Teaching Listening

Winjeel.Com
Back • Home • Up

Special Message:

Everything comes in cycles: with every downturn; there'll be an upturn.

Get these as cards

Get these as prints for your walls

English Language Teaching (ELT)

ELT Theories: Teaching Listening

Sheerin, in 1987, now quite famously asked if we were teaching listening or were we testing it?

Unfortunately today, still many teachers (or language schools demand) that we test students listening abilities, in place of teaching them listening.

Testing Listening

It's quite simple really. Just give them the questions, have them read and familarise themselves with the questions. Pre-teach the vocabulary and grammar. Then play the CD (perhaps pausing at strategic moments) and have the students answer the questions. Then move on to the next activity.

Teaching Listening

This is were we teachers earn our money. There's no good way suggested yet, but this is perhaps the best makeshift effort that we can muster:

	Pre-teach vocabulary and grammar
	Give comprehension questions and have them familiarise themselves with these
	Pre-teach any salient pronunciation and phonetic characteristics, including: word pronunciation; sentence pronunciation; intonation patterns (and their meanings); any word assimilations and reduced forms.
	Have students practice pronouncing and saying these features.
	Refamiliarise students with vocabulary, grammar and questions
	Play the CD (pausing at strategic points for them to discern the answer to some questions), perhaps reviewing key phonetic points, and finish playing the CD.
	Check answers, and review key problems, and perhaps play the CD just once more.
	Then move onto a pronunciation / dialogue practice which uses these salient pronunciation and phonetic points.

References

Sheerin, S. (1987). ‘Listening Comprehension: Teaching or Testing?’. ELT Journal. 41(2), 126-31.

We proudly support:

Like us? Why not visit again: