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LISTENING AS A COMMUNICATION SKILL
LISTENING AS A COMMUNICATION SKILL
Communication skills form the bedrock of language learning, and among these, listening stands tall as a foundational macro skill. In this blog, we delve into the pivotal role of listening comprehension in mastering English, exploring its significance, challenges, strategies for improvement, and its crucial role beyond the classroom.
Understanding Listening as a Macro Skill
Listening, as a macro skill, involves the ability to comprehend spoken language accurately and effectively. It serves as the bridge between receiving information and understanding it within various contexts, playing a central role in language acquisition and communication. Proficiency in listening is essential not only for academic success but also for daily interactions in real-life scenarios.
Challenges Faced in Teaching Listening
Students often encounter challenges in developing listening skills. These hurdles might include difficulties in understanding different accents, coping with rapid speech, or grappling with unfamiliar vocabulary or idiomatic expressions. Additionally, distractions or lack of focus can impede effective listening.
SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVING YOUR LISTENING SKILLS
SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVING YOUR LISTENING SKILLS
Before you listen
Think about the topic of the text you are going to listen to. What do you already know about it? What could possibly be the content of the text? Which words come to mind that you already know? Which words would you want to look up? If you have to do a task on the listening text, check whether you have understood the task correctly. Think about what type of text you are going to listen to. What do you know about this type of text? Relax and make yourself ready to pay attention to the listening text.
While you are listening
It is not necessary to understand every single word. Try to ignore those words that you think are less important anyway. If there are words or issues that you don't understand, use your general knowledge as well as the context to find out the meaning. If you still don't understand something, use a dictionary to look up the words or ask someone else for help. Focus on key words and facts. Take notes to support your memory. Intonation and stress of the speakers can help you to understand what you hear. Try to think ahead. What might happen next? What might the speakers say, which words might they use?
After listening
Think about the text again. Have you understood the main points? Remember the speculations you made before you listened. Did they come true? Review your notes.
Check whether you have completed your task correctly. Have you had any problems while listening? Do you have any problems now to complete your task? Identify your problems and ask someone for help. Listen again to difficult passages.
There are different types of listening:
Listening for gist: you listen in order to understand the main idea of the text.
Listening for specific information: you want to find out specific details, for example key words.
Listening for detailed understanding: you want to understand all the information the text provides.
Strategies for Teaching Listening Skills
Strategies for Teaching Listening Skills
Utilizing Varied Resources: Employing a diverse range of materials such as podcasts, movies, news clips, and songs can engage students and expose them to different accents and speaking styles.
Pre-, While-, and Post-Listening Activities: These strategies involve activities like predicting content before listening, interactive tasks during listening, and comprehension checks after listening, fostering a comprehensive learning experience.
Interactive Exercises: Incorporating activities that require students to listen and respond actively, such as dialogues, role-plays, and discussions, can significantly improve listening skills.
What is the subject of the conversation?
What is the main idea of the conversation?
What is the purpose of the conversation?
Why does the student go to the office?
Why does the student visit the professor?
What is the conversation about?
Strategies
listen for key words
relate those words
infer the main topic
FURTHER STUDY. Watch these videos to learn more.
FURTHER STUDY. Watch these videos to learn more.
Listening is a cornerstone skill in mastering English as a language. By understanding its importance, addressing challenges, implementing effective teaching strategies, and promoting active engagement, both educators and learners can pave the way for enhanced language proficiency and confident communication.
Importance of Active Listening
Active listening goes beyond merely hearing; it involves focused attention, interpretation, and response. Teaching students to actively listen enhances their understanding and retention of information. Techniques such as summarizing, paraphrasing, and asking clarifying questions can encourage active engagement.
Cultivating Listening Skills Beyond the Classroom
Encouraging students to engage with English outside the classroom is crucial. Recommending podcasts, audiobooks, watching English movies with subtitles, and practicing with native speakers or language exchange partners are effective methods for continual improvement.
