EFL 523 Listening and Speaking Activities
Claudia Acero
Instructors: Rosemary Orlando and Tim DiMatteo
March 12, 2002
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LISTENING:UNDERSTANDING WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING.
IS IT THAT SIMPLE?
The article “The Teaching of English” by Arif Saricoban develops important
aspects about listening. Firstly, it defines what listening means and what
processes it implies. Secondly, it suggests what processes teachers have to
understand in order to support their learners to go through listening tasks
successfully; it also provides clue ideas to use when having listening activities in
class.
According to Saricoban, listening is the ability to understand what others are
saying (1). It may sound as simple as that “to understand what others are
saying”, but is it that simple? Definitely, no. Listening implies very complex
processes alternating with different sub-processes which may make any simple
listening task harder than what it really is for the listener without any
competence in the target language; perceiving sounds, decoding and making
sense out of them demands great mental processes from the listener; that is why
teachers should let their learners experiencing as frequently as possible with
listening activities in the L2 since learners have to be trained to understand the
speaker’s pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and meaning; but all of them
simultaneously.
For the above reasons, teachers have a great responsibility in supporting their
learners to listen not only effectively, but critically. They must consider that
listening is an active process that is difficult for some learners and sometimes
causes discomfort, impatience and underestimation; due to the fact that it carries
on an “emotional and dramatic quality, as well as, it requires “attention, thought,
interpretation and imagination”(2).
In order to help their learners to improve their listening skills, teachers must
consider some important issues. Firstly, listening should be considered as a
crucial skill that enhances productive skills; therefore, communicative activities
are to be used in the teaching/learning settings, what means to integrate the four
skills to provide variety, build motivation, and enhance recycling and revision.
Secondly, teachers should develop the appropriate environment, so that learners
will learn how to prepare themselves for listening; training them to adopt a
positive attitude, shut out distractions, look for signals, summaries or non-verbal
clues will definitely help them to succeed.
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EFL 523 Listening and Speaking Activities
Claudia Acero
Instructors: Rosemary Orlando and Tim DiMatteo
March 12, 2002
________________________________________________________________________
Thirdly, listening must be considered a process; hence it has stages; for that
reason, teachers must plan their listening activities so carefully. When planning a
listening activity, a special consideration should be given to these stages that at
the end will benefit learners to be capable of performing well and improving
their listening skills. The first stage is Pre-listening; it is when the teachers give the
learners the purpose of the activity and lead them to be ready to listen to the
listening text. For this stage, teachers may use teacher-class conversations and
display pictures or any other visual aids that enables learners to make a mental
picture of what might be going on in the listening text. The second stage is during
or in while listening; for this stage learners must be given a purpose to listen, so
that learners will focus their attention to just definite aspects of the listening text.
Through this stage, they are also trained to be aware of some features that guide
them such as intonation and stress, redundancy, environmental clues, among
others. The third stage is the post-listening is the stage where learners may
express their reactions to the listening material.
In the last part of the article, the author exemplifies the theory he had presented
within a lesson plan. He proves that skills are integrated in a listening activity;
that the teacher is to create the appropriate environment through pictures
and/or questions to prepare learners for the listening task; and that the listening
tasks were thought thoroughly.
To sum up, it is important to say that listening is a fundamental skill for
language learners; they require training and support because through the
development of listening abilities learners will be able to improve their
productive skills.
REFERENCES
Saricoban, Arif. "The Teaching of Listening"
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