Teaching

Listening
Outline:

I. Introduction
II. Characteristics of spoken English
III. Why listening is difficult
IV. Bottom-up vs. top-down models
V. Why should we listen
VI. The place of listening in language teaching
VII.Communicative language teaching
VIII.Listening and language learning/ six myths
introduction

 Listening vs. Hearing (attending, understanding, interpreting, resonding, and

remembering)

 Humans vs. Animals

 Types of listening we engage in: gist, specific information, in detail, inferential
 I. Characteristics of spoken English

1. Over space vs. over time

2. Features of speech: elision, assimilation, and intrusion
3. Formulaic phrases becoming chunked
4. Listening is interactive (inner voice)
5. Features of attention signalling (vocatives, Qs-tags, response elicitors)
6. Spontaneity (false starts, hesitations, redundancy, ungr. Stcs) vs. writing
7. Listening is older than reading
II. Why listening is difficult

 Characteristics of the message

Mergers and acquisitions vs ………………………………

 Characteristics of the delivery: reciprocal vs. non-reciprocal

repair strategies vs. Inability of control and contribution

 Characteristics of the listener

concentration, side-tracking, motivation, MIT, age, tiredness, boredom, anxiety, memory.

 Characteristics of the environment

temperature, background knowledge, defective equipment
 III. Bottom-up vs. Top-down Models

Bottom-up: Decoding smaller units to meaning

Top-down: Using background knowledge to predict meaning
 Celce-Murcia and Olshtain group vs. Rost group vs. Interactive model
IV. The place of listening in language teaching

1. Development In linguistics, sociology, and anthropology

2. Spying
3. Generativism, input hypothesis, natural approach, humanistic
approaches, TPR (Asher’s),
V. Communicative Language Teaching

Information gap activities, games, role-plays, discussions

Communicative competence using mime, gestures, and interlanguage
VI. Listening and language learning: five myths

1. You can’t teach people how to listen

2. Listening is a passive skill
3. Easier for students to understand native speakers than foreign language speakers
4. Skills involved in listening to a foreign language are similar to those used in
listening to native speakers
5. Redundancy is not important
 I. Pre-listening

1. Activate the scheamata (what do I know?)

2. Reasons (why listen?)
3. Whta can I expect to hear?
Activating the schemata/predicting

a) Brainstorming
1. From one to many
2. Poster display
3. Brainwalking
4. Broadwriting
5. Shout to the scribe
b) Visuals
1. Pictures
2. Guess what’s happening
3. Picture story
4. Students as artists
5. Diagrams
c) Realia
1. Photos
2. Guides, maps, and brochures
3. Other objects
d) Texts and Words
4. Court case
5. Gap-filling Exercise
6. Key words
e) Sitautions
7. Functions
8. Mystery headlines
9. Problem-solving
f) Opinions, ideas, and facts
1. KWL
2. Speed writing
3. Group writing
4. Quotations
5. Backgrouding
6. Quizzes
7. Advanced organizers
 II. While-litening

 First task: The gradation of the tasks to fit students’ level of

comprehension.
 Second task: The second time students listen should demand a
greater and more detailed understanding of the text.
 Third listening task: It could just be a matter of checking their own
answers from the second task or could lead students towards some
more subtle interpretations of the text.
 III. Post-Listening
 There are two common forms that post-listening tasks can take.

1. Reaction to the text

2. Analysis of language
3. Reaching a consensus
Thank you