Chapter 2: Teaching Listening

1

Chapter 2: Teaching Listening




















2.1 Preamble
2.2 Teaching for bottom-up and top-down processing
2.3 Cyclical approach to teaching listening Example # 1
2.4 Cyclical approach to teaching listening Example # 2
2.5 Strategies adopted by successful listeners
2.6 Authentic materials
2.7 Lesson plan Example # 1
2.8 Lesson plan Example # 2
2.9 Lesson plan Example # 1

Upon completion of this chapter, you should be able to:
Differentiate between bottom-up and top-town teaching
Explain the cyclical approach to teaching listening
List the kinds of activities students should do at each stage of
the listening cycle or framework
Identify the listening strategies used by successful listeners

C
Chapter 1: Introduction to Listening
Chapter 2: Teaching Listening
Chapter 3: Listening Activities
Chapter 4: Assessing Listening Skills
5 Chapter 5: Introduction to Speaking
Chapter 6: Teaching Speaking
Chapter 7: Speaking Activities
Chapter 8: Assessing Speaking Skills
Chapter 9: Listening-Speaking Connection



Chapter 2: Teaching Listening

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This chapter focuses on the teaching of listening and how the listening of learners can be
enhanced. In Chapter 1, we discussed about the theoretical explanations of the listening
process. Here we discuss how one can teach for bottom-up processing and top-down
processing. The cyclical approach is introduced and several examples of lesson plans for
teaching listening are presented.


To teach bottom-up processing. learners need a large vocabulary and a good working
knowledge of sentence structure to process what they hear. Exercises that develop bottom-
up processing help the learner to do such things as the following:

Retain input while it is being processed
Recognise word and clause divisions
Recognise key words
Recognise key transitions in a discourse
Recognise grammatical relationships between key elements in sentences
Use stress and intonation to identify word and sentence functions


Many traditional classroom listening activities focus primarily on bottom-up processing, with
exercises such as dictation, cloze listening, the use of multiple choice questions after a text,
and similar activities that require close and detailed recognition, and processing of the input
(Richards, 2008). They assume that everything the listener needs to understand is
contained in the input (i.e. no top-down processing is involved).

In the classroom, examples of the kinds of tasks that develop bottom up listening skills
require listeners to do the following kinds of things:

Identify the referents of pronouns in an utterance
Recognize the time reference of an utterance
Distinguish between positive and negative statements
Recognize the order in which words occurred in an utterance
Identify sequence markers
Identify key words that occurred in a spoken text
Identify which modal verbs occurred in a spoken text




2.1 PREAMBLE
2.2 TEACHING BOTTOM-UP PROCESSING
Chapter 2: Teaching Listening

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Here are some examples of listening tasks that develop bottom-up processing:

Example
Students listen to positive and negative statements and choose an appropriate form of
agreement.











[source: J. Richards (2008) Teaching Listening and Speaking: From Theory to
Practice. Cambridge University Press. P. 6]

Example
The following exercise practices listening for word stress as a marker of the information
focus of a sentence. Students listen to questions that have two possible information focuses
and use stress to identify the appropriate focus.












(Words in italic are stressed.)

[source: J. Richards (2008) Teaching Listening and Speaking: From Theory to
Practice. Cambridge University Press. P. 6]






Students HEAR

Students choose the correct
response
Thats a nice camera. Yes No
Thats not a very good one Yes No
This coffee isnt hot. Yes No
This meal is really tasty. Yes No
Students HEAR

Student check information
focus
The banks downtown branch is closed
today.
Where When
Is the city office open on Sunday? Where When

Im going to the museum today. Where When

Chapter 2: Teaching Listening

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Example
The following activity helps students develop the ability to identify key words.

Students hear
My hometown is a nice place to visit because it is close to a beach, and there are lots
of interesting walks you can do in the surrounding countryside.

