Gingoog City Colleges, Inc.
MODULE WEEK NO.4
Macopa St., Paz Village, Brgy. 24-A, Gingoog City
(088) 861 1432 Ext 7385
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College of Education
EL 107: Teaching and Assessment of the Macro skills
1st Semester of A.Y. 2021-2022
Introduction
Of the four linguistic activities, listening is often overlooked, both in
importance and practice. Yet, listening is a process, involving more than mere
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hearing of sounds and noises, as it includes identifying, understanding and
interpreting spoken languages. It enables students become aware of
language and how it is used and gives them creative use of grammar.
Listening helps students acquire detailed comprehension. It assists students
approach a foreign language with greater confidence and expectation of
success. Small-group activities in listening stimulate their imagination,
challenge them to think and ginger them to speak. Listening and vocabulary
are closely related. Of equal importance is listening for overall meaning.
Students highly involved in listening learn better and faster and have sounder
judgments about what is heard. It is believed that listening and speaking are
by far two most important communication skills. Listening skills can be taught
through direct, integrated, incidental, eclectic and dialogue approaches.
Rationale
Listening is one of the most important skills you can have. Perhaps it is the most
critical element in language learning, for it is the key for speaking and the basis for
the other two, reading and writing. When learning a new language, the best way to
do is to engage in a balance of each of these areas, as they are all interconnected.
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If these skills are not practiced it will end up being weaker. Clearly, listening is a skill
that we can all benefit from improving. By becoming a better listener, it will improve
your productivity. You will also avoid conflict and misunderstandings. There are
number of ways of listening, Passive Listening, Active Listening and Competitive
Listening.
Active Listening, considered as the most effective because the listener is not
only listening with interest, but with actively acknowledging listening by brief
responses. One way to become a better listener is to practice this mode. To hear not
only the words that the other person is saying, but also more importantly, you try to
understand the complete message what is being said. The listener must pay
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attention to the person very carefully. Active listeners really concentrate on the
content of the lecture and not on the lecturer or any random distinctions in the room
of their mind. People who are active listeners do more focus on facts, figures and
ideas actively associate the material presented with their own experiences. You
cannot allow yourself to become distracted when listening. You must not also speak
right away or argue that makes the other person stops in speaking. And do not lose
your focus in listening.
A Passive Listener, can be compared to a rock. You know it is there, you can
see it, but it just seem that it’s not absorbing anything that the speaker is saying. A
passive listener is mechanical and effortless. It does not give any feedback from the
speaker. These are listeners who are basically interested in what the other person is
saying and tend to pay attention. They are attentive but don’t necessarily interact
verbally.
A Competitive Listeners are those people who are only half-listening to what is
being said, because they are more focused on how they will respond. Competitive
listeners are good listeners but when they had the chance to jump right in, they will
now tell their own argument, opinion or thought. Usually they do more talking than
listening. Competitive sometimes called as Combative Listening happens when we
are more interested in promoting in our own point of view than in understanding or
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exploring someone else’s view. Either we listen for opening to take the floor, or for
flaws or weak points then they now go to speak and take the floor.
Listening effectively is difficult because some people vary in their
communication skills and in how clearly they express themselves. They often have
different needs, wants and purposes for interacting.
A person is listening when he understands the message of what the
speaker's intended to. It is not just hearing the words but listening for the message.
We listen effectively, if we understand what the person's is thinking or feeling, as if we
are standing in the speaker's shoes. We see what the speaker’s perspectives are. We
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can say that the person is listening effectively if he/she is actively involves in the
communication process, and is not just listening passively.
Intended Learning Outcomes
At the end of these weeks, the preservice teacher (PST) should be able
to:
a. select differentiated learning tasks in teaching listening to suit learners’ gender,
needs, strengths interests, and experiences;
b. demonstrate how to provide timely, accurate, and constructive feedback to
improve learner performance in the different tasks in listening through simulations;
c. craft a learning plan according to the English curricula that is developed from
research-based knowledge and principles of listening and the theoretical bases,
principles, methods, and strategies in teaching these components; and
d. conduct a teaching demonstration of the assigned learning competencies in
listening.
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Activity
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Listening Strategies and Processing Models
Discussion
Active Listening
While listening is an integral part of effective communication, few students are
taught how to listen effectively. Many students believe that hearing what is said is
the same as listening to what is said. In reality, they are distinctly different.
