How to teach listening pdf

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Modern techniques and methods of teaching listening in English lessons

One of the important speech skills is listening. The article defines listening skills, discusses the goals and objectives of teaching listening at school and in preparation for the Unified State Exam, the mechanisms of listening, the system of exercises for the development of listening skills, the choice of material for listening. The connection of listening with other types of speech activity is emphasized.

What is listening comprehension? Listening is the process of perceiving and understanding speech from hearing What is listening? Listening is one of the four skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking. Like reading listening is a receptive skill, as it involves responding to language rather than producing it [3].

In the program on foreign languages, listening is defined as the ability to perceive a foreign language text by ear, to understand simple texts with different depths of penetration into their content, with selective understanding and full understanding of the text), depending on the communicative task and the functional type of the text [2]. At the same time, the development of skills is provided:

highlight the main idea in the text perceived by ear;

choose the main facts;

selectively understand the necessary information in pragmatic messages based on language guesswork, context;

ignore unfamiliar language material that is not essential for understanding;

determine your attitude to the facts, extract the necessary information from the audio text;

The content of the texts should correspond to the age characteristics and interests of students, have educational and educational value. The sound time of the texts is up to 2 minutes.

In real communication, you have to listen a lot. The task of the teacher is to teach students to understand the sounding speech.

We are faced with listening in various communication situations:

radio and television news;

various instructions and assignments;

stories of the interlocutors;

performances of actors;

the interlocutor on the phone

The objectives of listening training are as follows:

understanding the interlocutor’s utterance in various communication situations, including unfamiliar language means;

understanding of educational and authentic texts with varying degrees and depth of penetration into their content;

develop certain skills;

develop certain learning skills;

teach you to understand the meaning of a single statement;

develop auditory memory;

learn to highlight the main thing in the flow of information;

memorize speech material

Both domestic and foreign methodologists propose to divide the work on the text into three stages :

after listening to it.

The activities in a listening lesson often follow this pattern:

introductory activities: an introduction to the topic of the text and activities focusing on the language of the text;

main activities: a series of comprehension activities developing different listening subskills;

post-activities: activities which ask learners to talk about how a topic in the text relates to their own lives or give their opinions on parts of the text[3].

The first stage before listening involves discussing questions/statements before listening. The correctness of the answer can be determined only after listening, but you can use a guess to guess what the text will be about. Exercises and questions not only ask for information, but also carry it. Getting acquainted with them and discussing the answers, students hear the words that will then be used in the text.

At this stage, the following types of work are used:

Introduction of new words, their explanation.

Control of understanding of new words in sentences from audio text using visual clarity.

Working out the reading technique on the material of the most difficult sentences from the audio text in the sound presentation.

Work with the most complex grammatical structures in sentences from the text, their recognition, differentiation, establishing the interaction of the original form with the actual one in a particular sentence.

Thematic grouping of words from the audio text.

Structural grouping of words (root, derived, complex, phraseological units).

The formulation of all kinds of questions (general, special, alternative and separative) to the most linguistically complex sentences of the audio text.

Search for answers to pre-text questions.

Formulation of the main idea (idea).

Selection of the title to the text.

Determination of the correctness (incorrectness) of statements.

Choosing the correct answer to a question from a data series.

Teaching listening

Listening as one of the most challenging skills for English learning students. The content of teaching listening with describing its techniques, strategies, developing activities, using textbook activities. Using authentic materials and situations.

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Listening is one of the most challenging skills for English learning students to develop and yet also one of the most important. By developing their ability to listen well we develop the students’ ability to become more independent learners, as by hearing accurately they are much more likely to be able to reproduce accurately, refine their understanding of grammar and develop their own vocabulary.

In this project I intend to perform the content of Teaching Listening with describing its techniques, strategies, developing activities, using textbook activities and also here is reminded the assessing listening proficiency of students. I hope my project will give the necessary materials for future teachers to make them be aware of what the notion of Teaching Listening mean and how to teach listening of English language to students.

listening student authentic material

Teaching Listening

Listening is the language modality that is used most frequently. It has been estimated that adults spend almost half their communication time listening, and students may receive as much as 90% of their in-school information through listening to instructors and to one another. Often, however, language learners do not recognize the level of effort that goes into developing listening ability.

Far from passively receiving and recording aural input, listeners actively involve themselves in the interpretation of what they hear, bringing their own background knowledge and linguistic knowledge to bear on the information contained in the aural text. Not all listening is the same; casual greetings, for example, require a different sort of listening capability than do academic lectures. Language learning requires intentional listening that employs strategies for identifying sounds and making meaning from them.

Listening involves a sender (a person, radio, television), a message, and a receiver (the listener). Listeners often must process messages as they come, even if they are still processing what they have just heard, without backtracking or looking ahead. In addition, listeners must cope with the sender’s choice of vocabulary, structure, and rate of delivery. The complexity of the listening process is magnified in second language contexts, where the receiver also has incomplete control of the language.

Given the importance of listening in language learning and teaching, it is essential for language teachers to help their students become effective listeners. In the communicative approach to language teaching, this means modeling listening strategies and providing listening practice in authentic situations: those that learners are likely to encounter when they use the language outside the classroom.

Goals and Techniques for Teaching Listening

Instructors want to produce students who, even if they do not have complete control of the grammar or an extensive lexicon, can fend for themselves in communication situations. In the case of listening, this means producing students who can use listening strategies to maximize their comprehension of aural input, identify relevant and non-relevant information, and tolerate less than word-by-word comprehension.

To accomplish this goal, instructors focus on the process of listening rather than on its product.

