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THE PAPER

HOW TO TEACH LISTENING

ABD. WAHID WAHYUDI FASA

2317045

PBI-2B

STATE ISLAMIC INSTITUTE OF BUKITTINGGI

 ( IAIN BUKITTINGGI )

           

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A.  Background

Listening is the basis for the development of all other skills and the main channel through which the student makes initial contact with the target language and its culture. Through active listening, students acquire vocabulary and syntax, as well as better pronunciation, accent and intonation.  Though listening skill is very important, for some language learners it is considered to be the most difficult language skill.

Communiction happens if there is an interaction between the speaker and the listener. Therefore, listening comprehension activities have a direct and important relationship to the amount and quality of speaking skill. Successful listening for language learners depends on many factors such as the knowledge of the language, background knowledge, etc. 

To improve listening skill, students need to listen to various listening texts for different situations, such as short dialog on the phone, annoucement in the airport, instruction on how to operate a new machine, speeches, poems, songs, etc.

The main objective of listening comprehension practice in junior high school level is that the students should learn to function successfully in real life situations. In detail, the purpose of listening activity is that the students are able to do the instruction or to gain information from different kinds of listening texts.

or genres. (for example; monolog: speech, reports, instruction, poems, songs, etc, and dialog: debate, discussion, movie etc). Moreover, they are able to complete the information and respond to questions. To reach the goals, the teacher should consider several things, such as students’ motivation, interest and learning style.

B. Objective

The main goal of this learning material is to improve the participants

competence in teaching listening.  

C. Indicators

Through this material, the participants are expected to be able to:

a.  recognize the types of listening in real life 

b.  identify the importance of teaching listening

c.  identify the problems faced by the students dealing with listening tasks

d.  apply how to teach listening.

e.  organize listening lessons

CHAPTER II

TEACHING LISTENING

A.  Types of Spoken Language 

Before planning the lessons for listening classroom instruction, it is important to discuss several types of spoken language. Nunan (1991) suggested a diagram to differenciate types of oral language as follows;

1. Monologue

In monologue the listener does not require to respond to  message. It is also called an informational listening. This is where information is communicated to the listener. Monologue can be planned such as speech, news report, weather forecast or other prewritten material or unplanned such as description of something, emergency announcement etc. Monologues are example of one way communication. The speaker usually uses spoken language for any length of time, as in speeches, lectures, news etc. The stream of the speech will go on whether or not the listeners comprehend.

2. Dialogue

Dialogue involves two or more speakers and can be subdivided into those which exchange expressions that promote social relationship (interpersonal) and those which purpose is to convey propositional or factual information (transactional). Both types of dialogues can be between or among familiar people or unfamiliar. Dialogue requires listeners to respond to what is being communicated. The goal of dialogue is to develop interaction between people. The listener communicates something back to the speaker. For example, greetings between friends, a discussion at a business meeting, and giving or receiving instructions at work.  

 B.  Why Teach Listening

Everyone knows that there are four skills in learning a language, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. They are always related in terms of usage, and speaking is viewed by learners as the most desirable skill in face-to- face communication in the globalization era. However, what is the answer to  the following questions?

     What do you have to do before you can speak?

     What does a child learn before he talks?

     What do we do before chatting?

Listen , of course!

Naturally, children begin listening to their parents when they are babies. They are often greeted, spoken to and admired without any response expected. Though nobody knows if the baby understands the spoken words, the process continues. Children automatically acquire such language over some time, and later on gradually produce it through actual experience. The production maybe incomplete at first, but successful at last. That leads to speaking skill which is quite applicable to daily conversation.

In learning English, listening can help improve speaking considerably. Although it is the first of all skills, it is neither the easiest nor the most meaningless. We need to hear various types of English repeatedly and continuously if we want to communicate properly, meaningfully and naturally.

1.  Why is listening good?

a. When listening, we are reviewing a lot of English usage such as vocabulary, grammatical structures, intonation, accent and our own interpretation.

b.  We can learn new words and expressions by hearing them frequently.

c.  Besides the English revision, general knowledge from news, features, or even advertising spots is certainly beneficial for regular listeners.

d.  We can imitate what we hear and apply it with great confidence.

e. Listening can be a good ‘hobby’ while we do other things such as cooking, ironing, exercising, relaxing etc. In other words, we have no wasted time at all.

f.  Listening is also a great way to train our attention

2.  How can we listen to English?

Nowadays, radio cassette recorders are household, but we often overlook the radio function. We can experience English language radio programmes almost anywhere in the world. They are usually picked up on FM bands and aired particularly for foreigners. Short wave radio programmes are another option. Two of the most easily found English language broadcasters are the BBC and Voice of America.

C.  Problems Faced by Learners Dealing with Listening Tasks

Here we are going to discus some problems from the point of view of the learner.  What aspects of listening to a foreign language are particularly difficult for learners to cope with, and what can we, as teachers, do about them?

1. Learner Problems

Stage 1: Defining some problems

Read through the list given in Box 1 of some difficulties that learners have with listening to a foreign language.  Add more if you wish.

