H.

D BROWN’S Principles for Teaching

Listening Skills

Principle #1
Include a FOCUS ON LISTENING in an
integrated-skill course
“Teachers sometimes incorrectly assume that
the input provided in the classroom will always
be converted into intake.”
H.D BROWN’S Principles for Teaching
Listening Skills

Principle #2
Use techniques that are
INTRINSICALLY MOTIVATING
“Teachers should try appealing to
students’ interests and personal goals.”
H.D BROWN’S Principles for Teaching
Listening Skills

Principle #3
Utilize AUTHENTIC LANGUAGE and
CONTEXTS
“Authentic language and real-life tasks enable
students to see the relevance of classroom
activities to their long-term communicative goals.”
H.D BROWN’S Principles for Teaching
Listening Skills

Principle #4
Carefully CONSIDER THE FORM of
listeners’ responses.
“Teachers must design techniques in such a way
that the students’ responses indicate whether or
not their comprehension has been correct.”
 Lund (1990) offered nine different ways
that we can check listeners’ comprehension:

1. Doing 1. Extending
2. Choosing 2. Duplicating
3. Transferring 3. Modeling
4. Answering 4. Conversing
5. Condensing
H.D BROWN’S Principles for Teaching
Listening Skills

Principle #5
ENCOURAGE the development of
LISTENING STRATEGIES
“The key for teachers is to help the
students develop their own overall strategic
competence/strategies for effective
listening.”
Listening Strategies
• Looking For Key Words
• Looking For Nonverbal Cues To Meaning
• Predicting A Speaker’s Purpose By The
Context Of The Spoken Discourse
• Associating Information With One’s Existing
Cognitive Structure (Activating Background
Information)
Listening Strategies

• guessing at meaning
• seeking clarification
• listening for the general gist
• various test-taking strategies for
listening comprehension
 H.D BROWN’S Principles for Teaching
Listening Skills

Principle #6
Include both BOTTOM-UP and TOP-DOWN
LISTENING TECHNIQUES.

“Bottom-up processing proceeds from sounds

to words to grammatical relationships to lexical
meanings, etc., to a final “message.”
“Top-down processing is evoked from “a
bank of prior knowledge and global
expectations” (Morley, 1991) and other
background information that the listener
brings to the text.”
 Problems that Language Learners Face
During Listening

1.Text (phonology and speech rate, discourse features, text

types)
2.Task (interlocutor)
3.Listener (language proficiency, gender, memory, interest,
purpose, prior knowledge, attention of pronunciation, topic
familiarity, and established learning habits.)
4.Process (processing)
 STAGES IN A PRE-LISTENING
LISTENING LESSON WHILE LISTENING
POST LISTENING
PRE-LISTENING STAGE
• Teachers need to recognize that all students bring
different backgrounds to the listening experience
(beliefs, values, attitudes and biases).

• Before listening, students need assistance to activate

what they already know about the ideas they are
going to hear.
• Simply being told the topic is not enough.

• Pre-listening activities are required to establish what

is already known about the topic, to build necessary
background, and to set up purposes for listening.
 STRATEGIES
1) Activating Existing Knowledge (brainstorm, discuss, view
films or photos and write and share journals)
2) Build Prior Knowledge
3) Review Standards for listening
> Students have to be physically prepared for listening.
> Students need to be attentive.
> Listen to others as you would have them listen to you.
4) Establish purpose (why am I listening? What is my purpose?)
Before a speaker’s presentation, teachers also can have students
formulate questions that they predict will be answered during
presentation.
Additional Strategy, TQLR:
TUNE – IN
QUESTION
LISTEN
REVIEW

5) Use a Listening Guide

SAMPLE PRE-LISTENING ACTIVITIES
by Hall Houston
https://www.eflmagazine.com/ten-pre-listening-activities/

MIND MAP
• Write the word gardens in the middle of the board, in big letters.
• Draw a circle around it. Give a student a board marker, and ask
the student to think of a word that relates to gardens and write
it on the board.
• Then ask him to draw a line from “gardens” to the word, and
write a circle around the word.
• Repeat these steps until there are seven different words on the
board.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
• Write the following questions on the board.
 What is the most famous garden in your country? Why is it
famous?
 Do you have a garden in your home? Why or why not?
 Which country is well-known for its gardens?

