Activity 10: Key issues in teaching listening

Listening - Top Five

by Joana

1. Use pre-listening, while listening, and post-listening activities.

In my opinion the listening task is not only the “while listening activity”, I think that teachers should provide students with a pre-listening task which could consist on commenting the possible words, or vocabulary, that might appear in the listening, guessing what the listening is about. Then do the listening activity, and after it a post-listening activity, maybe a debate or look at the tape script and see how the speaker has conveyed the meaning, among many other options.

2. Find the "right stuff"

I always recommend my students to take their favorite song and look at the lyrics, watch their favorite movie in original version and subtitles in English. I think that if they listen to something they already like they are more prone to learn, they have a positive attitude towards the learning experience and therefore their affective filter is lowered.

3. Focus on interpersonal listening

Listening not only occurs in class where the teacher plays a CD and you listen to it, listening is half of a conversation in the real life. Teachers should provide their students with strategies to give ongoing feedback, to ask for clarifications if they do not understand what they are being told. Understanding what we hear is important but we should also be able to react and become active members of the conversations we are engaged.

4. Provide students opportunities for individualization in listening

I think this has to be with the multiple intelligences theory; not every student learns the same ways, therefore if we want all of them to be successful in listening we should provide them with a wide range of different activities and strategies to understand better. Teachers should be aware of the different needs of the students in the class and try to fulfill all of them.

5. Practice, practice, practice

This is one of the most important points; teachers can show the students as many techniques and strategies for listening as they want to but students learn how to listen by listening. As a teacher I always try to provide my students with a lot of practice, in every class we do a listening activity.