· They develop students’ awareness of the listening process and listening strategies by asking students to think and talk about how they listen in their native language.

· They allow students to practice the full repertoire of listening strategies by using authentic listening tasks.

· They behave as authentic listeners by responding to student communication as a listener rather than as a teacher.

· When working with listening tasks in class, they show students the strategies that will work best for the listening purpose and the type of text. They explain how and why students should use the strategies.

· They have students practice listening strategies in class and ask them to practice outside of class in their listening assignments. They encourage students to be conscious of what they’re doing while they complete listening tape assignments.

· They encourage students to evaluate their comprehension and their strategy use immediately after completing an assignment. They build comprehension checks into in-class and out-of-class listening assignments, and periodically review how and when to use particular strategies.

· They encourage the development of listening skills and the use of listening strategies by using the target language to conduct classroom business: making announcements, assigning homework, describing the content and format of tests.

· They do not assume that students will transfer strategy use from one task to another. They explicitly mention how a particular strategy can be used in a different type of listening task or with another skill.

By raising students’ awareness of listening as a skill that requires active engagement, and by explicitly teaching listening strategies, instructors help their students develop both the ability and the confidence to handle communication situations they may encounter beyond the classroom. In this way they give their students the foundation for communicative competence in the new language.

Integrating Metacognitive Strategies

Before listening: Plan for the listening task

· Set a purpose or decide in advance what to listen for

· Decide if more linguistic or background knowledge is needed

· Determine whether to enter the text from the top down (attend to the overall meaning) or from the bottom up (focus on the words and phrases)

During and after listening: Monitor comprehension

· Verify predictions and check for inaccurate guesses

· Decide what is and is not important to understand

· Listen/view again to check comprehension

After listening: Evaluate comprehension and strategy use

· Evaluate comprehension in a particular task or area

· Evaluate overall progress in listening and in particular types of listening tasks

· Decide if the strategies used were appropriate for the purpose and for the task

· Modify strategies if necessary

Using Authentic Materials and Situations

Authentic materials and situations prepare students for the types of listening they will need to do when using the language outside the classroom.

· Radio and television programs

· Public address announcements (airports, train/bus stations, stores)

· Speeches and lectures

· Telephone customer service recordings

· Help students identify the listening goal: to obtain specific information; to decide whether to continue listening; to understand most or all of the message

· Help students outline predictable sequences in which information may be presented: who-what-when-where (news stories); who-flight number-arriving/departing-gate number (airport announcements); «for [function], press [number]» (telephone recordings)

· Help students identify key words/phrases to listen for

In authentic two-way communication, the listener focuses on the speaker’s meaning rather than the speaker’s language. The focus shifts to language only when meaning is not clear. Note the difference between the teacher as teacher and the teacher as authentic listener in the dialogues in the popup screens.

Strategies for Developing Listening Skills

Language learning depends on listening. Listening provides the aural input that serves as the basis for language acquisition and enables learners to interact in spoken communication.

Effective language instructors show students how they can adjust their listening behavior to deal with a variety of situations, types of input, and listening purposes. They help students develop a set of listening strategies and match appropriate strategies to each listening situation.

Listening strategies are techniques or activities that contribute directly to the comprehension and recall of listening input. Listening strategies can be classified by how the listener processes the input.

Top-down strategies are listener based; the listener taps into background knowledge of the topic, the situation or context, the type of text, and the language. This background knowledge activates a set of expectations that help the listener to interpret what is heard and anticipate what will come next. Top-down strategies include

· listening for the main idea

Bottom-up strategies are text based; the listener relies on the language in the message, that is, the combination of sounds, words, and grammar that creates meaning. Bottom-up strategies include

· listening for specific details

· recognizing word-order patterns

Strategic listeners also use metacognitive strategies to plan, monitor, and evaluate their listening.

· They plan by deciding which listening strategies will serve best in a particular situation.

· They monitor their comprehension and the effectiveness of the selected strategies.

· They evaluate by determining whether they have achieved their listening comprehension goals and whether the combination of listening strategies selected was an effective one.

Listening for Meaning

To extract meaning from a listening text, students need to follow four basic steps:

· Figure out the purpose for listening. Activate background knowledge of the topic in order to predict or anticipate content and identify appropriate listening strategies.

· Attend to the parts of the listening input that are relevant to the identified purpose and ignore the rest. This selectivity enables students to focus on specific items in the input and reduces the amount of information they have to hold in short-term memory in order to recognize it.

· Select top-down and bottom-up strategies that are appropriate to the listening task and use them flexibly and interactively. Students’ comprehension improves and their confidence increases when they use top-down and bottom-up strategies simultaneously to construct meaning.

· Check comprehension while listening and when the listening task is over. Monitoring comprehension helps students detect inconsistencies and comprehension failures, directing them to use alternate strategies

Developing Listening Activities

As you design listening tasks, keep in mind that complete recall of all the information in an aural text is an unrealistic expectation to which even native speakers are not usually held. Listening exercises that are meant to train should be success-oriented and build up students’ confidence in their listening ability.

Contextualized listening activities approximate real-life tasks and give the listener an idea of the type of information to expect and what to do with it in advance of the actual listening. A beginning level task would be locating places on a map (one way) or exchanging name and address information (two way). At an intermediate level students could follow directions for assembling something (one way) or work in pairs to create a story to tell to the rest of the class (two way).

Each activity should have as its goal the improvement of one or more specific listening skills. A listening activity may have more than one goal or outcome, but be careful not to overburden the attention of beginning or intermediate listeners.

Recognizing the goal(s) of listening comprehension in each listening situation will help students select appropriate listening strategies.

