1. art and entertainment
2. music
3. music genres
4. easy listening

MASARYKOVA UNIVERZITA
PEDAGOGICKÁ FAKULTA
Katedra anglického jazyka a literatury
How to organize listening in ELT classroom
Diplomová práce
Brno 2007
Autor práce: Hana Čujková
Vedoucí práce: Mgr. Světlana Hanušová, Ph.D.
Declaration
I declare that I wrote this diploma thesis by myself and I used only the literature listed
1
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my supervisor Mgr. Světlana Hanušová, Ph.D. for her kind help,
wise remarks and advice.
2
Contents
Contents ............................................................................................................................3
Introduction.......................................................................................................................4
Theoretical part .................................................................................................................6
1.
The importance of listening ......................................................................................6
2.
Listening process.......................................................................................................8
3.
Reasons for listening...............................................................................................12
4.
Learning strategies ..................................................................................................13
5.
Learning styles ........................................................................................................20
6.
Difficulties in listening............................................................................................24
7.
The role of teachers in listening .............................................................................30
8.
Planning listening exercises ....................................................................................35
9.
Listening stages.......................................................................................................45
10.
Podcasts – new way of listening .........................................................................53
Practical part ...................................................................................................................56
11.
Lesson plans based on listening ..........................................................................56
12.
Results of the questionnaire ................................................................................65
13.
Interpretation of the results .................................................................................78
Conclusion ......................................................................................................................81
Summary .........................................................................................................................83
Resumé............................................................................................................................84
Bibliography....................................................................................................................85
Appendix .........................................................................................................................87
3
Introduction
All people around the world deal with the phenomena of learning foreign languages,
especially English language. It means for foreign language teachers to develop in their
students four main skills, which is speaking, writing, reading and listening. I would like
to concentrate on fourth of these skills – listening in my diploma thesis.
Many teachers deal with the problem how to teach listening in the most effective way. It
is very difficult for the teachers because students can use different learning styles and
they also require different approaches. It is obvious that the main aim of all the teachers
is to present listening to students in the most natural way for them to be able to
understand and react on comprehension questions.
The Czech school system has been blamed very often for being knowledge-based and
that it does not develop students‘ autonomy. However, there are quite a big number of
alternative schools in The Czech Republic, which try to change this phenomenon and
offer students another ways of learning, or rather acquiring the language. E.g., European
language portfolio, which is based on records of all students‘ skills and their language
competences. The most important about this way of learning is that students are
encouraged to take control of their language learning. They can decide which skills to
practice, which activities to do, how long to spend on an activity and how to evaluate
their learning.
Why is listening so important for me? I started learning English very late, at the age of
fourteen. Listening used to be the most difficult skill for me and I could not find a way
how to improve it. My teacher never told me about any listening strategies, how to
organize listening, how to listen more effectively. After my first abroad experience I
found out that listening was the most important skill because without good listening
abilities it was impossible to deal with native speakers. I would like to help my future
students with the problems of listening and make them ready for communication with
foreigners.
4
In the theoretical part of my diploma thesis I would like to concentrate on listening in
language classes and the way how to organize it in the best way. There are many
listening strategies, which help students to struggle with listening itself. I would also
emphasize the role of motivation and the fact that if students are interested in a
particular topic or have a reason to listen, it improves their listening ability. My diploma
thesis will also concern the listening difficulties and the role of teacher.
In the practical part I would like to give some examples of lesson plans based on
listening which are possible to use in language classes and finally to present the results
of my research in which my aims are to find out learners‘ views on listening activities
5
Theoretical part
1. The importance of listening
"I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never
listen."
Ernest Hemingway
Possessing the ability to communicate effectively is a critical part of being a successful
student, employee, parent and citizen. The success of being able to communicate in a
foreign language is to understand what the speaker is saying, to understand received
information or get the meaning from something we hear.
Listening used to be described as the “ neglected “ or overlooked skill. Listening skills
were supposed to be learnt automatically through the practice of grammar, vocabulary
and pronunciation. It was very surprising as listening played a very important role in
everyday life. (Hedge, 2000)
Some researchers (Rivers and Tempeley, 1978, Oxford, 1993, Celce-Murcia, 1995)
showed that people are engaged in communication, approximately 9 percent is devoted
to writing, 16 percent to reading, 30 percent to speaking and 45 percent to listening. It is
obvious that contemporary society prefers sound to printed media and therefore it needs
to develop a high level of proficiency in listening.
There are some reasons, which cause the interest in oracy. Students have to participate
in spoken communication because of the stronger focus on listening in the classroom.
Another reason is that students travel more than they used to and if they want to be
successful in foreign countries, their communicative ability has to be on a high level. To
be able to communicate means to be able to concentrate on a particular piece of
information, which is also connected with listening skills. The third reason is that
listening plays a key role in a language acquisition because the development of effective
and appropriate strategies how to listen becomes crucial for the process of acquiring
language. Listening also plays an active part in language learning because it is involved
in many language-learning activities, not only inside but also outside the classroom. To
6
show the learners the links between listening and other skills help them in their overall
language development.
According to Rost (1991), in order to define listening, people can ask two main
questions:
What is the component skill in listening? What does the listener do?
Necessary components are listed below:
•
Discriminating between sounds
•
Recognising words
•
Identifying grammatical groupings of words
•
Identifying pragmatic units – expressions and sets of utterances which function
as whole units to create meaning
•
Connection linguistic cues to paralinguistic cues (stress and intonation) and to
non-linguistic cues (gestures, facial expressions) in order to construct meaning
•
Using background knowledge (what we already know about the topic and
context what has already been said) to predict and then confirm the meaning
•
Recalling important words, phrases and ideas
To be successful in listening, one has to integrate these component skills. However, not
the individual skills themselves but the coordination of the component skills including
perception skills (discriminating sounds, recognising words), analysis skills (Identifying
grammatical and pragmatical units), and synthesis skills (connecting linguistic and other
cues, using background knowledge) guarantee success in listening. All these skills form
a person’s listening ability.
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2. Listening process
To listen to one‘s own language is something what people find very easy and natural. It
does not need to take a lot of trouble to listen to one’s native language. Moreover, it is
described as a passive process. People can listen in their mother tongue with little or no
effort. Even if they do not understand each word, they are able to understand at least the
gist of what is said to them. It is because a lot of factors as our acquired knowledge of
the speakers, the context, the speaker, or a large amount of language we get in touch
over the years (Underwood, 1989).
On the other hand, Underwood supports the idea that even though people seem to be
passive while listening, they must " actually engage in the activity of constructing a
message in order to be described as a listener. Whilst hearing can be thought of as a
passive condition, listening is always an active process " (1989, p-2). If learners want to
be better listeners, they must employ active thinking as they listen and make sense of
what they hear (Rost, 1991).
I definitely agree with this statement because when people listen to a foreign language,
not only have they to concentrate of the point of view but also on understanding some
new words from the context, recognizing the grammatical structures and what is more,
they have to adapt to speaker‘s pace. To manage to do all these things together requires
a very active participation on listening.
It is very important for teachers to know how to organize listening and find out the
techniques how to learn listen in the most effective way. Even though it is not known
exactly how people learn to listen and understand, there are some theories describing or
rather trying to describe the listening process. I think that understanding how listening
works helps students better prepare for it.
According to Hedge (2000), there are recognized two main parts of the listening
process: Bottom-up and Top-down
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Bottom-up process
Hedge states that in the bottom-up part of the listening process " we use information in
the speech itself to comprehend the meaning. We segment speech into identifiable
sounds and impose a structure on these in terms of words, phrases, clauses, sentences,
and intonation patterns. At the same time we use whatever clues are available to infer
meaning from the developing speech. " (2000, p-230)
Harmer (1991, p-201) claims that " in bottom-up process, the listener focuses on
individual words and phrases and achieves the understanding by stringing these detailed
elements together to build a whole. "
It means in other words that the bottom-up process is a process of identifying sounds,
imposing structures, inferring meaning and anticipation what comes next. It uses the
knowledge of syntactic structures, the placement of stress on the meaningful words,
pauses, non-verbal behaviour as head shaking, smiling and also one’s experience of the
world. It follows the traditional view of communication as the transmission of
information when the sender encodes a message in the form of signal and is decoded by
the receiver (Ur, 1991)
The knowledge of syntactic structures can help us to infer the meaning of an utterance.
E.g. Hearing phrases:
terrorists…the power station…Temelín…damaged headquarters…the country without
electricity
Listeners would understand terrorists as agent, comprehend the power station Temelín
as the location, the damage of headquarters as the action and the country without
electricity the result. This example shows how listeners use knowledge of syntactic
structure to infer meaning. In the English language a typical structure is expected. It
means that we find noun phrase as agent (terrorists), verb phrase as action (damaged),
followed by a noun phrase as object (headquarters).
Speakers put stress on words which they find important and which they want to
emphasize. Its function is to carry the main information. Concentration on these words
helps the better understanding of what is said.
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During this process memory plays a crucial role. According to Hedge (2000) people
recognize three types of memory:
Echoic memory – a sensory store where the sounds go into. These sounds are organised
into meaningful units, according to the knowledge of the language the listener already
has.
Echoic memory enables to hold information for only a few seconds, concentrating on
key words, pauses or other significant features.
Short-term memory – in this memory are words and groups of words compared with
the information already stored in the long-term memory and we extract the meaning
from them. This memory enables to hold various parts of the message in mind while
inferring meaning. Sometimes it does not work if the second chunk of information
comes in the short-term memory before the previous chunk has been proceeded. The
new language learner is then unable to process the new information and fail to gain
meaning from it. E.g. when the message contains too many unfamiliar words.
Long-term memory – if the listener infers a meaning from the utterance, he or she
transfers the information to long-term memory for later use. This memory stores the gist
of the spoken message rather than the exact words. It means that we are able to recall
some information in a particular situation, in a particular context on the basis of the
knowledge of the culture and background knowledge of the speaker. It is also connected
with our expectation of certain kinds of language of different types of people (male/
female, educated/ uneducated, old/ young), in different situations (at home, at parties, at
work), concerning different topics (art, clothes, football) and status of speakers (boss to
subordinate and vice versa, teacher to child and vice versa).
Top-down process
Top down process works with the knowledge which a listener brings to a conversation.
It emphasizes the previous knowledge rather than relying upon the individual sounds
and words. In top-down process the listeners get a general overview of the listening
passage by absorbing the overall picture (Harmer, 1991)
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This type of model according to Hedge (2000, p-232) " infers meaning from contextual
clues and from making links between the spoken message and various types of prior
knowledge which listeners hold inside their heads. " This prior knowledge is also called
schematic knowledge and consists of the mental frameworks we keep in our memory
for various topics. If the schematic knowledge of people differs due to cultural or
professional differences, it can cause the misunderstanding even between speakers of
the same language. E.g. People can have different concepts of time. For some of them
five o‘ clock p.m. evokes early evening, for some of them late afternoon.
A teacher can hardly understand a doctor talking about the course of treatment of a
person suffering from hepatitis.
It involves listeners‘ reliance on prior contextual knowledge, not only on the acoustic
signal to understand a verbal message. Flowerdew and Millers (2005) state that listeners
use pre – established patterns of knowledge and discourse structure stored in memory.
For these pre-established patterns we use terms such as schema, frame, script and
scenario.
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3. Reasons for listening
To be successful in what are people doing involves the need to have a reason for it.
Having good reasons for doing things causes the increase of motivation.
We rarely listen to something we have no idea of what are we going to hear. Usually we
have preconceived idea of the content, formality level on the discourse we are about to
hear (Ur, 1984). It means that we have in mind the knowledge of various subject
matters, which are connected with our expectations what will go on. If we want to know
something, we have to ask and it is natural to expect a relevant response. There is a
connection between various contexts and learned key words or phrases we have in
mind. E.g. when we ask someone:
" How are you? ", we expect the answer: " I am fine, thank you. "
According to Hedge (2000) teachers have to create situations in the language classroom
to ensure that learners experience a range of listening purposes, especially those that
might be immediately relevant to their lives outside the classroom. The designer or
evaluator of listening materials will need to ask:
•
What purposes might there be for listening to these particular texts?
•
Is that purpose similar to the purpose a listener might have in a real life?
•
Does the task given to the learner encourage that listening purpose?
When we listen to a stranger giving us instructions how to get somewhere we have a
different reason from when we listen to an audiotape guide in a museum. According to
Harmer (1991) we can divide reasons into two broad categories:
•
Instrumental – people listen to something because it helps them to achieve a
clear goal. E.g. when we travel by air we usually know the number of flight but
we have to listen to information about announcement of our flight. People listen
to the news because they have a general interest what is going on, they are going
on holiday and listen to a weather forecast to know what the weather will be
like. People listen to a customer advisor to know how the washing machine
works or they expect a phone call from their English friend to inform them when
12
is he going to come to visit them. All these reasons are very useful because in
these cases we both want to listen and are forced to do so.
•
Pleasurable – this type of listening takes place only for pleasure. E.g. watching
our favourite film in original, listen to songs or radio programmes about an
interesting topic.
The two types of reasons do not exclude each other. There is a great crossover between
the two categories. Instrumental listening can be also pleasurable and vice versa.
It is very difficult both to provide all these situations in the classroom and make it
reasonable for students. On the other hand, students should be in touch with real life
situations to be able to succeed in real world communication. It is very common for
students that they find themselves unable to understand the spoken language when
arriving in English-speaking countries. Teachers‘ task is to offer students as many
situations reminding real life as possible. Scarborough (1984) lists these kinds of
listening situations where the reasons for listening are obvious:
1) Announcements – people have to listen to know when and where to go. E.g. At
an airport, at a railway station, at doctor’s, in a bank etc.
2) News – people listen for special information, to find out what is happening in a
particular place, about something what is of special relation to them.
3) Instructions – someone is on a trip and a guide explains him where to go, where
is the meeting point, where he can find world-known sights. Someone is lost and
asks a stranger for help, he has to listen to get the right direction.