Students task
Which of these words do you hear? Number them in the order you hear them.


beach shops walks hometown
countryside schools nice















To teach top-down processing, you are getting students to
develop the ability to do the following (Richards, 2008):

Use key words to construct the schema of a
discourse
Infer the setting for a text
Infer the role of the participants and their goals
Infer causes or effects
Infer unstated details of a situation
Anticipate questions related to the topic or situation

The following activities develop top-down listening skills:

Students generate a set of questions they expect to
hear about a topic, then listen to see if they are
answered.
Students generate a list of things they already
know about a topic and things they would like to
2.3 TEACHING TOP-DOWN PROCESSING
a) When you are teaching for bottom-up processing, what do you expect
students should be doing?
b) Why do students need a large vocabulary and good understanding of
sentence structure to process what they hear?
Based on the above headline, can
you predict the story reported
Chapter 2: Teaching Listening

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learn more about, then listen and compare.
Students read one speakers part in a conversation, predict the other speakers
part, then listen and compare.
Students read a list of key points to be covered in a talk, then listen to see which ones
are mentioned.
Students listen to part of a story, complete the story ending, then listen and
compare endings.
Students read news headlines, guess what happened, then listen to the full news
items and compare.


Combining Bottom-Up and Top-Down Listening in a Listening Lesson
In real-world listening, both bottom-up and top-down processing generally occur together.
The extent to which one or the other dominates depends on the listeners familiarity with the
topic and content of a text, the density of information in a text, the text type, and the listeners
purpose in listening.

For example, an experienced cook might
listen to a radio chef describing a recipe for
cooking chicken to compare the chefs
recipe with her own. She has a precise
schema to apply to the task and listens to
register similarities and differences. She
makes more use of top-down processing.
However, a novice cook listening to the
same program might listen with much
greater attention trying to identify each step
in order to write down the recipe. Here, far
more bottom-up processing is needed.

A typical lesson in current teaching materials involves a three-part sequence consisting of
pre-listening, while-listening, and post-listening and contains activities that link bottom-up
and top-down listening (Field, 1998).

The pre-listening phase prepares students for both top-down and bottom-up processing
through activities involving activating prior knowledge, making predictions, and reviewing
key vocabulary. The while-listening phase focuses on comprehension through exercises that
require selective listening, gist listening, sequencing, etc. The post-listening phase typically
involves a response to comprehension and may require students to give opinions about a
topic. However, it can also include a bottom-up focus if the teacher and the listeners examine
the texts or parts of the text in detail, focusing on sections that students could not follow. This
may involve a microanalysis of sections of the text to enable students to recognize such
features as blends, reduced words, ellipsis, and other features of spoken discourse that they
were unable to process or recognise (Richards, 2008).

Chapter 2: Teaching Listening

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The sequencing of listening tasks into pre-listening, task-listening and post-listening sessions
has been a mainstay in the teaching of listening comprehension for the better part of two
decades. Such an orientation is pedagogically sound, and, in so far as it serves to direct
learners toward a consistent approach to planning, monitoring and evaluating their
comprehension, highly advisable. However, it falls short of being an adequate approach to the
development of actual listening strategies: all too often the cognitive aspects of the process
subsumed under these categories are underplayed or inconsistently presented. If listening
tasks are designed in such a way as (or the instructor is able post-hoc) to strongly
encourage learners to make consistent use of particular strategies at appropriate points in the
listening process in order to comprehend the input, and this approach is used systematically,
learners would in the end stand a far greater chance of improving their listening ability.













Figure 2.2 The Cyclical Listening Process


Step 1: Pre-Listening
The pre-listening component should include activities that prepare learners for what they will
hear, what they will do, and how the task can be approached. Initially, students need to make
conscious any knowledge they have of the content, background, setting, participants and
goals or purposes of the exchange they will hear, and the vocabulary likely to be used in that
setting or situation. Next, a purpose for listening must be established: what information is
2.4 The Listening Process: A Cyclical Approach Example # 1
Pre-Listening
During or While Listening
Post-Listening
In the real world, when you teach, you expect students to use both bottom-
up and top-down processing when listening. Discuss
Chapter 2: Teaching Listening

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required, and in how much detail. Finally, ways in which the task might be approached can
be presented and weighed before listening begins.

