6 Vol. 21, June 2008 ISSUES Practical Tips on how to Teach Listening by Vicky Malteza sec.ed. state school teacher, MA in English Language Teaching (University of Reading, UK) email: [email protected] Abstract How do we teach Listening? Or, to put the question better, do we really teach Listening per se? Based on personal experience on the issue, I feel confident to assert that Listening is hard to teach and, when taught, it more often than not coincides with teaching Reading Skills. This is simply because Listening is not confined to perceiving language samples via tape or cd. Reading aloud in class, playing a film without subtitles, understanding oral instructions, participating in oral discussions or dialogues involve a great deal of Listening, too. In this article, I will try to present some of the ways in which teachers can enhance their students' Listening Skills. At the same time, I will provide practical examples of how this can be achieved by making use of the limited means we possess in a traditional coursebook-oriented English language class. Introduction At the outset, I feel tempted to highlight that most EFL teachers do not teach Listening Skills as such, either because they do not duly appreciate the importance of the particular Skill in promoting the rest of the Skills (that is Reading, Writing and Speaking) or, simply, because they find class time insufficient. Others might believe it is a Skill simulating to some kind of talent which means that some children/adults have it inherently, while others do not. In either case, it might be argued that practising vigorously will not change the results dramatically. Whatever the classroom situation and regardless of any teaching convictions, it is worth trying to teach the Skill, both separately and, also, along with the other three Skills, in and out of the class with assigned tasks. Below follows my suggestion. Doing the Listening Task in the Coursebook Teaching in a Coursebook-based class invariably brings us to the Listening section where we have to play the tape or cd and do the assigned task. Before listening we raise the students' expectations and give them a reason for Listening. This is normally called the pre-listening part and/or the instructions for the particular task. Following the coursebook's order, we first read the instructions and then do the task. Another way of doing it is simply asking students to close their books, listen to a dialogue or text being read, and take notes on a sheet of paper in order to make the listening questions themselves. So, as this task does not sound all that off-putting to students, we can clarify that one or two questions referring to general points of the listening extract would suffice. Then, students can announce their questions in class and ask their classmates to answer them. The above technique involves "getting an overview", frequently referred to as "top-down processing" (Harmer, 201). At the next stage in the task process, we can give our class the book questions and ask them to do as many as they can without listening to the cd again. It is highly advisable at this point to ask them to work in pairs or, even, in groups of four. If they have trouble finding any of the answers, we could play the cd again, this time with the target questions clear in their minds. This technique works well with older students (Junior High School and High School) and it is a good way of changing the routine of class-work and adding some interesting variety to the Listening Task. A second variation to Listening Tasks involves the use of the tapescripts in class. After having done a listening task, we normally collect students' answers. How often, however, do we give them the reasons why an answer was not correct by referring back to specific points of the audio material heard in class? Personally, I do this every time with my students and the feedback they give me is always positive. They expect me to read the part of the text that contains the answer to the question they did not do well at and rephrase a bit so that they fully understand what went wrong. The type of processing needed here "focuses on individual words or phrases" and is called "bottom-up processing" (Harmer, 201). Alternatively, I give them a photocopy of the tapescript of the whole text or dialogue they listened to in class and ask them to locate the answers to the ISSUES Vol. 21, June 2008 7 questions of the task by underlining them and writing the corresponding number next to them. the acquaintance strategies. Using 3D and Internet Technology in Class A good illustration of the above is the BBC site which allows for the listening of audio clips recorded by its journalists in the news columns. Teachers can listen to one of them early in the morning and ask students to listen to it at home after lunch and report back in class the next day telling the teacher what it was about. Also, further questions on the audio material can be asked by the teacher to check on students' ability to retain oral information. Apart from news, the BBC site is also linked to five BBC radio stations covering a variety of issues daily. Therefore, investigation of further fields (like music and entertainment, sport, current affairs etc) can be explored in the EFL classroom. If, however, Internet access is not available to the majority of the class, the school computer lab can be used. It has been widely suggested to reinforce students to watch films without any subtitles in order to enhance their Listening Skills. I strongly recommend this method although I know it can be extremely time consuming. One way of using it without spending many teaching hours on film viewing is by selecting a couple of scenes from a film and showing only those we have selected. The rest of the scenes can be orally summarised to the students in between viewing scenes, so that continuity is not impeded. It is important to highlight here that viewing time should be accompanied by "watch-along" material