4) Sport matches – someone is a sport supporter and wants to know who scored,
who helped score, who was sent off, to know the information about player to be
able to talk about it afterwards
5) Telephone messages – people are supposed to listen to make a note of
information contained in the message, to be able to react and repeat the message
for someone else
6) Stories – someone is interested in a story and wants to retell the story to
someone else
7) Discussions – people listen to find out what is the other speakers‘ opinion, if
they agree or disagree with them. If the speaker explains something so that they
are able to understand and react afterwards.
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4. Learning strategies
Teachers have to build students‘ autonomy and help them to develop their learning
strategies. According to Oxford (1990, p-1) "learning strategies are steps taken by
students to enhance their own learning. " If teachers want students to take control of its
own learning, to find the most suitable learning strategy, they have to help them with
learning to learn. Students who are able to think about their own learning can find the
most appropriate way how to develop not only the learning strategies but also improve
their listening skills.
Oxford (1991) divides learning strategies into two major classes: Direct and Indirect
Direct strategies directly involve the target language; they require mental processing of
the language. They are divided into three groups:
•
Cognitive strategies – they enable the learner to manipulate the language
material in direct ways – it means:
a) Practising (repeating, formally practising with sounds and writing
systems, recognizing and using formulas and patterns, recombining a
practising naturalistically)
b) Receiving and sending messages (getting the idea quickly – helps
learners locate the main idea through skimming or the key points of
interest through scanning, using resources for receiving and sending
messages)
c) Analysing and reasoning (reasoning deductively, analysing expressions,
analysing contrastively – through languages, translating, transferring). It
reflects learners’ need to reason out the new language.
d) Creating structure for input and output (taking notes, summarizing,
highlighting)
• Memory strategies – sometimes called mnemonics. They serve as powerful
mental tools and reflect simple principles, such as arranging things into order,
making associations and reviewing. It means that new arrangements and
associations must be personally meaningful to the learner. They help learners to
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link one foreign language item with another but do not necessarily involve deep
understanding.
a) Creating mental linkage (grouping, associating, placing new words into a
context)
b) Applying images and sounds (using imaginary, semantic mapping, using
key words, representing sounds in memory). Visual images can be the
most powerful aid of recall of verbal material for students with visual
preference learning. Other learners with aural (sound-oriented),
kinaesthetic (motion-oriented) or tactile (touch-oriented) learning style
preferences benefit from linking verbal material with sound, motion and
touch.
c) Reviewing well (structured reviewing)
d) Employing action (using physical response or sensation, using
mechanical techniques)
• Compensation strategies – they enable learners to use the new language despite
limitations in knowledge, they involve using a wide variety of cues – linguistic
or non-linguistic – to guess the meaning when the learner does not know all the
words, they help learners to keep on using the language even if they do not
know all vocabulary
a) Guessing intelligently (using linguistic clues, using other cues)
b) Overcoming limitations for speaking and writing (switching for the
mother tongue, getting help, using mime or gesture, avoiding
communication partially and totally, selecting the topic, adjusting)
Indirect strategies encourage the business of language learning, they support and
manage language learning without directly involving the target language. These
strategies are useful in virtually all languages learning situations and are applicable to
all four language skills. They are divided into three groups:
• Metacognitive strategies – they enable the learners to coordinate their own
learning process by using function such as centring, arranging, planning and
evaluating. These strategies are essential for successful language learning
because they help students to deal with many novelties as unfamiliar vocabulary,
confusing rules, different writing systems, etc.
15
a) Centring your learning (overweening and linking with already known
material, paying attention, delaying speech production to focus on
listening)
b) Arranging and planning your learning – it helps the learners to arrange
and plan their language learning in an effective way (finding out about
language learning, organizing, identifying the purpose of a language
task which means purposeful listening, reading, speaking and writing,
planning for a language task, seeking practice opportunities which
involve using language outside of the classroom)
c) Evaluating your learning – to teach the learners to learn from their
mistakes and make them communicatively competent rather than rule
learners (self-monitoring and self-evaluating)
• Affective strategies – they help students to regulate their emotions, motivations
and attitudes. This affective side of the learner is one of the very biggest
influences on language learning success and failure. Positive emotions can make
the learning far more effective and enjoyable. On the other side, negative
feelings stunt progress. Attitudes affect motivation, attitudes and motivation
work together to influence language learning performance itself including both
global language proficiency and proficiency in specific language skills, such as
listening and reading comprehension and oral production.
a) Lowering your anxiety (using progressive relaxation or meditation, using
music and laughter)
b) Encouraging yourself (making positive statements, taking risks wisely
and rewarding yourself)
c) Taking your emotional temperature (listening to your body, using a
checklist, writing a language learning diary, discussing your feelings
with someone else)
• Social strategies – they help students to learn through interaction with others
a) Asking questions – it helps learners get closer to the intended meaning
and thus their understanding. Moreover, it also helps learners encourage
their conversation partners to provide larger involvement (asking for
clarification and verification, asking for correction)
b) Cooperating with others (cooperation with peers and proficient users of
the language)
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c) Empathizing with others (developing cultural understanding, becoming
aware of others‘ thoughts and feelings)
To teach effective listening teachers must be aware of how our students approach their
learning in general and the way how they prefer to develop their listening skills
(Flowerdew, Millers, 2005). Because individual students use their own preferred
learning styles, teachers should respect them to achieve the best results. It means that
teachers should adapt listening programmes to the types of learners they have.
Successful listening requires decision-making. Listeners must take some kinds of
decisions:
•
What kind of situation it is?
•
What is my plan for listening?
•
What are important words and units of meaning?
•
Does the message make sense?
It is known, as mentioned before, that listening is an active process so we can
understand it as thinking about meaning. The feature of an effective listener is that he or
she develops useful ways of thinking about meaning as they listen. The ways in which
the listener make these decisions are called listening strategies (Rost, 1991).
As Rost (1991) states, if listeners want to be successful, they have to use following
strategies:
1) Social strategies – it is thinking about the situation in which we are going to
listen. It requires questions, as how should I deal with this situation? What is my
relationship to the speaker? How can I get clarification?
This strategy seems to be very logical because students have to get some background
information before they start listen. This activity involves active participation and it is a
kind of preparation for the listening itself.
2) Goal strategies – it is thinking about a plan how to listen in the most effective
way. Listeners have to ask questions: How should I organize listening? How
should I plan my response? What is the goal for listening?
Goal strategies are very important for listeners because they enable them to sort out the
information and thinking about a goal or a reason increasing the motivation for
listening.
17
3) Linguistic strategies – listeners have to activate their language knowledge.
They have to recognize words they should pay attention to; they have to think
about unknown words and expressions, which they are able to guess.
This strategy is connected with the ability to get the words from context. The listeners
have to know that the fact they are able to translate each particular word does not mean
that they understand of what was said and moreover, if they are not native speakers they
will not be able to understand everything.
4) Content strategies – listeners have to activate their content knowledge by
becoming aware of the fact if this makes sense in view of what they already
know about the topic or what can they predict.
Listeners have to compare their acquired knowledge with new information they gain
from a listening and then to discover if the acquired knowledge can help them in
recognizing a new piece of information. Depending on topic, listeners can also expect
what is going on.
According to Lynch (2004), people who are successful in listening to a foreign language
tend to use a number of broad general strategies, which are called Macrostrategies.
Students can use them during, while and after listening:
1) Predicting – students have to think about the possible content before they start
listen to make themselves ready for a particular topic they have already
knowledge about.
There are two types of information to help students to predict:
a) Background knowledge: general knowledge of the world, knowledge of
the foreign countries, specific subject knowledge
b) Context: the situation - who is speaking, where and when, the co-text –
what has been said so far
2) Monitoring – students have to recognize their problems as they listen and find
out in which areas they have problems including the lack of vocabulary,
uncontrolled speed at which speakers speak, background noise, inability to
concentrate. Moreover, monitoring includes asking yourself the questions: Have
I heard correctly? Have I understood what the speaker meant? Has the speaker
changed the topic? Have I understood why the speaker said it?
3) Responding – students have to express their own opinions on ideas presented by
a teacher, relate the lesson content to their personal opinions. Students have to
18
ask questions such as: Do I think the teacher’s opinions are reasonable? Do I
agree with the teacher? Can I think of other examples that support or disprove
what was said?
4) Clarifying – students have to ask the teacher to understand better what was said
or what was meant. They have to distinguish the problems which caused the
misunderstanding:
a) Not hearing what the teacher said – students can say: I didn’t catch the
word you used for… What was the term used for…?
b) Not understanding what was said – students can say: I am not really
clear about… Could you give us an example?
c) Not seeing the connections – students can say: I do not quite see how (a)
relates to (b)? I cannot see the link between (a) and (b)?
5) Interferencing – students have to make hypothesis when they cannot get
something, e.g. the meaning of an unknown word or a phrase. Interferencing or
rather guessing in other words helps to deal with situations when:
a) The information the speaker gives is incomplete
b) We do not know the expressions which the speaker uses
c) We hear a known word but used in a different way than we are used to
d) We can not hear what is the speaker saying
6) Evaluating – students have to assess how successful they were in understanding
the teacher. This strategy is very valuable because it can help students to:
a) Identify the lack of knowledge they have to improve in
b) Compare their listening skills in different subject areas of their class
c) Assess their progress in listening over time
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5. Learning styles
The ways in which individual learners try to become involved, try to understand and
improve
in
learning
are
called
learning
styles.
Oxford
(www.education.umd.edu/EDCI/SecondLangEd/TESOL/People/Faculty/Dr.%20Oxford
/RebeccaOxford.htm - UKiP Project Front Page Dialogue: " Style and Strategy" myth
for language learning and teaching) claims, „ Learning styles are general approaches
that students use in acquiring a new language or in learning any other subject."
Learning styles also change the way learners internally represent experiences, the way
they recall information, and even the words they choose. It is said that each learning
style uses different part of brain. To know learners‘ learning styles can help teachers
when organizing the language class and respecting them involves more effective
learning on the learners‘ side. Moreover, the knowledge of learning styles can help
teachers to understand problems with listening in some students.
We can divide the learning styles in many areas but I will try to cover jut some of them
as learning styles is not the topic of my diploma thesis.
We can distinguish these types of learners according to Rost (1991):
1) A self-instruction type – these learners prefer learning alone, follow through
their plans and enjoy learning process. They can perceive language accurately
and work hard to develop their memory for English vocabulary. They are able to
evaluate their own progress.
E.g. these types replay important scenes from films again and again to assure
themselves that they understand well and then listen to favourite parts to study the
language carefully. They have to know exactly what the speaker says to understand
the phrases when they hear it again.
2) A social type – these learners like face-to-face interaction because they find it as
real listening situation. Their aim is to get the general gist of what they hear and
to be able to react. They ask for clarification all the time they find it important
because they know that foreign language development requires permanent effort.
E.g. these types look for any opportunity to talk to native speakers and try to
understand as much as possible. They find it the best way how to practise listening.
20
Even if they are not good speakers, the successful communication with native
speakers makes them more confident.
3) A language classroom type – They prefer learning in classroom, as they trust
their teachers to teach them useful things and give them enough opportunities to
practise the language. They work hard to do what is expected of them and find
classroom instructions as the means, which help them to reach their goals.
E.g. these types improve through talking to their classmates in foreign language
classes and listening to various kinds of tapes. They prefer being tested by their
teachers and require knowing precise meaning of things. Their improvement in
listening motivates them in learning.
4) A subject matter type – for these types is not English only a means of social
communication but also the help in their career. The ability to speak a foreign
language is the motivation itself for them.
E.g. these types make progress if they have reasons for listening, e.g. to understand a
lecture at university. They must work very hard and prepare for lectures in advance.
These preparations and reviews of what was said help them to listen better each time.
Oxford
(www.education.umd.edu/EDCI/SecondLangEd/TESOL/People/Faculty/Dr.%20Oxford
/RebeccaOxford.htm) distinguishes these learning styles:
According to sensory preferences:
1) Visual – these learners obtain a great deal from visual stimulation
2) Auditory – these learners do not need visual input and profit from lectures,
conversations, oral directions and enjoy classroom interaction and role-plays
3) Kinaesthetic – these learners are movement-oriented and prefer activities
related to working with various objects, flashcards, prefer long breaks and are
frustrated by sitting at the desk.
4) Tactile – these learners are touch-oriented and prefer similar activities like the
kinaesthetic students
According to ways of processing or using information:
1) Detail oriented style – these learners prefer small pieces of information and are
focused on details rather than relations among parts
2) Holistic style – these learners prefer big ideas and relations among parts
21
3) Whole-to-part style – these learners need to know the big picture to reveal the
component parts
4) Part-to-whole style – these learners combine parts to reveal the big picture
5) Concrete-sequential style – these learners prefer step by step learning, concrete
facts, are other-directed and do not like many choices
6) Abstract-intuitive style – these learners prefer abstract theories, are selfdirected and require many choices
7) Closure-oriented style – these learners want to reach judgements and require
clarity as soon as possible, are more serious than playful, prefer to work towards
specific deadline
8) Open style – these students take learning less seriously, are more playful and
dislike deadlines
Another division of learning style is according to use of different parts of the brain
(www.learning-styles-online.com/overview):
1) Visual (spatial) – the occipital lobes at the back of the brain manage the visual
sense – these learners prefer using images, pictures, colours and maps to
organize information and communicate with others
2) Aural (auditory-musical-rhythmic) – the temporal lobes handle aural content.
The right temporal lobe is especially important for music – these learners prefer
working with sound and music which help them get into visualizations
3) Verbal (linguistic) – the temporal and frontal lobes are important – these
learners prefer both spoken and written word. They love reading and writing and
enjoy tongue twisters, rhymes and limericks. They know the meaning of many
words, look for new words and use them, as well as other phrases picked up
recently, when talking to others
4) Physical (bodily-kinaesthetic) – the cerebellum and the motor cortex (at the
back of the frontal lobe) handle much of our physical movement. These learners
use their body and sense of touch to learn about the world around them.