Pre-listening activities help students make decisions about what to listen for and where to
focus their attention while listening, while encouraging them to bring existing cultural,
linguistic and personal knowledge to bear on the task. The following is a list of strategies
students employ which teachers can use to teach at the pre-listening srage:

Use visual or environmental clues: HOW? activate background knowledge,
infer, predict, selectively attend. provide context, associate

Brainstorm words and phrases you might
hear: HOW? direct attention, predict,
activate background knowledge, selectively
attend, infer, associate

Focus on key vocabulary: HOW? scan,
selectively attend, infer, evaluate, activate
background knowledge. group,
contextualise

Think of a synonym (or antonym):
HOW? brainstorm, activate background
knowledge, infer, substitute, paraphrase,
associate

Use the vocabulary / rehearse: HOW? activate background knowledge, plan
and organize, use the language, infer, contextualize, predict, cooperate, send &
receive info, repeat, practice

Personalise the Information: HOW? selectively
attend, activate background knowledge,
contextualize, personalize

Think ahead: HOW? activate background
knowledge, contextualize, predict, use mental
imagery, use the language

Relate the situation to your own experience:
HOW? use mental imagery, contextualize,
personalize, use the language

Use your imagination: HOW? use mental imagery, contextualize, personalize,
use the language

Use textual clues: HOW? set goals, organize & plan, predict, self management,
talk through
Brainstorm what students are
going to hear
Chapter 2: Teaching Listening

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Identify your purpose: HOW? set goals, organize & plan, self management,
selective attention








Step 2: During Listening
During the listening activity itself, students should be encouraged to monitor their level of
comprehension and make decisions about appropriate strategy use. Students need to
continuously and consistently monitor their level of comprehension and to match the input
they receive with the predictions they made in the pre-listening activities, and for internal
consistency with the input they are receiving. This is a highly complex task, made all the
more difficult because teacher intervention is virtually impossible at this stage. Thus,
consistent and systematic training in the use of strategies appropriate to particular tasks and
extensive pre-listening activities need to be incorporated into any program of listening
instruction. Explicating and rehearsing these skills before students begin listening may be
advisable; on the other hand, demonstrating afterwards that students could have understood
more by having employed the strategies may have more impact, and convince more students
to make use of them.

Ask yourself questions: HOW? self monitor, clarification, direct attention,
verify predictions, ask questions, predict

Use grammar as a guide: HOW? activate grammar knowledge, predict, direct
attention, selectively attend, deduce, group and classify. use linguistic clues,
analyse expressions

Listen for groups of words: HOW? activate background knowledge, predict,
direct attention, selectively attend, group, infer, deduce, analyse expressions, use
linguistic clues

Control the input: HOW? direct attention, selectively attend, self monitor, ask
questions, confirm understanding, self management, conversational management

Listen for emphasis/ stress: HOW? direct attention, selectively attend, use
grammar as a guide, deduce, repeat, recognize formula or pattern

a) What is the purpose of pre-listening?
b) Explain the kinds of activities you would do that the pre-listening
stage.
Chapter 2: Teaching Listening

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Re-confirm your purpose: HOW? direct attention, activate background
knowledge, selectively attend, deduce., infer, monitor, repeat, compare & contrast

Think ahead: HOW? direct attention, activate background knowledge, predict,
infer, deduce, monitor, confirm

Substitute: HOW? direct attention, activate background knowledge, selectively
attend, monitor, deduce, problem solving, use grammar as a guide

Identify signalling phrases and discourse markers used to show the end of the
speaking turn or shifts in topic: HOW? direct attention, selectively attend,
predict, infer, analyze phrases, recognize formulas & patterns

Take notes: HOW? direct attention, selectively attend, remember information,
highlight, summarize,

Confirm and clarify your understanding: HOW? ask questions, remember
information, problem solving, use the language, evaluate, monitor








Step 3: Post-Listening
Post-listening activities provide an opportunity for learners to evaluate their level of
comprehension, compare and discuss strategies and reflect on alternative approaches to the
task. This may done in pairs, small groups or involving the whole class. More important than
getting the right answer is how the answer was obtained

