Gist listening activities include: asking students to listen to a recording and to tell you whether the speakers are generally in agreement or not or to tell you whether the
speaker’s opinion is negative or positive. Students can merely listen to a recording and tell the teacher what the main topic is.
5.2 Extensive listening
This involves students listening for long periods and usually for pleasure. If a student chooses to watch a film in English or to listen to a recording of a novel being read, this
would be extensive listening. This type of listening is rarely practised in the classroom. We tend to assign tasks rather than allowing students to simply listen.
5.3 Listening for specific information
This is where we listen to specific information and disregard the rest. For example, recently I was very interested in Paul McCartney’s divorce. When the news was on the
television, it was generally running as background noise. As soon as McCartney’s name was mentioned, I stopped whatever I was doing and listened to the news. I was
listening to specific information.
5.4 Listening for detailed information
This is the type of listening you engage in when listening to announcements in a railway station or when listening to directions in a street. You are listening intensively in
order to understand all information given.
5.5 Predicting
When we are listening in our mother tongue, we are constantly predicting what is going to come next. This action of predicting helps us understand the thread of the
discourse. Start encouraging your students to predict; you can even do this at low levels.
For example, if you’re about to listen to a recording of Richard Branson talking about his life, before listening you can ask students what things they think he’ll mention.
Possibilities include: sports, ballooning, Virgin, etc. Students can listen to check whether their predictions are correct.
You can also do a prediction exercise during the listening task. You can stop a recording at appropriate points and ask your students what they think will come next,
e.g. when listening to a song with a simple rhyme, stop and ask students to guess the final word in the sentence that completes the rhyme. When listening to instructions for
a recipe, the final phrase might be “serve up and enjoy” Stop the recording before the phrase and ask students what they think will be said.
Your students will need practice in all of the above sub-skills if they are to become truly proficient. Extensive listening is more difficult to organise in class and is not the best
use of time. You can however, encourage your students to do this outside the classroom.
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5.6 A template for a listening activity lesson