· Identification: Recognizing or discriminating specific aspects of the message, such as sounds, categories of words, morphological distinctions

· Orientation: Determining the major facts about a message, such as topic, text type, setting

· Main idea comprehension: Identifying the higher-order ideas

· Detail comprehension: Identifying supporting details

· Replication: Reproducing the message orally or in writing

Check the level of difficulty of the listening text.

The factors listed below can help you judge the relative ease or difficulty of a listening text for a particular purpose and a particular group of students.

How is the information organized? Does the story line, narrative, or instruction conform to familiar expectations? Texts in which the events are presented in natural chronological order, which have an informative title, and which present the information following an obvious organization (main ideas first, details and examples second) are easier to follow.

How familiar are the students with the topic? Remember that misapplication of background knowledge due to cultural differences can create major comprehension difficulties.

Does the text contain redundancy? At the lower levels of proficiency, listeners may find short, simple messages easier to process, but students with higher proficiency benefit from the natural redundancy of the language.

Does the text offer visual support to aid in the interpretation of what the listeners hear? Visual aids such as maps, diagrams, pictures, or the images in a video help contextualize the listening input and provide clues to meaning.

Use pre-listening activities to prepare students for what they are going to hear or view.

The activities chosen during pre-listening may serve as preparation for listening in several ways. During pre-listening the teacher may

· assess students’ background knowledge of the topic and linguistic content of the text

· provide students with the background knowledge necessary for their comprehension of the listening passage or activate the existing knowledge that the students possess

· clarify any cultural information which may be necessary to comprehend the passage

· make students aware of the type of text they will be listening to, the role they will play, and the purpose(s) for which they will be listening

· provide opportunities for group or collaborative work and for background reading or class discussion activities

Sample pre-listening activities:

· looking at pictures, maps, diagrams, or graphs

· reviewing vocabulary or grammatical structures

· reading something relevant

· constructing semantic webs (a graphic arrangement of concepts or words showing how they are related)

· predicting the content of the listening text

· going over the directions or instructions for the activity

· doing guided practice

Match while-listening activities to the instructional goal, the listening purpose, and students’ proficiency level.

While-listening activities relate directly to the text, and students do them do during or immediately after the time they are listening. Keep these points in mind when planning while-listening activities:

If students are to complete a written task during or immediately after listening, allow them to read through it before listening. Students need to devote all their attention to the listening task. Be sure they understand the instructions for the written task before listening begins so that they are not distracted by the need to figure out what to do.

Keep writing to a minimum during listening. Remember that the primary goal is comprehension, not production. Having to write while listening may distract students from this primary goal. If a written response is to be given after listening, the task can be more demanding.

Organize activities so that they guide listeners through the text. Combine global activities such as getting the main idea, topic, and setting with selective listening activities that focus on details of content and form.

Use questions to focus students’ attention on the elements of the text crucial to comprehension of the whole. Before the listening activity begins, have students review questions they will answer orally or in writing after listening. Listening for the answers will help students recognize the crucial parts of the message.

Use predicting to encourage students to monitor their comprehension as they listen. Do a predicting activity before listening, and remind students to review what they are hearing to see if it makes sense in the context of their prior knowledge and what they already know of the topic or events of the passage.

Give immediate feedback whenever possible. Encourage students to examine how or why their responses were incorrect.

Sample while-listening activities

· listening with visuals

· filling in graphs and charts

· following a route on a map

· checking off items in a list

· listening for the gist

· searching for specific clues to meaning

· completing cloze (fill-in) exercises

· distinguishing between formal and informal registers

Using Textbook Listening Activities

The greatest challenges with textbook tape programs are integrating the listening experiences into classroom instruction and keeping up student interest and motivation. These challenges arise from the fact that most textbook listening programs emphasize product (right or wrong answer) over process (how to get meaning from the selection) and from the fact that the listening activities are usually carried out as an add-on, away from the classroom.

You can use the guidelines for developing listening activities given here as starting points for evaluating and adapting textbook listening programs. At the beginning of the teaching term, orient students to the tape program by completing the exercises in class and discussing the different strategies they use to answer the questions. It is a good idea to periodically complete some of the lab exercises in class to maintain the link to the regular instructional program and to check on the effectiveness of the exercises themselves.

Students can use this outline for both in-class and out-of-class listening/viewing activities. Model and practice the use of the outline at least once in class before you ask students to use it independently.

1. Plan for listening/viewing

· Review the vocabulary list, if you have one

· Review the worksheet, if you have one

· Review any information you have about the content of the tape/video

2. Preview the tape/video

· (tape) Use fast forward to play segments of the tape; (video) view the video without sound

· Identify the kind of program (news, documentary, interview, drama)

· Make a list of predictions about the content

· Decide how to divide the tape/video into sections for intensive listening/viewing

3. Listen/view intensively section by section. For each section:

· Jot down key words you understand

· Answer the worksheet questions pertaining to the section

· If you don’t have a worksheet, write a short summary of the section

4. Monitor your comprehension

· Does it fit with the predictions you made?

· Does your summary for each section make sense in relation to the other sections?

5. Evaluate your listening comprehension progress

Assessing Listening Proficiency

You can use post-listening activities to check comprehension, evaluate listening skills and use of listening strategies, and extend the knowledge gained to other contexts. A post-listening activity may relate to a pre-listening activity, such as predicting; may expand on the topic or the language of the listening text; or may transfer what has been learned to reading, speaking, or writing activities.

In order to provide authentic assessment of students’ listening proficiency, a post-listening activity must reflect the real-life uses to which students might put information they have gained through listening.

· It must have a purpose other than assessment

· It must require students to demonstrate their level of listening comprehension by completing some task.