Stage 2: Interview

Interview some learners to find out which of these they consider particularly problematic, whether there are any others they can suggest, and what sort of practice they find helpful.

Stage 3: Summary

On your own or with colleagues, try to summarize the main problems and make some suggestions as to what the teacher can do to help solve them.

2.  Why do those problems happen?

 a. Trouble with sounds

Since most listeners rely mostly on context for comprehension, they are often themselves unaware of inaccurate sound perception.  In this case the teacher can facilitate them by various activities such as imitation, recording                          of learner speech, choral repetition of drills, jazz chants, tongue etc.

b.  Have to understand every w ord

This is very common problem, often unconsciously fostered by teachers and/or listening comprehension materials which encourage the learner to believe that everything that is said bears (equally) important information.  The effort to understand everything often results in ineffective comprehension, as well as feelings of fatigue and failure.  We may need to give learners practice in selective ignoring of heard information – something they do naturally in their mother tongue.  We should explain this point to the learners, and set them occasional tasks that ask them to scan a relatively long text for one or two limited items of information.

c. Can’t understand fast, natural native speech

Learners will often ask you to slow down and speak clearly – by which they mean pronounce each word the way it would sound in isolation; and the temptation is to do as they ask.  But if you do, you are not helping them to learn to cope with everyday informal speech.  They should be exposed to as much spontaneous informal talk as they can successfully understand as soon as possible; and it is worth taking the time to explain to them why.  One of the advantages of teacher-produced talk is that you can provide them with this sort of discourse at the right level for them, getting faster and more fluent as their listening skills develop.

d.  Need to hear things more than once

It may have very good pedagogical reasons for exposing learners to texts more than once.  But the fact remains that in real life they are often going to have to cope with ‘one-off’ listening; and we can certainly make a useful contribution to their learning if we can improve their ability to do so.  We can for example, try to use texts that include ‘redundant’ passages and within which the essential information is presented more than once and not too intensively; and give learners the opportunity to request clarification or repetition during the listening.

  

e.  Find it difficult to keep up

Again, the learner feels overloaded with incoming information.  The solution is not (so much) to slow down the discourse but rather to encourage them to relax, stop trying to understand everything, learn to pick out what is essential and allow themselves to ignore the rest.

f. Get tired

This is one reason for not making listening comprehension passages too long overall, and for breaking them up into short ‘chunks’ through pause, listener response or change of speaker.         

D.  Types of Listening Activities  

1.  No Overt Response

The learners do not have to do anything in response to the listening; however, facial expression and body language often show if they are following or not.

Stories.   Tell a joke or real-life anecdote, retell a well-known story, read a story from a book; or play a recording of a story.  If the story is well-chosen, learners are likely to be motivated to attend and understand in order to enjoy it.

Songs .  Sing a song yourself, or play a recording one.  Note, however, that if no response is required learners may simply enjoy the music without understanding the words.

Entertainment :  films, theatre, video.  As with stories, if the content is really entertaining (interesting, stimulating, humorous, dramatic) learners will be motivated to make the effort to understand without the need for any further task.

2. Short Responses

 Obeying instructions.    Learners perform actions, or draw shapes or pictures, in response to instructions.

Ticking off items .   A list, text or picture is provided: listeners mark or tick off words/components as they hear them within a spoken description, story or simple list of items.

True/False .   The listening passage consists of a number of statements, some of which are true and some false (possibly based on material the class has just learnt).  Learners write ticks or crosses to indicate whether the statements are right or wrong; or make brief responses (‘True!’ or ‘False!’ for example); or they may stay silent if the statements are right, say ‘No!’ if they are wrong.

Detecting mistakes .   The teacher tells a story or describes something the class knows, but with a number of deliberate mistakes or inconsistencies.  Listeners raise their hands or call out when they hear something wrong.

Cloze .   The listening text has occasional brief gaps, represented by silence or some kind of buzz.  Learners write down what they think might be the missing word.  Note that if the text is recorded, the gaps have to be mush more widely spaced than in a reading one; otherwise there is not enough time to listen, understand, think of the answer, and write.  If you are speaking the text yourself, then you can more easily adapt the pace of your speech to the speed of leaner responses.

Guessing definitions .   The teacher provides brief oral definitions of a person, place, thing, action or whatever; learners write down what they think it is.

Skimming and scanning .   A not-too-long listening text is given, improvised or recorded. Learners are asked to identify some general topic or information (skimming), or certain limited information (scanning) and note the answer(s).  Written questions inviting brief answers may be provided in advance; or a grid, with certain entries missing: or a picture or diagram to be altered or completed.

3.  Longer Responses.   

 Answering questions.  One or more questions demanding fairly full responses are given in advance, to which the listening text provides the answer(s).  Because of the relative length of the answers demanded, they are most conveniently given in writing.

Note-taking.  Learners take brief notes from a short lecture or talk.

Paraphrasing and translating.   Learners rewrite the listening text in different words: either in the same language (paraphrase) or in another (translation).