The connection between pre-listening and post-listening also needs to be made explicit, so
that learners can develop the ability to better prepare for and predict what they will encounter
by broadening the range of strategies they employ. Performance checklists or listening
protocols can provide a good starting point for discussions. Such approaches encourage
students to reflect on the steps taken (or not taken) at various points in the listening activity
by themselves and their peers, and enable them to see which strategies they (and others)
employ most frequently, and which they tend to neglect. Discussing their approach with
classmates whose approaches to listening differ should help students adjust their strategies
and broaden their repertoire of skills. In the process of doing so, and applying what theyve
c) Discuss the while listening stage?
d) Explain the kinds of activities you would do at the while listening
stage.
Chapter 2: Teaching Listening

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learned from their peers, learners should gain access to more language, making content more
comprehensible. The following are some post-listening strategies learners should employ:

Confirm your predictions: HOW? ask questions, remember information,
evaluate, monitor, predict, compare & contrast, ask for confirmation

Paraphrase: HOW? remember information, use the language, highlight,
summarize, evaluate, monitor

Assess your success: HOW? selectively attend, evaluate, monitor, verify,
record

Jot down what you remember: HOW? direct attention, selectively attend,
remember information, use the language, monitor, record

Read and check, remember information: HOW? direct attention, selectively
attend, remember information, use the language, evaluate, monitor, record

Listen, read and repeat: HOW? direct attention, selectively attend, imitate,
remember information, use the language, monitor, evaluate

Organize and record new vocabulary: HOW? Strategies: take notes,
selectively attend, remember information

Evaluate the success of your strategies: HOW? selectively attend, remember
information, use the language, monitor, evaluate, record

Evaluate your learning strategies: HOW? Self management, selectively
attend, remember information, use the language, evaluate, monitor, record

Use the vocabulary strategies: HOW? remember information, use the
language, summarize, transfer

Confirm and clarify your understanding strategies: HOW? ask questions,
remember information, problem solving, use the language, evaluate, monitor


By adopting a cyclical approach to listening in which pre-listening, on-task listening and
post-listening activities, each of which in turn incorporate appropriate, viable complementary
strategies, we are encouraging students to listen to confirm, as well as to comprehend. Such
an approach engages the student in the tasks more deeply, as they have posited something and
are listening to confirm predictions, not simply to glean information. Listening should be
presented to learners, particularly beginners, as a cyclical rather than as a linear
process, as students all too often tend to view it in the latter terms.

Interpreted improperly, Could you play the tape again? might seem to indicate a linear
approach; if we present the tape as a loop, it may in fact encourage learners to take a different
Chapter 2: Teaching Listening

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view of the process of listening. It is facility with the process, not simply the final product,
that indicates the development of viable skills that will enable comprehension in other
settings and situations. An emphasis on listening comprehension which incorporates
awareness-raising at the metacognitive level with the application and consistent evaluation of
of listening strategies at the cognitive level will help learners more successfully capitalize on
the language input they receive and, theoretically, lead them to achieve greater success in
other areas of language learning.











This is another example of of the Cyclical Approach:
Listening is one of the most challenging skills for our students to develop and yet also one of
the most important. By developing their ability to listen well we develop our students' ability
to become more independent learners, as by hearing accurately they are much more likely to
be able to reproduce accurately, refine their understanding of grammar and develop their own
vocabulary.
Here an outline a framework is presented that can be used to design a listening lesson that
will develop your students' listening skills and look at some of the issues involved.
The basic framework
Pre-listening
While listening
Post-listening
Applying the framework to a song
Some conclusions
The Basic Framework
The basic framework on which you can construct a listening lesson can be divided into three
main stages.
Pre-listening, during which we help our students prepare to listen.
a) What is the purpose of the post-listening stage?
b) Explain the kinds of activities you want your students to do at the
post-listening stage.
2.5 The Listening Process: A Cyclical Approach Example # 2
Chapter 2: Teaching Listening

