JAP102 Self-Study – Listening Task
Because listening is so prevalent in language use and because listening is the primary
means of L2 acquisition for most people, the development of listening as a skill and as a
channel for language input should assume critical importance in instruction (Rost, 2001,
p.103).
Reference:
Rost, M. (2001). Teaching and researching listening. London: Longman.
The task below will help you develop your listening skills, and will also help you form
good learning habits to improve your listening skills. In self-access learning there is no
time restriction so you can work anytime you want. You can also choose the listening
material, task type and level of difficulty according to your needs and interests. This can
be very motivating and should help you to improve your listening skills outside the
classroom.
LISTENING Worksheet
Learning objective (what
you want to achieve). Be
specific – choose ONE
aim only. For example,
your objective could be: to
improve the pronunciation
of 10 words; to focus on
verbs; to transcribe a
short extract).
Type and name of
material used to meet
learning objective
Brief summary of the
content of the listening
passage (if applicable)
Strategies used (how
you made use of the
materials to improve your
listening skills)
Learning outcome (what
you learned from this
exercise)
Total listening time
GUIDELINES:
(1) What is a learning objective?
A learning objective is the goal you define prior to doing a listening exercise. This gives
you a focus so as to make your listening time more efficient and to provide you with a
clear result. Usually just listening to French without a specific goal is not very satisfying
because there is no clear result to the exercise.
(2) And what is a listening strategy?
A listening strategy is the approach you take to completing a listening exercise. For
example, do you take notes? How many times do you listen to the same passage? Do you
read the script as the same time as listening to a passage, or not? Do you pause several
times or do you listen to a passage straight through first?
To fill in this category, make a note of all the steps you follow.
To help you understand what is required, consider the two examples below:
Example 1:
Learning objective: To concentrate on vocabulary and select 15 to 20 words or phrases
that I want to pronounce well using a film.
Listening strategy: While listening to the film (or to a passage of a film), I first made a
note of the words/phrases to focus on. Then, I listened to these items several times and
also checked their phonetic symbols in the dictionary. Finally, I made sure I could
pronounce the target words/phrases confidently and accurately and recorded myself
saying them. Also, I kept a record of the words/phrases I learned.
Example 2:
Learning objective: To focus on understanding the gist of a song (or of a passage in a
song) without the help of a script or subtitles.
Listening strategy: I listened to the song (or a passage in a song) without support the
first time. Then, I listened a second time looking at the script or subtitles, and I
highlighted the areas that I understood well and those I did not understand at all or not
clearly. Finally, I made a note to work further on the areas where my understanding had
been very inaccurate.