CHAPTER 5: LISTENING
Listening is one of the receptive skills and as such it involves students in capturing and understanding the input of English. Reading, the other receptive skill, involves students
in understanding and interpreting the written word. Listening is probably more difficult than reading because students often recognise the written word more easily than they
recognise the spoken word. Furthermore when reading, students can go back and re- read a phrase whereas with listening they only get one chance. With reading, it’s the
reader who sets the pace whereas with listening it’s the speaker or recording that sets the pace.
Because of these issues, many students find listening difficult. Listening tasks can be very disheartening and demotivating, especially if students have had a previous
negative experience. It is therefore important to give our students plenty of opportunities to practise the skill of listening in a supportive environment that helps
them to learn. We need to design tasks that help them learn rather than merely testing their abilities. This means that we guide them through the recording, pre-teach
language and highlight the essential points of the recording. This is in contrast to testing, where the teacher simply plays the recording and the students listen and
answer questions.
We can help learning through a variety of methods including preparing students carefully for the listening activities they are about to do, pre-teaching difficult language,
by choosing a recording that is suitable for their level. Techniques for teaching listening can be found in this chapter.
Before describing how to approach a listening activity, let’s look at the skills and sub- skills associated with listening:
5.1 Listening for gist
This is where somebody listens in order to get the main idea of what is being said without focusing on specific details and without hesitating over unknown words. For
example, a native English speaker says to a non-native English speaker: “would you like to join us for dinner one evening?”. In this instance, it is important that the listener
understands she is being invited to dinner. It is not essential for the listener to understand every word. If the words “join us” are new to the listener, we would hope
that she can still recognise the statement as an invitation, i.e. she is listening for gist.
Students are often reluctant to practise listening for gist; many of them think it is essential to understand every word that is said. Many would argue that this is so, but it
is essential for students to master the skill of listening for gist; if not, they will find it very difficult to converse with native speakers of English. Gist listening prepares
students for real life situations. Remember that with gist listening, the aim is to practise listening, not to study language. Of course, you can follow up the gist listening phase
with other activities that help develop language skills.
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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
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