2. Teaching Listening

Unit 9 Teaching Listening

省级精品课程－《英语教学法》龙岩学院外国语学院

English Language Teaching

Aims of the unit1. Why is listening so difficult for students?2. What do we listen to in everyday life?3. What are the characteristics of the

listening process?4. What are the principles of teaching

listening?5. What are the common activities in

teaching listening?


I The importance of teaching listening

1. Listening is one of the four basic skills of a language.

In Foreign language learning, both listening and reading are receptive skills, but listening can be more difficult than reading.



2. Listening is becoming more and more necessary to understand spoken English in many situations:•face-to-face conversations•telephone calls•business meetings•Lectures•Speeches•television


3. Why does listening seem so difficult for Chinese students?• Different speakers produce the same sounds

in different ways. ( dialects and accents, stresses, rhythms, intonations, mispronunciations)

• The speed of the input of spoken material can not be controlled;

• Spoken material is often heard only once. And the listener cannot pause the speaker to work out the meaning.

• Background noise• Memory and recurrence



II. The problems in listening of the Chinese

students1. Listening is often neglected in language teaching.

1) Lack of teaching materials; equipment; training in how to use the equipment; real-life situations where language learners need to understand spoken English; 2) Listening is not included on many important tests; 3) Lessons tend to test rather than to train students’ listening skills.



students2. Linguistic problems 1) Phonetics problems 2) Lexical problems 3) Grammar problems



students3. Cultural problems 1) Frank---mild and runabout/tactful 2) Thinking style 3) Local conditions and customs4. Psychological problems 1) Fear of difficulties 2) Lack of confidence 3) Care about faces 4) No need of listening skills省级精品课程－《英语教学法》龙岩学院外国语学院

Ⅲ. Characteristics of the listening process

1. What do we listen to in everyday life?

Task 2: How many situations can you think of where you listen to other people in our native language?

loudspeaker announcements, telephone conversations, radio news, interview, lesson, lecture, story-telling, shopping conversation, gossip, instructions, meetings, watching television, negotiations, watching movies, theatre show…


1. What do we listen to in everyday life?Task 3: Situations where Chinese people may need to listen to English : (P138)


The criteria of listening situations• Formal or informal?• Rehearsed or non-rehearsed?• Can the listener interact with the

speaker or not?



3. In real life listening has the following characteristics ( Ur, 1996):


2) Context The context of listening is usually known in

real life. The situation usually helps us predict what we are going to hear.

1) Spontaneity We often listen to people speaking spontaneously and informally without rehearsing what they are going to say ahead of time.


3) Visual Clue While listening, the speakers’ facial

expressions, gestures and other body language will provide us visual clues which can help us understand and predict what we hear.

4) Listener’s response Most of the listening allows the listener to

responds the speaker, whether they understand or not. 5) Speaker’s adjustment

The speaker can adjust the way of speaking according to the listener’s reactions.



Ⅳ. Principles for teaching listening

1. Two major purposes in listening: for social reasons to exchange information 2. Principles for teaching listening: 1) Focus on process 2) Combine listening with other skills 3) Focus on comprehending meaning 4) Grade difficult level appropriately



Task 5: For low intermediate class, what texts would you choose? In what order?

• A videotape of a talk by a native speaker about the school life of middle school students in the United States.

• A live talk by a competent English-speaking Chinese psychologist about effective study habits.

• An audiotape of an interview with a native English speaker talking about her experiences living in china.

• An audiotape of the news from CRI (China Radio International) 2.1.3.4


Principles for selecting and using listening activities:

• Oxford summarizes 12 principles for selecting and using L2 listening activities.( P141)

• Note: Doing listening tests instead of teaching some listening skill has two problems:

• Students don’t have opportunities to develop listening skills with other skills.

• Listening comprehension questions only test the students comprehension but not train them how to listen.


Ⅴ. Common activities in teaching listening

1. Teaching models Bottom-up model: In the bottom-up model,

listening comprehension is believed to start with sound and meaning recognitions. In other words, “we use information in the speech itself to try to comprehend the meaning”.



1. Teaching models

Top-down model: In this model, listening for gist and making use of the contextual clues and background knowledge to construct meaning are emphasized. In other words, listening comprehension involves knowledge that a listener brings to a text, sometimes called “inside the head” information.



2. Three teaching stages• Pre-listening: Help students prepare to listen; • While-listening:• Guide and help students to comprehend

the text.• Post-listening help them to integrate what they learned

from the text into existing knowledge



Pre-listening: • Look at some pictures before listening to

the passage.• Read the listening comprehension

questions before listening.• Set the scene for the students before

listening.• Listen for the gist of the passage.• Listen for specific information.



While-listening:• Listen and tick: List some objects. Then ask

students to listen and tick.• Listen and sequence: Listen and number;

listen and match• Listen and act: “Simon says…”, listen and

point.• Listen and draw: listen and color.• Listen and fill• Listen and find out• Listen and guess



Post-listening• True of false

• Multiple choice questions• Answering questions• Note-taking and gap-filling• Complete the dialogue • …


Ⅵ. Notes in teaching listening• Let students listen to authentic English: songs, rhymes, dialogues, short passages with normal speed and natural pronunciation and intonation• Let students be active in listening.• Always give students a purpose for listening


Conclusion We have discussed the followings:1. The importance of listening;2. The nature of listening, both in real

language use and in language classroom; 3. The difficulties that students experience in

developing listening skills. 4. A variety of activities in teaching listening.


The end of Unit 9

Documents

2. Teaching Listening