Given the importance of listening well to maximize success in and out of school might lead

you to wonder if there are any specific guidelines for teaching it. In reviewing listening
research, I was able to glean seven. They are as follows:

1. Set the purpose.

According to Funk and Funk (1989), students need to understand the purpose for
listening to get the most from the experience; they need to listen for rather than to.
Having an explicit purpose in mind will help them know where to focus, enabling
them to achieve success. Do they need to listen to determine which statements are
fact and opinion? Do they need to understand the procedure for carrying out a
specific activity? In either case, letting students know up front will make their
accomplishment more likely.
2. Set the stage.
Getting ready to listen is like getting in the zone or warming up. A good first step in
setting the stage is to tell students the purpose for listening. A second step is to
prepare the environment. Eliminating background noise, sitting in an appropriate
configuration, and third, telling students what will transpire after they have listened
are three ways to set the stage for listening (Devine, 1978; Buttery & Anderson,
1980).
3. Provide follow-up.
Funk and Funk (1989) also point out the importance of providing time for follow up.
Immediately after students have listened, hold them accountable for whatever it was
that they were attending to when listening. Many times this follow up will be in a
written format so that there is a paper trail of student learning. Such follow-up
enables you to see what they were able to ascertain while listening, thus serving as
an authentic assessment of sorts. When reviewing their responses you can see who
was able to achieve the stated purpose and who might need additional help.
4. Keep it brief.
More students than not are expected to listen for a good part of the school day and
this only increases throughout the grades. Given that some students find listening
difficult, either because it is not their favored learning modality or because they are
grappling with how to listen, keeping the listening experiences brief and focused will
help guard against children tuning out. In telecommunications businessman David
Sarnoff’s words, “Make sure you have finished speaking before your audience has
finished listening.”
5. Integrate it.
Using listening in a variety of subject areas is an excellent way for students to
understand how it crosses all content areas. Listening for steps to conduct an
experiment in science, propaganda techniques used by the media in social studies,
and listening for the argument in English—all are ways for students to capitalize on
listening in different content areas. As noted by Moffet and Wagner (1992) “Activities
that entail attention, as a preparation for action of one’s own, teach listening skills
far better than special drills focusing on listening alone.”
6. Be a model.
Jalongo (1996) emphasizes that showing students how to be better listeners through
our own example is more powerful than telling them. If we want children to show a
speaker respect, for example, we need to do the same.
7. Avoid repeating yourself and/or student responses.
Probably easier said than done, nonetheless important, is to say something once and
only once. Patterns take time to break, however, which is why this one guideline
might be difficult. Rubin (2000) suggests that having students restate questions and
 answer questions posed by not only the teacher, but peers are two ways to show
students the importance of listening.

Teaching Listening
Listening skills are vital for your learners. Of the 'four skills,' listening is by far the most frequently
used. Listening and speaking are often taught together, but beginners, especially non-literate ones,
should be given more listening than speaking practice. It's important to speak as close to natural speed
as possible, although with beginners some slowing is usually necessary. Without reducing your speaking
speed, you can make your language easier to comprehend by simplifying your vocabulary, using shorter
sentences, and increasing the number and length of pauses in your speech.

There are many types of listening activities. Those that don't require learners to produce language in
response are easier than those that do. Learners can be asked to physically respond to a command (for
example, "please open the door"), select an appropriate picture or object, circle the correct letter or
word on a worksheet, draw a route on a map, or fill in a chart as they listen. It's more difficult to
repeat back what was heard, translate into the native language, take notes, make an outline, or answer
comprehension questions. To add more challenge, learners can continue a story text, solve a problem,
perform a similar task with a classmate after listening to a model (for example, order a cake from a
bakery), or participate in real-time conversation.

Good listening lessons go beyond the listening task itself with related activities before and after the
listening. Here is the basic structure:

 Before Listening
Prepare your learners by introducing the topic and finding out what they already know about it.
A good way to do this is to have a brainstorming session and some discussion questions related to
the topic. Then provide any necessary background information and new vocabulary they will
need for the listening activity.
 During Listening
Be specific about what students need to listen for. They can listen for selective details or
general content, or for an emotional tone such as happy, surprised, or angry. If they are not
marking answers or otherwise responding while listening, tell them ahead of time what will be
required afterward.
 After Listening
Finish with an activity to extend the topic and help students remember new vocabulary. This
could be a discussion group, craft project, writing task, game, etc.