To develop authentic assessment activities, consider the type of response that listening to a particular selection would elicit in a non-classroom situation. For example, after listening to a weather report one might decide what to wear the next day; after listening to a set of instructions, one might repeat them to someone else; after watching and listening to a play or video, one might discuss the story line with friends.

Use this response type as a base for selecting appropriate post-listening tasks. You can then develop a checklist or rubric that will allow you to evaluate each student’s comprehension of specific parts of the aural text. (See Assessing Learning for more on checklists and rubrics.)

For example, for listening practice you have students listen to a weather report. Their purpose for listening is to be able to advise a friend what to wear the next day. As a post-listening activity, you ask students to select appropriate items of clothing from a collection you have assembled, or write a note telling the friend what to wear, or provide oral advice to another student (who has not heard the weather report). To evaluate listening comprehension, you use a checklist containing specific features of the forecast, marking those that are reflected in the student’s clothing recommendations.

As we tried to prove within my course project the problems of good listening are one of the most difficult and problematic for those who want to make perfect in learning any foreign language. So my course project set its task to find out the most appropriate and easy-to-understand ways for improving the mentioned tasks.

The course project will be useful for everyone who wants to make perfect in learning foreign languages.

1. Byrnes, H. (1984). The role of listening comprehension: A theoretical base. Foreign Language Annals, 17, 317-329.

2. Coakley, C.G., & Wolvin, A.D. (1986). Listening in the native language. In B.H. Wing (Ed.), Listening, reading, writing: Analysis and application (pp. 11-42). Middlebury, VT: Northeast Conference.

3. Gass, S.M. (1988). Integrating research areas: A framework for second language studies. Applied Linguistics, 9, 198-217.

4. Lund, R.J. (1990). A taxonomy for teaching second language listening. Foreign Language Annals, 23, 105-115.

5. Mendelsohn, D.J., & Rubin, J. (1995). A guide for the teaching of second language listening. San Diego, CA: Dominie Press.

6. Morley, J. (1991). Listening comprehension in second/foreign language instruction. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (pp. 81-106). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle.

7. Nunan, D., & Miller, L. (Eds.). (1995). New ways in teaching listening. Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

8. Omaggio-Hadley, A. (1993). Teaching language in context (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle.

9. Peterson, P.W. (1991). A synthesis of methods for interactive listening. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (pp. 106-122). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle.

10. Richards, J.C. (1983). Listening comprehension: Approach, design, procedure. TESOL Quarterly, 17, 219-240.

11. Rixon, S. (1981). The design of materials to foster particular linguistic skills. The teaching of listening comprehension. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 258 465).

12. Rost, M. (1990). Listening in language learning. London: Longman.

13. Rubin, J. (1987). Learner strategies: Theoretical assumptions, research history and typology. In A. Wenden & J. Rubin (Eds.), Learner strategies in language learning (pp. 15-30). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

14. Rubin, J. (1995). The contribution of video to the development of competence in listening. In D.J. Mendelsohn & J. Rubin (Eds.), A guide for the teaching of second language listening (pp. 151-165). San Diego, CA: Dominie Press.

15. Underwood, M. (1989). Teaching listening. London: Longman.

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How to Teach Listening to ESL Students | ESL Listening

If you want to find out how to teach listening to ESL/EFL students, you’re in the right place. Check out these tips and tricks for teaching ESL listening, how to plan an ESL lesson, along with lots of game and activity ideas.

Listening Lesson Plan Template and Ideas

Do you know those listening activities that are in all ESL textbooks? Do you just skip over them, or quickly breeze on through them on your way to other things? I did that for lots of years too.

However, listening lessons can be quite interesting for students, especially those who don’t like talking all the time! Check out this listening lesson plan template for all the tips and tricks you need to kick your ESL lesson plan to the next level.

How and Why to Teach Listening to ESL Students

Listening is an extremely important skill if students want to speak fluently in English. No matter how well you speak, if you don’t understand what your conversation partner said, your answer will be a little awkward at best, or totally random at worst.

In order to help our students, we need to include some practice with it in our English classes. Here’s some basic advice on how to teach listening to ESL students, including a lesson plan template and some ESL listening activities.

ESL Listening Lesson Plan Template

Here are the steps that you can follow when planning a listening lesson plan.

1. Set the Context

This introduces the theme of your listening topic. For example, if your listening is about shopping, you could ask students whether or not they ever buy things without trying them on and whether or not they’ve had good or bad experiences with that.

Or, if your topic is travel, you could ask students what are 5 things that people do while they’re spending time waiting at an airport. It’s best to have students discuss the question for a couple of minutes with their partner and then quickly elicit some answers from the class.

2. Pre-Listening Task

Next, you’ll need to assign students a pre-reading task. Some of my favourites ones are prediction tasks which lead to the next step. For example, in class last week the topic was problems while travelling. I had students think of 5 common travel problems with a partner.

I then elicited some answers and wrote 3 of them on the board. You could also show them a picture and have them predict something based on that. Or, you could introduce some of the vocabulary words from the listening that you think the students won’t know.

3. Listening #1

The students listen for the overall picture the first time. You can have them see if their prediction were true if you did this in step #2. Or, you could give them some very simple T/F questions. Basically, anything that gives them a reason to listen.

Have students compare answers with a partner and then quickly go over them together with the class, but don’t spend too much time with this. You don’t want to give away too many details because they’ll listen one more time in the next step.

4. Listening #2

Give students some more difficult comprehension questions, they’ll listen again, check answers with a partner and then with the class. You can spend a bit more time discussing the answers if necessary than you would in the previous step.