5) Logical (mathematical) – the parietal lobes, especially the left side, drive
learners‘ logical thinking – these learners prefer using logic, reasoning and
systems, recognize connections between meaningless content
6) Social (interpersonal) - the frontal and temporal lobes handle much of our
social activities. The limbic system (not shown apart from the hippocampus)
22
also influences both the social and solitary styles. The limbic system has a lot to
do with emotions, moods and aggression. These learners prefer to learn in
groups or with other people and communicate well both verbally and nonverbally
7) Solitary (interpersonal) - the frontal and parietal lobes, and the limbic system,
are also active with this style. These learners prefer to work alone and use selfstudy. They can concentrate well, focusing on their thoughts and feelings on
their current topic.
Felder and Spurlin
(http://www.ncsu.edu/felderpublic/ILSdir/Litzinger_Validation_Study.pdf) summarize
the four learning styles as follows:
1) Sensing (concrete, practical, oriented toward facts and procedures) or intuitive
(conceptual, innovative, oriented toward theories and underlying meanings)
2) Visual (prefer visual representations of presented material, such as pictures,
diagrams, and flow charts) or verbal (prefer written and spoken explanations);
3) active (learn by trying things out, enjoy working in groups) or reflective (learn
by thinking things through, prefer working alone or with one or two familiar
partners)
4) Sequential (linear thinking process, learn in incremental steps) or global
(holistic thinking process, learn in large leaps).
There are a number of tests identifying learning styles. I would recommend learners
one, which I find very helpful as learners can compare their results with all users of the
test, other students of their age and sex.
(www.learning-styles-online.com/inventory/questions.asp?cookieset=y)
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6. Difficulties in listening
Language learners very often perceive listening as the most difficult skill. It used to be
common and maybe it is still an up-to-date phenomenon at schools to listen to a
cassette, answer the comprehension questions and write down the unknown words
without interest if the students know the reason why to listen, notice the topic or
understand the message of listening. It is no wonder that students feel confused and find
listening more or less useless.
It is obvious that some types of students deal with listening better than the others. E.g.
the auditory types predominantly learn from what they hear or as Underwood (1989, p16) claims " it is noticeable, for example, that students whose culture and education
includes a strong storytelling and a oral communication tradition are generally better
at listening that those from a reading and book-based culture and educational
background. " She also supports the idea that students with stronger feeling for stress
and intonation which occur in English have usually less troubles than those whose own
language is based on different rhythms and tones. Listeners have to be able to recognize
the features of spoken language and to understand how it influences their listening.
Cherry, a communication researcher, introduced the term uncertainties and finally
categorized some main areas of uncertainty: in speech and patterns, in language and
syntax, in recognition of context and uncertainties caused by environmental noise and
disturbance which create gaps in the message, e.g. background conversation, phone
ringing, traffic noise, indistinct speech, muttering or soft voice. These external problems
might be followed by internal problems as lack of motivation towards the topic, effort to
understand each word, negative reaction to the speaker or to the event etc. (Hedge,
2000)
According to Anderson and Lynch (1988, p-40), " one of the principal skills which
listeners must to develop if they are to participate successfully in conversation is the
ability to identify the topic of conversation, so that they can make a relevant response. "
Foreign language learners‘ duty is to develop strategies to make their difficulties clear
to their native partner if they want to get the clarification of the topic. Learners must
24
deal with this problem by using responses as Excuse me. I do not understand. Can you
repeat that, please?
Here is the list of the most common problems in listening caused by both external and
internal purposes:
•
Listening difficulties stemming from pronunciation (Rixon, 1986)
Firstly it is weak relationship between sounds and spelling – the difference between
written and spoken form of English is obvious, not even a native speaker can always be
sure of the correct pronunciation of words when meeting them for the first time.
Secondly, sounds in connected speech – words are not pronounced in isolation and
when they are used in a connected natural speech, they may become harder for listeners
to recognize. The reason is that listeners can meet three main types of changes in
pronunciation including weakening of vowel e.g. you is pronounced as ju: said with
stress or in isolation but said unstressed in connected speech, the pronunciation change
into jə. E.g. in: Where do you live? The next change is called elision which is the loss of
sounds occurring in rapid speech e.g. the lack of /t/ or /d/ sound of the past tense and the
last type of change is assimilation. It is a technical term expressing way in which
speakers modify their pronunciation to save effort. E.g. the phrase ten bikes (/ten baiks/)
is in careful speech pronounced as /tem baiks/. The sound b in bikes is made with two
lips together and so it is easier to pronounce a sound, which is also made with two lips
together. This is m in this example. According to Ur (1991), students have trouble
catching the actual sounds of the foreign language.
As the next point is mentioned the rhythm pattern of English speech – English belongs
to the groups of languages known technically as stress timed which means that the
stresses tend to come at nearly equal intervals of time. This is in spite of the different
number of syllables between the stresses. Listeners cannot believe that there is room for
all those syllables between stresses and these words are lost. E.g.
They
brought a
vase
They have
brought you a red
vase
They could have
brought you another
vase
They ought to have
brought you an expensive
vase
Finally, the difficulties in pronunciation are caused by different ways of pronouncing the
same sound. E.g. there are two ways of pronouncing /l/ in so-called Received
25
Pronunciation. Before a vowel at the beginning of a syllable we hear the clear /l/. At the
end of a syllable, or before another consonants, we hear the dark /ł /.
•
Listening difficulties caused by the speed in which speakers speak
Underwood (1989, p-16) claims, " The greatest difficulty with listening comprehension,
as opposed to reading comprehension, is that the listeners cannot control how quickly a
speaker speaks. " Students feel nervous that they cannot catch it and simply ignore the
whole speech. Some of them are very busy working out the meaning of one part of what
they hear that they miss the next part. Ur (1991) has mentioned that students can
understand people if they talk slowly and clearly and cannot understand fast, natural
native-sounding speech.
•
Listening difficulties deriving from the presentation of speech
According to Hedge (2000, p-238) " unplanned and unrehearsed spoken language is
very different from the language of written texts. " In spoken language speakers use the
repetitions, fillers, pauses, false starts, incomplete sentences, restructuring and
corrections which are typical for this kind of language. Moreover, listeners can identify
there a higher proportion of colloquial language than most written texts ado also
contracted forms. Speakers interpret the information in random order as they piece
together a presentation of the event and use variety of accents.
•
Listening difficulties stemming from not being able to get things repeated
Listeners are not always in position to get the speaker to repeat what they have already
said. It is the case of listening to the radio and watching television. Listeners can take
control of recorded materials and they can be played over and over again and even it
depends on teachers‘ decision about whether or not to replay a recording or a section of
a recording. Ur (1991) claims that students need to hear things more than once in order
to understand and so we should give them an opportunity to request clarification or
repetition during the listening. It means to choose texts within which the important
information in presented more than once.
•
Listening difficulties because of the gaps in the message
Hedge (2000) admits that both environmental noise and poorly articulated speech can
cause gaps in the message that a listener hears. Listeners have also react on the fact that
native speakers use a lot of substitutions and ellipsis in order to save effort. When gaps
occur, listeners have to reconstruct the missing information and use variety of clues
26
available to fill them in. E.g. Listeners can use prediction on the basis of the syntactic
structure.
•
Listening difficulties caused by listener’s limited vocabulary
According to Underwood (1989, p-17) " choice of vocabulary is in the hands of the
speakers, not the listeners. " Sometimes it is possible to ask the speaker for clarification
or deduce the meaning of a word from its context. In fact, for people listening to a
foreign language means one word which is not understood a big problem. They start
think about this word and so they miss the next part of the speech. It happens more to
students who have been taught their English in a way, which has given more emphasis
to accuracy than fluency, and it leads to students‘ focus on the language word by word.
According to Ur (1991), students claim that they have to understand every word, if they
miss something, they feel they are failing and get worried and stressed. On the other
hand, in the real life speakers usually say things more than once, they rephrase them or
another speaker echoes what has been said. Finally, the listeners can fill the gap in the
message with less effort.
•
Listening difficulties deriving from the language
Hedge (2000, p-239) supports the idea that " there are some listening situation in which
the language heard is similar to written prose, such as in a lecture which is read, or a
scripted news broadcast. However, a good deal of listening is to informal colloquial
English. " It is obvious that the language of audio recordings, which we usually use in
the language classrooms, is slower and often restricted in various ways. The group of
teachers working with Hedge have made a comparison between a recording of natural
conversation among native speakers and a recording made for English language
learners. The differences are following:
Spontaneous informal talk:
Recordings for language learners:
- Variation in speed of delivery
- Slow pace with little variation
often fast
- Natural intonation
- Exaggerated intonation patterns
- The natural features of connected
- Carefully articulated
speech, e.g. elision
pronunciation
- Variety of accents
- Received Pronunciation
- Any grammatical structures
- Regularly repeated structures
natural to the topic
- Colloquial language
- More formal language
27
- Incomplete utterances
- Complete utterance
- Restructuring in longer, more
- Grammatically correct sentences
complex sentences
- Speakers interrupt or speak at the
- Speakers take careful turns
same time
- Speakers use ellipsis (e.g. miss out
- Ellipsis infrequent (i.e. sentences
parts of sentences)
usually complete)
- Background noise present
- Background noise absent
I think that these teachers should prepare learners for listening to a native speaker.
However, recordings are definitely more suitable for learners because they offer the
practice for the real listening and what is more, they present grammar, vocabulary and
certain phonological features. It is obvious that they should contain features of more
spontaneous informal talk but all these features as listed above can present a teacher of
English. Using language outside the classroom, e.g. on a school trip, on holiday implies
familiarizing students with colloquial speech and variety of pace and accents.
•
Listening difficulties stemming from failure to recognise the signals
Underwood (1989, p-18) claims, " there are many ways in which a speaker can indicate
that he or she is moving from one point to another, or giving an example, or repeating a
point, or whatever. These signals are immediately self-evident to a person listening to a
foreign language and can easily be missed. " It means that if speakers want to indicate
listing, they use the expressions firstly, secondly or finally, if they want to emphasize
two sides of a thing, they use however, on the other hand. They indicate hesitation by
well, you know and use different intonation to introduce a new idea or to say something
the listener already knows. Listeners have to look for these signals, which help them in
better understanding and involve less effort in listening.
•
Listening difficulties caused by content
A learner who is unfamiliar with the background knowledge of the speaker experiences
the difficulties in inferring and interpreting meaning. He or she has to know something
about the surroundings of an event or a situation people are talking about. Then it is not
the language, the unknown vocabulary that causes problems but it is the lack of
schematic knowledge. Some meaning even encouraged by non-verbal clues as facial
28
expressions, nods, tone of voice, gestures, can be easily misinterpreted by listeners from
other culture.
•
Listening difficulties because of inability to concentrate
A big number of students admit that if the listening goes on a long time they get tired,
and find it more and more difficult to concentrate (Ur, 1991). It is also connected with
the fact if students find the topic of listening interesting or not. And even if they find the
topic interesting, the big effort to follow what hear word by word make them more tired.
Listeners can also meet the factors as poor recording, background noises or acoustically
unsuitable rooms, which make listening harder for them.
•
Listening difficulties deriving from the lack of visual support
When talking about listening, students describe it as an aural activity. However, in most
cases we are able to see the speaker e.g. a teacher or a visual aid, which helps students
to put the words into a context. It means that a teacher has to take time presenting
something so that contextual clues are available. It is an obvious advantage as speaker
provides non-verbal clues to the meaning as lip movements, gestures and facial
expressions.
29
7. The role of teachers in listening
"In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us
would have to settle for something less, because passing civilization along from one
generation to the next ought to be the highest honour and the highest responsibility
anyone could have."
Lee Iacocca
Teachers have to play a lot of roles in their profession. Some teachers find themselves
as actors because they are always on the stage. Some people think that teachers are like
gardeners who plant the seeds and then watch them grow. However, in the recent years,
under the influence of humanistic and communicative theories, great emphasis has been
placed on learner-centred teaching. It means that learners‘ needs are in the centre of
educational process. In fact, the teacher is no longer a controller or a provider of
knowledge but rather a guide or a resource for students to build on.
Teacher’s role may change according to various circumstances the teacher has to deal
with. Roles such as prompter, resource or tutor, which are adopted by teachers, are
designed to help the learners with learning. Nevertheless, acting as a controller meant as
a giver of information can inspire the learners in a positive way, through teachers‘
knowledge and charisma. Another important roles as an organizer and an assessor are
vital as teachers are giving the learners clarification, offering feedback and correction.
Moreover, teachers acting as participants are considered more relaxed and like the
member of the class. The role of observer gives the teachers chance to get closer to their
students and to recognize their difficulties easily. Teachers can be very useful as
teaching aid providing the learners with mime, gestures, comprehensible input or being
as language model.
(Harmer, 1991)
As Underwood (1989) claims, " One of the main arguments used to justify the exclusion
of listening from the curriculum in the past was that listening cannot be taught. " It was
thought that learners could only practise which might help them apply their already
developed listening skills to the language of being learned. We cannot agree with this
notion as nowadays we believe that to teach means to facilitate learning and we see the
role of teachers as being the support or the guidance of learners. Hamblin (1981, p-37)
30
says, " Failure to listen is a cause of tension between teacher and pupils. " He wants to
emphasize the fact that teachers should create a relaxing atmosphere and provide
opportunities for students to deal with the problems and help them to become better at
listening.