• Put students into pairs, and ask them to discuss. After a few minutes,
call on several students to give you their answers.
EXPLORING PICTURES
• Find pictures of English and Japanese gardens and put these on
PowerPoint slides to show to the class.
• Each time you present a picture, ask a student to give you an
adjective that describes the picture. Option: Put pictures (preferably
color) of English and Japanese gardens on large sheets of poster
paper (one picture per poster).
• Tape the paper up on the wall, and ask students to circulate.
• Encourage them to write their reactions on the posters, next to the
picture.
 GROUP ACTIVITY
• Upon knowing the function, importance, strategies and points to
consider of what should contain a pre-listening stage. Try to design at
least two (2) pre-listening activities or games considering that teachers
help the students in this stage to be prepared in the listening task.
Topic:
TITLE OF THE ACTIVITY:
OBJECTIVE/S:
MECHANICS/DIRECTIONS: (AT Least 4-5 bullets)
• And Share/present the activities/games you have designed in the class
 While LISTENING STAGE

• What students are asked to do during listening

time. The listening tasks should be enjoyable and
meaningful to students. It should be simple and
easy to handle. It should provide opportunities for
students to succeed.

• Students must understand the implication of rate in

the listening process.
Nichols (1948) found that people listen and think
at four times the normal conversation rate.

Students have to be encouraged to use the “rate

gap” to actively process the message.
EFFECTIVE LISTENERS:
• Connect
• Find meaning
• Question
• Make and confirm predictions
• Make inferences
• Reflect and evaluate
• Comprehension is enormously improved when the speaker’s
schema or organizational pattern is perceived by the listener
(Devine, 1982).

Teach the students about;

• Various structures
• Organizational patterns
• Transitional devices
Key Signal Expressions:
• EXAMPLE WORDS – for example, for instance, thus, in other
words, as in illustration.
• TIME WORDS – first, second, third, meanwhile, next, finally
etc.
• ADDITION WORDS – in addition, also, furthermore, moreover,
another example.
• RESULT WORDS – as a result, so, accordingly, therefore, thus
• CONTRAST WORDS – however, but, in contrast, on the other
hand etc.
• Most students need practice in making inferences
while listening.

• Teachers can also encourage guided imagery when

students are listening presentations that have many
visual images, details, or descriptive words.
 NOTE-MAKING
“Listening with pen in hand”
• Forces students to attend to the message.
Devine (1982) suggests strategies such as the following;

1. Give questions in advance and remind listeners to listen

for possible answers.

2. Provide a rough outline, map, chart, or graph for

students.
3. Have students jot down “new to me” items
(simple lists of facts or insights that the
listener has not heard before).

4. Use a formal note-taking system.

TRANSCRIBING or writing down live or
recorded speech can sharpen students'’
listening, spelling, and punctuation skills.
CRITICAL THINKING
Plays a major role in effective listening. Listening in
order to analyze and evaluate requires students to
evaluate a speaker’s arguments and the values of
ideas, appropriateness of evidence, and the persuasive
techniques employed.
Planning and Structuring classroom activities to model
and encourage students. Students should learn:

1) Analyze the message

2) Analyze the speaker
3) Analyze the speaker’s evidence
4) Analyze the speaker’s reasoning
5) Analyze the speaker’s emotional appeals
Answer Key!

1. A 1. B • Condensing
2. C 2. B • Extending
3. A 3. C • Duplicating
4. B 4. B • Modeling
5. B 5. C • Conversing
6. A 16 – 20 (Five only)
7. C • Doing 21 H.D Brown
8. D • Choosing
9. C • Transferring
10.B • Answering
22 - 27

22.Include a FOCUS ON LISTENING in an integrated-skill course

23.Use techniques that are INTRINSICALLY MOTIVATING
24.Utilize AUTHENTIC LANGUAGE and CONTEXTS
25.Carefully CONSIDER THE FORM of listeners’ responses.
26.ENCOURAGE the development of LISTENING STRATEGIES
27.Include both BOTTOM-UP and TOP-DOWN LISTENING
TECHNIQUES
28 - 32

28.To be able to engage in social rituals

29.To get information
30.To be able to respond to “controls”
31.To respond to
32.To enjoy
33 - 37

33.Receiving
34.Understanding
35.Remembering
36.Evaluating
37.Responding

38.Marginal/Passive Listening
39.Critical/Analytical
40.Appreciative