Listening

One of the main ideas relating to the listening skill is how spoken language differs from written language.
How many differences between spoken and written language can you recall?

Use these words to structure your answer.
- Durability.
- Formality.
- Complexity of language.
- Visual support.
- Structure.

While some listening subskills are similar to reading subskills, i.e. receptive skills, there are some obvious differences.

Predicting is a very useful listening subskill as it can help prepare us for a text, activating our background/previous knowledge and help provide a context.
Other subskills which are related to those we looked at in our Reading section include; listening for gist, listening for detail, inferring attitude and deducing meaning from context.

At a more basic level we can see differences between listening and reading subskills, for example, identifying minimal pairs, identifying important words through sentence stress and other features of connected speech.


What does all this mean for our classroom?

We have decisions to make before doing a listening activity with our students.

• What subskills do we want our students to practise? It is common to practise a range of subskills in one listening lesson. For example you could ask younger students to listen for rhyming words or examples of minimal pairs.
• Do we want to use an audio or video format? Video provides more context and allows students to observe gestures and facial expressions.
• Will we use authentic materials or simplified materials? Authentic materials can be more challenging but also more rewarding, while simplified materials can help build our students' listening confidence. 
• What types of tasks do we want our students to complete? This will be influenced by which subskill we want to practise and the type of text we are using.

There is a common structure to listening tasks that includes three main components.

1. Pre-listening tasks.

2. Main activities.

3. Post-listening tasks.

Here is an example of tasks from a video/listening lesson. At which stage (1,2 or 3) do you think these tasks would be used?



From here

 Now try to match some of these goals to either part 1,2 or 3 above.

a) To allow students further practice of language they have heard.
b) To check students general understanding of the text.
c) To help create a context.
d) To encourage students to link the content to their experiences.
e) To develop students' ability to infer attitude.
f) To activate any previous knowledge students may have on the topic.

Answers: 1. (c,f)    2.  (b,e)   3. (a, d).


For some excellent examples of structured listening activities visit Randall's ESL Lab.