De López (Teaching development, making the right moves) (1994, p-9) claims that
today’s language teacher must manipulate much more information in several different
areas of knowledge and this information must be organized and applicable to a practical
situation. Teacher’s role with knowledge of linguistics, pedagogy, educational
psychology and sociology has relation to:
a) The knowledge of psychological and social factors and students‘ personal
needs
b) Selection of appropriate materials
c) Presentations of materials
d) Creation of affective environment conductive to learning
The teacher’s aims should include according to Underwood (1989):
a) Exposing students to a range of listening experiences
It means that teachers should use a lot of different listening texts e.g. conversations,
stories, descriptive talks and give the students the chance to meet a variety of language
including formal and informal language, spoken by both foreign and native speakers,
with slower and also quicker pace.
b) Making listening purposeful for the students T
Teachers should provide tasks, which are as realistic as possible, and students can use
them outside the classroom, in real life. When a student listens to something e.g.
telephone conversation or recording about a historical event and he or she finds it
important and useful for his or her real life, he or she gives more effort to listening and
better understanding.
c) Helping students understand what listening entails and how they might
approach it
Teachers should change the attitude of students and show them the best way how to
listen effectively. It is worth explaining them the listening process, comparing the ways
that they listen in their native language and in English, talking about strategies, which
help them in listening. Teachers can also use their own language if they find it
appropriate and necessary for better understanding.
31
d) Building up students‘ confidence in their own listening ability
Teacher’s role in this means that they have to provide activities and experiences
students can be successful in. Students who feel they are succeeding are less stressed
and encouraged to go on trying. A lot of teachers think that testing show them the
proper results in listening of their students but if they want to help them to be good
listeners not only in the language classroom but also in real life, they have to remove
testing and provide more problem-solving tasks.
e) Helping and encouraging students
Teachers should be available to help students whenever they need it and encourage
them in cooperation including pair- and group work. It means that the emphasis should
be on the completion of the task rather than on right or wrong answers of particular
students.
f) Providing students with background knowledge and visual aids
It is obvious that students with different cultural or general knowledge cannot deal with
listening tasks as well as students with this knowledge. Teachers should give
information to students about the topic, use visual aids, which help students to recognize
the context and take advantage of it.
g) Making the location for listening as comfortable as possible
We know that some rooms are for listening inappropriate. In some of them can students
hear the noise of traffic or work; some of them offer bad acoustics. Teacher’s task is to
choose the most appropriate classroom. They have also chosen which activities are
better to do in the classroom, in the language laboratory or listening centre. They have
to bear in mind that a teacher-spoken listening task is best done in a place where the
students can see the teacher easily. If students want to work alone, a language laboratory
can give them more privacy and on the other hand that group work is often difficult to
arrange in a language laboratory.
h) Choosing the high-quality equipment and operating it
Teachers have to provide language classroom with high-quality machines, e.g. TV, tape
or CD recorders, videos, because poor machines lead to frustration for both students and
teachers and can make the listening very hard. Teacher’s role of technical operator
involves starting and stopping the recordings or videos, to use the pause button and to
rewind tapes or videos. This ability seems to be very banal but it can significantly
influence the atmosphere in which students listen. Teachers should not use equipment,
which they cannot operate efficiently and confidently.
32
i) Deciding about the time devoting to listening
Teachers have to bear in mind the time available, e.g. not to prepare a listening tasks
which demands more concentration in the afternoon classes, the level of the group and
the ways of listening organization. It is also important to guess the time which students
need for dealing with particular listening task and not to push them to work quicker
because of the time limit we decided to allocate to listening.
j) Selecting texts for listening
According to Hedge (2000, p-244), " In selecting texts for classroom use it is worth
considering the possible dimensions of difference we need to address, for example, the
distinction between monologue and dialogue, both of which will be encountered by
learners in listening situations outside the classroom. " There are variations of
monologues and dialogues, which differ according to their characteristics:
Monologue:
•
Unscripted but possibly prepared, e.g. lectures, speeches, talks – they are better
organized, with greater clarity and more discourse markers and slower
•
Scripted, e.g. news, written talks, stories read to children – they are similar to
written prose with little repetitions, rephrasing and relatively formal style
•
Public announcements – moderate and careful speed, formal style with fixed
phrases, uncertain acoustics, distorted by noise and therefore difficult to hear.
Dialogue:
•
Unscripted, spontaneous conversations between native speakers, or involving
non-native speakers – they use a huge number of repetitions, rephrasing,
reformulations, hesitations, natural rhythm, contracted forms, incomplete
sentences, fast pace, colloquialisms, variety of accents
•
Spontaneous commentary – e.g. very fast sports commentary – the typical
features are use of incomplete sentences, varying speed and reformulations.
•
Telephone conversations – more structures and turn-taking than in spontaneous
conversations, more careful pronunciation and slower pace. The typical features
are problems of gaps in the message cased by noise, distortion and lack of visual
clues.
Teacher’s role is also important because he or she has to provide planned and systematic
opportunities for their students how to:
•
Determine what an utterance or a conversation is about
33
•
Establish who is talking to whom (e.g. a shop assistant talking to her customer)
•
Recognize the mood and attitude of speaker(s) (a happy child, a angry doctor)
If the listeners are overhearing the conversation (on the radio) rather than participating
in it, students need to be able to:
•
Decide where a conversation is taking place (at school, on a taxi)
•
Decide when a conversation is taking place (after an exam, before a business
meeting)
Students have to react on various signals, which help them to reach their decisions
mentioned above. Teachers have to teach them:
•
To be aware how lexis and lexical sets can indicate topic
•
To interpret the use of stress, intonation, loudness
•
To recognize transition words and what they indicate (e.g. although, but,
however, for example)
•
To predict what is coming next in an utterance or a conversation, using both
their general knowledge and the clues from what they have heard
•
To make guesses based on the context, the tone
To listen between words (the listening equivalent to reading between lines) to know
what is really meant by speakers who do not always say precisely what they mean
•
To distinguish between facts and opinions as they listen, so that they can be
critical listeners, not easily persuaded by other people’s clever use of language
(e.g. utterances where spying on is used rather than watching, to suggest that
there was something suspicious about the action).
•
To have practice in turn-taking and in giving feedback to the speaker by
nodding, using hesitation marks etc.
(Underwood, 1989)
Teachers have also decide if to have the separate listening lesson where the main focus
will be on listening practice or if listening is integrated into one or more of the general
listening lessons. On the other hand, teachers cannot stop the growing support for the
opinion that listening should play the central role in language teaching and therefore has
to be integrated with other skills work. However, it does not mean that the other skills
must be excluded.
34
8. Planning listening exercises
According to Ur (1984, p-22), " When planning listening exercises it is essential to bear
in mind the kind of real-life situations for which we are preparing students, and also the
specific difficulties they are likely to encounter and need practice to overcome. "
Rixon (1986) claims that teachers have looked at listening in isolation so far and it has
caused that students lose the overall direction and purpose in what they are listening.
Teachers have to plan their listening to be purposeful for students and not to lose the
motivation. A lot of difficulties stem from the bad design of classroom listening
exercises and procedures. Hedge (2000) supports the idea that now it has become
common practice to use some procedures when students deal with a listening text in
class.
The procedures are:
• Both the teachers and the students prepare for the listening by the exercises,
which help them to be familiar with the topic, to focus on some language
features of the text or to overall structure. The teacher has to activate students‘
prior knowledge, create interest, reason and the confidence to listen.
• Before students start doing while-listening task, the teacher makes sure that
everyone has understood what it involves.
• The students implement the task independently without teacher’s help, if there is
not a misunderstanding what is required, and they can be encouraged to
cooperate and check their responses in pairs after they are ready.
• The feedback session is very important as the teacher and students check their
results and discuss the responses to the while-listening task. The teacher informs
the students how successful they have been in doing the task.
• In follow-up activities the teacher may focus on features of the text or on
bottom-up processes, which will assist further development of effective
listening.
Listening materials
Most of the teachers use a main course book, resource materials, supplementary
materials or their own ideas which do a very good job in helping learners develop
35
listening skills. The main course book provides the backbone of what students do in
their classes but it is not sufficient enough so teachers are pushed to use supplementary
materials or specifically designed books to improve student’s listening skill e.g. Basic
listening by John McDowell and Sandra Stevens. However, sometimes arises problem
how to relate supplementary materials to the main course. According to Rixon (1986)
there are number of ways how to do it:
•
Via language forms and functions – it is important to pick up language covered
in your main course
• Via subject matter – it is vital to find passages with the same topic or theme and
extend the students‘ knowledge
•
Via language skills – teachers should try to connect the listening with other
skills e.g. they usually read an article and produce a summary so they can listen
to a short passage, take notes from it and then summarize
According to Flowerdew and Miller (2005), when planning listening exercises, teachers
have to bear in mind following questions, which help them to supply course books in
the best way:
a) General – teachers have to concentrate if the materials encourage learners to
focus on developing bottom up (intonation, word stress, sounds) and top down
(previous knowledge) listening skills.
b) Individual variation – it is important to know if the material help learners
individualize their learning, if the material reflects learners needs and wants or if
it is suitable for only one level of learners or a variety of levels.
c) Cross-cultural dimension – the question is if any cultural aspects of language
are emphasized in the materials, e.g., ways of greeting in different countries.
Teachers have to decide if there are any obvious cultural difficulties learners
might deal with.
d) Social dimension – it is vital to know how much of material is centred on
dialogues and if the students are ready to use such aspects of dialogues as
openings, closings, back-channelling and turn taking. Are students required to
take on different roles in the dialogue? Are the listening materials integrated
with speaking materials? Does the dialogue provide the natural spoken language
or it is more like written text?
36
e) Contextualized dimension – it is important to know if the listening materials
contextualized with other processes or activities, e.g., taking notes, reading,
producing graphics, charts etc.
f) Affective dimension – does the material consist of anything what affects the
learner’s motivation? E.g., indicating the importance of particular listening
skills, getting them into mood for listening, accounting for physical feelings etc.
g) Strategic dimension – the question is if the material help learners to develop
specific listening strategies, e.g., metacognitive, cognitive, affective
h) Intertextual dimension – do the texts of materials relate to texts or features of
texts learners have previously encountered?
i) Critical dimension – the point is if the material covers any socio-political
dimensions of the language, e.g., the language of domination, power, or if are
learners encouraged to analyse the language they listen to critically.
According to Scrivener (2005), when doing a listening activity, teachers should follow
some rules:
a) To keep the recordings short
b) To play the recordings a sufficient number of times
c) To let the learners to discuss their answers together
d) To ask the learners about their classmates‘ opinions
e) To bear in mind less successful listeners
f) To play little bits of the recordings again and again until they are clear
g) Not to change the requirements halfway
h) To try to make the tasks as achievable as possible
Teachers, when planning listening exercise, have to bear in mind listening
comprehension activity types distinguished by listening skill, level of difficulty, amount
and complexity of response demanded of the learner etc. They have also differentiated
the quicker and simpler to the longer and more complex ones. Ur (1984) claims that
there are two types of listening exercises. Listening for perception which is vital for the
beginners as they have chance to practice identifying correctly different sounds, sounds
combinations and intonations, where the learner has to rely upon his ear and listening
for comprehension which provide useful preparation for real-life listening and practice
some specific aspects that are problematic for learners. There exist a great number of
37
activities that the learners might deal with. Each author divides them into various
categories according to what he concentrates on.
In the first set of activities I use my own division and adjust it to my needs but it is
based on Ur (1984) and her suggestion for listening activities.
Listening activities based on individual words:
At early stages it is important for students to practice hearing and saying the sounds of
isolated words which are ideally pronounced by a native speakers because at this levels
learners find even difficult to identify the right phoneme(s) and hence the right word
The teacher should demonstrate the sound she wishes to teach and students are
supposed to imitate or identify it.
There is a varied selection of such exercises suggested bellow:
a) Repetition – learners repeat short easily memorized words, consonant-clusters,
e.g., gentle, spring
b) Distinguishing a word which exists in similar form in two languages, e.g. native
and target language
c) Distinguishing two sound within the foreign language, e.g., bat, bet
d) Distinguishing minimal-pair distinction e.g., cast, carts
e) Asking students how many times they heard a particular sounds, e.g. /æ/ as in
cat
f) Identifying the right words, e.g. they have before them the word pen and they
hear three options as A pan B pun C pen. Then they have to write the
appropriate letter beside the word.
g) Writing the right word – if the teacher gives the word /biə/ students write the
possible spelling for this word so beer, bere, bier are acceptable
h) Interpreting correctly the meaning of a spoken word, which is given in isolation.
If a student interprets the word correctly, it means that it has been heard
correctly and it is a good way of checking accurate perception
Listening activities based on sentences:
Words, which are integrated into sentences within colloquial, spontaneous speech, are
more difficult to recognize. It causes contractions, weak forms, unstressed syllables,
assimilation or elision of consonants. Teachers, to make the listening suitable for
38
learners, have to isolate these sentences or slow the delivery. As students get used to
understanding such forms, they can be presented faster and integrated into longer
stretches of speech.