‘Hearing’ is a physical yet passive act involving the process and function of
perceiving sound.
‘Listening’ is hearing the sounds with deliberate intention. Therefore, unlike hearing,
listening is a skill that improves through conscious effort and practice.
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Benefits of active listening
Expressing your thoughts, feelings and opinions clearly and effectively is part
of the communication process. Such expression is complemented by actively
listening to and understanding the messages others are trying to get across to you.
Indeed, good communication and understanding are made possible by active
listening.
The way to improve your active listening skills is through practice. You should
not allow yourself to become distracted by things that may be going on around you.
Try to make a conscious effort to hear not only the words, but to truly hear what the
other person is saying.
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Genuine active listening will:
er to keep talking
Five key elements of active listening
The key elements of active listening listed below will help you listen to the other
person and increase the likelihood that the other person knows you are listening to
them.
(1) Pay attention
r watch, phone, other people or activities in or beyond the
room
(2) Show that you are listening
—crossed arms can make you seem closed or
negative
the speaker to continue by ‘short’ verbal comments
demeanor are open and inviting
(3) Provide feedback
by paraphrasing
(4) Respond appropriately
Respond openly and honestly, with an appropriate tone of voice
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(5) Defer judgment
speaker
Paraphrasing
In active listening, paraphrasing involves a restatement of the information given by
the speaker in your own words.
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The use of paraphrasing:
them and actually
understanding what they are saying
is correct
check that they have also understood the ideas
presented.
Examples of paraphrasing statements include:
The thing you feel is most important is...
Paraphrasing is one of 3 degrees of active listening:
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Open-Ended Questions
In active listening, open-ended questions are questions that cannot be answered
with ‘YES’ or ‘NO’. These questions encourage the speaker to provide more
information. The use of open-ended questions:
s the people around you.
Examples of open-ended questions include:
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ions that led up to this... ?
Nonverbal gestures
In many ways, active listening is characterized more by what is not done, than
what is done. Beyond the words, there will be a host of clues as to what the
speaker or listener is communicating. You should avoid sending out negative
nonverbal gestures, because if you are too immersed in yourself, others will feel you
are uninterested, disrespectful and/or rude.
Examples of inappropriate nonverbal gestures include:
sms messages
Nature of Listening Skills:
For someone to claim to have listened with comprehension, he/she must have
passed the stages of hearing, listening, auding and cognizing. By hearing, we
mean the process by which speech sounds are received and modified by the ear.
Listening is the process of identifying the component of sounds and sound
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sequences, whereby known words are recognizable. The process by which the
continuous flow of words is translated into meaning is regarded as auding.
Cognizing deals with the various aspects of knowing which are characterized by
different conceptualizing experiences of which comparison is made, inferences
drawn and categorized and sensory images formed.
The following types of listening have therefore, been identified:
i. Active Listening: Active listeners learn better and faster. They make sound
judgments about what is heard. Perhaps, active listeners write down important
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ideas in complete sentences. They listen for ideas more than details. Of equal
importance is their ability to listen for overall meaning.
ii. Partial Listening: They are those who listen with a rebellious ear. They are those
who are thinking of their next reply rather than listening to what is taking place.
iii. Intermittent Listening: This applies to those who listen with a deaf ear. They close
their ears to unpleasantness. They are those who compulsively nod and shake their
heads in agreement when they are not listening at all. Since attitudes affect our
perception of information, the more we allow our emotion to intrude into the
listening process, the more distorted will be our recollection of what has been said.
iv. Appreciate Listening: A good listener virtually absorbs all the speaker’s meaning
by being sensitive to tone of voice, facial expression, and bodily action as well as
to the words themselves. Sincerity, depth of conviction, confidence, true
understanding and many subtle implications may well be revealed, regardless of
the words used.
Listening teaching Methodology: The following methods can be used in teaching
listening skill:
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a) Direct Method – The direct method requires provision of time in the timetable for
listening comprehension, just as it is done for other subjects. The teacher teaches
the children the importance of listening and the difficulties involved. One source of
language students can listen to is the teacher. It is also important for students to be
exposed to other voices and that is why listening to tapes is so important. If students
are residing in a target language community they are likely to have greater access
to native speaker speech through personal contact and from a variety of media
including radio and television, as well as print media. In the direct method,
questions must cover more knowledge of facts; text translation of ideas,
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interpretation of ideas, and extrapolation of ideas.
b) Integrated Approach: This is the method whereby the four language skills are
taught concurrently including reading, writing, listening and speaking skills.
c) The Incidental Approach: This approach is known as learning to listen by
listening. It says since students have ears, all they need to do is to listen. The
deliberate effort made to listen improves listening ability. Training in listening
develops auditory discrimination. In order to develop communicative efficiency in
pronunciation, the students need to understand how sounds are made and how
stress is used. They can practice pronunciation by first reproducing the sound
through imitation, a process which leads to subconscious acquisition of the
language sounds and patterns.
d) Eclectic Method: The Eclectic method makes use of all methods or approaches.
The method applies a specific method or technique to suit a specific objective,
identified in terms of the learners’ word, the items to be learned, and the learning
environment.
e) Dialogue: at the early stage, the most useful material for starting language
learning is the dialogue which is meaningful and which can be dramatized.
Children first listen to the dialogue, accompanied by the teacher’s demonstration,
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two or three times before they are asked to imitate. Listening to minimal pairs of
sounds can help improve students’ ability to discriminate between sounds which
differ only slightly, for example:
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i. Day
ii. She
iii. View
iv. Sheep
v. The sheep is coming
They
See
Few
Ship
The ship is coming
Importance of listening
1. Listening is the first means of acquiring information
2. Listening is the first means of learning new language
3. Helps to solve problems
4. Helps in framing plans and policies
5. Helps to share information
6. Helps in decision-making
7. Helps to know organization
8. Develops better relations
9. Provides encouragement
Nature of listening process:
Listening involves the following inter-related steps in sequential order:
Receiving-----Attending-----Interpreting-----Remembering-----Evaluating---Responding.
Receiving: This is a kind of physiological process. The sounds impinge on the
listener‘s ear. It is only when he takes these in that he can go further in the process
of getting at the meaning.
Attending: The listener has to focus his attention on the message to the exclusion of
all other sounds that may be present in the immediate surroundings.
Interpreting: The sounds have to be interpreted, that is, the listener tries to
understand the message that is being put across against the background of his
own values, beliefs, ideas, expectations, needs, experience and background —
and, of course, taking into account the speaker‘s viewpoint.
Remembering: This involves storing the message for future reference. . Evaluating:
The listener makes a critical analysis of the information received, judging whether
the message makes sense while separating fact from opinion.
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Responding: The listener gives a verbal or nonverbal response, and takes action
accordingly.
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Barriers to listening:
1. Distractions
a. Semantic - The listener is confused about the actual meaning of a word,
as the word has different meanings.
b. Physical - This occurs when, for eg., the air-conditioning system or
microphones fail; or there is noise in the surroundings; or, someone is
constantly tapping on the table with his fingers.
c. Mental - This occurs when the listener makes himself the central character
of his daydreams and forgets the speaker.
2. Faking attention or pretending to listen – This usually happens when the message
consists of material of a difficult or uninteresting nature. The listener may not want
to bother to understand the message. Sometimes this may happen when he is
critical of the speaker‘s looks, style of speaking, or mannerisms.
3. Defensive listening – This kind of listening takes place when the speaker‘s views
challenge the listener‘s beliefs.
4. Prejudice – The listener‘s bias, negative attitude, preconceived notions, fears, or
stress adversely affect listening.
5. Constant focus on self - A person‘s ego may also adversely affect his listening.
The Roman playwright, Terence, reveals this aspect of human nature when he says:
.My closest relation is myself. A person may believe that he knows everything that
the speaker is talking about and, therefore, does not need to listen.
6. Information overload - The listener may be exposed to too many words or points
and, therefore, be unable to take in everything. He should learn how to pick up the
important ones, and discard the rest.
7. The thinking-speaking rate - The speaking rate is 125 – 150 words per minute,
whereas the thinking rate is 400 words per minute. So the listener‘s mind is moving
much faster than the speaker is able to speak. The extra, intervening time, before
the speaker arrives at his next point, is usually spent in shifting one‘s mental focus, or
in day dreaming.
8. Short attention span - The natural attention span for human beings is short. This is
not easy to rectify, except for making a special effort to concentrate and prolong
one‘s attention span.
Listening strategies:
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1. Preparation for listening – The environment must be made conducive to listening.
Noise and disturbance can be kept out by closing doors, or using a soundproof
room. Suitable arrangements for microphones and stationery should be made in
advance. Interruptions must be prevented. By these means, the physical barriers
can be eliminated, and the listener can focus his attention on the speaker.
2. Background knowledge – The listener should train himself to listen intelligently,
bearing in mind the speaker, the topic and the situation.
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3. Re-organize the material in mind – The listener should be able to recognize
patterns used by the speaker, and should be able to identify the main / central
point, and supporting points; s/he should re-organize the material in his mind
according to certain headings so as to facilitate recall.
4. Focusing on the speaker’s matter than manner – The listener should not be
prejudiced by the personal or behavioral traits of the speaker or his style, but should
focus on the content, intent, and argument of the message.
5. Listening actively – Listening actively also involves being considerate to the
speaker and empathizing with him. By adopting an alert listening pose, the listener
puts the speaker at his ease and places him in a better position to formulate and
express his ideas. The listener should have a positive attitude towards a talk,
believing that in every talk there is always at least one point or idea that will be of
value and special significance to him.
6. Listen with complete concentration – The listener should learn to differentiate
between argument and evidence; idea and example; fact and opinion. He should
attempt to pick out and paraphrase the important points while disregarding
unimportant ones.
7. Interaction – a. Do not interrupt - Allow the speaker to finish what he is saying
before you begin to talk. b. Do not disturb the speaker by indulging in some
undesirable form of activity, like talking to the person next to you, looking at your
watch, or walking out, or appearing uninterested or distracted. c. Do not
contradict the speaker d. Do not let your mind move on to anticipate what is going
to be said next – just listen carefully to what the speaker is actually saying. If you
are busy planning your replies, you are likely to miss important points, and make
irrelevant or stupid statements. e. Adopt an open-minded attitude – Be open to
new ideas, ask questions, seeking clarification of meaning, ideas, and thoughts; or
to gather additional information, or to direct the flow of the conversation. f. Avoid
passing comments or making remarks when the speaker is speaking g. Do not let
your mind indulge in some other activity h. Only one person should speak at one
time.
8. Patience – Do not get restless or impatient. Be careful not to lose your temper.
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9. Motivation – The experience of listening is more rewarding if the listener is
motivated and interested. Confidence and trust in the speaker are necessary.
10.Provide positive feedback – By maintaining eye contact, using proper facial
expressions, nodding from time to time, leaning forward, and so on, you put the
speaker at his ease, encourage him and thus enable him to give of his best.
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11. Listen for vocal & no-verbal cues – By noting the speaker‘s tone of voice or
facial expressions, it is possible to get at his meaning more effectively. Pay attention
to what the speaker says as much as to what he leaves unsaid.
12. Make good use of the time gap between speaking and thinking – Spend this
=extra‘ time reflecting on what the speaker is saying. You could even jot down
points or make brief notes on selected topics. Make a kind of mental summary,
and evaluate what is being said. You may anticipate what the speaker is going to
say next, but it is necessary to listen carefully to find out whether it is exactly what
you expected or whether there is some difference. If there is a difference, it is
important to consider what the difference is, and the reason for it.
13. Introspection – The listener must honestly examine his existing listening habits,
and consider whether he can improve upon them.
14. Practicing listening skills – Train yourself to use your listening skills every time you
have occasion to listen. Do not abandon the task of listening, especially if you find
it difficult. Listening is an act of the will as much as a matter of habit. It depends on
mental conditioning. Willingness to make an effort, therefore, matters.
15. Adopting to different communication events – Effective listening includes the
ability to adapt to several communication events, involving intercultural
communication situations. The listener must be aware of factors like culture,
gender, race, status, etc., and not allow them to adversely affect his listening. In
this connection, tolerance, patience, and empathy are important.
Styles of listening:
1. Empathic listening – In this case we empathize with the speaker, and understand
things from her/his point of view, allowing her/him the freedom to express her/his
emotions.
2. Informational listening – Here, the aim is to receive information. So the listener
pays attention to the content, and makes decisions regarding the taking of notes;
s/he also watches for related non-verbal cues, asks questions, and focuses on the
replies. All this helps her/ him to assimilate the information.
