How to teach Listening in Communicative approach

Teach listening in
Tieng Anh
Principles behind the
teaching of listening
Principle 1: The tape recorder is just as important as the tape
Principle 2: Preparation is vital
Principle 3: Once will not be enough

Principle 4: Students should be encouraged to respond to the content of a listening, not just to the language
Principle 5: Different listening stages demand different listening tasks
Principle 6: Good teachers exploit listening texts to the full.
Features of a good listening task
Gets students to think before they listen.
Helps them link what they expect to hear with what they know about the subject.
Helps them predict and therefore understand more quickly.
Provides them with a purpose for listening.
Exploits differences in answers through pairwork share/compare activities.
Stages in a listening lesson
Before-you-listen stage
While-you-listen stage
After-you-listen stage
Before you listen
Introducing general content of the listening passage
Practising designed warming-up activities in the textbook
Making use of pictures (if any) to present new vocabulary

Pre-listening activity starts before Ss listen to the text but is completed after they have listened to the text in order to check their answers.
Presenting more words/phrases from tapescripts
Getting students to pronounce words/phrases carefully
Reviewing already-presented grammatical patterns
Presenting new grammatical patterns (if any)
Asking students to predict content of the listening

Some examples of pre-listening activities
T/F statements Prediction
Open Prediction
Ordering (jumbled statements or pictures)
Pre-questions
Brainstorming
While you listen
Giving clear instructions for the listening task (rephrasing textbook instructions if necessary)
Playing the tape once (non-stop) for students to get general content of the listening
Providing other activities from textbook for slower classes
When Ss do the main listening activity, getting Ss to focus on the facts or the details
Moving from simpler tasks to more complicated ones
Playing the tape several times (non-stop or with pauses if students need help)
Breaking long tapescripts into sections to facilitate the listening



Selecting
Deliberate mistakes
Grids
Listen and draw
Gap-filling
MCQs
Answering information questions
Matching
T/F information
Numbering pictures...
Some examples of while-listening activities
After you listen
Practising designed post-listening activities in textbook.
Summarising listening passages in spoken or written form
Relating to students’ own experience
Extending the topic to oral or written presentations
This activity intergrates other skills like speaking and writting
Some examples of post-listening activities
Recall the story
Write it up
Roleplay
Further practice
Discussion
What if students do NOT understand the listening tape?
Introduce interview questions: Questions can be given first and students are encouraged to role-play the interview before listening. This will increase their predictive power.
What if students do NOT understand the listening tape?
Use ‘jigsaw listening’: Different groups are given different bits of the tapescript. When the groups hear about each other’s pieces of tapescript, they can get the whole picture.
What if students do NOT understand the listening tape?
One task only: Non-demanding tasks can be assigned such as listening and deciding on the sex, age, status of the speaker or the setting of the listening.
What if students do NOT understand the listening tape?
Use the tapescript (1): It can be cut into bits for students to put in the right order as they listen.
What if students do NOT understand the listening tape?
Use the tapescript (2): Students can look at the tapescript to gain more confidence and ensure what the tape is about.
What if students do NOT understand the listening tape?
Use the tapescript (3): Students can look at the tapescript before, during, or after they listen. The tapescript can also have words or phrases blanked out.
Designing a listening test
Some reminders on the listening passage
Length
Lexical density
Use of words
Grammatical patterns
Designing a listening test
Some reminders on the listening tasks
Graded tasks
Cueing tasks
Single purpose tasks
Over-demanding tasks
Designing a listening test
Some common types of listening tasks
Matching
Gap-filling
True/False statements
Short answers
Multiple choice questions
Open-ended questions
Table/graph completing
Designing a listening test
Some common types of MCQ listening tasks
Main idea questions
Rephrasing questions
Reference questions
Vocabulary questions
Inference questions
Designing a listening test
Some common types of MCQ listening tasks
6. Negative questions
7. Attitudinal questions
8. Organisational questions
9. Topic-adjacency questions
10. Analogy questions