Extensive and Intensive Listening 1 Extensive Listening

27 The explanation of the listening activities in the classroom can be described as follows. 1 A Warming-up Activity Before going to the main task of listening, the teacher can guide the students to do a warming-up activity. The activity itself can be a kind of pre- listening activity. The pre-listening activity is usually done after they know the main topic of the recording, but before they begin the main listening task. There are some ways to do pre-listening activity suggested by Nunan 2003, p.37. The first is micro-listening which deals with the target items that occur mostly on the recording. While listening to the recording, the students should pay attention to the target items. Whenever they caught the items, they should raise their hands. The second is bits and pieces in which in this type the students have known the topic. Then they do the brainstorming of vocabulary which likely occurs on the recording. The students make a list and circle the one they listen from the recording. The third is “What do I want to know?” In this type the students have known the topic and are asked to imagine the situations. Then they write some questions about the information they think will be gotten in pairs or small groups. 2 A Main Listening Task After doing a warming-up activity, the listening activity can be continued by the main listening task. Nunan 2003 gives some ways of delivering main listening task p. 39. The first is “What is the order?” In this task, the students are asked to work on ordering some items in the correct order. Then listen to the recording to check the correct one. The second is “Which picture?” In this task the 28 students are provided by some pictures and they are asked to identify the one that goes with what they are hearing. 3 A Speaking Task Related to the Previous Task Nunan 2003 states that although listening and speaking are different skills, they can be put in one section in which both skills can work to complete each other p.41. In this case, listening can be useful to stimulate a speaking activity. On the contrary, after listening to something, the students can use their speaking skill to respond to what they have listened to. Thus, in the classroom activity, speaking skill is also useful to encourage the students in gaining their listening skill. The students’ speaking task can be done in pairs or groups in which they respond to each others’ comprehension and answer on the materials listened to and tasks they have done.

d. Teaching Listening

In teaching listening in a country where English is a foreign language, Riddell 2001 suggests the English teachers pay attention to the “value” of listening lessons p. 110. It means that there is no excuse to give the students less practice of listening lessons. On the contrary, the teachers should be aware of the specific difficulties the students might experience as well as give them kinds of help to solve the difficulties in listening lessons. Since the students might experience listening lessons stressful, there should be a plan or stage prepared before delivering the lesson. By breaking the lesson into stages, the students’ stress levels might be decreased. Therefore, Riddell proposes five stages of listening lesson for EFL learners 2001, pp. 109-110. 29 The first stage is to do a pre-teach vocabulary. This stage enables the students to accommodate them in completing the tasks after listening to the recording. The second stage is to establish interest in the topic. To increase the students’ interest in the topic, the teacher can use some pictures related to the story or recording they will hear and ask the students to predict what the recording will be about. The third stage is to give “a listening for gist task” or “listening specific information”. The teacher plays the recording for the first time to get the students used to the voices and speed of the recording. Then, by asking some easy questions such as “What are they talking about? How many people are talking?” the teacher leads the students to gain the gist from the recording. The fourth stage is to give “a listening for detail”. In this stage, the teacher can ask more questions to get the more detail of information from the recording. A question such as “How do you know that they are friends or not?” can be delivered. Furthermore, the last stage is to give “a follow-up activity” based on the topic. In this activity the teacher can either ask the students to talk about their favorite bed time stories or discuss the specific language point used in the recording. By staging the lesson such as above, the teacher helps the students to prepare themselves for what is to come as well as building the students’ interest in enjoying the listening class. However, there are other things the teachers can do to help the students enjoy their listening lesson as well as improve their listening skill. The kind of help would be some tips, which are proposed by Riddell 2001, pp. 112-113. When using the tape recording, the teachers should place the machine as close as