Approaches to listening in the TEFL classroom

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Approaches to Listening in the TEFL Classroom

Listening – a Reception Skill

Listening is known as a receptive skill whereby the listener receives information.

Listening in a second language is often seen as one of the more difficult skills to develop.

ESL students have to deal with various issues such as the speed of the language, boring

topics, unfamiliar sounds, words and structures.

It is essential that the TEFL teacher prepare pre-listening tasks in order to build

confidence, generate interest and to better help students understand.

It would therefore seem reasonable for second language learners to need a reason to listen in

order to focus their attention.

The first task set should ideally be relatively easy for the students to complete and should

offer a general understand of the text.

A post-listening activity may simply be a reaction to the text in the form of a general

class discussion regarding content.

There are two approaches to be adopted to the ‘receptive’ skill of listening: Listening for Gist and Listening for Specific Information.

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