Teaching listening

TEACHING LISTENING(Adopted from English Language Teaching Methodology-BA upgrading course-The Ministry of Education & Training -2003) 1. Open prediction 2. Listen & draw 3. Recall the story 4. Further practice 5. Pre-questions 6. Comprehension questions 7. Grids 8. Role-play 9. Write –it- up 10.Ordering 11. True/False statement for prediction 1. Open prediction The teacher doesn’t give the students any statements, only sets the scene and gets students to predict some of the things they will hear in the text. Students write down their predictions. In this way students have made their own listening guides. The teacher reads the listening text and students tick their correct predictions. 2. Listen & draw The teacher gives students a map, a house plan or diagram or pictures-any visual that students can draw on- draw a route, mark changes, or label parts. The visual can be copied off the board or given as picture prediction. The students listen to the text and respond by drawing, filling in, labeling, numbering, etc…. 3. Recall the story 	Students re-tell the story in the listening text in their own words. The teacher can help them by doing a mini drill first, usually the same pictures or simplified statements that were used for ‘predicting’ in the pre-listening task or ‘ordering’ or ‘selecting’ in the while listening task. Students practice speaking in pairs or groups. The re-telling with a picture can also be done as a chain story. 4. Further practice 	The teacher chooses a topic related to the listening topic, usually a topic personalized to the students, and design a production activity for the students to do. For example, after doing the ‘grids’, they will describe other classmates; or students can recount similar stories to the listening text-things that have happened to them personally. 5. Pre-questions 	The teacher puts a few pre-questions on the board: one pre-question for main point in the listening text. Students read and think about the pre-questions. The pre-questions focus the students’ attention but students don’t have to guess or predict the answers if they don’t want to. After the first listening they answer the questions. 6. Comprehension questions  	This is the most common ‘while-listening’ technique. Students are given a set of questions- True/False statements, multiple choice, and ‘Wh’ or ‘Yes-No’ questions. While listening, they answer the questions. Sometimes these comprehension questions have two parts; the first part help students focus on the main ideas of the listening. Multiple choice or True/False items are often used for this. The second part focuses on the details- facts, figures etc. ‘Wh’ type questions are often used for this. 7. Grids 	The teacher puts a table on the board and students copy it. The table gets students to listen for facts or details in the text. Some of the information has already been filled in the boxes of the table to guide their listening. Students listen and fill in the rest, in note form. Students work in pairs and compare to check answers, and the teacher reads the text a second time or more until everyone agrees on the answers. 8. Role-play 	Students dramatize the listening text, taking the roles of the characters in the story they have just heard. This is particularly good for students who haven’t studied the past tense but have just heard a story in the past tense. The role-play transfers a past tense story into the present tense. The teacher organizes the role- play by putting all the same ‘roles’ together, eliciting and then letting them practice what they will say, then cross-grouping so that each new group has one of each of the different characters. 9. Write –it- up 	Students write up the information that they have in their listening instruction. They reconstruct the text in their own words using the notes in the grids or drawings in the ‘listen & draw’ exercises as cues. Students practice writing in groups, pair or individually. 10.Ordering 	The teacher gives students statements or pictures on the board. Students must discuss in pairs/groups and predict the correct order. The statements/pictures have letters a,b,c, etc. Students fill in their chosen order 1, 2, 3, etc. in a grid. In pairs they compare their answers. The teacher accepts different orders to create a ‘disagreement’, so it gives students a real reason for listening and finding out who is right. Students listen and tick or correct their order. 11. True/False statement for prediction  	The teacher writes 5-10 statements on the board based on the main ideas in the listening text. Only half of the statements are true. Students copy the numbers of statements in their books. In pairs students predict which of the statements are true and underlines the numbers (or mark them T/F). Students call out their predictions. The teacher does not say if they are right or wrong. The teacher reads the text. Students tick predictions that are right or wrong and any that they didn’t guess. In pairs students compare and if there are disagreements; the teacher reads the text again until everyone agrees.