Developing Listening Skills

Listening

Lukong N. Nicholas (1988) claims that the exercise most widely used by those who try to teach listening comprehension involves the following steps:

1. The teacher chooses a passage that he/she thinks is suitable for his/her group of students and sets comprehension questions on it.

2. He/She introduces the text by either giving its background

3.He/She writes guide questions on the chalkboard or dictates them to the students . These are questions that require an understanding of the general ideas in the passage rather than detailed knowledge.

4. The teacher reads the text to the students for the first time and, after giving them time to answer the guide questions, discusses the answer with them.

5. He/She either dictates or writes more detailed questions on the chalkboard and then reads the passage to the students a second time.

6. The students are given time to answer the second set of questions in writing or to simply think about them. The teacher then discusses the answers with them.

7. The final step, which is optional, could consist of the teacher reading the text aloud once more.

If the text is long, it can be divided into sections and each section treated as a whole passage, with the teacher and the students going through all the above steps. An alternative exercise on the listening passage consists of the following steps:

a. Using the title as the trigger, the teacher asks the students to suggest the ideas they think might be discussed in the passage. He/she writes these on the chalkboard in the form of notes.

b. The teacher then reads the text to the students while they try to find out how many of the ideas do in fact occur in the passage.

c. The class discusses its findings and probably rounds up the study of the text with another reading of it by the teacher. In the first listening-passage exercise, as well as in the second, the teacher could, of course, have the passage prerecorded on tape, read either by himself/herself or by someone else.

Randall Rockey (1983) suggests that the Barrett Taxonomy of Reading Comprehension can be used as a guide for developing structures and leveled listening comprehension exercises. In brief, the taxonomy consists of four categories, each one designed to describe a discrete subset of skills:

1. Literal recognition or Recalla. Recognition or recall of details b. Recognition or recall of main ideasc. Recognition or recall of sequence d. Recognition or recall of comparisonse. Recognition or recall of cause-and-effects relationshipsf. Recognition or recall of character traits

2.Inferencea. Inferring supporting details b. Inferring the main ideasc. Inferring sequenced. Inferring comparisonse. Inferring cause-and-effect relationshipsf. Inferring character traitsg. Predicting outcomesh. Inferring figurative language

3. Evaluation a. Judgments of reality or fantasyb. Judgments of fact or opinionc. Judgments of adequacy or validityd. Judgments of appropriatenesse. Judgments of worth, desirability, or acceptability

4. Appreciationf. Emotional response to plot or themeg. Identification with the speakers use of languageh. Reactions to the speakers use of the languagei. Imagery

Celestre Zappolo (1985) presents some communication games which put extra emphasis on the task of the listener:

1. The Blindfolded Walk2. Picture Dictations 3. Menu Completion

Lorraine Valdez Pierce (1988) suggests that for listening and speaking activities at all levels, the teacher should provide for pre listening, listening, and post listening sessions. At intermediate and advanced levels, these might take the following form:

1. Pre listeninga. Set the students’ expectations about what are they going

to hear by using visual aidsb. Set the theme/topic/setting by discussing it with regard to

the students’ culture.c. Give a reason/purpose for listening; assign a concrete

task to be completed by them.

2. Listeninga. Make the students listen the first time for general

comprehensionb. Have them listen the second time, pausing after meaningful

“chunks” of language to discuss what has been said and what will follow, and checking for comprehension.

c. Make them listen several more times, stopping to answer their questions and to create pauses for language processing.

d. Allow time for completion of the listening task. The students should be responding in some physical way to the listening the passage, either by indicating appropriate pictures or answer to multiple-choice questions, completing a close exercise, filling in the blanks of incomplete sentences or of a grid, or writing short answers to the questions

e. Make students listen the final time. Then ask them to confirm that they have gotten the gist of the listening passage by responding in writing or orally to the teacher’s questions.

3. Post listeninga. Discuss the students’ reactions to the content of the listening

selections.b. Ask them thought-provoking questions to encourage

discussion about how they relate to the speaker’s message.c. Set the students to work in pairs to create dialogs or

synopses based on the listening selection.d. Assign reading and writing activities based on the listening

passage.