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3. Evaluative listening – We are exposed to a great deal of material intended to
persuade us to accept the speaker‘s point of view; we need to evaluate what we
hear, and note only certain points that are of interest or use to us.
4. Appreciative listening – We use this form of listening when we listen to our
favourite music or watch an enjoyable television programme. In these instances,
careful listening greatly enhances pleasure and appreciation.
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5. Critical listening – This is when we listen critically and analytically, carefully
considering the topic of the argument, the intentions of the speaker, his omissions,
his point of view; his credibility and so on.
The Difference Between Top-Down Teaching & Bottom-up Teaching
In 'real-life' listening, our students will have to use a combination of the two
processes, with more emphasis on 'top-down' or 'bottom-up' listening depending
on their reasons for listening.
Top-Down Instruction
A top-down teaching style focuses on providing students a large view of a subject,
immersing them in the big picture without explaining the components that make
up the subject. For example, in an English as a Second Language class, a topdown approach would begin by immersing students in all aspects of learning
English immediately, including writing, reading and pronunciation. Students would
not be taught the intricacies of vowels, nouns and pronouns first, instead they
would be plunged into the totality of learning English and then gradually learn the
building blocks that make up the English language.
Bottom-up Teaching
Unlike a top-down teaching approach, which takes a macro view of a subject first,
a bottom-up teaching approach begins with the component parts of a subject,
and gradually builds up to the whole. For example, in an ESL class, a bottom-up
approach would begin with things such as phonics, letters, vowels and syllables,
which are the building blocks of language. It's only after students have mastered
these specific rules and systems that they move on to speaking and reading.
Distinctions in Methods
Top-down and bottom-up teaching methods have the same learning objectives
but different ways of achieving them. Top-down teaching is concerned with
motivating students to learn through direct interaction and immersion, and
allowing them to find meaning in a subject by applying their own experiences.
Bottom-up teaching is more instructor-driven and focuses on the minutia of a
subject as a way of decoding and simplifying each component through repetition
and memorization.
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Other Considerations
Because top-down teaching emphasizes instruction through context and relies in
part on a student's background and experience to acquire knowledge, it may not
provide the same level of specific subject skills as a bottom-up teaching approach.
Conversely, though a bottom-up teaching approach will strengthen a student's
grasp of a subject's fundamentals, it's lack of emphasis on learning within the
context of a larger whole may limit its effectiveness. For example, students who
learn the specific meaning of a word may not understand how the meaning of
that word changes based on the culture where the word is used.
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Top-down vs. bottom-up listening
Imagine the following situations:
Over lunch, your friend tells you a story about a recent holiday, which was a
disaster. You listen with interest and interject at appropriate moments, maybe to
express surprise or sympathy.
That evening, another friend calls to invite you to a party at her house the following
Saturday. As you’ve never been to her house before, she gives you directions. You
listen carefully and make notes.
How do you listen in each case? Are there any differences? With the holiday
anecdote, your main concern was probably understanding the general idea and
knowing when some response was expected. In contrast, when listening to the
directions to a party, understanding the exact words is likely to be more important –
if you want to get there without incident, The way you listened to the holiday
anecdote could be characterized as top-down listening. This refers to the use of
background knowledge in understanding the meaning of the message.
Background knowledge consists of context, that is, the situation and topic, and cotext, in other words, what came before and after. The context of chatting to a
friend in a casual environment itself narrows down the range of possible topics.
Once the topic of a holiday has been established, our knowledge of the kind of
things that can happen on holiday comes into play and helps us to ‘match’ the
incoming sound signal against our expectations of what we might hear and to fill
out specific details.
In contrast, when listening to directions to a friend’s house, comprehension is
achieved by dividing and decoding the sound signal bit by bit. The ability to
separate the stream of speech into individual words becomes more important
here, if we are to recognize, for example, the name of a street or an instruction to
take a particular bus.
In reality, fluent listening normally depends on the use of both processes operating
simultaneously. Think about talking to your friends (in your first language) in a noisy
bar. It is likely that you ‘guess’ the content of large sections of the conversation,
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based on your knowledge of the topic and what has already been said. In this
way, you rely more on top-down processing to make up for unreliability in the
sound signal, which forms an obstacle to bottom-up processing. Similarly, secondlanguage listeners often revert to their knowledge of the topic and situation when
faced with unfamiliar vocabulary or structures, so using top-down processing to
compensate for difficulties in bottom-up processing. On the other hand, if a listener
is unable to understand anything of what she hears, she will not even be able to
establish the topic of conversation, so top-down processing will also be very
limited.