There is a varied selection of such exercises suggested bellow:
a) Repetition – learners are asked to repeat short phrases or complete utterances
b) Identifying word-divisions – teachers ask students how many words there would
be in the written form of a given utterance
c) Identifying stress and unstress – students are supposed to mark on a written text
where they think the stressed or unstressed words are. E.g., in sentence: I’m very
happy; I think I‘ll go and buy a flower. Stress: I’m very happy; I’ll go and buy a
flower.
d) Identifying intonation – using arrows, students mark the intonation if it is raising
or falling
e) Dictation of short utterances to check if students understand or not
f) Asking for translations, matching sentences to pictures, questions to answers
Listening activities based on no response – the learners are not supposed to do
anything in response to the listening, it reflects the situations from real life when they
do not respond such as following a guidance how to get somewhere or listening to a
song. On the other hand, from facial expression and body language is easy recognizable
if they understand or not. This type of exercise is practised to attract and hold learners‘
attention.
a) Following a written text – it means listening to a text and reading it in the same
time
b) Listening to a familiar text – it is not so demanding if the learners more or less
know what they are going to listen to, e.g., dialogues are practised in this way
when the learners learn the text by heart
c) Listening aided by visuals – the teacher provides students with visual material
while they simultaneously follow a spoken description of it. The learners can
point at the relevant parts of illustration as they listen. The teacher can use
pictures, plans, maps, family trees, and grids as suitable visual materials.
d) Informal teacher talk – it is both a good diagnostic aid for a teacher how to get
information in a natural way and a possibility for students to learn by speaking
39
and acting. They can talk about their families, friends, hobbies, childhood,
holiday, style of clothing they like, favourite food, etc.
e) Entertainment – The teacher may raise both the learner’s motivation and
concentration if she provides them with pleasurable components. Therefore it is
suitable to put them after more demanding exercises. The source of enjoyment
can be stories, songs, films, theatres, video or other television programmes
Listening activities based on short responses – these exercises consist of listening
material typically of longer sequences of a speech broken up into short pieces and they
require an immediate response by the learner.
a) Obeying instruction –teachers provide learners with instructions and they follow
them. E.g. learners perform actions, construct models or draw pictures
b) Ticking off items – learners listen to a list of words or a picture is provided and
then they tick off or mark components as they hear them within a description,
list of words, a picture or a song
c) True or false exercises – learners are presented with spoken statements and they
have to indicate whether the statements are right or false
d) Detecting mistakes – Students are told stories, descriptions or longer passages
with numbers of mistakes and they raise their hands, write down or call out
when they hear something wrong.
e) Cloze – The listening texts given to the learners have some deleted words at
regular or irregular intervals. The learners might write down the missing words
according to the recording or the context
f) Guessing definitions – The teacher gives the learners the definition of a person,
thing, place or whatever and they simply have to guess what it is
g) Skimming and scanning – Learners are given a listening text and they have to
identify some general topics (skimming) or certain limited information
(scanning)
h) Noting specific information – learners listen to a passage and are supposed to
write down specific information from it.
i) Pictures – e.g., identifying and ordering – learners are given a set of pictures and
they are asked to identify the pictures or components as they are referred to by
naming or numbering them in the demanded order.
40
j) Maps – e.g., naming features – the teacher provides learners with a map and
asks them how to name particular places or where to put a particular building.
She works with students‘ imagination.
k) Grids – it is a good way how to display data. Learners may listen to a passage
about a group of people and their jobs and then fill their names, ages and jobs
into a grid. They can do the same with family trees and graphs.
Listening activities based on longer responses – the learners have to use relatively
long units of language in their responses and have to be able not only to understand
what they hear but also to reproduce, expand or summarize it as required
a) Repetition and dictation – it is based on the fact that learners understand and
learn things better if they repeat them
b) Paraphrasing and translating – learners can rewrite the listening texts either in
the same language which is paraphrase or in another which is translation
c) Answering questions – if learners answer correctly teachers‘ questions relating
to a text or lecture, it signals that they understood well
d) Predictions – when students hear a part of an utterance, they may be able to
guess what is coming next. They can use their previous knowledge of syntactic
structure, culture, idioms, proverbs etc.
e) Longer filling gaps – it means that longer phrases are missing and learners have
to fill them on the basis of the previous knowledge
f) Summarizing – learners write a brief summary of a content
g) Note taking – learners take brief notes from a listening passage, a talk or a
lecture
Listening activities based on extended responses – this listening is more demanding
for learners and they are expected not only to understand the heard material but also to
be able to compare the differences, analyse, interpret, evaluate and reason from it. They
are specially created for extended reading, writing and speaking and therefore they are
marked as combined skills activities.
•
Problem-solving – the teacher describes the problem orally and the learners‘ task
is to deal with it and to solve the situation
41
•
Jigsaw listening – different groups of learners listen to a different but connected
passages and then they combine the information together to complete picture of
a situation or perform a task
•
Interpretation of a listening task – learners according to voices, tones, moods of
persons they are listen to recognize what is going on around and in which ways
it influences the development of discourse
(Ur, 1984)
Littlewood (1981) supports the idea that the learner must be motivated to listen by a
communicative purpose. In fact it means that the learner has to select what meanings he
must listen for and which part of the text are most important to him. According to him it
is a question, which is the most familiar technique for providing purpose for listening.
He groups the activities according to the kind of response that the learner must produce.
Performing physical tasks:
a) Identification and selection – the learners have a set a pictures and have to listen
to a description or dialogue and then select the picture(s) which the text refers to
b) Sequencing – the learners have to put the described or mentioned pictures into
the correct order
c) Locating – the learners‘ task is to place various items into a appropriate location
as they hear the description where to put e.g. furniture in a room,
d) Drawing and constructing – the learners are asked to follow a description and
draw a picture or construct a model
e) Performing other actions – the learners may be required to perform or mime
various actions
Transferring information:
a) Filling a table, chart or diagram - the learners are asked to extract relevant
information from the text in order to transfer it to some other form. E.g.,
listening to a description of a people and find out particular information about
them as height, build and hair
Reformulating and evaluating information:
a) Reformulating a context – the learners might be required to use their own words
to summarize something what they have just heard
42
According to Scrivener (2005) it is very important to make English lessons useful and
therefore listening needs to closely reflects what the learners might need to do in a real
life.
There are some categories the activities fall into:
a) Take part in conversation
b) Answer questions
c) Do/choose something in response what you hear
d) Pass on/take notes on what you hear
There are a number of activities where students listen and:
a) Choose the correct form
b) Follow the route on the map
c) Walk/sit/move according the instructions
d) Choose the best answer for each question from the particular number of options
e) Say a reply to each comment you hear
f) Decide which person is saying which sentence
g) Match the pictures of people with the list of opinions
h) Note down the leader’s suggestions about where a place should be
i) Collect comments made about something
j) Draw a picture
k) Tell your partner what someone thinks about something
l) Decide whether the speakers like something or not
m) Pick up and show the correct picture
n) Note what exact words are used to refuse or accept something
o) Take down the message, address and phone number
p) Follow the instructions to make a model
He also offers more adventurous listening activities:
a) News headlines – using of up-to-date material recorded off radio
b) Jigsaw listening – the learners are divided into groups and each group listen to a
different passage, then they compare what they have heard and put together a
story or reach a conclusion
c) The tape Gallery – the teacher finds about ten interesting short jokes, stories,
advertisements or poems and records the students reading them. Then they can
choose their favourite one.
43
d) Home recording – it is very useful and interesting to make own short recordings
as they offer listening topics relevant to the classroom
e) Live listening – teachers can invite real people as they are a source of authentic
listening experience
f) Guest stars – the teacher can pretend being a famous person, say something
about his life, the students listen to him and guess who he is and then ask a few
more questions
Scott, Ytreberg (1990) divide listening activities into these groups:
a) Listen and do activities – e.g., following instructions, moving about, put up
hands when hearing a particular sound, a word, mime stories, drawing
b) Listening for information – e.g., identifying exercises, listen for the mistake,
putting things in order, questionnaires, listen and colour, filling in missing
information
c) Listen and repeat activities – e.g., rhymes, songs
d) Listening to stories
e) Independent listening – listening to a cassette which comes along with a book
while silent reading through it
44
9. Listening stages
Listening does not only mean the process of listening to a tape or CD recorder in the
language classroom but also thinking about listening passages, highlighting the
unknown words, analysing the listening passages and working with new information.
Even in real life we know what is the aim of our listening and we use the given
information for our purposes and further needs.
A commonsense way of dividing up a listening lesson is into three phases:
a) Things to do before the students hear the passage, to help them get the most out
of what they are going to hear
b) Activities and exercises to be carried out as the students listen to the passage, to
guide them as they try to grasp the main information in it
c) Things to do once the class has come to grips with the meaning and content of
the passage, and is ready to look back, to reflect on some of the language points
in it, or to do some extension work based on the content of the passage
Rixon (1986) takes these phases for pre-listening, while-listening and follow-up.
Underwood (1989) distinguishes three types of listening stages: the pre-listening, the
while listening and the post-listening stage
Pre-listening stage
Listening is a difficult process for students with no idea what to expect. Students are not
able to comprehend without a certain kinds of knowledge even if the words they listen
to are not unknown for them. First of all, they have to know the topic or settings is or
what the relationship between speakers is. Secondly, students have to know the cultural
background in which the speakers speak and the meaning of the words the speakers say.
If teachers put them straightaway into a listening text, they prevent them from the use of
the natural listening skills including the ability of matching what they hear with the
expectations and using previous knowledge to make sense of it. This preparatory work
is generally described as pre-listening. Rixon (1986) claims that in this stage, teachers
should set up the challenges that will give the students a reason for bothering to listen to
45
the passage. Teachers can tell listeners something about the passage, ask them to think
about the sort of information they would expect to get out of similar listening
experience in real life.
Pre-listening work can consist of a whole range of activities which help to focus the
students’ mind on the topic, including:
•
The teacher giving background information
•
The students reading something relevant
•
The students looking at pictures
•
Discussion of the topic/ situation
•
A question and answer session
•
Written exercises
•
Following the instruction for the while-listening activities
•
Consideration of how the while-listening activities will be done
(Underwood, 1989)
Rixon (1986) finds this stage as preparation the students to achieve the most from the
passage.
Yagang (Teaching development, making the right moves) (1994) distinguishes these
pre-listening activities:
•
Elicitation/ discussion about the topic (based on visuals, titles)
It means to elicit something associated with the topic and to encourage students to
exchange ideas and opinions about the topic
•
Brainstorming
Students are asked to predict the words and expressions likely to appear in the passage.
The teachers should write them on the blackboard. Students can express hypothesis
about the content of the passage based on previous knowledge, by writing notes down.
•
Games
It is a good way of warming-up relaxation and training in basic listening skills, e.g.
miming words and expressions heard, it involves minimal pair distinction
•
Guiding questions
Teachers ask or write questions that help students exploit passages
The other function of pre-listening stage is to ensure student that the listening is as
realistic as possible. It is a way to approach the natural sound of English to students. In
46
fact, the students act as eavesdroppers in many listening activities even if it is not so
frequent in real life. Pre-listening activities provide students with a wider range of
language than in the classroom in face-to-face communication.
It is very important for students to know exactly what to do and it is teacher’s task to
give them clear instructions. Students appreciate if they know in advance how many
items they are expected to find. If students are asked to give answers to questions, it is
worthy to specify how brief answers teachers require but it is believed that the shortest
answer expressing the main idea is the most acceptable.
A number of factors influence the choice of pre-listening activities, such as:
•
The time and material available – teachers have to know the time appropriate
For particular task because if students are stressed with the lack of time, their
concentration decrease and the listening is harder for them. There are a huge number of
listening materials, which are full of great ideas. Anyway, teachers have a restricted
number of listening materials available and they have to work with them and make them
as interesting as possible.
•
The ability of the class – to chose a listening task is not so difficult as there are
many resources in books or on Internet. However, the teaching mastery is to find such a
listening task, which is suitable for listeners’ level, and therefore it is motivating for
them.
•
The interests of the class and the teacher – all of students and also teachers have
their interests. They like reading about them, watching TV programmes with the
particular theme and it is the same with listening. If the teacher chooses the listening
task, which is interesting for both the teacher and the students, he or she contributes to
better and motivating atmosphere and give students the reason to listen and being
involved.
•
The place in which is the listening being done – a place with a lot of visual aids,
which is light and warm and without noise is the most suitable for listening. Students
feel relaxed and have full of energy for work.
•
The nature and content of the listening itself – some kind of activities are not
appropriate to some types of texts and it is the teacher’s work to decide what is the best
for students to deal with the listening activities.
47
All the classes are homogenous and teachers should adapt themselves to this situation
by varying the amount of pre-listening for different groups within a single class.
While-listening stage
While-listening activities, as we know according to the name, are what students are
asked to do during the time that they are listening to the text. The purpose of whilelistening activities is to help listeners develop the skill of eliciting messages from
spoken language (Underwood, 1989).
Rixon (1986, p-68) claims, " the sort of exercise that is often used during the whilelistening phase helps students by indicating the overall structure of the argument. " It
means that if teachers give the listeners the main headings and sections of what the
speaker is saying, they provide a support to the listeners.
A very important task of while-listening activities is to enable listeners to recognize
how the language sounds so they can use it as a model of their speech. These activities
are very important when the listening comprehension is the aim. Teachers have to
choose very carefully because otherwise the routine activities such as producing of right
or wrong answers can discourage even the most enthusiastic students. Teachers have to
help students – the non-native listeners to use the same skills as they use in listening to
their own language and provide them with activities, which involve prediction,
matching and interpretation. Good while-listening activities help listeners find their way
through the listening text and build upon the expectations raised by pre-listening
activities.
While-listening activities should be interesting, more familiar and motivating and they
should stem from the natural need of problem solving. They should not depend mainly
on previously knowledge as the level of knowledge may vary within a group of
students. These knowledge-based activities lead sometimes to less time spent on the
actual listening and the lost of interest of students who always know. It is more vital if
students have to find solution within the listening text.
Many teachers find it necessary to give some indication of context but both the amount
of information given and the type of help with the activities themselves should be varied
48
depending on the needs of students. The most successful while-listening activities are
challenging for more able students and whilst not discouraging for the weaker ones.
According to Yagang (Teaching development, making the right moves) (1994) we
recognize these while-listening activities:
•
Comparing – students are asked to compare the passages with prediction in pre-
listening
•
Obeying instruction – students are given instructions and show comprehension
by physical movement, finishing a task, etc.
•
Filling in gaps – students listen to an utterances of only one of the participants
and then they are asked to reconstruct those of the others
•
Detecting differences or mistakes – students listen to a passages with some
mistakes, they only respond when they find the mistakes and correct them.
•
Repetitions – students are asked to repeat short passages or complete
Utterances recorded
•
Ticking off items (bingo) – students listen to a list of words and tick off or
categorize them as they hear them
•
Information transfer – students are asked to make maps, plans, grids, lists,
pictures, etc.
