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It is worthy to remember that something that has been heard is very easy to be forgotten. Children who have short attention span can easily forget what they
hear and get nothing from their listening class if the teachers have no idea how to teach listening to them. Repetition is really needed in a listening class because it is
impossible to re-listen materials if the teachers do not retell them. Then, pointing out some important things, directing children‟s attention to specific points, and
asking children‟s understanding along the teaching learning process should be done in order to make children learn effectively. Besides, teachers should
remember that listening is not a passive activity and it is important for teachers to involve children in the class activity.
In conclusion, making the children feel confidence to learn listening, stating the reason why the children have to listen, assisting the children to develop
listening strategies, setting up the suitable tasks, and deciding the choice of using recorded or live inputs are the important points that must be considered by
teachers in teaching listening to children. Besides, children should be given a lot of opportunities to practice listening in a fun way so they will not feel that
practicing listening is a burden. Visual support, clear pronunciation input, and repetition are also important in teaching listening to children.
c. Types of Listening Activities
Listening activities can be divided into two groups. They are extensive and intensive listening Harmer, 2001: 228. The further explanation of each activity
is written below.
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1 Extensive Listening
The focus of extensive listening activities is to develop good understanding of an oral language through encouraging students to choose what they listen to so
they can improve their general language in fun ways. By letting them choosing what they are going to listen to, stu
dents‟ motivation in learning the language increases significantly. The activity of this listening type usually takes place
outside the classroom. Many sources can be used to provide the materials for extensive listening. In
order to make extensive listening works effectively, a collection of audio tapes of different levels, topics, and genres are required. Students are allowed to borrow
the tapes in condition they return them later. Besides, teachers should explain the advantages of extensive listening. For the task, teachers can ask the students to
give feedback on the tapes they have enjoyed and loved the most. 2
Intensive Listening Intensive listening emphasizes students to really pay attention to spoken texts
because they have to get every detail of language sounds, words, and grammars which creates meaning. This type of activity is often done in a teaching and
learning process. Based on the teaching media, it is divided into two: using taped and live listening.
a Using taped materials
Using taped materials in a listening class allows students to hear variety different voices, different characters, and different situations. Besides, taped
material is portable and available in markets. On the other hand, it is hard to
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ensure all students of a big classroom with poor sound system hear the materials well. The students and the taped speakers cannot interact.
To overcome the problem, checking tape and audio player quality have to be done.
b Live listening
Live listening is a popular method of teaching listening. It is an authentic communication in which teachers can interact with students. In live listening, the
teacher can check students‟ understanding by looking at their expression and attention. Teachers can decide to talk slowly or fast. They are able to repeat
important points of the materials. Students can ask for clarification if they do not get what the teacher said. The following forms can be taken in live listening.
i. Reading aloud
The teacher reads a written spoken text aloud using styles. ii.
Storytelling The teacher tells stories and asks students to predict what is coming next or to
describe people in the story or to give comments. iii.
Interviews Live interview is an active listening activity where the students give
questions to the teacher and listen to the answers attentively. iv.
Conversations The students listen to conversations done by the teacher and another speaker
live. With all those activities, teachers should be aware of their roles:
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a Organizer: telling the students the purpose of the activity, giving instructions
clearly, and building students‟ confidence through achievable tasks and comprehensible texts.
b Machine operator: operating audio players, responding to students‟ request to
stop and play audio player. c
Feedback organizer: giving feedback on students‟ tasks through asking students‟ answers in general or asking them to compare their answers in pairs.
d Prompter: helping students to be aware of certain language item by repeating
the materials. Teachers should choose the most suitable listening activities based on the
learning objectives, the condition of the classroom, the number of the students, and the materials. Besides, they must play their role properly.
d. Listening Tasks
To measure children understanding, tasks should be given to students. A good task should be provided by teachers in order to encourage students in listening
performances. The grading of the activities based on the difficulty level which depends on the kind of message, for example: its length, topic, linguistic
complexity, and the number of ideas within it Brewster et al, 2002: 101. Furthermore, Scott and Yteberg 1990: 22-28 propose listening tasks for children.
1 Listen and do activities
a Instructions
The teacher gives an instruction and the children do it. By doing so, teachers will know if the children understand the message or not.