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In the classroom
In real-life listening, our students will have to use a combination of the two
processes, with more emphasis on top-down or bottom-up listening depending on
their reasons for listening. However, the two types of listening can also be practiced
separately, as the skills involved are quite different.
Top-down listening activities
Do you ever get your students to predict the content of a listening activity
beforehand, maybe using information about the topic or situation, pictures, or key
words? If so, you are already helping them to develop their top-down processing
skills, by encouraging them to use their knowledge of the topic to help them
understand the content. This is an essential skill given that, in a real-life listening
situation, even advanced learners are likely to come across some unknown
vocabulary. By using their knowledge of context and co-text, they should either be
able to guess the meaning of the unknown word, or understand the general idea
without getting distracted by it.
Other examples of common top-down listening activities include putting a series of
pictures or sequence of events in order, listening to conversations and identifying
where they take place, reading information about a topic then listening to find
whether or not the same points are mentioned, or inferring the relationships
between the people involved.
Bottom-up listening activities
The emphasis in EFL listening materials in recent years has been on developing topdown listening processes. There are good reasons for this given that learners need
to be able to listen effectively even when faced with unfamiliar vocabulary or
structures. However, if the learner understands very few words from the incoming
signal, even knowledge about the context may not be sufficient for her to
understand what is happening, and she can easily get lost. Of course, low-level
learners may simply not have enough vocabulary or knowledge of the language
yet, but most teachers will be familiar with the situation in which higher-level
students fail to recognize known words in the stream of fast connected speech.
Bottom-up listening activities can help learners to understand enough linguistic
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elements of what they hear to then be able to use their top-down skills to fill in the
gaps.
The following procedure for developing bottom-up listening skills draws on
dictogloss, and is designed to help learners recognize the divisions between words,
an important bottom-up listening skill. The teacher reads out a number of
sentences, and asks learners to write down how many words there would be in the
written form. While the task might sound easy, for learners the weak forms in normal
connected speech can make it problematic, so it is very important for the teacher
to say the sentences in a very natural way, rather than dictating them word-byword.
Some suitable sentences are:
 I’m going to the shop.
 Do you want some chocolate?
 Let’s have a party!
 I’d better go soon.
 You shouldn’t have told him.
 What are you doing?
 There isn’t any coffee.
 What have you got?
 He doesn’t like it.
 It’s quite a long way.
 Why did you think you’d be able to?
 Can you tell him I called?
Learners can be asked to compare their answers in pairs, before listening again to
check. While listening a third time, they could write what they hear, before
reconstructing the complete sentences in pairs or groups. By comparing their
version with the correct sentences, learners will become more aware of the sounds
of normal spoken English, and how this is different from the written or carefully
spoken form. This will help them to develop the skill of recognising known words
and identifying word divisions in fast connected speech.
A framework for planning a listening skills lesson
By developing their ability to listen well we develop our 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.
The basic framework
The basic framework on which you can construct a listening lesson can be divided
into three main stages.
 Pre-listening, during which we help our students prepare to listen.
 While listening, during which we help to focus their attention on the listening
text and guide the development of their understanding of it.
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Post-listening, during which we help our students integrate what they have
learnt from the text into their existing knowledge.
Pre-listening
There are certain goals that should be achieved before students attempt to listen
to any text. These are motivation, contextualization, and preparation.
 Motivation
It is enormously important that before listening students are motivated to
listen, so you should try to select a text that they will find interesting and then
design tasks that will arouse your students' interest and curiosity.
 Contextualization
When we listen in our everyday lives we hear language within its natural
environment, and that environment gives us a huge amount of information
about the linguistic content we are likely to hear. Listening to a tape
recording in a classroom is a very unnatural process. The text has been taken
from its original environment and we need to design tasks that will help
students to contextualize the listening and access their existing knowledge
and expectations to help them understand the text.
 Preparation
To do the task we set students while they listen there could be specific
vocabulary or expressions that students will need. It's vital that we cover this
before they start to listen as we want the challenge within the lesson to be
an act of listening not of understanding what they have to do.