•
Paraphrase – students‘ task is to focus on certain sentences and paraphrase
them, which is to say them in other words
•
Sequencing – students are given parts of a story or pictures describing a day in
wrong order so they are asked to put it in the right order
•
Information search – students hear a passage and take notes on the segments
that answer a particular question
•
Filling in blanks – students are given the transcript of a passage with some
words missing and have to fill in the blanks while listening
•
Matching – students are asked to match items that have the same or different
meaning as those they hear
There are some factors, which affect the choice of while-listening activities:
•
The possibilities for varying the level of difficulty
•
The inconvenience of carrying out activities which require individuals to give
their responses orally in the classroom – this kind of work is best done in a language
laboratory. Teachers have to distinguish classroom while-listening activities which are
49
generally limited to those which can be done without the need for each student to
respond by speaking and those where spoken responses made by students do not cause
disturbance and preventing others from listening.
•
The choice between the work done by the students with the teacher present or
the work, which is done as a private study, either in a listening centre or at home.
According to this teachers chose the activities. They can give different students different
work with regard to their levels of ability, to provide additional instructions/clarification
for work to be done away from the classroom or to select activities, which generate little
or no marking.
•
Whether or not the while-listening activities generate material or ideas which
might be used for post-listening work.
Teachers cannot ignore the importance of immediate feedback and inform the students
whether or to what extent they were successful in the task(s), and why or not. It is more
difficult to provide useful feedback at a later lesson because of the need to replay and
respeak the listening text and to evoke interest in a past topic or text. In addition, much
of the value of discussing why students missed thing or made errors is lost if the
discussion is not held immediately.
Post-listening stage
" In this stage, students take the information they have gained from the listening
passage and use it for another purpose. " (Rixon, p-72) E.g., students having taken
notes from a passage, they can to re-forming their notes into a written description, a
story, or they can summarize the information orally.
Underwood (1989, p-74) claims, " Post-listening activities embrace all the work related
to a particular listening text (whether recorded or spoken by a teacher) which are done
after the listening is completed. " There are two types of post-listening activities. Some
of them are extensions of the work done in pre- and while-listening stages and some
relate only loosely to the listening text itself.
For many years, the most common form of post-listening activity was the answering of
multiple-choice questions or open questions based on a spoken text. Many listening
tests are still like those mentioned and the difficulty stem from the fact that they depend
50
not only on listening ability but also on reading (to understand the questions) and
writing (to write down the answers to the questions) skills and memory (to remember
what was said).
There are many purposes why to provide post-listening activities. Firstly, the most
crucial one is checking whether the students have understood the listening text and
whether they completed the while-listening task successfully by answering orally to
teacher’s questions. Students can check the answers to each other, they can discuss them
or the answers could be shown on the boards or overhead projector.
Secondly, the purpose of post-listening work is rather diagnostic and reflects on why
some students have failed to understand or missed parts of the message. The teachers
have then an opportunity to draw attention to specific parts of the listening texts and
focus on forms, functions, stress and intonation which may have been the cause of
listeners‘ problems. The goal of the post-listening work consists not in the translating
the listening passage word by word but in the focus on points significant for the
completing the task.
A third purpose lies in the opportunity given to students to consider the attitude and
manner of the speakers of the listening text. Students can recognize the speaker’s mood
and the reason which caused it.
Another purpose of post-listening work is to expand the topic or language of the
listening text. It is very useful to bring together for the students sets of vocabulary items
or phrases that are used in particular area of meaning, e.g. all the expressions connected
with cause that are used in a particular passage. They are activities, which can be linked
not only to the listening but also to more general language learning activities.
Finally, it is vital if students have their own opinions and so they are asked to consider
whether they agree with the decision or the opinion taken by the speakers or not.
Yagang (Teaching development, making the right moves) (1994) distinguishes these
post-listening activities:
•
Answering to show comprehension of the messages – e.g. multiple choice or
51
true/false questions
•
Problem-solving – students listen to a passage and look for information relevant
to a particular problem and then try to solve it
•
Summarizing – students summarize a story or a description how to do
something,
or they are given several solutions and they have to find the right one which is
according to the recording
•
Jigsaw listening – different groups of students listen to different but connected
passages, each of which supplies some part of what they need to know. Then
they come together to exchange information in order to complete a story or
perform a task
•
Writing as a follow up to listening activities – e.g., telegrams, postcards, letters
or messages related to passages
•
Speaking as follow-up to listening activities – e.g., debate, role-play,
dramatization or interview associated with the passages heard
A number of factors affect the choice of post-listening activities, such as:
•
How much language work you wish to do in relation to the particular listening
text
•
Whether there will be time to do much post-listening work at the end of the
listening lesson.
•
Whether the post-listening stage is seen as an opportunity for pair/group work or
whether it is intended that students should work on alone
•
Whether the post-listening work should consists of speaking, reading or writing
•
Whether it is necessary to provide post-listening activities which can be done
outside the classroom (at home, in the listening centre)
•
How motivating the chosen activity will be and whether it can be made more
motivating
According to Underwood (1989, p-92), " listening should be looked upon not as an
appendage, but as an integral part of the total package of learning, sometimes leading
to and sometimes emerging from other work. "
52
10. Podcasts – new way of listening
Nowadays technology plays a major role in daily lives of people. Students are in touch
with technology very often, they find it as a common part of their lives and they are also
pushed to use it. Technology is changing at the fast pace today. The biggest advantage
of the use of technology is that it can facilitate both teachers‘ and students‘ work and so
teachers have to help students to adapt themselves to this situation. Students can use
radios, tape recorders, language laboratories, videos and also computers and iPods to
improve their language skills, especially listening.
"The World Wide Web (WWW) is destined to become one of the most popular facilities
available to students to access information and help in their language learning. "
(Flowerdew, Miller, p-179). The great thing is that students have a choice which
website to visit and which activities to do.
Students like working on Internet because they feel free and do not find it as learning. It
means that they learn unintentionally. Teachers should use this fact and help students to
find their way how to improve their English, especially listening. On the Internet exist
many web pages connected with listening which concentrate on students and their
natural needs to explore. Podcasting offers them a new way of listening where students
can decide what to listen. Moreover, podcasting is educational oriented so students can
develop both their language knowledge and listening skills.
What is Podcasting?
Podcasting provides a means of publishing audio programs through the Internet. Users
can automatically download podcasts (usually mp3 files) onto their computers and
transfer these recordings automatically to portable music players such as extremely
popular iPods. Users can then listen to the files anytime and anywhere they choose.
Podcasting is being suitable for English learners as it provides a means for students to
get access to "authentic" listening sources about almost any subject they may interest
them. Teachers can take advantage of podcasts as a basis for listening comprehension
exercises, as a means of generating conversation based on students' reaction to podcasts,
and as a way of providing each and every student diverse listening materials.
53
Students will obviously find the ability to listen to these podcasts useful especially due
to its portability.
Another useful aspect of podcasting is its subscription model. In this model, users
subscribe to feed using a program. The most popular of these programs, and possibly
the most useful, is iTunes. While iTunes is not in any means purely dedicated to
podcasts, it does provide an easy means to subscribe to free podcasts. Another popular
program is available at iPodder, which focuses solely on subscribing to podcasts.
Podcasting for English Learners and Teachers
Even though podcasting is relatively new, there are already a number of promising
podcasts dedicated to English learning. Here is a selection of some of them:
English Feed
English Feed is a new podcast. The podcast focuses on important grammar and
vocabulary subjects while providing useful listening practice. Students can sign up for
the
podcast
in
iTunes,
iPodder
or
any
other
podcasting
software.
(http://esl.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=esl&zu=http%3A%2F%2F
www.englishfeed.com)
The word nerds
This podcast seems to be professional, delivers satisfactory information about relevant
and up-to-date topics and it also offers fun. Although it has been created for native
speakers of English who enjoy learning about the ins-and-outs of the language, the
Word Nerds podcast is also suitable for advanced English learners - especially those
who
are
interested
in
idiomatic
English.
(http://podcasts.yahoo.com/series?s=5f2996d06c63487d71a274e5e5622c7c)
ESL pod
This podcast is one of the more mature dedicated to ESL learning. It includes advanced
vocabulary and subjects, which will prove especially useful for English for Academic
Purposes classes. Pronunciation is very slow and clear, if rather unnatural. On the other
hand, the topics are very up-to-date, which may attract students in a very positive way.
What is more, this podcast provides the learners the list of top ten podcasts.
54
(http://esl.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=esl&zu=http%3A%2F%2F
www.eslpod.com%2F)
Flo-Jo
It is also a commercial site for teachers and students preparing for Cambridge First
Certificate in English (FCE), Certificate in Advanced English (CAE) and Certificate of
Proficiency in English (CPE). Advanced level English podcasting is provided with a
decidedly British accent, both in terms of pronunciation and themes about British life.
Flo-Jo also produces Flo-Jo radio and this radio Podcast is based on the weekly
newsletter sent out to students preparing for the Cambridge Certificate in Advanced
English Exam. Moreover, learners can find there suggestions for using this podcast,
word bank list with various phrasal words, collocations and comprehensive questions.
(http://www.splendid-learning.co.uk/podcast/)
English teacher John Show podcast
John podcast focuses on understandable English speaking in an extremely clear voice
(some might find the perfect pronunciation unnatural). It provides the learners with
useful
English
lessons,
which
is
ideal
for
intermediate
level
learners.
(http://esl.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=esl&zu=http%3A%2F%2F
www.englishteacherjohn.com%2F)
The Daily Idiom
This podcast seems to be rather short and it focuses on idioms, which is very useful for
the learners who wish to sound natural. Moreover, the site provides the learners with the
transcript of the short podcasts. (http://englishcaster.com/idioms/)
55
Practical part
11. Lesson plans based on listening
In this chapter I would like to concentrate on ideal listening lessons according to all
principles, which I mentioned in the theoretical part. The result should be a lesson
where learners learn something new including new vocabulary and phrases, find it
useful for real life and raise their confidence in listening. It means learning in the most
effective way both for the teacher and learners.
1) Lesson plan 1: At the airport
The aim: to make students ready for dealing with situations at the airport when
travelling abroad – obeying instructions
The aid: pictures of airports (viz. appendix I), tape recorder
Level: pre-intermediate
Timing: 35 – 45 min.
Materials: handout from Reason for listening by Scarbrough (1984) (viz. appendix II)
Activities:
•
Pre-listening stage
a) Put a picture of an airport on the board and ask students to elicit what they
are going to listen to.
b) Make a survey about the frequency of travelling and students‘ favourite
means of transport.
How often do you travel?
a. Once a month
b. Once a three months
c. Once a year
d. Never
What are your favourite means of transport?
a. Bike or walking
b. Car or bus
c. Trains
d. Ship and ferry-boat
e. Plane
56
c) Focus on content
Discuss these questions:
Have you ever travel by plane? Does it have any advantages (quick transport, the most
comfortable, meals and drinks, beautiful view, adventure)?
What is the worst thing at the airport before you take off? (long waiting, noise causing
misunderstanding, the fear of the flight)
Are you influenced by many accidents in the air, which happen including terrorist
attacks, failures or the series The Lost?
d) Focus on vocabulary
Matching:
a. Delay
a place where they check your passports
b. Departure lounge
a place where weigh your luggage
c. Departure gate
waiting until a later time for some reasons
d. Flight number
a place where you wait before you get on the plane
e. Boarding card
number of your flight
f. Check-in-desk
a large room in an airport with duty free shops
g. Passport control
a ticket with the number of your seat
Useful phrases:
Book a flight from…to… to go to the gate number. to take off the plane, to fasten the
seat belts, land, there’s an hour delay on the flight
e) Now tell them what they are going to listen to
•
While-listening stage
a) The task - their task is to choose the number between 1-5, then look at the
page with the tickets and find the one with the number you have chosen,
make a note of flying details – this is your flight. Imagine that you are
waiting in an English airport departure lounge, get out a book or a magazine
to look at or talk to friends. If you hear your flight called, go to the correct
gate. If delay is announced for your flight, go to the restaurant, but make a
note of how long the delay will be
b) The proper listening, the teacher should tell the students to focus on key
words and what they really have to know
c) Then tell the students to return to their seat and choose a number between 610. If their flight was not called in part one keep the same ticket and keep
waiting. Do the same what you did before
57
d) Then they should choose a number between 11-15 and do the same as before
•
Post-listening stage
a) Monitoring – the teacher checks if all students used the right gates and took
off
b) Discuss things which the students found the most difficult
c) Transcript listening – you can show the transcript (viz. appendix II) to
learners and discuss the features of the language
58
2) Lesson plan 2 – Pirates of Caribbean
The aim: to join learner’s knowledge of film characters with the facts – identifying
incorrect information
The aid: pictures of Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom (viz. appendix III), CD recorder
Level: pre-intermediate
Timing: 30 – 40 min.
Materials: handout from Active listening by Helgesen, Brown and Smith (1996) (viz.
appendix IV)
Activities:
•
Pre-listening stage
a) Put a picture of Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom (main characters of the
film Pirates of Caribbean) on the board and ask students to write down as
many words as they can think of when seeing these actors
b) Make a survey if they have already seen Pirates of Caribbean
a. Yes
b. No
c. I am going to
d. I do not want to see it
c) Focus on content and vocabulary
Discuss these questions
What are names of the main protagonists? How would you characterize them?
Do they share a characteristic? (You can provide them with a list of adjectives
describing people)
What were pirates famous for? What was their work? (they robbed, attacked
ships, stole, burned down towns)
What did they usually steal? (gold, silver, jewellery, the riches)
Do you think the Pirates of Caribbean were real?
Do you know what is an abbreviation? E.g., BBC, CIA
Useful phrases: to be famous for, to become known as, to carry sth from…to…
sth is/was stored, symbol for sth
•
While-listening stages
a) Provide students with a passage about pirates of Caribbean and ask students
to read it
59
b) Tell students to listen to the passage, they will listen to it twice. First they
will just listen and then their task will be to find and correct the mistakes.
Give them an example.
•
Post-listening stage
a) Monitoring – the teacher checks if the students understood well. The
students read the passage again with the correct information
b) Provide them with information that pirates are popular symbols in the United
States today. Tell them to go on internet and find all areas where the pirates
theme is obvious (sport themes, seafood restaurant, beach hotels)
c) Tell the students to think about the pirates‘ flag and draw it
60
3) Lesson plan 3 – Horoscope
The aim: to join the students‘ interest in horoscope with giving advice, describing
people – looking for information
The aid: pictures of sign symbols (viz. appendix V), handout with horoscope
characteristics (viz. appendix VI), tape recorder
The level: intermediate
Timing: 30 – 40 min.
