates
☻certain facts or events
☻location, situation, context, etc.
☻main ideas and/or conclusion
Extensive Listening
☻could range from listening to lengthy lectures

to listening to a conversation and deriving
a comprehensive message or purpose
☻aims to develop a top-down, global
understanding of spoken language
☻refers to the use of background

knowledge in understanding the meaning of
a message
☻may require the student to invoke other
interactive skills (e.g., note taking,
discussion) for full comprehension
Interactive Listening
☻include all five of the above types
as learners actively participate in discussions,
debates, conversations, role-plays, and other
pair and group work.
☻their listening performance must be
intricately integrated with speaking (and
perhaps other) skills in the authentic give and
take of communicative interchange
Principles for Designing Listening
Techniques
Do not overlook the importance of techniques
that specifically develop listening
comprehension competence.
Techniques
Use techniques that are intrinsically
motivating
Techniques
Utilize authentic language and contexts
Techniques
Carefully consider the form of listener’s responses
 Doing
 Choosing
 Transferring
 Answering
 Condensing
 Extending
 Duplicating
 Modelling
 conversing
Techniques
Encourage the development of listening
strategies
Techniques
Use Interactive Listening Model
Teaching of
Reading
John Rae V. Duran
RESEARCH ON READING A SECOND
LANGUAGE
 1970 – Research about reading flourished;

 The difference between bottom-up (Gough)
and Top-down (Goodman) was established.
 The connection of schema and background
knowledge to reading was also established.
 The role of affect and culture in reading.
 The power of extensive reading.
Reading Defined
“reading is the key to success.”

– Smith and Dechant
“Reading is the key that unlocks the door to

the world of enlightenment and enjoyment,
and the basic tool for learning in the content
field.
- Villamin
Reading Defined
 Reading is typically bringing meaning to rather
than the gaining meaning from the printed
page.
 Reading involves much more than recognition
of the graphic symbol; it includes even the
arousal of meaning or the gaining of meaning
from printed symbols.
 Reading is the process in which information
from the text and the knowledge possessed by
the reader get together to produce meaning.
Reading Defined
 Reading consists of two major components:
recognizing and analyzing words; often
referred to as decoding, and understanding
words and ideas often called
comprehension.
Theoretical Models of Reading
Murray’s interactive theory

postulates that reading is an
interaction involving the reader
and the text being read.
 Ehri enumerates the various information
sources as:
1.) Knowledge of language, which enables
the reader to recognize sentences and
1.1 syntax
1.2 semantics
1.3 pragmatics
sources as:
2.) Knowledge of the word/background
knowledge.
3.) Metacognitive knowledge which enables

readers to monitor their own comprehension
to ascertain whether the information makes
sense and meets specific purposes.
sources as:
4.) Knowledge of the alphabetic-phonemic
systems involves knowing how the spelling
system represents speech, how to transfer
graphemes into phonemes.
Perceptual Nature of Reading
Reading act is on perception

rather than sensation and it ison
meaning rather than on the
symbol.
Learning Principles of Reading
 The capacities of the learner are very
important
 Motivated learner learns better than non-
motivated learner.
 Too intense motivation is not good.
 Learning motivated to earn success is
better than learning motivated to avoid
failure.
 Learning under intrinsic motivation is preferable
to learning under extrinsic motivation.
 Tolerance for failure is best taught through
providing a backlog of success that
compensates for experienced failure.
 Individuals need practice in setting realistic
goals for themselves, goals neither so low as to
elicit little effort nor so high as to foreordain
failure
 The personal history of the individual may
hamper or enhance his ability to learn.
 Active participation is better than passive
participation.
 Meaningful materials and tasks are learned
more readily than the nonsense materials and
tasks.
 Repetitive practices are the best in learning.
 Feedback is very important in learning.
 Transfer of new task is effective if the
learner can connect it to the real-setting.
 Recalls are very advantageous in
learning.
 Learning is encouraged when it takes
place under conditions that enhance the
personality adjustment of the learner.
Factors that Affect Reading
Physiological Factor
Eyes should move rhythmically and
regularly along the printed line if reading is
to be effective.
Skills involve in reading
 Auditory and visual discrimination
 Eye-hand coordination
 Motor skills
Technical Terms in Reading
 Fixation
– made when the eyes stop.
 Interfixation movements
- caused by the eyes which
move from one stopping to another.
 Return Sweeps
- quick swinging back of the eyes
from the end of the line to the beginning
of the next line.
 Regressions
- backward or right-to-left movements
made in reverse direction.
Intellectual Factors
Psychological Factors
Linguistic Factors
Sociological Factors
 Span of Recognition
perception span is the number of
words taken every time the eyes stop.
 Durationof fixation
length of time the eyes pause. Average
readers make four stops per seconds.
Reading as a Developmental
Task
Reading process is known as DEVELOPMENTAL
READING!
 Reading Readiness
 Beginning Reading
 Period of Rapid Growth
 Period of Refinement
Teaching Basic
Comprehension Skills
Basic word recognition is the

