Characteristics of Listening Listening
The level, topic and the genre in selecting the tape need to be considered. This makes the extensive listening more effective when it is implemented with a
group of students. Teachers can ask the students to do some tasks to encourage extensive listening such as asking them to record their responses to the materials
that they heard or answering some questions about it. The purpose of these tasks is to give the students more reasons to listen.
2 Intensive Listening: Using Taped Materials This type of listening activity is done by using audio tape recorder. There
are several advantages of using intensive listening. First, it allows the students to hear different kinds of accents. Just listen
to the teacher’s voice is not enough for them. They have to hear the English language spoken by different people from
different countries such as Australian, British, American, or Indian. Second, the tape allows the students to experience different kinds of characters of the speaker.
They get this especially when the real people are talking. However, although the materials of the tape are scripted, they can get the advantage of experiencing various
situations and voices. Third, teachers can get the materials easily. It can be purchased from the store or it can be just simply downloaded on the internet. The
equipment is not complicated to prepare. The teacher just needs to use tape player or laptop to play it.
Eventhough there are some advantages that the students can gain through this type of listening activity, there are also some disadvantages that follow. First,
it is often difficult to make sure that the sound can be heard equally. This issue occurs especially when the class is too big. Second, every student has to listen with
the same speed. Since every student has their own characteristics and abilities, there are students who can easily understand the listening materials and students who
have insufficient English abilities. There are students who can get the content in the first hearing and those who need to play it for two or three times. The last, students
cannot establish communication with the speakers since what they do is just listen to a tape.
3 Intensive Listening: Live Listening The main idea of live listening is that the activities are done by doing a direct
communication. So, there is a real communication done by the teacher and the students. The teacher can also bring a visitor to the classroom to engage a
conversation with the students. This type of activity also has its own advantages. The students are able to interrupt the speaker if they want to ask for clarification or
repetition. They can also ask the speaker to slow down or make the speed faster. This helps them to do the activity easier. However, there is one disadvantage for
using this type of listening procedure. The students sure are able to interfere with the speaker. However, in the real communication they will not always have the
opportunity to do so. It is possible to make their partner of communication annoyed because they are asked for repetition over and over.