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While listening, during which we help to focus their attention on the listening text and
guide the development of their understanding of it.
Post-listening, during which we help our students integrate what they have learnt from
the text into their existing knowledge.
Pre-listening
There are certain goals that should be achieved before students attempt to listen to any text.
These are motivation, contextualisation, and preparation.
Motivation
It is enormously important that before listening students are motivated to listen, so
you should try to select a text that they will find interesting and then design tasks that
will arouse your students' interest and curiosity.
Contextualisation
When we listen in our everyday lives we hear language within its natural
environment, and that environment gives us a huge amount of information about the
linguistic content we are likely to hear. Listening to a tape recording in a classroom is
a very unnatural process. The text has been taken from its original environment and
we need to design tasks that will help students to contextualise the listening and
access their existing knowledge and expectations to help them understand the text.
Preparation
To do the task we set students while they listen there could be specific vocabulary or
expressions that students will need. It's vital that we cover this before they start to
listen as we want the challenge within the lesson to be an act of listening not of
understanding what they have to do.
While listening
When we listen to something in our everyday lives we do so for a reason. Students too need a
reason to listen that will focus their attention. For our students to really develop their listening
skills they will need to listen a number of times - three or four usually works quite well - as it
is found that the first time many students listen to a text they are nervous and have to tune in
to accents and the speed at which the people are speaking.
Ideally the listening tasks we design for them should guide them through the text and should
be graded so that the first listening task they do is quite easy and helps them to get a general
understanding of the text. Sometimes a single question at this stage will be enough, not
putting the students under too much pressure.
The second task for the second time students listen should demand a greater and more
detailed understanding of the text. Make sure though that the task doesn't demand too much
of a response. Writing long responses as they listen can be very demanding and is a separate
skill in itself, so keep the tasks to single words, ticking or some sort of graphical response.
The third listening task could just be a matter of checking their own answers from the
second task or could lead students towards some more subtle interpretations of the text.
Chapter 2: Teaching Listening

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Listening to a foreign language is a very intensive and demanding activity and for this reason
It is very important that students should have 'breathing' or 'thinking' space between
listenings. You could get your students to compare their answers between listenings as this
gives them the chance not only to have a break from the listening, but also to check their
understanding with a peer and so reconsider before listening again.
Post-listening
There are two common forms that post-listening tasks can take. These are reactions to the
content of the text, and analysis of the linguistic features used to express the content.
Reaction to the text
Of these two tasks that focus students reaction to the content are most important.
Again this is something that we naturally do in our everyday lives. Because we listen
for a reason, there is generally a following reaction. This could be discussion as a
response to what we've heard - do they agree or disagree or even believe what they
have heard? - or it could be some kind of reuse of the information they have heard.
Analysis of language
The second of these two post-listening task types involves focusing students on
linguistic features of the text. This is important in terms of developing their
knowledge of language, but less so in terms of developing students' listening skills. It
could take the form of an analysis of verb forms from a script of the listening text or
vocabulary or collocation work. This is a good time to do form focused work as the
students have already developed an understanding of the text and so will find dealing
with the forms that express those meanings much easier.
Applying the Framework to a Song.
Here is an example of how you could use this framework to
exploit a song:
Pre-listening
Students brainstorm kinds of songs
Students describe one of their favourite songs and what
they like about it
Students predict some word or expressions that might be
in a love song
While listening
Students listen and decide if the song is happy or sad
Students listen again and order the lines or verses of the song
Chapter 2: Teaching Listening

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Students listen again to check their answers or read a summary of the song with errors
in and correct them.