fundamental step in reading
comprehension.
Basic Comprehension Skills as per
definition
 Yoakam
Comprehending reading matter involves:
 the correct association of meanings with word symbols;
 the evaluation of meanings, which are suggested in
context;
 the selection of correct meaning;
 the organization of ideas as they are read;
 The retention of these ideas;
 The use of these ideas in some present or future activity.
definition
 Salazar
Comprehension encompasses all the reading
skills. It begins with word perception, recognition and
understanding, and makes use of study or
locational/research skills.
Comprehension is the means by which
appreciation skills are gained.
definition
 Salazar
Four main factors that could affect reading
comprehension:
1. prior knowledge;
2. interest in the subject;
3. purpose in reading; and
4. ability to decode.
Basic Comprehension Skills
 May
four categories of comprehension skills and sub-
skills:
1. Literal-thinking operations
a. Translating text into mental images
b. Following sequence of events, ideas, or cause-
effect
c. Remembering significant details
 May
skills:
2. Inferential-thinking operations
a. Making predictions
b. Reading between the lines
c. Recognizing main ideas
 May
skills:
3. Critical-thinking operations
a. Distinguishing fact from nonfactual
b. Detecting author bias
c. Evaluating according to criteria
 May
skills:
4. Creative-thinking operations
a. Intervening flexible alternatives to author’s
ideas or characters
b. Applying old ideas to new situations
c. Translating ideas into artistic mediums
 May
these skills can be translated into specific terms.
Comprehension skills include the ability to:
1. Identify main ideas
2. Recognize details
3. Develop mental images
4. Make inferences
5. Predict outcomes
6. Follow directions
 May
these skills can be translated into specific terms.
Comprehension skills include the ability to:
7. Recognize author’s organization
8. Read critically
a. Make judgments
b. Draw conclusions
c. Weed out irrelevant ideas
d. Recognize propaganda
Barett’s Taxonomy of Reading
This taxonomy classifies skills and
orders them according to their degree
of complexity. It consists of four
categories, each one designed to
identify a discrete subset of skills, as
follows:
1. Literal Recognition or Recall
• Recognition or recall of details
• Recognition or recall of main ideas
• Recognition or recall of sequences
• Recognition or recall of cause-and-effect
relationships
• Recognition or recall of character traits.
2. Inference
• Inferring supporting details
• Inferring the main ideas
• Inferring sequences
• Inferring comparisons
• Inferring cause-effect relationships
• Inferring character traits
• Predicting outcomes
• Inferring about figurative language
3. Evaluation
• Judgment of reality or fantasy
• Judgment of fact or opinion
• Judgment of adequacy or validity
• Judgment of appropriateness
• Judgment of worth, desirability or
acceptability
4. Appreciation
• Emotional response to plot or themes
• Identification with characters and incidents
• Reactions to the speaker’s use of language
• Imagery
The Three Levels of
Comprehension
 Level 1. Reading the Lines

 Level 2. Reading Between the Lines
 Level 3. Reading Beyond the Lines
Fraenkel’s Taxonomy of Questions
Recall Question
The purpose of this kind of question
is to determine if the students have
acquired or obtained a desired amount
of factual information.
 DescriptiveQuestion
Help student put together and
organize facts, which they have gathered
and make some sense out of their data.
Students might be asked to describe,
compare, contrast, or compare and
contrast data.
Explanatory Question
student must tell why they think as
they do; in short, they must explain the
reason behind their answer.
Synthesizing Questions
students are going to suggest
connections or relationships that they
believe contain data support, and on
what basis.
Judgmental Questions
students are going to choice
among alternatives, making a judgment
as to which tow or more possibilities are
best according to some established
criteria.
Open-ended Questions
require students to seek and
determine for themselves what they
consider to be acceptable answers.
Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy
Purposes of Questions
To stimulate students to think.
To motivate pupils.
To diagnose student’s difficulties.
To help students organize and
evaluate.
To discover student’s interest.
To aid students to relate pertinent
experiences to the lesson.
To focus student’s attention on the key
points of a lesson.
 To develop new appreciations and
attitudes.
 To provide drill or practice.
To show relationships.
To encourage the application of
concepts
To encourage student evaluation.
Characteristics of a Good
Question
 A good question is simple and clear
Question
 A good question is definite.
Question
 A good question is definite.
Question
A good question is challenging and

provoking.
Question
A good question is adopted to the
age, abilities, and interest of the
students.
Question
A good question
 requires an
extended response.
Do’s in Asking Questions
Ask questions that are stimulating and
not merely testing or drill.
Ask questions that are commensurate
with student’s abilities.
Ask questions that are relevant to the
students.
Ask questions that are sequential.
Vary the length and difficulty of
questions.
Ask questions that are clear and
simple.
Encourage students to ask each other
questions and to make comments.
Allow sufficient time for deliberation.
Follow-up incorrect answers.
Call on non-volunteers and volunteers.
Call on disruptive students
Write the objective and summary of
the lesson as question, preferably as a
problem.
Change your position and move
around the room.

Teaching of Listening

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Teaching of

Harold Palmer and A.S. Hornsby

Process Passive bodily process Active mental process

Occurs at Subconscious level Conscious level

Use of senses Only one More than one

We are neither aware nor We listen to acquire

Concentration Not required Required

Developed in the year 1940s to 1950s.

 It assumes that listening is a process of

☻refers to using the incoming input as the

☻could range from listening to lengthy lectures

☻refers to the use of background

 1970 – Research about reading flourished;

“reading is the key to success.”

“Reading is the key that unlocks the door to

Murray’s interactive theory

3.) Metacognitive knowledge which enables

Reading act is on perception

Basic word recognition is the

 Level 1. Reading the Lines

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