While listening
When we listen to something in our everyday lives we do so for a reason. Students
too need a reason to listen that will focus their attention. For our students to really
develop their listening skills they will need to listen a number of times - three or four
usually works quite well - as I've found that the first time many students listen to a
text they are nervous and have to tune in to accents and the speed at which the
people are speaking.
Ideally the listening tasks we design for them should guide them through the text
and should be graded so that the first listening task they do is quite easy and helps
them to get a general understanding of the text. Sometimes a single question at
this stage will be enough, not putting the students under too much pressure.
The second task for the second time students listen should demand a greater and
more detailed understanding of the text. Make sure though that the task doesn't
demand too much of a response. Writing long responses as they listen can be very
demanding and is a separate skill in itself, so keep the tasks to single words, ticking
or some sort of graphical response.
The third listening task could just be a matter of checking their own answers from
the second task or could lead students towards some more subtle interpretations of
the text.
Listening to a foreign language is a very intensive and demanding activity and for
this reason I think it's very important that students should have 'breathing' or
'thinking' space between listening. I usually get my students to compare their
answers between listening as this gives them the chance not only to have a break
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from the listening, but also to check their understanding with a peer and so
reconsider before listening again.
Post-listening
There are two common forms that post-listening tasks can take. These are reactions
to the content of the text, and analysis of the linguistic features used to express the
content.
 Reaction to the text
Of these two I find that tasks that focus students reaction to the content are
most important. Again this is something that we naturally do in our everyday
lives. Because we listen for a reason, there is generally a following reaction.
This could be discussion as a response to what we've heard - do they agree
or disagree or even believe what they have heard? - or it could be some
kind of reuse of the information they have heard.
 Analysis of language
The second of these two post-listening task types involves focusing students
on linguistic features of the text. This is important in terms of developing their
knowledge of language, but less so in terms of developing students' listening
skills. It could take the form of an analysis of verb forms from a script of the
listening text or vocabulary or collocation work. This is a good time to do form
focused work as the students have already developed an understanding of
the text and so will find dealing with the forms that express those meanings
much easier.
Applying the framework to a song
Here is an example of how you could use this framework to exploit a song:
 Pre-listening
o Students brainstorm kinds of songs
o Students describe one of their favorite songs and what they like about
it
o Students predict some word or expressions that might be in a love song
 While listening
o Students listen and decide if the song is happy or sad
o Students listen again and order the lines or verses of the song
o Students listen again to check their answers or read a summary of the
song with errors in and correct them.
 Post-listening
o Focus on content
 Discuss what they liked / didn't like about the song
 Decide whether they would buy it / who they would buy it for
 Write a review of the song for a newspaper or website
 Write another verse for the song
o Focus on form
 Students look at the lyrics from the song and identify the verb
forms
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Students find new words in the song and find out what they
mean
Students make notes of common collocations within the song
Designing Assessment Task
Once you have determined your objectives, your next step is to design the task
including making Decisions about how you will elicit performance and how you
expect the test-taker to respond.
1. Intensive Listening: Recognizing Phonological and Morphological Elements
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Phonemic pair, consonants
• Test-takers hear: He’s from California.
• Test-takers read: a.) He’s from California. b.) She’s from California.
Phonemic pair, vowels
• Test-takers hear: Is he leaving?
• Test-takers read: a.) Is he leaving? b.) Is he living?
Morphological pair, -ed ending
• Test-takers hear: I missed you very much.
• Test-takers read: a.) I missed you very much. b.) I miss you very much.
Stress Pattern
Test-takers hear: My girlfriend can’t go to the party
Test-takers read: a.) My girlfriend can’t go to the party b.) My girlfriend can go to
the party
One word Stimulus
Test-takers hear: vine
Test-takers read: a.) vine b.) wine
Paraphrase Recognition
• Sentence Paraphrase
• Test-takers hear: Hello, My name is Keiko. I come from Japan.
• Test-takers read: a.) Keiko is comfortable in Japan. b.)Keiko wants to come to
Japan. c.)Keiko is Japanese. d.)Keiko likes Japan.
Dialogue Paraphrase
Test-takers hear: Man: Hi, Maria, My name is George. Woman: Nice to meet you,
George. Are you American? Man: No, I’m Canadian.
Test-takers read: a.) George lives in the United States. b.)George is American.
c.)George comes from Canada. d.)Maria is Canadian.