The following ideas will help make your listening activities successful.

 Noise
Reduce distractions and noise during the listening segment. You may need to close doors or
windows or ask children in the room to be quiet for a few minutes.
  Equipment
If you are using a cassette player, make sure it produces acceptable sound quality. A counter on
the machine will aid tremendously in cueing up tapes. Bring extra batteries or an extension cord
with you.
 Repetition
Read or play the text a total of 2-3 times. Tell students in advance you will repeat it. This will
reduce their anxiety about not catching it all the first time. You can also ask them to listen for
different information each time through.
 Content
Unless your text is merely a list of items, talk about the content as well as specific language
used. The material should be interesting and appropriate for your class level in topic, speed, and
vocabulary. You may need to explain reductions (like 'gonna' for 'going to') and fillers (like 'um' or
'uh-huh').
 Recording Your Own Tape
Write appropriate text (or use something from your textbook) and have another English speaker
read it onto tape. Copy the recording three times so you don't need to rewind. The reader should
not simply read three times, because students want to hear exact repetition of the
pronunciation, intonation, and pace, not just the words.
 Video
You can play a video clip with the sound off and ask students to make predictions about what
dialog is taking place. Then play it again with sound and discuss why they were right or wrong in
their predictions. You can also play the sound without the video first, and show the video after
students have guessed what is going on.
 Homework
Give students a listening task to do between classes. Encourage them to listen to public
announcements in airports, bus stations, supermarkets, etc. and try to write down what they
heard. Tell them the telephone number of a cinema and ask them to write down the playing
times of a specific movie. Give them a tape recording of yourself with questions, dictation, or a
worksheet to complete.

How to Teach Listening Skills

Best Practices
B Y S T A C I A L E V Y 223,114 views

Teaching listening skills presents a series of challenges. It is perhaps the most

ephemeral of language skills, hard to understand, teach, and assess .
How do you really know that someone understood you correctly without asking
after every sentence “Do you understand?” (And students are often programmed
to respond “yes” even when they didn’t.) This problem may also apply to reading,
 the other “receptive” language skill, in that its focus is largely on the
comprehension of another speaker’s production; however, while the teacher has
some understanding of how to teach someone to read in English by teaching
context clues, for example, to help students comprehend text, how do you really
teach someone to listen better (especially when even many native speakers of
English often have difficulties with this)? However, while teaching listening may
seem ambiguous, there are actually a number of principles that apply in teaching
listening skills in English.
Principles for Good Listening
Following are a number of listening skills, most of which not only benefit the ESL
student but also the native speaker.

1. 1

Basics: Pay Attention

Even native speakers need help with this. Focus on the speaker. Look
at him or her because facial expressions and body language can
communicate as much as language. For example, there will usually be more
engagement with the listener in making eye contact and use of hand
gestures if what the speaker is saying is of importance to him or her. In
addition, it’s easy to mistake what someone actually said if you are not
focusing on him or her and are engaged in some other task, such as reading
or texting.

2.2
 Practice Active Listening

Ask the speaker to slow down or repeat when you don’t understand or
just want to be certain about what you heard. Repeat back what you
think you heard him or her say, as there can often be a gap between what
we thought we heard and what the speaker intended. This gap can be
addressed by letting the speaker know what you heard: for example, “So
what I’m hearing from you is that you would like more quiet and fewer
distractions after 9 p.m. so that you can study.” This is called “active
listening,” in which the listening portion of a conversation becomes as
active as the speaking part in communicating a message, and not only helps
the listener in understanding what the speaker is saying, but also can help
the speaker in organizing his thoughts and clarify what he wants to
communicate: e.g., the speaker may be spluttering something about the late
hour and her test tomorrow, and may not consciously know what she is
trying to ask for—or is too reticent—until the listener clarifies.

3.3

Pay Attention to Structure

In a formal lecture or speech, the speaker will usually let you know
ahead of time the organization of the discourse: “Today we will discuss
the two types of diabetes, Type One and Type Two, although as we will see,
there is some overlap—” and then what will follow is a description of Types
One and Two, with the overlap probably addressed at the end. These
devices, called “discourse markers,” actually help the listener in
organizing and understanding the lecture. Even in less formal conversation,
speakers will often structure their discourse, especially if they want to make
certain they are understood: “Okay, there are a few issues I need to raise
 with you….” With this informal marker of “there are a few—” and the use of
the word “issues,” the speaker signals the importance of what follows. “A
few,” it may be noted, is a vague expression, and what follows may be
anywhere from two to five or six issues. The listener may clarify when the
“issues” are covered by asking “Is there anything else?” when the speaker
pauses.

4.4

Listen for Key Words

What words does the speaker emphasize? Usually the speaker will let
you know by stressing the main point: “Let’s talk about the TIME we will
meet tomorrow….” The stressed word “time” signals that the time of
tomorrow’s appointment is the main point, as does the marker “Let’s talk
about—”
In addition, certain words signal importance by themselves, such as
“issues,” as seen above: whatever follows “issues” is of importance. Other
key words signaling importance are “concerns” and “points.”

5.5

Key Phrases or Markers

In formal lectures the speaker usually also “marks” main points with
key phrases: “The main point is…” or “On the other hand, some people
take an opposing viewpoint….” But even in everyday conversation the
 speaker often uses less formal markers: for example, “I guess what I’m
trying to say is—” is often used before a main point.

Teaching Principles of Listening

1. 1

Make it Explicit

Even native speakers, who actually use markers or key vocabulary,

may not have consciously thought about these devices. Introducing
some key markers and vocabulary is often welcome it makes explicit how
to understand and manage conversations, which may have been something
a mystery (such as why a friend reacts with anger at your student ignoring
a raised “issue”). In addition, key terms such as “active listening” and
“discourse marker” should be introduced and exemplified.

2.2

Model

For new concepts, such as active listening, a model is needed. This

can be provided by traditional print example dialogues as well as film clips,
and teacher modeling with volunteer students: e.g., the teacher might say,
“Gina, tell me something of importance to you, and I’ll listen actively. The
rest of the class, pay attention, and then let’s discuss what goes into active
listening.”
3.3

Practice

This might be especially important in active listening, which few

people, native or nonnative speakers, really know how to do, as we are
used to either sitting quietly while a speaker finishes his speech (or diatribe,
if he or she is angry), or interrupting, when we think he or she is wrong, or
sitting and planning what we will say in response, etc. Active listening
takes practice, but is worth it in terms of improved listening skills and
relationships.

Teaching good listening skills is difficult as it is so difficult to define and

exemplify, and few of us, even native speakers of English, really do it well.

But by making explicit the qualities of good listening and then practicing it, our ESL
students can become good listeners in English, and often better than their native
speaker peers.

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How Can Teachers Teach Listening?

The research findings discussed in the previous chapter have several important
implications for teachers. Although many aspects of the traditional listening
classroom remain the same as in the past, the current view of listening as a many-
sided interactive process necessitates a more comprehensive approach to teaching
listening to help learners meet the challenge of real-life listening. Although
listening is an individual activity hidden in one’s brain, the teaching and learning of
how to listen could be taken out of students’ private domain into the public space
of the classroom. The focus of instruction changes from whether comprehension is
achieved to how it is achieved.

Reflective Break • How was foreign language listening taught in your experience?

The Diagnostic Approach

Typically, teachers do some prelistening and then have students listen to the text and perform
a variety of tasks. Teachers evaluate students’ comprehension based on the correctness of
their responses and proceed to the next activity. Implicit here is the focus on the result, the
product of listening in the form of correct answers. This approach tests students’ listening
comprehension, informing them that they failed at certain points, but does little to teach how
to listen, that is, to help 12 Teaching Listening them understand what went wrong with their
listening and how it could be repaired. Field (2008) calls for a diagnostic approach to listening,
which allows teachers and students to attend to listening difficulties and practice strategies to
diminish them. Characteristics of the approach are described in the following sections.

Using Incorrect Answers to Detect Weaknesses, and Designing Activities to Help

How often do teachers rush to supply a “correct” answer when a student fails to respond to a
listening task? Teachers may play a recording several times and ask for other students’ input
to make things right, missing an opportunity to determine the reason for the listening error.
To revise this approach, a teacher could identify problems by making a note of students’ lapses
in comprehension as she checks their answers. She would then discuss with students how they
arrived at a certain answer, what prevented them from understanding parts of the text, and
what could be done to improve their listening facilities. Finally, she would follow up with
activities that target specific listening problems that emerged during the discussion. The aim is
to increase students’ awareness of their listening processes and reinforce effective listening
behaviors they can use when they face these problems again.