The British Council suggests these steps:
The British Council suggests these steps:
1. Predicting content
Imagine you've just turned on your TV. You see a man in a suit standing in front of a large map with the symbols of a sun, clouds and thunder. What do you imagine he is about to tell you? Most likely, this is going to be a weather forecast. You can expect to hear words like 'sunny', 'windy' and 'overcast'. You'll probably hear the use of the future tense: 'It'll be a cold start to the day'; 'there'll be showers in the afternoon', etc.
Depending on the context – a news report, a university lecture, an exchange in a supermarket – you can often predict the kind of words and style of language the speaker will use. Our knowledge of the world helps us anticipate the kind of information we are likely to hear. Moreover, when we predict the topic of a talk or a conversation, all the related vocabulary stored in our brains is 'activated' to help us better understand what we're listening to.
Practise predicting content:
Watch or listen to a recorded TV programme or clip from YouTube. Pause after every few sentences. Try to predict what is going to happen or what the speaker might say next.
Tip:
If you are taking a listening test, skim through the questions first and try to predict what kind of information you need to listen out for. A question beginning 'How many..?', for example, will probably require you to listen for a specific number or quantity of something.
2. Listening for gist
Imagine you are a superhero flying in the sky. From that height, it is possible to see what the entire area is like, how densely populated it is, the kind of houses in each area.
When listening, it is also possible to get the ‘whole picture’ but with one crucial difference: information comes in a sequence. And in that sequence of information, there are content words (the nouns, adjectives and verbs) that can help you form that picture. We often call this listening for gist.
For example, the words 'food', 'friends', 'fun', 'park' and 'sunny day' have their own meanings, but when you hear the words in sequence, they help form the context of a picnic.
Practise listening for gist:
Find a short video with subtitles on a topic that interests you. Use the title to help you predict the content and then listen out for the content words. Go back, and listen again with the subtitles. How much did you understand the first time? Return to the video a week later and try again.
Tip:
When you learn new words, try to group them with other words used in a similar context. Mind maps are good for this.
3. Detecting signposts
Just like the traffic lights on roads, there are signposts in language that help us follow what we're listening to. These words, which link ideas, help us to understand what the speaker is talking about and where they are taking us. They're particularly important in presentations and lectures.
For example, if a university lecturer says: 'I am going to talk about three factors affecting global warming…' then later on you might hear the phrases 'first of all', 'moving on to' and 'in summary' to indicate the next part of the talk. Other words and phrases can function in a similar way. For instance, to clarify ('in other words', 'to put it another way'); to give examples ('to illustrate this', 'for example'), and so on. Take a look at this list of phrases for more examples.
Practise detecting signpost language:
Most course books for learners of English come with a CD and audio script. Find an example of a business presentation or lecture and see how many signpost phrases you can identify (listen more than once, if necessary). Then check your notes with the audio script.
Tip:
In your notebook, group signpost phrases according to their functions, and continue to add new expressions as you come across them.
4. Listening for details
Imagine you are a detective taking a closer look at those buildings you saw earlier on as a superhero. This time, rather than taking in the big picture, you're looking for something specific and rejecting anything that does not match what's on your list.
Similarly, when listening for details, you are interested in a specific kind of information – perhaps a number, name or object. You can ignore anything that does not sound relevant. In this way, you are able to narrow down your search and get the detail you need.
In a listening test, if you are asked to write down the age of a person, listen for the words related to age ('old', 'young', 'years', 'date of birth', etc.) or a number that could represent that person's age. If it is a conversation, you might wait to hear someone beginning a question with 'How old…?'
Practise listening for details:
Decide on a type of detailed information you want to practise listening for and watch programmes where you would expect to get that information. For example, you could listen to a weather report to get details about the weather, or you could follow the sports news to find out the latest results.
Tip:
If you are taking a test, as soon as you get the question paper, skim through the questions, underline the important words and decide what kind of detail you need to identify in the listening text.