  Summarizing.   Learners write a brief summary of the content of the listening passage.

Long gap-filling.   A long gap is left, at the beginning, middle or end of a text; learners guess and write down, or say, what they think might be missing.

4. Extended Responses

Here, the listening is only a ‘jump-off point’ for extended reading, writing or speaking: in other words, these are ‘combined skills’ activities.

Problem-solving.  A problem is described orally; learners discuss hw to deal

with it, and/or write down a suggested solution.

Interpretation.    An extract from a piece of dialogue or monologue is provided with no previous information; the listeners try to guess from the words, kinds of voices, tone and any other evidence what is going on.  At a more sophisticated level, a piece of literature that is suitable for reading aloud (some poetry, for example) can be discussed and analyzed.

 

E.  How to Teach Listening   

There are three main procedures in teaching listening. They are     pre-listening stage, while-listening stage  and  post-listening stage. 

1. The pre-listening stage

This is a stage where students do some activities before they listen to the ext.Underwood (1990) states that ‘it is unfair to plunge the students straight into the listening text, even when testing rather than teaching listening comprehension, as this makes it extremely difficult for them to use the natural listening skills (which we all use in our native language) of matching what they hear with what they expect to hear and using their previous knowledge to make sense of it.’(Underwood, 1990, p. 30)  Therefore, before listening, the students should be ‘tuned in’ so that they know what to expect, both in general and for particular tasks.

Ideas for pre-listening activities

There are number activities that can be used in the pre-listening activities stage.

a. Looking at pictures before listening

In this activity students are required to look at a picture or pictures before

listening to the text. This can be done by question answer or by general or group discussion.

b. Looking at a list of items / thoughts etc

This type of activity is particularly helpful for practicing newly learned vocabulary with early learners. The list should have some purpose of its own in the total listening activity. It could, for example, be a list on which certain items / ideas will be ticked / circled / underlined at the while-listening stage. It should be an integral part of the listening activity as far as the students are concerned but can be exploited as pre-listening material by the teacher.

c. Making list of possibilities / ideas / suggestion etc

When a listening text contains list, even short list, of possibilities/ideas/

suggestion or whatever, it is often a good idea to use list making as the pre-listening activity and than the students can use their own list as the basis for a while-listening activity.

d. Reading a text before listening

Students can be asked to read a text before listening and than to check certain facts while listening. This type of activity is popular with students who feel more secure when they have printed texts in front of them.

e. Reading through questions (to be answered while listening)

Many listening activities require students to answer questions based on information they hear. It is helpful for the students to see the questions before they begin to listen to the text.

f. Labeling pictures

This activity can be used to revise already known language. It is suitable for pair work and can generate a lot of discussion. In this activity the students are required to label a picture or diagram. 

g. Completing part of a chart

This activity can get the students involved in a personal way if they are invited to fill in their own views, judgments or preferences. It is a challenge and an opportunity for students to compare their views and judgment with other people. How far it assists students in matching the printed word with the heard word depends on the quantity and relevance of the writing used in the chart.  

h. Predicting / speculating

Predicting or speculating in a more general way can be a pre-listening activity. Students can be told something about the speakers and the topic and then

asked to suggest what they are likely to hear in the listening text.

i. Previewing the language which will be heard in the listening text

A listening text may sometimes provide a good example of the use of particular language forms in an ‘authentic’ situation and which the teacher wants to use because his / her class has recently studied these forms. In the pre-listening

stage the teacher may want to focus on the language itself. This can be done either through discussion initiated by the teacher or by using prompts in the form of a written text.

j. Informal teacher talk and class discussion

This is a very common form of pre-listening activity, particularly when students are about to hear a recorder text. Teachers generally give their students some background information, begin to talk about the topic and indicate what the

students should expect to hear. 

CHAPTER III

CONCLUTION

Listening as one of the four language skills has an important place in the teaching of English in our country. In order to develop the other skills as well, listening should be presented in a three-phased technique comprising pre-listening stage, while-listening stage and post-listening stage. The teacher should be creative in making a variety of activities according to the nature of the listening text that are suitable for each stage. The teacher should be able to make the listening session more interesting and give the students motivation to learn English successfully.

  

REFERENCES

Doff, A and Becket, C. (1991)  Listening 1 , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Harmer, J. (1991)  The Practice of English Language Teaching, London: Longman.

Lewis, M. and Hill, J. (1990)  Practical Techniques for Language Teaching , England: Language Teaching Publication.

Mathews, A.  Listening skills , in  At the Chalkface , ed. Mathews, A. et al, (1991) Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd.

Nunan, D. (1995)  Language Teaching Methodology , Hertfordshire: Phoenix ELT

Underwood, M. (1990)  Teaching Listening , London: Longman.

Ur, Penny. (2006)  A Course in Language Teaching , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

Wardiman, A, et al. (2008)  English in Focus for Grade VII. Jakarta: Pusat Perbukuan Nasional.

Wardiman, A, et al. 2008.  English in Focus for Grade IX. Pusat Perbukuan Nasional.