Materials: handout from Self-Access by Sheerin (1989) (viz. appendix VII)
Activities:
•
Pre-listening stage:
a) Put the pictures and names of the sign symbols on the board and ask students
to match them
b) Help them with the pronunciation
c) Focus on content and vocabulary:
Ask them if they know what sign they are and if they read the everyday
horoscope.
If yes or no, explain why. If yes, make a survey why they read it.
a. Because I believe it and they are usually true
b. Because I am curious if they fulfil
c. Because I find it funny
Ask students to work in pairs and write down three positive and three negative
characteristics about themselves and their neighbour and explain why
Provide students with characteristics of particular sign and ask them to compare
it with their opinions
Useful vocabulary: amusing, cheerful, clever, confident, creative, easygoing,
energetic, friendly, generous, gentle, good-natured, hard-working, helpful,
honest, humorous, kind, loyal, open-minded, patient, polite, practical, reliable,
sensible, sensitive, sociable, sympathetic, thoughtful, thoughtless, witty, selfish,
bossy, arrogant, lazy, stubborn, serious, silly, irresponsible, naive, talkative,
envious, quick-tempered, choleric
Useful phrases: I think he/she is. ………because, I find him/her ………because,
I always thought that he/she is………but, I would say that he/she is… His/her
positive side is being ……………, His/her negative side is being.., He/she is
very………….
61
•
While-listening stage:
a) Provide students with the handout and the list of advice.
b) Students are about to hear today’s horoscope over the telephone
c) Students are asked to read the advice, which apply to particular star sign.
Then they listen to the today’s horoscope of their three friends, complete the
chart with their friends‘ star sign and the advice related to the particular star
sign.
d) They will listen to it more than once
•
Post-listening stage:
a) Monitoring - the teacher checks if the students understood well and the
students read the filled chart
b) The teachers ask the students to tell her why they chosen the particular
advice
c) Provide them with the transcripts (viz. appendix VII) and explain new
vocabulary
d) Discuss with them another types of horoscope (Chinese) and their influence
on lives of people
62
4) Lesson plan 4 – Choosing a school
The aim: To make students focus on the most important things when choosing a
school in English speaking country, understanding details and identifying key
information
The aid: pictures of types of housing (viz. appendix VIII), pictures of various
international classes (viz. appendix IX), CD recorder
The level: intermediate
Timing: 30 – 40 min.
Materials: handout from Active listening by Helgesen, Brown and Smith (1996)
(viz. appendix X)
Activities:
•
Pre-listening stage:
a) Put the pictures of various international classes and types of housing on the
board and ask them to think about the topic of the lesson
b) Ask them if they have ever thought about studying in an English speaking
country. If yes, which country would they choose?
a. The United States
b. Great Britain
c. Australia
d. New Zealand
e. Canada
f. Other
c) Focus on content:
Discuss with them when they choose a school, what information is important for
them or they need it (e.g., the length of the course, location, housing, other
students‘ nationalities, class size) and then ask them to make questions to be
able to ask about the important information, e.g., where is the school located etc.
Let them think about what else should they know (e.g., leisure time, trips,
opportunity to speak to native speakers, gaining a certificate, pocket-money)
Pair work: students are supposed to compare their questions and answer them.
d) Focus on vocabulary:
Useful vocabulary: dormitory, apartment, home-stay, visa, English level,
medium-size class, brochure, campus, college, schedule, roommate, submit for
sth.
63
Useful phrases: If I had chance to study in ……..I would choose……., I want to
……..because………the course lasts… the school is located in …………, I
would like to live in ………….., It is very important for me to..
•
While-listening activities:
a) Provide students with the handout
b) Tell them what they are going to do while listening – A Korean student
Hyung Jin is thinking about studying English in a foreign country. Listen to
him as he is talking to his teacher and write down the information important
for him (class size, location, housing, his English level etc.).
c) Her teacher advises to him to visit Study Abroad Fair where representatives
are talking about their schools. Students task is to listen to three
representatives and write down important points about each school
considering Hyung Jin.
d) They will listen to it sufficient number of times.
•
Post-listening stage
a) Monitoring – students are asked to compare their answers with their
neighbours and then they tell them to the teacher
b) Students are asked to suggest the best school programme for Hyung Jin and
explain why they think so.
c) Students think about which programme would be the best for them and why.
d) Students are provided with the transcripts (viz. appendix XI) and check their
answers.
e) They discuss other important things when looking for a language school
(e.g., How much does it cost, how experienced are the teachers, is the school
canteen provided etc.)
f) You can discuss with them types of schools in your country comparing to
schools in English speaking country (state, private schools, uniforms,
subjects etc.)
64
12. Results of the questionnaire
As it was already mentioned in the introduction, I made up a questionnaire concerning
learners‘ view on listening activities. In my questionnaire I wanted to cover all parts of
my diploma thesis and so my questions were related to the importance of listening,
reasons to listen, what students‘ listening lessons mostly look like and if their teacher
motivate them to listen outside the classroom. Moreover, my aim was to discover what
the learners know about ways how to improve their listening via knowledge of their
learning styles or various learning strategies. Finally, my question about podcasting
should have disclosed the role of technology and its use in the language classroom.
The research was done at two high schools in Opava and Brno and I administered 122
questionnaires. The age of students is from fifteen to seventeen which means that they
are in their 1st and 2nd grade.
I decided to distribute the questionnaire in English. My reasons are as follows: the first,
is the supposed good knowledge of English of high school students and the second
reason is that I consider it as unintentional learning or rather acquisition and therefore
the teachers could not blame me for disturbing at their lessons. As the questionnaire has
been written in English, I introduced it myself to most classes. Firstly, we went through
the questionnaire and I explained them some specialised terms as weak forms, false
starts or hesitations and then they filled the questionnaire. It took approximately twentyfive minutes.
The example of the questionnaire will be shown in appendix (viz. appendix XII).
65
Questions:
1. Do you think that listening is an important part of your English class?
Overall survey
5%
A
B
95%
A = yes
B = no
Comparison of the 1st and 2nd grade
1st grade
2nd grade
5%
5%
A
A
B
B
95%
95%
I wanted to find out if listening was important for students asking my first question. As
you can see, 95% of researched students find it important and only 5% not. For 1st
graders it is even more important as 97% of them answer yes on the first question.
66
2. Do you like listening activities? If yes or no, why?
Overall survey
10%
22%
A
19%
B
C
D
49%
A = yes
B = it depends on the topic
C = it depends on the length of listening
D = no
Comparison of the 1st and 2nd grade
1st grade
14%
17%
2nd grade
9%
A
24%
17%
B
24%
B
C
45%
A
C
D
50%
D
My second question was focused on listening activities. 22% of researched students like
them but 45% of them claim that if they like the listening activities or not depends on
the topic, for 19% of them is the length of listening important and 10% of researched
students do not like them at all. Those who answered yes named reasons as: "I think I
am good at it and I like the fact that it helps me to understand real people who speak
English during my journeys. " " It is important for my future. " Because it is funny. " "It
is useful. " " Because I can hear the natural pronunciation. " " I can learn better the
accent. "
The reasons why they do not like them are as follows: the first, " I do not understand"
and the second, " I am lost and confused when I am listening. "
67
3. Does the teacher speak about listening in general and strategies, which you can use to
improve your listening?
Overall survey
4%
23%
6%
A
B
C
D
67%
A = Yes, she explains us the things we should concentrate on to be successful in
listening
B = Yes, we have chance to listen to a passage more than once and it helps
C = Very rarely, because it is not important and we do not have time for it
D = No, because it does not help us at all
Comparison of the 1st and 2nd grade
1st grade
2nd grade
5%
0%
76%
24%
A
7%
23%
A
B
B
C
C
D
65%
D
In this question I wanted to discover if the teachers really helped students with listening
or not. 67% of students confirmed that teachers spoke about listening in general and
helped them or at least 23%of them had chance to listen to a passage more than once
and it helped them. Only the low percentage of students claimed that the teachers did
not talk about it due to the lack of time or the fact that it did not help. The difference is
obvious between 1st and 2nd graders. The first graders have no negative experience
with teachers because they find the knowledge of learning strategies important and help
them with it.
68
4. Do you know what learning type you are?
Overall survey
5%
A
6%
B
34%
C
44%
D
11%
E
A = Yes, our teacher told us about it, gave a test to us where we were able to find out
which learning types we are and respects it when teaching
B = Yes, we know what learning types we are but we do not use it at all
C = No, and I am not interested
D = No, I have never heard about it
E = other
Comparison of the 1st and 2nd grade
1st grade
0%
2nd grade
A
14%
6%
24%
55%
38%
C
B
C
41%
D
7%
A
3%
B
D
12%
E
E
The question no.4 deals with the learning styles and how informed the students are
about them. The teacher’s role is to help the students to discover their needs and the
knowledge of their own learning style can make their learning more effective. It is very
surprising that only 6% of researched students know what learning type they are.
Moreover, the 44% of them confirmed that they even had not heard about it. 34 % of
researched students know what learning type they are but it does not influence their
learning. 5% do not know what learning types they are but they are interested in. What
is interesting is that the amount of knowledge students is higher in the 1st grade.
69
5. Is it more attractive for you to listen to something interesting and related to real life?
Overall survey
7%
A
31%
B
62%
C
A = Yes, it is reasonable to listen if I can use it outside the classroom and I am
interested in
B = Sometimes, because I do not have a chance to practise it outside the classroom
C = No, it does not matter if it is useful, interesting or not
Comparison of the 1st and 2nd grade
1st grade
2nd grade
5%
10%
A
31%
A
31%
B
B
59%
64%
C
C
My aim in this question was to discover links between listening, its usefulness outside
the classroom and students‘ interest about these activities. 62% of researched students
confirmed that it was more attractive for them to listen to something reasonable, what
they can use in real life, e.g., at the airport. On the other hand, 31% of them find it
important sometimes because they cannot practise it outside the classroom. Only 7% of
the researched students claimed that there was no link between listening practising real
situations and their interest about these activities. There is nearly no difference between
1st and 2nd graders.
70
6. What helps you in listening the most?
Overall survey
A
1%
28%
B
38%
C
D
11%
22%
E
A = If I understand the key words and use the background knowledge
B = If I know most of the vocabulary and the pace is suitable for my level
C = The fact that I find it useful and interesting
D = If I hear the passage more then once and the teacher stops it after each paragraph
E = other
Comparison of the 1st and 2nd grade
1st grade
29%
2nd grade
A
0%
35%
28%
B
39%
C
7%
B
C
D
29%
A
1%
12%
E
D
20%
E
If teachers want to help students with their listening, they have to know what is the most
important for them while listening. Question no.6 was focused on helpful things, which
are used while the process of listening. Students get the most of listening if they
understand the key words and have the background knowledge about the topic (38%).
For 22% of researched students the knowledge of vocabulary and the suitable pace is
very important. 28% of them claimed that the most effective strategy is to hear the
passage more than once and to stop it after each paragraph. 11% of them see their
success in listening in useful and interesting listening passages. One student confirmed
the importance of transcripts.
71
7. What do you find the most difficult about listening?
Overall survey
A
5% 1%
B
7%
23%
C
11%
D
E
18%
25%
F
10%
G
H
A = The natural pronunciation when the speaker uses a lot of weak forms and
contractions
B = The speed of delivery and that you cannot ask for clarification immediately
C = The spoken and informal talk with various hesitations, false starts and the
information in random order
D = The poor quality of recordings or the bad acoustics of the room where you listen to
E = The lack of vocabulary and the need to understand each word
F = The inability to concentrate on listening
G = The lack of visual aids which help you to recognize the topic
H = other
Comparison of the 1st and 2nd grade
1st grade
2nd grade
A
7%
8%
2%
19%
8%
5%
10%
E
29%
12%
B
1%
25%
C
D
15%
A
4%
B
D
E
16%
F
C
8%
31%
F
G
G
H
H
I wanted to discover the most difficult things about listening asking question no.7.
Students could tick more than one option. I found out that the natural pronunciation,
week forms and contractions make problems 23% of students. The speed of delivery
and the impossibility to ask for clarification are problems for 25% of researched
72
students. The poor quality and bad acoustics influence in negative way 18% of students.
For 11% of them is the biggest problem the lack of vocabulary and the need to
understand each word. The spoken and informal talk with various hesitations, false
starts and the information in random order cause problems 10% of researched students.
The inability to concentrate on listening and the lack of visual aids is the difficulty for
5 – 7% of students.
73
8. Are you motivated to listen to English programmes on the radio, TV or the Internet at
home by your teacher?
Overall survey
11%
1%
A
14%
B
C
38%
36%
D
E
A = Yes, my English teacher is great and so I do my best to be successful in English
including listening to programmes in English
B = Sometimes, when we talk about up-to-date topics and I want to know more about
them
C = No, I listen to English programmes only to be good at English which I need for my
future job
D = No, I do not listen to any English programmes because I do not find it important
E = other
Comparison of the 1st and 2nd grade
1st grade
2nd grade
0%
7%
1%
A
17%
24%
10%
B
16%
B
C
C
33%
D
52%
A
40%
E
D
E
It is very important to take English as part of our lives and therefore students have to be
motivated to use English as often as they can. This question was focused on students‘
motivation to deal with English. A great teacher influences 14% of researched students.
For 36% of them are up-to-date topics important. 38% claimed that the biggest
motivation was their future job and 17% do not find it important. The most surprising is
the fact that 52% of the 1st graders stated they were motivated by their future job.