prepared by the teacher or found on the internet in teacher sites. Personally, I have worked extensively on two films ("Chicken Run" and "Simone") and prepared pre-viewing, while-viewing and postviewing material which I have used with numerous classes and I am happy to share any of that with colleagues. Renting DVDs from video stores makes economic sense, that is why we can ask students to rent the film we have selected, individually or in teams, and watch it over the weekend. We should, also, make sure we give them some "watch-along" material and ask them to work on it while watching the film or right after the viewing. This will save a great deal of class time and will also work as a 'trust' contract we sign with our students that they will not be tempted to watch the film with the L1 subtitles on. If we suspect they will be having difficulties understanding most of the film, why not give them the alternative of watching it with the English subtitles for the hearing impaired? It is a useful head start with watching films for listening purposes which also allows for the simultaneous practice of Reading Skills. Contemporary teaching methods make frequent use of the Internet in the English classroom. Good news is that audio material is freely available on the Internet, too. Using Internet material from official Englishspeaking sites acquaints the students with authentic language samples. Thus, the above choice familiarises students not only with "discourse rules" (Ellis, 43) but also with communication strategies which "are […] found in the language use of native speakers" (Ellis, 60). While original samples of genuine native language use are not frequently included in coursebooks, the above reference to transforming online sources into EFL teaching material carries significant importance in the promotion of discoursal language-specific features and of native-like communication This might also be a useful tip: we all know students love listening to music. One way of helping them do that in a more target language environment is to suggest listening to English radio stations online. Radio stations, like the BBC stations mentioned above, broadcast interesting shows, interviews of famous people, sports, gossip, news and much more. Thus, along with music students can be asked to listen to particular shows and then discuss in class what it was about. As these websearches assigned by teachers might become potential excuses for exposure to improper online material, we should not proceed to instructions for online use without first notifying the parents of the "potential dangers" (Lewis, 20) of unsupervised Internet use by children. The computer lab can be used again if Internet access is not the norm for a lot of our students. Working with other Teachers In a cross-curricular teaching and learning environment teachers can take advantage of this opportunity to invite colleagues into their classes. First of all, some English songs can be played by the music teacher on the piano (schools usually have portable electronic pianos) or any other musical instrument s/he knows how to play. The English teacher can hand out the lyrics of the song and the singing might begin. It is advisable that the song be a famous one so that everybody can take part in this enjoyable activity. Personally, I have been lucky enough with the music teachers at the schools I have been in and organised some singing with the guitar or piano and the music teacher's voice. After having sung the song, I normally ask the students to tell me what the song is about and how they would direct a video clip for the particular song. Speaking Tasks are extremely useful as feedback 8 for the Listening Tasks as they give us a clear picture of how well the students understood the content of the audio material. Alternatively, I write some expressions or vocabulary the students are not familiar with on the board and ask them to guess the meaning, combining in that way Listening with Reading. Another subject teacher the English teacher can collaborate with is the History Master. These two teachers can work miracles together. As human beings are intuitively interested in and therefore can easily retain information concerning nuances and details of the personal life of other people, the English teacher can look for this type of information and present it in her/his class. The information should be relevant to the chapter they are examining in the history lesson so that it is easier for students to form a background context for their listening. After the information has been found (eg. concerning an emperor or people of a particular historical era), the English teacher can read it in class and then ask the students to report back what interested them most. It is important to remember that Listening Skills can be expanded with teacher readings made in class and not only through recordings. Conclusion Applying some of these techniques in class might help both the EFL teacher and the students to look at Vol. 21, June 2008 ISSUES Listening Tasks from a different perspective and prove much better than the traditional way of teaching this Skill after all. What is more, using alternative sources of listening material invites students to increase their effort to master the new tasks and at the same time might help them overcome an underlying "initial feeling of failure" (Ur, 110) many of them experience at the beginning of their learning process. References Ellis, Rod. 2003. Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harmer, J. 2004. The Practice of English Language Teaching: Third Edition. London: Longman Lewis, Gordon. 2004. The Internet and Young Learners. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ur, P. 2002. A Course in Language Teaching Practice and Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Zagliverinos, P. 2005. ‘Computer - Mediated Communication (CMC): an Evaluation of its Observed and Potential Roles in Language Teaching and Learning.' Issues 15: 21-25