Avoiding Listening Tasks That Require Memorization

Understanding a message does not mean remembering every single detail, so students’
inability to recall information does not always signal a lack of comprehension. Yet some
exercises—namely, multiple-choice and very specific questions—test listeners’ memory skills
rather than focusing on the listening process. Instructors should try to include various types of
comprehension questions that discuss the content of the text as well as invite students to
examine their listening performance.

Helping Students Develop a Wider Range of Listening Strategies

Ineffective listeners rely on a single strategy (e.g., focusing on individual sentences, missing the
relationship between ideas) without changing or adapting it. To cope with difficult texts more
effectively, students should be exposed to a variety of strategies. Explaining, modeling, and
regularly practicing with students how to set goals, plan tasks, self monitor, and evaluate helps
them control their listening. Anticipating content, inferring, guessing, and recognizing
redundancies improves specific listening problems. Encouraging interaction with classmates
and native speakers through listening expands communicative contexts and enhances self-
confidence. Effective strategy use does not happen by itself. Although the very idea of
strategies may seem to be too abstract to students, teachers can help them appreciate the
importance of strategies by including activities with a focus on their listening process. For
example, students could discuss (in small groups or with the class) what they did to prepare
for listening, follow the text, identify key points, and so forth. Or the class could share personal
experiences with various listening tasks and develop a master list of effective strategies for
different types of texts, adding to it as their strategic competence grows. To introduce a
strategy, the teacher needs to get students to realize that there is a problem and a way of
dealing with it. She could model the strategy by explaining what she does and why it is helpful
in this particular case, and provide multiple opportunities to practice in different listening
situations. Depending on the task, she also could remind students to be flexible in their choice
of strategies and to employ strategic listening outside of the class.

Differentiating Between Listening Skills

By identifying a set of distinctive behaviors that work together toward comprehension,
teachers allow learners yet another glimpse into the listening process. Listeners may be used
to employing microskills in their native language, but specific activities need to be designed to
help them transfer those skills into a new language. Although each skill could be practiced
separately, the key to skills instruction is not to treat them as a laundry list of discrete practice
points that students get or do not get. Rather, skill training should become a part of a larger
listening proficiency picture, inviting students to try new behaviors in a variety of contexts and
tasks.

Providing Top-Down and Bottom-Up Listening Practice

The fact that listening is a complex multistep procedure that involves different
types of processing implies that both top-down and bottom-up skills should be
practiced in the classroom. Although many teachers tend to favor such top-down
activities as comprehension questions, predicting, and listing, listening practice
should incorporate bottom-up exercises for pronunciation, grammar, and
vocabulary that allow learners to pay close attention to language as well. Bottom-
up processing helps students recognize lexical and pronunciation features to
understand the text. Because of their direct focus on language forms at the word
and sentence levels, bottom-up exercises are particularly beneficial for lower level
students who need to expand their language repertoire. As they become more
aware of linguistic features of the input, the speed and accuracy of perceiving and
processing aural input will increase. To develop bottom-up processing, students
could be asked to • distinguish individual sounds, word boundaries, and stressed
syllables • identify thought groups
15 How Can Teachers Teach Listening?
• listen for intonation patterns in utterances
• identify grammatical forms and functions
• recognize contractions and connected speech
• recognize linking words Top-down processing relies on prior knowledge and
experience to build the meaning of a listening text using the information provided
by sounds and words. To arrive at a meaning of a text, the listener draws on her
knowledge of the context, topic, speakers, situation, and the world, matching it to
the aural input.
Top-down listening skills include
• listening for gist, main ideas, topic, and setting of the text
• listening for specific information
• sequencing the information
• prediction
• guessing
• inferencing
Skilled listeners simultaneously engage in top-down and bottom-up processing,
using both types of skills to construct meaning. Although pedagogically people
often practice them separately because of their distinctly different focus, they can
be addressed within the context of a single listening text. For example, students
are going to *listen to a 2-minute-long conversation about getting around the city.
Before they begin, they are asked to *listen to sentences giving and asking for
directions from the conversation and repeat them, paying attention to the
intonation, meaning, and grammatical structure of each phrase. They do *a fill-in-
the-blank exercise, choosing an appropriate form of the verb.
Another very important aspect of active listening is its social dimension. A typical
listening textbook as well as most teacher-made material contains only recorded
speech. Thus students cannot rely on facial expressions and body language to gain
valuable cues to meaning, and they are missing the opportunity to communicate
with the speaker as well. To approximate real-life listening experiences, students
can be grouped or paired up to practice showing understanding or
incomprehension, asking questions, agreeing or disagreeing with the speaker, and
interrupting when appropriate.