2. Responsive Listening
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Appropriate response to a question
• Test-takers hear: How much time did you take to do your homework?
• Test-takers read: a.) In about an hour. b.) About an hour. c.)About $ 10 d.)Yes, I
did.
Open-ended response to a question
Test-takers hear: How much time did you take to do your homework?
Test-takers write or speak:
_______________________________________ ___________________________________
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3. Selective Listening
Listening Cloze -(sometimes called cloze dictations or partial dictations) tasks
require the test-taker to listen to a story, monologue, or conversation and
simultaneously read the written text in which selected words or phrases have been
deleted.
Test-taker hear: Ladies and Gentlemen, I now have some connecting gate
information for those of you making connections to other flights out of San
Francisco.
• Flight seven-oh-six to Portland will depart from gate seventy-three at nine-thirty
P.M.
• Flight ten-forty-five to Reno will depart at nine-fifty P.M. from gate seventeen.
• And flight sixteen-oh-three to Sacramento will depart from gate nineteen at ten
fifteen P.M.
(Test-takers write the missing words or phrases in the blanks.)
Listening cloze tasks should normally use an exact word method of scoring in which
you accept as a correct response only the actual word or phrase that spoken and
consider appropriate as incorrect. Information Transfer-aurally processed
information must be transferred to a visual representation, such as labeling a
diagram, identifying an element in a picture, completing a from, or showing routes
on a map.
Information transfer: Multiple-cued-selection
Test-takers hear: Choose the correct picture. In my backyard I have a bird feeder.
Yesterday, there were two birds and a squirrel fighting for the last few seeds in the
bird feeder. The squirrel was on top of the bird feeder while the larger bird sat at
the bottom of the feeder screeching at the squirrel. The smaller bird was flying
around the squirrel, trying to scare it away.
Test-takers see: a photograph of a woman in a laboratory setting, with no glasses
on, squinting through a microscope with her right eye, and with her left eye closed.
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Test-takers see: a.) She’s speaking into a microphone. b.) She’s putting on her
glasses. c.) She has both eyes open. d.) She’s using a microscope.
Sentence repetition
The task of simply repeating a sentence or a partial sentence, or sentence
repetition, is also used as an assessment of listening comprehension.
4. Extensive Listening
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Dictation -test takers hear a passage, typically of 50 to 100 words, recited three
times: first, at normal speed; then, with long pauses between phrases or natural
word groups, during which time test-takers write down what they have just heard;
and finally, at normal speed once more so they can their work and proofread.
Authentic Listening Task
1. Note-taking
2. Editing - another authentic task provides both a written and a spoken stimulus,
and requires the test-taker to listen for discrepancies.
Test-takers read: the written stimulus material (a news report, an e-mail from a
friend, notes from a lecture, or an editorial in a newspaper).
Test-takers hear: a spoken version of the stimulus that deviates, in a finite number of
facts or opinions, from the original written form.
Test-takers mark: the written stimulus by circling any words, phrases, facts, or
opinions that show a discrepancy between two versions.
3. Interpretative tasks - one of the intensive listening tasks -paraphrasing a story or
conversation Potential stimuli include: • song lyrics, • [recited] poetry, •
radio/television news reports, and • an oral account of an experience
Test-takers are then directed to interpret the stimulus by answering a few questions
(in an open-ended form).Questions might be: “Why was the singer feeling sad?”
“What events might have led up to the reciting of this poem?” “What do you
think the political activists might do next, and why?” “What do you think the
storyteller felt about the mysterious necklace?”
4.Retelling -test-takers listen to a story or news event and simply retell it, or
summarize it, either orally (on an audiotape) or in writing, test-takers must identify
the gist, main idea, purpose, supporting and/or conclusion to show full
comprehension.
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Exercise
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Assessment
Task 1
• Making a Learning Plan in Teaching Listening (focusing on Completeness,
Appropriate Approach Used, and Facilitative Process)
Task 2
• Making Original Instructional Materials in Teaching Listening (focusing on
Appropriateness and Resourcefulness)
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Task 3
• Teaching Demonstration in Listening (focusing on Teacher Like Simulation,
Preparation, Classroom Management, Learning Environment, and
Feedbacking/Evaluation Process)
Reflection
Synchronous Activity: Oral Recitation:
Reflection Essay on Lesson Plan making and feedbacking simulation exercise
Resources and Additional Resources
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