Post-listening
Focus on content
o Discuss what they liked / didn't like about the song
o Decide whether they would buy it / who they would buy it for
o Write a review of the song for a newspaper or website
o Write another verse for the song

Focus on form
o Students look at the lyrics from the song and identify the verb forms
o Students find new words in the song and find out what they mean
o Students make notes of common collocations within the song
Conclusion
This framework for listening development that could be applied to any listening text. This
isn't the only way to develop students listening or to structure a listening lesson, but it is a one
way that has been found to be effective and motivating students.
[source: Nik Peachey. English Online for Teachers. A Framework for Planning a Listening Skills
Lesson]










a) What are the goals to be achieved at the post-listening stage?
b) Discuss the different tasks listeners are required at the while-
listening stage.
c) Discuss the two forms of listening tasks that can take place at the
post-listening stage.
Chapter 2: Teaching Listening

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.

Successful listening can also be looked at in terms of the strategies the listener uses when
listening. Does the learner focus mainly on the content of a text, or does he or she also
consider how to listen? A focus on how to listen raises the issues of listening strategies.
Strategies can be thought of as the ways in which a learner approaches and manages a task,
and listeners can be taught effective ways of approaching and managing their listening. These
activities seek to involve listeners actively in the process of listening.

Buck (2001:104) identifies two kinds of strategies in listening:

Cognitive Strategies: Mental activities related to comprehending and storing input in
working memory or long-term memory for later retrieval

Comprehension processes: Associated with
the processing of linguistic and non-
linguistic input

Storing and memory processes: Associated
with the storing of linguistic and non-
linguistic input in working memory or long-
term memory

Using and retrieval processes: Associated
with accessing memory, to be readied for
output

Metacognitive Strategies: Those conscious or unconscious mental activities that perform an
executive function in the management of cognitive strategies

Assessing the situation: Taking stock of conditions surrounding a language task by
assessing ones own kno wledge, ones available internal and external resources, and
the constraints of the situation before engaging in a task

Monitoring: Determining the effectiveness of ones own or anothers performance
while engaged in a task

Self-evaluating: Determining the effectiveness of ones own or anothers performance
after engaging in the activity

Self-testing: Testing oneself to determine the effectiveness of ones own language use
or the lack thereof

2.6 Strategies of Successful Listeners
Chapter 2: Teaching Listening

16

Listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying. This involves
understanding a speaker's accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary, and
grasping his meaning. An able listener is capable of doing these four things simultaneously.
Willis (1981) lists a series of micro-skills of listening, which she calls enabling skills. They
are:
Predicting what people are going to talk about
Guessing at unknown words or phrases without panic
Using one's own knowledge of the subject to help one understand
Identifying relevant points; rejecting irrelevant information
Retaining relevant points (note-taking, summarizing)
Recognizing discourse markers Well; Oh, another thing is; Now, finally; etc.
Recognizing cohesive devices such as and which, including linking words,
pronouns, references, etc.
Understanding different intonation patterns and uses of s tress, which give clues to
meaning and social setting
Understanding inferred information, speakers' attitude or intentions.




.

Linguists like Porter & Porter (1987), Brown (2001), and Mangubhai (2002) recommend the
use of authentic text to help students further develop their communicative skills. The use of
authentic listening materials is an important factor to take into consideration when designing
listening comprehension materials. By using such listening materials, the learner is given the
chance to develop the skills needed to comprehend and to use language that is commonly
found in real situations.
With the use of authentic listening materials, students learn to comprehend double meanings,
predict meaning, make allowances for performance errors committed by other speakers, deal
with interruptions, and so on. It is important, therefore, to take the opportunity wherever
possible to expose students to examples of real language usage to help them become more
communicatively competent.
Explain the cognitive and metacognitive strategies used by successful
listeners. Do you agree?
2.7 Use of Authentic Listening Materials
Chapter 2: Teaching Listening

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The use of authentic materials stimulates and motivates learners to comprehend the content of
an oral text because the practical benefits of understanding such authentic language material
are obvious. Some examples of authentic listening materials are listening to a telephone
message for the purpose of understanding a cancelled appointment, or listening to songs to
learn more about well-known bands that sing in English. Such material is relevant to the
students' life and areas of personal interest. By using authentic listening materials, students
are motivated to improve their level of comprehension as they feel that they can achieve a
level of proficiency that has meaning and adds value to their life when speaking English as a
second language.