5. Pronunciation (optional)

If there are some words that are difficult to pronounce, or your students particularly struggle with this, then you may want to focus a little bit on pronunciation.

Do some drills and practice using the words from the listening passage. Here’s some help with teaching pronunciation: English Pronunciation Games. Or, you may also want to check this out: ESL Contractions.

6. Application

Students have to apply the concepts from listening to their own lives in order to make it more memorable. The best kind of thing you could do is something that involves students giving their opinions, such as asking them if they agree or disagree with XYZ.

Or, you could have students do a survey and discuss the answers. Another idea is to have them pretend to be one of the people in the listening while the other one is a news reporter and they interview each other. Get creative and make listening fun and interesting!

7. Follow Up

After finishing this, the sky is the limit in terms of what you can do. You might consider switching over to focus on other skills such as speaking or writing. Or, you could have students do a presentation related to the listening passage. Maybe you can play a game of some kind with them. Have students take a closer look at some grammatical points within the passage like the 1st conditional. Get creative in terms of how you tie what you do next to what the students have listened to.

To learn more, have a look at this article: How to write an ESL teaching philosophy.

More ESL Listening Ideas

The sky really is the limit and the whole world is open to you if you have high-level students. I’ve used TV shows, movies, and even Podcasts (Serial is great) in my classes before with excellent results.

Students love using authentic material because they’re relevant, interesting and gives them confidence that they can go out into the real-world and understand what people are saying.

Remember that the best things to choose for ESL listening activities are things that are just slightly higher than their level. If you can assist them to understand, that’s how students make gains in their listening skills.

Want to level up on the organization? Have a look at this: teacher carts on wheels.

Where Can I find ESL Listening Passages?

If you want to know where you can find ESL listening exercises, here are a few of my go-to sources.

The Textbook You’re Using

All ESL textbooks these days have listening exercises in them. I know, some teachers are lazy about getting audio up and running in their classroom, but it can be useful to have this option available.

Textbooks are often the best source for listening passages because they’ll be related to the grammar and vocabulary that the students are learning. Plus, in theory, they should be at the perfect level.

Breaking News English

Apart from the textbook, this is my go-to source for listening work. It’s got a huge variety of current events, and best of all, the passages are graded and divided into various levels, compete with exercises. This makes it super easy to use. Plus, the topics lend themselves well to great discussions.

Business English Pod

If you teach Business English, then this site is pure gold. There is a paid version, but I’ve found the free version has enough of what I need to make it work.

Their listening passages are excellent and are a nice starting point for further work. Check it out here: Business English Pod.

YouTube

Of course, YouTube is a gold mine for all things listening. They have millions of videos. But, how to find the right one for your students? I usually just search for the topic + ESL. For example, “jobs + ESL,” or, “sports + ESL” and have found what I was looking for in a minute or two.

For more advanced level students, consider using authentic material from YouTube. By that, I mean materials that aren’t specifically designed for ESL students.

Tips for Teaching ESL Listening

Here are a few tips and tricks for teaching an English listening lesson:

Check out this Book on Amazon for ESL Listening Activity Ideas

I hope you’ve picked up a few tips on how to teach listening to ESL students. If you’d like some ideas for speaking and listening games and activities for your classroom, check out this book on Amazon: 39 No-Prep/Low-Prep ESL Speaking Activities: For Teenagers and Adults.

Speaking and Listening Activities

Of course, speaking activities also require listening, so all of these games and activities are heavy on that as well. So, you should be able to find an engaging, interesting listening activity to round our your ESL lesson in under a minute. Yes, it really is that easy.

Step by Step Instructions, and More

Then, each activity has a detailed description, along with step by step instructions that start with what you need to do before the lesson to follow-up suggestions for things to do with your students. Plus, there are teaching tips to help your game or activity go smoothly and you’ll be able to avoid some of the most common pitfalls.

Available in a Variety of Formats

The book is available in digital, print or audio formats. You can keep a copy on the bookshelf in your office for easy lesson planning. Or, take the digital version to your favourite coffee shop for a serious lesson planning session. Finally, you could listen to the book when commuting for some inspiration for your next class.

Where Can I Get It?

It really is that easy to have better ESL speaking and listening lessons. Check out the book for yourself over on Amazon:

Teaching ESL Listening Skills FAQs

There are a number of common questions that people have about teaching English listening. Here are the answers to some of the most popular ones.

How can I teach English listening?

You can teach English listening by following a few simple steps. Before listening, prepare the learners by setting the context and preparing them for what they might hear. During listening, give students a specific task to complete (something to listen for). After listening, finish with an activity to extend the listening passage and make the grammar or vocabulary found in more memorable.

What are the techniques used in teaching listening?

There are a number of techniques used in teaching listening. Some of these include the use of audio files, answering questions after listening to something, rewriting songs, dictation exercises, watching TV or movies, listening to podcasts, extensive listening, etc.

How can ESL students improve their listening skills?

ESL students can improve their listening skills by doing some of the following things:

How do you introduce a listening activity?

Before doing a listening activity, you’ll want to set the context for the students. This can be done in various ways including telling them the headline and asking them to make a prediction, asking them to talk with a partner about a question related to the topic, pre-teaching some vocabulary or grammar, introducing the characters, etc.

What are the five steps of the listening process?

The five steps of the listening process are receiving, understanding, evaluating, remembering and then responding. Active listening requires the last step, feedback in order to respond to what has been said.

How to Improve English Listening Skills: Top 3 Tips

If you’re looking to improve your English listening skills, you’ve come to the right place. We’re going to share three of our top tips with you today. You’ll also get a link to a resource with even more tips for how to practice English listening.

What’s your Motivation for Improving your English Skills?

Maybe you want to improve your conversational English and make some new friends. Perhaps you want to be able to travel confidently. Maybe you want to understand English TV or movies, instead of relying on subtitles.

You might want to get a higher score on something like the TOEIC listening test to get a better job. Finally, you might want to go to graduate school in an English speaking country and you need to improve your English listening skills in order to understand the lectures.

There are Lots of Different Reasons

There are plenty of reasons why someone would want to improve their English listening skills. Whatever the case for you, our tips will help you practice English listening in a fun, interesting, and varied way.

Are you ready to get better at English listening? We hope so! If not, stop reading right now!

English Listening Tip #1: Listen for One Specific Thing

It’s really easy to feel overwhelmed when you’re listening to something a little bit difficult. We’ve all been there. The words are washing over you, but you’re not really taking anything in besides a few random words you might understand. You probably felt extremely frustrated.

However, by listening for one specific thing, you can improve your English listening skills even if the audio is a little bit above your level. Check out this article for how to do it, and some ideas of the specific thing that you can listen for.

English Listening Tip #2: Check out Podcasts

Podcasts are this amazing, free resource that you’re really missing out on if you don’t know about them already. We really hope you’re currently using them to improve your listening skills. But, if not, don’t worry. It’s not too late. You know the secret now!

What’s the Best Thing about Podcasts?

The best thing about podcasts is that it’s super easy to listen to them on the go. You can get them on your Smartphone or tablet and then listen when you’re exercising, on the bus or subway, or in between classes. They’re entertaining, and you can find a podcast for any interest you might have.

If you have a difficult time understand what the people are saying, use the player and go 3/4 speed. 1/2 speed is too slow and the pronunciation will sound very strange.

If you still have a hard time understanding, use some podcasts designed specifically for ESL/EFL students. The language is much simpler and the people talk more slowly.

Check out this article for our favourite podcasts for ESL/EFL students:

English Listening Tip #3: Watch TV and Movies

The final tip about improving your listening skills is about using TV and movies. I’m sure you know this one already! However, there is a way to do it wisely, and there is a way to waste your time.

Check out this article for some tips to consider when choosing what to watch. Also find out where to get English subtitles, and whether or not you should use them.

Planning an ESL Listening Lesson: Join the Conversation

What steps do you follow when planning a listening lesson? Did you know how to plan a listening lesson plan already? Leave a comment below and let us know what you think. We’d love to hear from you.

Also be sure to give this article a share on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest. It’ll help other busy teachers, like yourself find this useful resource.

ESL Listening Lesson Plan Ideas

Last update on 2022-08-11 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

About Jackie

Jackie Bolen has been teaching English for more than 15 years to students in South Korea and Canada. She’s taught all ages, levels and kinds of TEFL classes. She holds an MA degree, along with the Celta and Delta English teaching certifications.

Jackie is the author of more than 60 books for English teachers and English learners, including 101 ESL Activities for Teenagers and Adults and 1001 English Expressions and Phrases. She loves to share her ESL games, activities, teaching tips, and more with other teachers throughout the world.

Activities and techniques for teaching listening comprehension

Activities at the pre-listening stage.

Pre-listening work can consist of a whole range of activities, including:

— the teacher giving background information;

— the students reading something relevant;

— the students looking at pictures;

— discussions of the topic / situation;

— a question and answer session;

— following the instructions for the while-listening activity;

— consideration of how the while-listening activity will be done.

The one activity which teachers are urged not to use is’ going through the tape script bit by bit explaining the «difficult» words to the students. There is also a temptation to over-assist and to give too much away, so that by the time the actual listening text is played the students are bored and no longer want to listen. On the other hand, you can use this time to motivate the students by making them feel that the actual listening text is really interesting. Some teacher’s books provide suggestions for this type of introduction to listening text, but the best ideas often come from the teachers, who adjust the nature and level of the talk to suit the students.

Reading a text before listening

Activities at the while-listening stage

• listening with visuals

• filling in graphs and charts

• following a route on a map

• checking off items in a list

• listening for the gist

• searching for specific clues to meaning

• completing cloze test (fill-in) exercises

• distinguishing between formal and informal registers.Marking items in pictures: Identifying people and things, marking items mentioned by the speaker, marking errors, checking details, marking choices, etc.

· Which picture? Students hear a description or a conversation and have to decide, from the selection offered, which picture is the «right» one. The most common pictures used are drawing (photos) of people or scenes, indoors or out of doors.

· Putting pictures in order: A number of pictures are presented to the students. The aim is to arrange the picture in the correct order according to the listening text.

· Multiple-choice questions: Well-designed multiple-choice questions can help guide students through the text just as ordinary «open’ questions can.

Activities at the post-listening stage

Post-listening activities can be much longer than while-listening activities because at this stage the students have time to think, to discuss, and to write.

Problem-solving and decision-making: Newspaper stories can be read by teacher and used for problem-solving activities. It is important to prepare for this kind of activity and to make sure that everyone knows what the problem to be solved is.

Role-play: Basing role-play on listening provides students with at least some language, which they can use when their turn comes to speak. Many teachers use listening text to demonstrate to students how speakers of English behave in a situation and then ask the students, in pairs or in groups, to play the various roles.

Written work: Post-listening written work can take many forms, from listening to specific points to writing summaries or even essays..

Extending lists: This activity can «straddle» the while-listening and post-listening stages. The students are asked to make a list or tick / check a list while listening, and then to add it after the listening is finished. It provides a way of collecting word sets and extending word sets already known to the students.

Matching with a reading text:This activity is particularly useful for students who have so far learned their English mainly through reading and writing and who have difficulty in matching the heard word with the written word.

Summarizing can be done by extending notes made at the while-listening stage or by simply depending on memory. IIt is possible to do oral summary work, by getting pairs or small groups to go through the story and make notes and then asking one or two people to retell the story whilst the rest of the class listens for any errors or omissions.

Jigsaw listening: «Jigsaw listening» is a term which was used by Marion Geddes and Gill Sturtridge in the late 1970s to describe a listening activity in which a class of students is divided into a small number of groups and each group listens to a different listening text, although all the text are on the sane topic, and then the groups exchange information to build up the complete picture.

Teaching listening with news broadcast.

1. Play the entire broadcast. Have students listen without taking notes. The purpose of this listening is to relax them and make them comfortable with the language.

2. Play the entire broadcast. Have students listen and write one sentence in which they identify the main idea of the broadcast and write a question they have about what they heard. Have students circulate throughout the class, sharing ideas and questions with other students in the class.

3. Before you begin, divide the tape into segments of approximate thirds. Develop who, what, when, where, why, and how questions for each third. Provide students with a copy of these questions. Play the tape in thirds, stopping after each third at least a minute to give students enough time to answer the questions and then share the answers with a partner. Review the answers to all the questions after the last third has been played.

4. If the news broadcast includes interviews with different people, assign students to listen for the parts spoken by different people. For example if there are three people interviewed, assign each student a number 1-3. Students assigned N2l will listen for the first interviewee; students assigned JV»2 will listen for the second interviewee; students assigned #3will listen for the third interviewee. After listening, have the students get into groups by numbers (e.g. all the #l students in one group), and decide what were the most important points that the interviewed person made to contribute to the news story. Then, have the groups report their results to the entire class.

5. Play the entire tape through one more time. Divide students into small groups of three and have them group write a short one-paragraph summary of what they have heard.

Teaching listening with video

Listening routines are similarly designed to provoke engagement and expectations.

1. Pictureless listening: the learners listen to conversation with picture off and have to guess such things as where it is taking place, who the speakers are, guess their age, their occupation or how they look like. Then they compare their guesses with he actual film.

2. Pictureless listening: where a script has a prominent music track, learners can listen to it and then say what kind of scene they think it accompanies and where it is taking place.

3. Pictureless listening: in a scene without dialogue learners can listen to the sounds to guess the scene. For example, they might hear the car engine or someone running, opening or closing the door. Then they tell «the story» they think they have just heard. Instead of telling they can write «the story».

4. Have learners focus on the dialogue contained in a scene by listening to a particular vocabulary (e. g. words describing the weather) structures with Passive Voice or functional expressions (e. g. invitation).

5 TV Dictation: have learners write dialogue lines as they view them using the pause control to stop the scene after each line.

6. Cloze Scripts: as learners view a scene have them fill in missing words in scripts and then compare their variants.

2. Teaching prompts:

• Tell your students they shouldn’t worry that they have to understand every word they hear. Not every word is important!

• Where possible, make sure students know what they are listening to before you start listening. Explain they should focus only on the information they need.

• Give two or three general questions to check students comprehension of the basic details.

• If possible, check for any words that your students may not know. Pre-listening these so they do not interfere with understanding.

• Brainstorm students’ ideas on the topic they are going to listen to. This will help focus them.

• Don’t choose a listening that is too long. If necessary, stop them recording at-certain points and review what students have understood so far.

• As a general principle, try to play the recording once for overall comprehension. Then play the recording again for specific details.

• Tell students to note any dates, people or places they hear.

• Divide students into groups and give each group a different listening task (e. g. different questions). Then swap their answers and have students listen again and check their classmates’ answers.

• Don’t be afraid to repeat the recording. especially the parts students have most trouble understanding.

· Match while-listening activities to the instructional goal, the listening purpose, and students’ proficiency level.

While-listening activities relate directly to the text, and students do them do during or immediately after the time they are listening. Keep these points in mind when planning while-listening activities:

· If students are to complete a written task during or immediately after listening, allow them to read through it before listening. Students need to devote all their attention to the listening task. Be sure they understand the instructions for the written task before listening begins so that they are not distracted by the need to figure out what to do.

· Organize activities so that they guide listeners through the text. Combine global activities such as getting the main idea, topic, and setting with selective listening activities that focus on details of content and form.

· Use questions to focus students’ attention on the elements of the text crucial to comprehension of the whole. Before the listening activity begins, have students review questions they will answer orally or in writing after listening. Listening for the answers will help students recognize the crucial parts of the message.

· Use predicting to encourage students to monitor their comprehension as they listen. Do a predicting activity before listening, and remind students to review what they are hearing to see if it makes sense in the context of their prior knowledge and what they already know of the topic or events of the passage.

· Give immediate feedback-whenever possible. Encourage students to examine how or why their responses were incorrect.

· Tell students to compare their notes and discuss what they understood in pairs or small groups.

· Encourage students to respond what they heard. For example, where possible ask questions like Do you agree? And encourage debate.

· Tell pairs to write a summary of the main points. Then have them compare their summaries arid check if they covered all the main points.

· Play the recording again and tell students to call out «Stop!» when they hear the answers they were listening for.

· «Put students into groups and tell them to make a list of comprehension questions to ask each other.

· Tell students to make a list in their note books of any new vocabulary they feel is useful.

· Try to use as many different sources of listening material as you can: advertisements, news programs, poetry, songs, extracts from plays, speeches, lecture.

· assess students’ background knowledge of the topic and linguistic content

· • provide students with the background knowledge necessary for their comprehension of the listening passage or activate the existing knowledge

· clarify any cultural information which may be necessary for comprehension

· make students aware of the type of text they will be listening to, the role they will play, and the purpose(s) for which they will be, listening

· provide opportunities for group or collaborative work and for background reading or class discussion activities Sample pre-listening activities:

· looking at pictures, maps, diagrams, or graphs

· reviewing vocabulary or grammatical structures

· reading something relevant

· constructing semantic webs (a graphic arrangement of concepts or words showing how they are related)

· predicting the content of the listening text

· going over the directions or instructions for the activity

· doing guided practice

3.Types of exercises for two types of processing the input information: bottom-up and top-down operations.

Bottom-Up Processing Goals and Exercise Types

Goal: Differentiate between content and function words by stress pattern

· Read a series of sentences and predict which words will be stressed (content words) and which will be reduced (function words.)

Listen to the sentences and confirm your predictions.

Goal: Find the stressed syllable

· Listen to a list of multisyllable words. Repeat each one and check whether the stress is on the first, second, or third syllable. Note which syllables were more frequently stressed.

Goal: Recognize words with reduced vowels or dropped syllables

Listen to a series of statements about sports activities and use word stress to determine whether the speakers are saying «can» or «can’t».

Read a list of polysyllabic words and predict which syllabic vowel will be dropped. Listen to the words and confirm your predictions.

Goal: Recognize words as they are linked in the speech stream

· Listen to a series of short sentences with consonant/vowel linking between words. Mark the linkages on the answer sheet

Goal: Recognize pertinent details in the speech stream

· Listen to a short dialogue between a boss and a secretary regarding changes in the daily schedule. Use an appointment calendar. Cross out appointments that are being changed and write in new ones

Listen to a short telephone conversation between a customer and a service station manager. Fill in a chart which lists the car repairs that must be done. Check the part of the car that needs repair, the reason, and the approx­imate cost.

Тор-Down Processing Goals and Exercise Types, Intermediate-Level Listeners

Goal: Discriminate between registers of speech and tones of voice

· Listen to sentences with either flat or varied intonation and determine whether the speaker is enthusiastic, friendly, or sincere by the amount of pitch change and energy in the voice

Goal: Listen to identify the speaker or the topic

· Listen to a short conversation between two friends. On your answer sheet are scenes from television programs. Find and write the name of theprogram and the channel. Decide which speaker watched the program

Goal: Make inferences

· Listen to a woman and a man ordering dinner in a restaurant. Based on the food choices they make, tell which person is more conscious of health concerns

Goal: Use word stress to understand the speaker’s intent

· Listen to a series of statements about money problems. In each statement, circle the words that are emphasized. With a partner, discuss what is important to the speaker and how the speaker feels about it

Goal: Recognize missing grammar markers in colloquial speech and reconstruct the message

· Listen to a series of short questions in which the auxiliary verb and subject have been deleted. Use grammatical knowledge to fill in the missing words: «(Have you) got some extra?»

· Listen to a series of questions with assimilated verb auxiliary and subject, and use gram­matical knowledge to identify the missing verb (does it/is it). Example: «Zit need more salt?» and «Zit OK?»

Goal: Use context and knowledge of the world to build listening expectations; listen to confirm expectations

· Based on your knowledge of other cultures, predict whether their topics of conversation will be personal or impersonal, direct or indirect. Then listen to a newcomer describe his experience in that culture and note what kind of culture shock actually occurred. After listening, discuss with a partner whether your initial idea was correct and how you have to revise your ideas because of your added knowledge

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How can teachers help with listening tasks?

Greenhouse, Garden, Jungle. It doesn’t matter what version of the listening task you’re using, students still might have difficulties with it. In this article, we will present some practical ideas on how you ease listening practice if it is too difficult for students.

Listening is one of the basic skills that language learners need to be good at in order to communicate in a foreign language. However, in many cases, we witness how difficult it is for the learners to perform the listening tasks. What can teachers do except pre-teaching keywords, giving out transcripts or playing the recording multiple times?

Use videos and other visual aids

If we want our students to be able to listen, understand and respond, a large part of that listening involves reading a speaker’s facial expressions and body language. So, most of the time, your students need to practice their listening skills by watching videos. These videos can be TED talks, extracts from movies, etc. Setting the scene with some photos of the people speaking can help in tasks where they put the sentences in order. This makes a nice change and is a good way of making skills such as guessing vocab from context easier and more natural.

Help students recognize the words that they know

Students might not distinguish between different sounds in English (e.g. /l/ and /r/ in «led» and «red» ), or not know that words like «there», «their» and «they’re» are homophones. Other reasons are problems with word stress, sentence stress, and sound changes when words are spoken together in natural speech such as weak forms. So taking into account all these factors, we come to the idea that sometimes pronunciation work is the most important part of listening comprehension skills building.

Help them distinguish the main words and expressions

While having a conversation on a noisy street in our mother tongue, we may miss whole chunks of speech but understand the overall conversation. However, learners seem not to be able to transfer this skill to a foreign language setting. Show them how to identify the important words that they need to listen out for. In English, this can be done in an easy-to-spot way by which words in the sentence are stressed (spoken louder and longer).

Have a wide range of listening tasks

Students need exposure to a wide variety of listening tasks: textbook listening tracks, podcasts, videos, short extracts from movies, etc. They need to listen not only to well-designed listening tracks but also extracts from everyday speech so that they have a chance to listen to different accents, speakers (native, non-native). They can be assigned to watch movies as homework or listen to various songs and try to write down the transcript/lyrics.

All these techniques will greatly improve students’ listening skills and add up their confidence as ESL learners.