10 WAYS OF TEACHING EFFEC TIVE LISTENING

SKILLS TO YOUR LEARN ERS
When it comes to teaching effective listening skills, it’s not so much about the ears as it is about
being observant. “Listen” is a single word with such big implications. A good listener
 receives information, processes it, gives feedback for clarity, and decides how they will act on it—and
all this happens in a flash.

Words are simply inadequate for true communication. At best, they are symbols for elusive deeper
meanings and ideas. Once an idea is put into words, it becomes less adequate than the ideal
thought. Once we know this, then we can search for deeper means of understanding and empathy.
Since we’re not capable of the Vulcan mind meld (that we know of), words are what we have.

So how does one go about teaching effective listening skills? In a word, we model them.

Here are some barriers to watch out for which hinder the development and honing of effective
listening skills, from skillsyouneed.com. They fall under 2 categories: distractions and biases.

DISTR AC TIONS
 Many noises or conversations grabbing your attention at one time, or any other close-by dominant noise
such as television or music.
 Physical appearances can certainly be distracting if they evoke extreme emotions of pleasure or displeasure.
 Disinterest causes boredom.
 Personal habits such as fiddling with your hair, fingers, or a pen. It also includes daydreaming.
 Unmet needs such as illness, tiredness, hunger, thirst, or needing to use the toilet.
 Personal issues keep us preoccupied.

BI ASES
 Facts take precedence over empathy.
 Feeling sorry for someone, rather than empathizing.
 Personal prejudices such as race, gender, age, religion, accent, or any aspect of personal appearance;
and/or past experiences, preconceived ideas or biases which make you perceive the other as unintelligent or
uncredible.
 Having a closed mind and being unable to get past your own beliefs to see the other’s viewpoint.

BRE AK DOW N THE B AR R I ERS

Now it’s time to look at 10 ways of teaching effective listening skills with all your students. As you
employ them in your practices, be sure to take your kids along for the ride by listening, observing, and
telling them what you’re doing where appropriate and comfortable.

1. Stop talking: If you’re talking, you’re not listening. Quiet yourself, your responses, and your
interjections. Be open and available to what is being sought by the other person through your
listening.

2. Get into your listening mode: Quiet the environment. Mentally open your mind to hearing by
getting comfortable and engaging in eye contact.

3. Make the speaker feel comfortable: Examples of this might be nodding or using gestures.
Seating is also important. Decide if the speaker will feel more comfortable if you stay behind your
desk, or if you took a chair beside them. For smaller children, get at their eye level instead of towering
over them.
4. Remove distractions: This is something you might not think of at first. It means things like
clearing the room, quieting screens, and silencing your phone, If the speaker requests privacy, honor
that by closing the door or asking others to give you a few minutes in private.

5. Empathize: At the very least, try “learning instead to embrace and wonder at their “otherness.”

6. Be comfortable with silence: Some people really need time to formulate a thoughtful response.
Rushing them through, or suggesting what they want to say, robs them of the opportunity to
communicate honestly.

7. Put aside personal prejudice: This is also quite difficult, as our experiences form who we are.
Putting all those experiences aside is a skill which requires help and practice.

8. Heed the tone: Sometimes the tone can hide the meaning of the words, and sometimes the tone
enhances the meaning of the words. Know which is which.

9. Listen for underlying meanings, not words: Listen first for comprehension, and then a second
time for ideas.

10. Pay attention to non-verbal communication: People communicate through body language and
facial expressions. This is why eye contact is necessary.

LE AD IN G ( AND LIS TE NI N G) BY EX AM PLE

Teaching effective listening skills is, first and foremost, a process of learning how to listen yourself
and then modelling that behaviour. Perhaps one of the most oft-quoted steps in Stephen R. Covey’s
seminal work 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is seek first to understand. St. Francis knew this,
and Solution Fluency begins with this.

By listening well to your students, modelling it for them, and making them aware of what you are
doing, you make kids feel safe. Then they can practice listening with each other.