How Well Do You Follow Directions?
Brief Description: This easy-to-use activity teaches valuable
lessons about the importance of listening and following
directions.
Objective: Students will listen carefully and follow directions
attentively.
Keywords: following directions, listening
Materials Needed: sheet of paper and a pencil
Lesson Plan
This simple lesson in following directions can be used at any time during the school year. As
a matter of fact, you can drive home the importance of listening and following directions by
using this lesson as a model for creating similar activities throughout the year.

Provide students with a small sheet of writing paper. Then let them know that the activity you
are about to do will prove how well they listen and follow directions. Let them know that you
will state each instruction, then pause, then repeat the instruction. Add, But I will not repeat
any instruction a third time, so you must listen very carefully. Proceed to give students the
instructions below.

Teacher Read the following instructions:
1. Write your name first name on the last line of the paper at the left-hand margin.
2. On the first line on the paper write the numbers 1 through 9. Start at the left and print the
numbers. Leave a space between each number.
3. Circle the number 6.
2.8 EXAMPLE # 1 Lesson Plan for Teaching Listening
Chapter 2: Teaching Listening

18

4. Draw a star in the upper left-hand corner of the page.
5. Fold your paper in half the long way.
6. Open up your paper, then fold it the opposite way.
7. Use the tip of your pencil to poke a hole in the center of the paper (the place where the two folds
meet).
8. Draw a heart around the hole you made in your paper.
9. Write the first initial of your last name in the upper right-hand corner of the page.
10. On the last line on the page, write the word done near the right margin.
This is not a difficult assignment, but it does require listening. You might be surprise at how
many students fail.
Assessment
You might let this "following directions quiz" serve as a simple exercise to drive
home a point about the importance of listening and following directions.
Alternatively, if student report cards have a spot where you grade students in
"listening skills" or "following directions," you might use this as a graded activity.
Repeat this activity once a month or so. Give a grade for each quiz. Do students grow
in their ability to follow directions over the course of the school year?
Or you might give students a following-directions quiz like this one, grade the number
correct out of ten, and let students use their score as bonus points on the next test or
quiz. For example, 10 correct = 10 bonus points, 9 correct = 9 bonus points...
[source: Gary Hopkins (2005). EducationWorld.com]




Dialogues for everyday use:

Materials: Blackboard, Tape-recorder

OBJECTIVES: Students will be able to:
show understanding of some
vocabulary items
listen for gist
listen and take notes
speak about their own experiences
concerning the topic of the dialogue
2.9 EXAMPLE # 2 Lesson Plan for Teaching Listening
NI Transcript:
ANIMALS

Shalini: Thats a beautiful cat. I wonder who it
belong to.
Zalina: It belongs to Mrs. Chew. She lives
across the street from us. They have
three cats, two dogs and a canary.
Shalini: They certainly must like pets! But how
do all those animals get along with
each other?
Zalina: Dont ask me. Ask Mrs. Chew,


Chapter 2: Teaching Listening

19

write a paragraph on the topic of the dialogue.

STAGES OF THE LESSON:

1. Pre-listening activities:
Introducing the topic through the picture
Vocabulary presentation: pets; belong; across
from; get along with; canary
Pre-question: What do you think this dialogue is
about?

2. While-listening activities:
First listening: SS listen and check their guesses
Second listening and focus question: SS listen
and answer the following question:
Whose are the pets?
Third listening: Students listen and list the names of the pets mentioned in the
dialogue.

3. Post-listening activity: discussion
Students talk about their personal experiences concerning pets.
- Do you like to have pets at home?
- What animal do you like to have as a pet? Why?
- Describe your pet if you have one?
- What do you do to take care of the pet?
- Is it important to have pets at home? Why or why not?

4. Follow-up activity: writing:
SS write a paragraph about a pet as a writing assignment to be done in class or at
home

[Source: Julia Dobson (1994). Dialogs for everyday use. USIA. Washington.]