5. Inferring meaning
Imagine you are a tourist in a country whose language you do not speak. In a restaurant, you hand over a credit card to pay for the bill, but the server seems to say something apologetic in response. Even though you don't understand his words, you can probably conclude that the restaurant doesn't take credit cards, and you need to pay with cash instead.
This is the technique of inferring meaning: using clues and prior knowledge about a situation to work out the meaning of what we hear.
Similarly, we can infer the relationship between people from the words they use, without having to find out directly. Take the following conversation:
A: Tom, did you do your homework?
B: I did, sir, but the dog ate it.
A: That's a terrible excuse. You'll never pass your exams if you don't work harder.
We can infer from the use of the words 'homework' and 'exams' that this is a conversation between a student and his teacher. By using contextual clues and our knowledge of the world, we can work out what's being said, who is speaking and what's taking place.
Practise inferring meaning:
Find a YouTube clip from a popular television show, for example Friends. Now, rather than watch it, just listen to the dialogue. How much can you infer about what is taking place, who is talking and what their relationship is? Now listen to the clip a second time but watch it too. Were your conclusions correct?
Tip:
The next time you hear a word you don't understand, try to guess its meaning using the context or situation to help you. But don't worry if you don't get it the first time. As with everything in life, the more you practise, the better you will get.
Summing up
These strategies are not stand-alone. While prediction is mostly a pre-listening skill, others need to be used simultaneously to get the best result when listening.
Source: https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/five-essential-listening-skills-english-learners
ACTIVITIES WITH LISTENING
ACTIVITIES WITH LISTENING
These activities can be adapted to suit various proficiency levels and learning styles, fostering engagement and improvement in students' listening comprehension abilities while making the learning process more enjoyable and interactive.
1. Listen and Sequence:
1. Listen and Sequence:
Provide students with a set of shuffled pictures or sentences that depict a sequence of events.
Play an audio clip narrating the sequence.
Instruct students to arrange the pictures or sentences in the correct order based on what they heard.
2. Retell the Story:
2. Retell the Story:
Play an audio recording of a short story, a podcast segment, or a news report.
Ask students to take notes while listening.
After listening, have them work in pairs or groups to retell the story or report to one another using their notes.
3. Fill in the Blanks:
3. Fill in the Blanks:
Prepare a transcript with missing words or phrases.
Play the audio clip where those missing words or phrases occur.
Instruct students to fill in the blanks while listening.
4. Listen and Draw:
4. Listen and Draw:
Provide students with a set of instructions or a description of an image.
Play an audio recording describing the image or giving instructions.
Students listen and draw what they hear based on the instructions or description.
5. Multiple-Choice Listening Tasks:
5. Multiple-Choice Listening Tasks:
Play a dialogue, a monologue, or an excerpt from a speech.
Create a set of multiple-choice questions based on what was heard.
Have students choose the correct answers while listening to the audio.
6. Role-Play and React:
6. Role-Play and React:
Play a short dialogue or scenario with different characters.
Assign roles to students or groups.
After listening, ask students to role-play the scenario or discuss how they would react in those situations.
7. Listen and Infer:
7. Listen and Infer:
Play an audio clip that suggests a situation, but does not explicitly state details.
Ask students to infer or predict what might happen next based on the information provided.
8. Dictation Exercises:
8. Dictation Exercises:
Read aloud a passage at a moderate pace.
Instruct students to write down what they hear.
Pause and repeat sentences or phrases as necessary to aid understanding.
9. Listening to Songs or Lyrics:
9. Listening to Songs or Lyrics:
Play a song in English and distribute the lyrics.
Ask students to listen carefully and fill in missing words or discuss the meaning behind specific lines or phrases.
10. Authentic Listening Tasks:
10. Authentic Listening Tasks:
Assign tasks that require students to listen to authentic materials like TED Talks, podcasts, interviews, or news reports, followed by discussions, summaries, or reflections on the content.
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