Different Strategies

in Teaching Listening

JFS

“Listening is the hardest thing in

the world.”

Anonymous

Percentage of Daily Communication

(Burely-Allen, 1995)

Reading 16%

Listening 45%

Speaking 30%

Writing 9%

4th 3rd

1st 2nd

mWhy is listening an important skill to develop in your

language learners?

Because language learners need it:

To obtain information To understand For enjoyment To learn To communicate

Listening is the language modality that is used most frequently but..

WHY IS LISTENING IN ENGLISH SO HARD?

8 Factors in Listening

Comprehension

There are a number of special characteristics of spoken language that

need to be taken into consideration. Brown cites 8 factors that can make the

listening process difficult. They are adapted from several sources (Dunkel,

1991; Flowerdew & Miller, 2005; Richards, 1983; Ur, 1984).

INTRODUCTION

CLUSTERING

In spoken language, due to memory limitations and our predisposition for

“chunking,” or clustering, we break down speech into smaller groups of

words. In teaching listening comprehension, therefore, you need to help students to pick out manageable

clusters of words …

REDUNDANCY

Spoken language has a good deal of redundancy (rephrasing, repetition,

elaboration, and insertions of “I mean” and “you know.”). Learners

can train themselves to profit from it by first becoming aware of it and by

looking for the its signals.

 REDUCED FORMS

Spoken language has many reduced forms and sentence fragments.

Reduction can be phonological (didju?), morphological (I’ll), syntactic, or

pragmatic (Mom! Phone!).

PERFORMANCE VARIABLES In spoken language, hesitations,

false starts, pauses, and corrections are common. There are also many ungrammatical forms and dialect differences.

COLLOQUIAL LANGUAGE

Idioms, slang, reduced forms, and shared cultural knowledge are all part of spoken language. Learners are usually exposed to “textbook

English” and need help.

RATE OF DELIVERY

The number and length of pauses are more crucial to comprehension than sheer speed (Richards 1983). Still, learners need to be able to

comprehend language delivered at varying rates of speed and, at times,

delivered with few pauses.

STRESS, RHYTHM, AND INTONATION

English is a stress-timed language. Also, intonation patterns are

significant for interpreting questions, statements, emphasis,

sarcasm, endearment, insult, solicitation, praise, etc.

 INTERACTION The spoken word is subject to rules

of interaction: negotiation, clarification, attending signals, turn-

taking, and topic nomination, maintenance, and termination. To

learn to listen is also to learn to respond and to continue a chain of

listening and responding.

It is essential for language teachers to help our students

become effective active listeners.

How can we do so? By modeling listening

strategies By providing active listening

practice

What are listening strategies?

are techniques or activities that contribute directly to the comprehension and recall of listening input.

can be classified by how the listener processes the input.

These are: Top down, Bottom up and Metacognitive

Top - Down Listening Strategies

Refers to the use of background knowledge in understanding the

meaning of the message.

Background knowledge Consists of context, the situation and topic, and

co-text(what came before and after).

Top - Down Listening Strategies are listener based; the listener taps into background knowledge of the topic, the

situation or context, the type of text, and the language. This background knowledge

activates a set of expectations that help the listener to interpret what is heard and

anticipate what will come next.

Top-down strategies include: Listening for the main idea Predicting Drawing inferences Summarizing

Top - Down Listening Strategies

Top down strategy focuses on content. Students can predict the content of listening activity beforehand and use various materials such as pictures and key words to understand the meaning.

This strategy is more broad approach than bottom- up and related with daily lives. When we watch

drama or movie, we usually focus on whole meaning, not structure or forms. Likewise, we

listen to news programs to grasp overall content and music by understanding the whole meaning. Some people do these activities by using bottom-

up strategy, but this is rare case. The materials that can be used in top- down are prevalent. Teachers

can use authentic information. When students listen to real-life story, it can increase their interest

and make them think about main idea more seriously.

Top-Down Listening Activities

Putting a series of pictures or sequence of events in order.

Listening to a conversation and identify where they take place

Reading information about a topic then listening to find whether or not the same points are mentioned.

Inferring the relationship between the people involved.

Bottom – up Listening Strategies

They are text based. The listener relies on the language in the message (sounds, words,

and grammar that creates meaning)

Bottom-up strategies include:

Listening for specific details Recognizing cognates Recognizing word-order patterns

Bottom – up Listening Strategies Bottom up strategy is to know about details and segments. It concentrates on forms and structure. Thus, this activity is more related

with academic study. English learning students use this activity to enhance their

listening ability. Dictation and listening tests are included in this. In class, ‘fill in the blank/s’ activity can increase students’

awareness of forms.

However, bottom-up strategy doesn’t mean that it excludes all authentic

things. When we need deep concentration on details, we use this

activity. For example, weather forecast, phone number and advertisement having

implied meaning need special focus on details to understand. Besides, tongue

twists can be a good exercise for students to notice subtle difference in various

English forms and pronunciation.

Metacognitive Listening Strategies

In general, metacognition is thinking about thinking. More specifically, Taylor (1999)

defines metacognition as “an appreciation of what one already knows, together with a

correct apprehension of the learning task and what knowledge and skills it requires,

combined with the agility to make correct inferences about how to apply one’s strategic

knowledge

to a particular situation, and to do so efficiently and reliably.

Meta cognitive Listening Strategies Used to plan, monitor, and evaluate their listening.