OBJECTIVES:
By the end of the lesson students should be able to:
listen for gist
recognize and use some vocabulary items
choose the right answer
show understanding of the whole
2.10 EXAMPLE # 3 Lesson Plan for Teaching Listening
Chapter 2: Teaching Listening

20

listening text by responding to a set of questions
respond orally to questions about the text

MATERIALS
Blackboard
Handouts
Tape or digital recorder

STAGES OF THE LESSON

Pre-listening activities:
Warm-up: setting the scene for the listening activity
Vocabulary presentation

While-listening activities:
1st listening + focus question: What is the text about?
2nd listening + Multiple choice exercise

1. Mr. Chong is a ................................
a) cook b) teacher c) bus-driver d) salesman


2. Mr. Chong needs ................................
a) a wife b) a camera c) a bus d) more money

3rd listening & speaking practice
Who is John Burns?
What does he do on weekends and holidays?
Where does he take tourists?
Why does he need extra money?

Pre-listening activities:
Students volunteer to go in turns in front of their classmates and imagine they are Mr. Chong.
Their friends ask them questions for which they provide answers.
Examples of questions:
Whats your name?
What do you do?
What do you do during the weekend?
What do you work?
What do you want to buy?
Where do you take tourists?






Chapter 2: Teaching Listening

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[Source: Dean Curry (1994). East Does It. USIA. Washington. P.3]


KEY WORDS














Transcript:
Mr. Chong drives a bus on weekends and holidays. He works part-time for a
large bus company in the city. During the week, Mr. Chong is an auto mechanic.
He works part-time to earn extra money. He and his wife want to buy a house.
Mr. Chong takes tourists on special trips to visit historic places.

Teaching bottom-up processing
Teaching top-down processing
Pre-listening
During listening
Post-listening

Cyclical approach
Successful listeners
Authentic materials / activities

Chapter 2: Teaching Listening

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SUMMARY
To teach bottom-up processing. learners need a large vocabulary and a good working
knowledge of sentence structure to process what they hear.

When teaching top-down processing, the teacher is getting students to develop the ability
to infer, anticipate questions and construct the schema of a discourse.

In real-world listening, both bottom-up and top-down processing generally occur
together.

The sequencing of listening tasks into pre-listening, task-listening and post-listening
sessions has been a mainstay in the teaching of listening comprehension for the better part
of two decades.

The pre-listening component should include activities that prepare learners for what they
will hear, what they will do, and how the task can be approached.

During the listening activity itself, students should be encouraged to monitor their level of
comprehension and make decisions about appropriate strategy use.

Post-listening activities provide an opportunity for learners to evaluate their level of
comprehension, compare and discuss strategies and reflect on alternative approaches to
the task.

Successful listening can also be looked at in terms of the strategies the listener uses when
listening.

The use of authentic listening materials is an important factor to take into consideration
when designing listening comprehension materials.




Chapter 2: Teaching Listening

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REFERENCES
Northeast and the Islands Regional Technology in Education Consortium (NEIRTEC) and
the Education Development Center, Inc. Brown University (2004). Technology and
Teaching Children to Read.

Saricoban, A (1999). The Teaching of Listening. The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. V, No.
12, December.

Brown, D. (2001). Teaching by principlean interactive approach to language pedagogy.
Addison Wesley Longman: New York.
Buck, G. (2001). Assessing Listening. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mangubhai, F. (2002). Methodology in teaching a second languagestudy book. University
of Southern Queensland: Toowoomba.
Porter, D. & Roberts, J. (1987). Authentic listening activities In Long, H. & Richards, J.
(Eds.) Methodology in TESOL A book of readings. Newbury House: New York. (pp.177-
190)

Wm. R. Holden III (2004). Facilitating Listening Comprehension: Acquiring Successful
Strategies. Bulletin of Hokuriku University, Vol. 28. 257-266.

Ross, J. (2006) ESL Listening Comprehension: Practical Guidelines for Teachers. Internet
TESL Journal, Vol. XII, No. 2, Feb.

Brown, S. (2006). Teaching Listening. New York: Cambridge University Press.


Richards, J. (2008). Teaching Listening and Speaking. New York: Cambridge University
Press.