74
9. What do the activities in your English lessons mostly look like?
Overall survey
2%
1%
A
5%
B
43%
C
D
49%
E
A = Before the proper listening we do activities connected with the listening, we talk
about the topic, useful vocabulary and phrases and after listening we discuss the
interesting questions provided in listening or analyse the listening
B = The teacher tells us what the listening is about, then we listen, answer some
questions about the listening and the teacher explains us new vocabulary
C = We listen to a passage and the teacher just explains us new vocabulary
D = We just listen to a listening passage to hear the native speakers and their
pronunciation, the contents is not important at all
E = other
Comparison of the 1st and 2nd grade
1st grade
2nd grade
0%
3%
A
0%
5%
B
1%
A
39%
41%
C
56%
3%
B
C
D
52%
E
D
E
The pre- and post-listening activities are very important for better understanding of the
listening passage and therefore my aim was to find out if the students are provided with
them or not. The result was very satisfactory because 43% of researched students
confirmed that they do various activities related to listening and 49% of them claimed
that they knew what was the listening about before they started to listen and the teacher
explained them new vocabulary. 1st graders have more experience with ideal listening.
75
10. What kind of listening experience do you usually have?
Overall survey
2%
2%
A
0%
10%
B
C
D
86%
E
A = We listen to recordings and the teacher’s voice the most
B = The teacher provides us with recordings, radio programmes, video and TV
C = We listen to recording, the teacher’s voice, radio programmes, video, TV and also
use the Internet where we can listen to a particular listening passage on our own, the
teacher helps us and sometimes checks the listening
D = We listen to recording, the teacher’s voice, radio programmes, video, TV, the
Internet and also go to the lectures where we have chance to listen to native speakers
E = other
Comparison of the 1st and 2nd grade
1st grade
7%
2nd grade
0%
3%
A
0%
13%
B
0%
1%
A
0%
B
C
C
D
93%
D
83%
E
E
The more listening experience students have the more they are able to deal with
listening. In this question I was interested in the listening experience the students
usually have. The result was not as satisfactory as I supposed . 86% of researched
students claimed that they only listened to recordings and teacher’s voice. More
students (10%) are provided with recordings, radio programmes, video and TV. Only
2% of students have chance to listen to native speakers and use the Internet to listen on
their own. The 1st graders are provided with less listening inputs than the 2nd graders.
76
11. Do you know what podcasting is?
Overall survey
2% 5%
2%
A
B
C
D
91%
A = Yes, my teacher told me about it
B = Yes, I found it on Internet
C = No, I just do my homework and I am not interested in anything related to English
D = No, I have never heard about it
Comparison of the 1st and 2nd grade
1st grade
3%
2nd grade
0%
3%
0%
97%
5%
3%
A
A
B
B
C
C
D
89%
D
This question discovered the role of the Internet in listening. Podcasting is a new way of
listening and this question was focused on revealing the knowledge of it. The result was
predictable. 91% of researched students have never heard about it. 5% of them found it
on the Internet. 2% of them were informed about it by their teachers and the same
number of students are not interested in anything related to English.
77
13. Interpretation of the results
This questionnaire was designed to discover learners‘ view on listening activities. As
was mentioned in the 1st chapter, to be a successful student, employee or businessman,
they have to able communicate effectively, which also involves develop listening skills.
Many specialists raise the importance of listening (Hedge, Rost) in everyday life and it
was also confirmed in my questionnaire. It means that even secondary learners can
recognize how crucial is to be able to listen to English not only in the classroom but also
in real life situations.
Many researchers claim that students listen more effectively if they have a reason for it
and find it useful (Hedge, 2000, Harmer, 1991, Scarborough, 1984). They explain that
having good reasons for doing things causes the increase of motivation. The researched
students agree with this notion as the high percentage of them confirmed that their
interest in listening activities stemmed from the topic they were listening about and that
it was more attractive for them to listen to something related to real life.
To develop listening skill involves a frequent training and a lot of support from
teachers. There exists a lot of learning and listening strategies, which help students to
deal with it. Oxford (1990), Flowerdew, Millers (2005) and Lynch (2004) see in
learning strategies the best way how to build students‘ autonomy and self-esteem. My
results discovered that many teachers do not bear in mind learning strategies and only
23% speak about them in their lessons. They help the students the most that they give
them chance to listen more than once.
The concept of learning styles is quite new but there is a lot of researches distinguishing
people and their learning styles. The knowledge of them can help people to make their
learning more effective. The results of my research are not satisfactory as I have found
out the a half of my students have never heard about them and about 34% claimed that
even if they know what learning types they are, they do not derive benefits from it at all.
Many researchers deal with the question of difficulties in listening (Anderson, Lynch,
1988, Hedge, 2000, Underwood, 1989) and the researched students confirmed their
78
suggestions that the most difficult about listening to English is natural pronunciation
including week forms and contractions, the speed of delivery, impossibility to ask for
clarification, the spoken and informal talk with various hesitations, false starts and also
the lack of vocabulary and the need to understand each word. However, what the
researchers do not bear in mind so often is the poor quality of recordings and the bad
acoustic of the language laboratory, which cause problems to 18% of listeners.
The role of teachers has changed from controller to facilitator. Their function is not
only to pass the knowledge but also to motivate the students to learn. Underwood
(1989) and De Lopéz (1994) support the opinion that to motivate students to listen
outside the classroom is on of the most important language teacher’s functions. The fact
is that their teachers motivate only 14% of students as you can see from the graph. More
motivating aspects are the desire to know more about up-to-date topics and the need to
success at their future work.
The teachers also play the role of resource for students to build on. They should prepare
students not only for exams, listening excellence in the classroom but also for real life
listening. It means that the more listening experience the students have, the better they
can deal with the real world (Harmer, 1991, De Lopéz, 1994, Rixon, 1986, Underwood,
1989). The results from my research reflects the fact that the Czech teachers still do not
understand the importance of various listening experience and that to teach them listen
means to listen to as many sources as it is possible. More than 80% of researched
students listen only to recordings and the teacher’s voice and only about 10% of them
are provided with video and TV.
There is a wide range of listening resources but not all of them are available for the
teachers. On the other hand, the Internet and high-tech offers a lot of opportunities to
practise listening both inside and outside the classroom. Students spend a lot of time
surfing on the Internet and therefore Podcasting seems to be as an interesting source of
their listening experience. It is up to the teachers to introduce the new opportunities of
listening to their students and to get the maximum from it. The fact is that more than
90% have never heard about podcasting and a very low percentage of researched
students found it on the Internet or were informed by their teachers.
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The researchers (Yagang, 1993, Rixon, 1986, Underwood, 1989) claim that if the
teachers want to make listening effective for students, it has to consist of three parts or
stages, the pre-listening, which help to focus the students’ mind on the topic, the whilelistening, which enables the listeners to recognize how the language sounds and the
post-listening, checking whether the students have understood the listening text or not.
My research discovered that students are in most cases provided with nearly ideal
listening as more than 40% of them have experience with all stages as mentioned above.
However, a high percentage of researched students only know what they are going to
listen, answer some comprehension questions and the teacher explains new vocabulary.
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Conclusion
"Motivation is everything. You can do the work of two people, but you can't be two
people. Instead, you have to inspire the next guy down the line and get him to inspire his
people."
Lee Iacocca
I used the Iacocca’s quotation to introduce my conclusion. This diploma thesis deals
with the most effective ways of organizing listening in ELT classroom and it is
predominantly connected with the role of teachers. To get the most from the learners
involves a high level of motivation.
According to Underwood (1989), students need to learn more than the structure of
language in order to become successful listeners. They have to experience a range of
situations where they have chance to practise their listening skills. It is very important
for students to attempt to discover the real meaning of what they hear.
First step how to start with effective listening is recognize what learning types are
students we teach. There exists a wide range of tests find out the learners‘ learning style.
I recommend a very useful one in my diploma thesis. What is crucial for the students is
to learn how to learn. The teachers should inform them about various learning and
listening strategies they can use. Namely, they can get benefits from direct and indirect
learning strategies, e.g., cognitive, memory, compensation, metacognitive, affective and
social, precisely described in the chapter 4 of my diploma thesis.
Secondly, the teachers have to distinguish three listening stages, where the students
have chance to determine what a conversation is about, to find out who is talking to
whom, recognize the mood and attitude of speaker(s), decide where and when a
conversation is taking place. If the listeners can answer all the questions above, they can
get a lot of information from the context. The teachers should use a various range of
interesting activities related to listening stages as described in chapter 9. The listening
activities used in the classes should reflect students‘ interest, cover and enlarge their
background knowledge and vocabulary, should be reasonable and therefore practicable
outside the classroom.
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Further, if the students can deal with listening passages, if they know what they should
concentrate on, the teachers have to motivate them to listen as often as possible to gain
the listening experience. They should inform them about English programmes on TV
radio, recommend them good English films suitable for their level, talk about
podcasting and other supplementary sources, take them to lectures of native speakers
and give them chance to talk to native speakers.
The teachers have also deal with student’s difficulties with listening. If the learners are
provided with all listening experiences mentioned above, they are able to judge their
difficulties and uncertainties. The students themselves claim that the most crucial
problems are the lack of key words, vocabulary, the use of natural pronunciation with
weak forms and contractions, the spoken and informal talk. The teachers can work with
this information and provide students with more authentic listening passages because
the more they are used to them, the better they can deal with them. They can also offer
the students various texts, explain them the new vocabulary and insist on using them.
My diploma thesis is focused on a better way how to organize listening in language
classes. I wrote it not only to become more experienced in the field of listening, to help
the other teachers with better organization of their listening activities, but also to make
sure that if students are not good listeners it does not mean they cannot change it as it
was in my case.
I would recommend to all teachers to be patient with their students and to do the best to
achieve the most important goal to be effective listeners, which means to be able to
communicate to native speakers.
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Summary
This diploma thesis is called how to organize listening in ELT classroom because its
aim is to help the teachers to use the listening activities to be most effective for their
students.
This diploma thesis is divided into two parts. The first, the theoretical part, describes the
importance of listening in the language classes, deals with to-down and bottom-up
listening processes, emphasizes the importance of having reasons for listening, deal
with the learning styles and strategies, there are also mentioned the most frequent
listening difficulties the students struggle with. The teacher’s role is the topic of the
chapter 7. The next chapters give the extensive list of listening activities, advice how to
plan listening exercises and emphasize the role of three listening stages, the pre-, thewhile and the post-listening. The last chapter in the theoretical part is related to the use
of Internet in the language classes and offers the new way of listening – podcasting.
In the practical part you can find four examples of ideal listening lessons, the results of
my questionnaire discovering the learners‘ views on listening activities and the last
chapter deals with the comparison of the knowledged researchers‘ theses and my results
based on the questionnaire.
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Resumé
Tato diplomová práce je nazvána jak organizovat poslech ve výuce anglického jazyka,
protože jejím cílem je pomoci učitelům používat poslechové aktivity tak, aby byly co
nejefektivnější pro studenty.
Tato diplomová práce obsahuje dvě části. Část teoretická popisuje důležitost poslechu
v hodinách anglického jazyka, zabývá se procesem poslechu, zdůrazňuje důležitost mít
důvod k poslechu, řeší otázky učebních stylů a strategií a jsou zde zmíněny nejčastější
problémy studentů spojené s poslechem. Role učitele je tématem 7. kapitoly a odhaluje
důležitost učitele v procesu poslechu. Další kapitoly nabízejí širokou škálu
poslechových aktivit, radí jak naplánovat poslechová cvičení a zdůrazňují roli tří
poslechových fází, jmenovitě část před poslechem, během poslechu a po něm. Poslední
kapitola teoretické části se vztahuje k použití internetu ve hodinách cizích jazyků a
nabízí novou formu poslechu – podcasting.
V praktické části lze najít příklady vzorových poslechových hodin, výsledky mého
dotazníku, který odhaluje názory studentů na poslechové aktivity a poslední kapitola se
zabývá srovnáním tezí uznávaných výzkumníků s výsledky mé práce.
84
Bibliography
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Appendix
Materials for the lesson plan 1:
I. Pictures of airports and airports terminals:
87
II. Handout from Reason for listening by Scarbrough (1984) and the
transcript to the lesson plan 1:
88
Materials for the lesson plan 2:
III. Pictures of Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom :
89
IV. Handout from Active listening by Helgesen, Brown and Smith
(1996):
90
Materials for the lesson plan 3:
V. Pictures of sign symbols:
91
VI. Horoscope characteristics:
Horoscopes – characteristics
Aries:
Libra:
Pleasure: action, new beginnings,
Pleasure: cooperation, fair play,
assertion
conversation
Pain: follow-up, sharing, losing
Pain: disharmony, solitude,
Taurus:
decision-making
Scorpio:
Pleasure: luxury, beauty, chocolates
Pain: flexibility, low quality, being
Pleasure: mystery, calling the shots,
rushed
passion
Gemini:
Pain: exposure, simplicity, interruption
Sagittarius:
Pleasure: options, ambidextrous,
knowledge
Pleasure: travel, philosophy, optimism
Pain: being on time, commitment, red
Pain: responsibility, details,
tape
commitment
Cancer:
Capricorn:
Pleasure: baking, comfort, children
Pleasure: patience, respect, success
Pain: snide remarks, forgetfulness, crab
Pain: disorganization, miscalculation,
jokes
boredom
Leo:
Aquarius:
Pleasure: daydreams, generosity,
Pleasure: innovation, originality, friends
courage
Pain: conservatism, being categorized,
Pain: keeping up appearances
emotional outbursts
Virgin:
Pisces:
Pleasure: organization, routine,
Pleasure: romance, helping others,
dedication
compassion
Pain: messiness, inefficiency, lateness
Pain: reality, mean people, insensitivity
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VII. Handout from Self-Access by Sheerin (1989) and the transcript to the
lesson plan 3:
93
Materials for the lesson plan 4:
VIII. Types of houses:
94
IX. Pictures of international classes:
95
X. Handout from Active listening by Helgesen, Brown and Smith (1996)
96
XI. The transcript to the handout from Active listening by Helgesen, Brown
and Smith (1996)
97
XII. The example of my questionnaire:
98