KAU/ELCSummer 2008

Teaching Listening in TEFL classes

Proposed by: Mrs. Neila Ben Rejeb

Plan Introduction:1) What is listening ?2) Why it is the hardest skill to master

What are the possible solutions?1) Importance of warming up Tasks2) While listening Tasks3) Post listening Tasks4) Difficulties met by listening teachers and useful tips

Workshops: Group work

1) Preparation of a listening lesson 2) presentation of the work by groups spokeswomen3) Peer observation feedback and discussion

Conclusion:To what extent can a teacher be successful in a listening class ?

How to transmit successfully information to learners is of a major importance to us as practitioners in the classroom not theorists

What is the main topic of the passage? How many types of health care systems

are there in Britain? The general practitioner has many roles

in Britain (True / false) “family medicine’’ is popular in: Britain / USA / both of them / all over

the world

Introduction Listening to any material requires some particular kind of preparation prior to the

act of listening 1) What is listening in the first place? Listening is the ability to identify and

understand a speaker’s accent or pronunciation , his vocabulary and his grammar, and grasping his meaning .

An able listener is capable of doing these things Simultaneously (Howatt and Dakin)

2) Why is listening the hardest skill to develop?

Wills lists a series of listening micro skills, she calls:

Enabling skills: Predicting what people are going to talk about. Guessing at unknown words. Using one’s own knowledge of the subject that helps

understand. Identifying relevant points (note – taking, summarizing) Recognizing cohesive devices Understanding different intonation patterns and uses of

stress that gives clues to meaning and social setting Understanding inferred information, speaker’s attitude or

intention.

1. They are trying to understand every word2. They get left behind trying to work out what a previous

word meant.3. They just don’t know the most important words4. They don’t recognize the words they know5. They have problems with different accents6. They lack listening Stamina , they get tired .7. They have a mental block8. They are distracted by background noise9. They can’t cope with not having images10. They have hearing problems11. They can’t tell the difference between the different voices

Listening is a challenging activity for students because:

What are The possible solutions? 1- Importance of pre-listening tasks:

In real life, it is unusual for people to listen to something.

Without having some idea of what they are going to hear.

To avoid boring students. To arouse interest among students, by using a picture

or a Humor story. To make the students familiar with the context. Warm-up exercise step is an important preparation for

the while listening stage. We can say how well students had done in class

depends mostly on how well they had been warmed up.

Examples of warming -up tasks Setting the context Generating interest Activating current knowledge , what do you

know about …? Acquiring knowledge Activating vocabulary Predicting context Pre-learning vocabulary Checking/ understanding the listening tasks

Selection Criteria

Selecting the appropriate tasks depends on:

The time available The material available The ability of the class The interests of the class

While-listening activities

“How to listen” Tasks: Listen for gist (general idea,

skimming) Listen for specific detail ( scanning) Listen for implication (What a

statement implies) Listen for speaker’s attitude

“Listen and …” Activities

Listen and repeat Listen and record Listen and memorize Listen and transcribe Listen and take notes Visual support: Pictures, maps,

graphs, diagrams, supplying cultural notes

Post-listening Activities

Role-plays Group discussion Making researches on the Net writing essays on the same topic Fill in the blanks, cloze test using the vocabulary acquired in the listening.

Difficulties met by listening teachers and useful tips Successful listening skills are

acquired over time and with a lot of practice

There are no rules in listening that can lead to improved skills as in grammar , writing or speaking

Mental Block is a main inhibitor A large number of learners are

unable to understand something unless they see it

Useful tips

Ask questions about stressed words Give them an easy task that you

know they can do even if they don’t understand 90% of the words

Cut the listening into short segments

and use pause button to give their brains a chance to catch up

Make sure the quality of the tape CD, and the recording is fine

Plan listening for when you know it will be quiet outside, e.g. not at a

lunchtime or when the class next-door is also having listening

Make students who have hearing problems sit in the front

Convince students to listen to English as often as possible but for short periods

Conclusion

The role of the listening teacher is: A guide who is to give students help A diagnoser who can identify listening

problems and put them right. A designer who is able of selecting the

adequate techniques, suitable tasks for students

Do not over-stuff your students, Remember they are a captive

audience for a limited lapse of time , so you

have to give them the fundamental

knowledge that a student must walk away with

Reminder

To what extent are you able to make your students: enjoy the listening, acquire as much as they can the skill you’re teaching?

That’s all what teaching is about.