They plan deciding which listening strategies will serve best in particular situation

They monitor their comprehension and the effectiveness of the selected strategies

They evaluate by determining whether they have achieved their listening comprehension goals and whether the

Meta cognitive Listening Strategies

Actions that the learner deliberately takes to enhance comprehension and

oversee and regulate the listening process. They include actions such as: planning, monitoring, evaluation and

problem solving.

PLANNINGAdvanced Organization: Anticipating to the listening task , predicting , clarifying objects for listening

Directed Attention : Deciding to maintain attention to the listening task, avoiding distractors.

Selective Attention:

Planning to pay attention or language situational aspects that may facilitate comprehension

Monitoring

Comprehension MonitoringChecking ,verifying or correcting one’s

understanding

Double Check MonitoringCheck one’s understanding during second

listening or across the task.

Evaluation

Performance Education: Judging one’s performance in the

execution of the listening task .

Strategy Evaluation :Evaluating the strategies used and their

effectiveness

 Problem Solving

Identifying what needs a resolution in a listening task, or an aspect that interferes with its accomplishment.

Then, using cognitive strategy to solve the problem

Tips for Helping our Students Become Active Listeners

Activate your students’ prior knowledge before any listening activity in order to predict or anticipate content.

Assess your students' background knowledge on the topic and linguistic content of the text.

If students are to complete a written task during or immediately after listening, allow them to read through it before listening.

 Tips for Helping our Students Become Active Listeners

Activate your students’ prior knowledge before any listening activity in order to predict or anticipate content.

Assess your students' background knowledge on the topic and linguistic content of the text.

If students are to complete a written task during or immediately after listening, allow them to read through it before listening.

Listening for Meaning

Figure out the purpose for listening. Activate background knowledge of the topic in order to predict or anticipate content and identify appropriate listening strategies.

Attend to the parts of the listening input that are relevant to the identified purpose and ignore the rest. This selectivity enables students to focus on specific items in the input and reduces the amount of information they have to hold in short-term memory in order to recognize it.

Select top-down and bottom-up strategies that are appropriate to the listening task and use them flexibly and interactively. Students' comprehension improves and their confidence increases when they use top-down and bottom-up strategies simultaneously to construct meaning.

Developing Listening Activities

Construct the listening activity around a contextualized task.

Contextualized listening activities approximate real-life tasks and give the listener an idea of the type of information to expect and what to do with it in advance of the actual listening. A beginning level task would be locating places on a map or exchanging name and address information. At an intermediate level students could follow directions for assembling something or work in pairs to create a story to tell to the rest of the class.

Define the activity's instructional goal and type of response.

Each activity should have as its goal the improvement of one or more specific listening skills. A listening activity may have more than one goal or outcome, but be careful not to overburden the attention of beginning or intermediate listeners.

• Identification: Recognizing or discriminating specific aspects of the message, such as sounds, categories of words, morphological distinctions

• Orientation: Determining the major facts about a message, such as topic, text type, setting

• Main idea comprehension: Identifying the higher-order ideas

• Detail comprehension: Identifying supporting details

• Replication: Reproducing the message orally or in writing

Check the level of difficulty of the listening text.

Use pre-listening activities to prepare students for what they are going to hear or view.

Sample pre-listening activities:

looking at pictures, maps, diagrams, or graphs reviewing vocabulary or grammatical structures reading something relevant constructing semantic webs (a graphic

arrangement of concepts or words showing how they are related)

predicting the content of the listening text going over the directions or instructions for the

activity doing guided practice

Match while-listening activities to the instructional goal, the listening purpose, and students' proficiency level.

Sample while-listening activities: listening with visualsfilling in graphs and chartsfollowing a route on a mapchecking off items in a list listening for the gistsearching for specific clues to meaningcompleting cloze (fill-in) exercisesdistinguishing between formal and

informal registers

Model How to Use the

Strategies

Before-Listening Strategies

1. Connect

Help yourself better understand a listening assignment by thinking of things you already know about a topic. This helps your mind build connections between what you know and new information you will hear.

2. PredictMake guesses about what you may learn as you listen. Guessing helps your brain focus on the assignment. It doesn’t matter if your guesses are right or wrong.

3. Talk about New WordsIf there is a list of preselected vocabulary words from the assignment, go through the list and think about what you know about them. If you don’t know the words, talk about them with a friend or use a free audio dictionary. If there isn’t a preselected list of words, make sure you understand words in the title and in any introductory material. Have a brief conversation in your head to clarify key words.

During-Listening Strategies

1. Listen for AnswersAs you listen, be listening for answers to questions you have. To identify questions to ask, preview activities you need to complete after you listen or turn the title of an assignment into a question. Looking for answers to questions gives you a reason to listen and keeps your mind active and alert.

2. Take NotesWrite notes that help you remember ideas. Outlining and layering information is always a good idea, but try other imaginative ways of taking notes: Use connected circles and shapes, create a chart, or draw a map. Use abbreviations and symbols that help you keep up with the speaker’s rate of speech. Speakers also convey ideas in nonverbal ways. Pay attention to intonation, facial expressions, to take notes on a speaker’s opinions and outlooks.

After-Listening Strategies

1. RespondWhat do you agree and disagree with? What parts do you like best? What parts are confusing? Use symbols, such an exclamation mark (!) before an idea you like or an “X” next to something you disagree with, that help you quickly write your reactions so you won’t forget them.

2. SummarizeRead your lecture notes several times before and after class all week. In your head, summarize what the assignment was about and test yourself on your notes. Occasionally, you will be asked to write a formal summary. You will read your summary aloud or make a recording of it.

3. ExtendRead and listen to other sources for more information about the topic. Learning more information makes a topic more meaningful and interesting, especially if you share these ideas with others.