A
Renewed Look at developing Listening
Comprehension Skills
Comprehension Skills
By
María de la Lama E.
Can our students
progress in acquiring a foreign language without developing strong listening
comprehension skills? Can two people communicate orally if one of them is not
able to understand what is being said? Listening is the main door for learning. As Rivers (1981) pointed out, in normal life
we can expect to listen twice as much as we speak, four times more than we
read, and five times more than we write. However, how much time do we allow in
our lessons to develop in our students this important skill? Usually, it is
assumed that teacher talk will be enough to develop in our learners
listening abilities but, is it enough?
Let’s consider some
techniques that have been proved to be effective in developing listening
comprehension skills:
1.Go beyond the overused
technique of listening for the gist or to get the main idea. Try out other activities
such as note taking, clue searching, paraphrasing, inferential listening, or
graphic fill-ins.
2.Consider that each
level i.e. Elementary, Intermediate,
Advanced has its own set of activities each one much more interesting than
listening to get main ideas. Thus, while Elementary students can do selective
listening or listening with visuals, Intermediate students can enjoy other
activities such as inferential listening or story rebuilding.
3.Promote the
development of different skills,
especially those that will have a positive impact on the students’ communicative
competence such as distinguishing word boundaries, recognition of stress and
rhythmic patterns, recognition of cohesive devices or even retaining short
phrases that have been said.
4.Activate the
students’ background knowledge
of the topic presented in the listening activity. A very effective way to
activate their previous knowledge of the topic to be heard in your students is
by asking them to predict what is going to be said. Also, check if your
students have the knowledge which is prerequisite to understand the text
presented. Consider that there is a relationship between background knowledge
and command of the language: a good command of the language will free the
student to rely on pre-existing knowledge of the topic to understand an oral
message.
Remember that if you
ask your students to listen to a text whose context is unknown for them, they
will struggle too much with the task and will end up demotivated.
5.Bring the real
world to your classroom by using authentic
materials. Nowadays there is plenty of listening materials that will make your
lessons more lively and motivating. Use extracts of movies, TV sitcoms, songs,
etc. You do not need to adapt them according to your students’ level, just
control the task that they will perform with that material.
6.Do not expose your
students to uncomfortable situations during listening comprehension activities. You want
them to feel successful and enjoy their learning experience. Some teachers like
to call on to individual students to provide the answers after a listening
activity. This is not too helpful. It’s much better to ask them to compare
their answers in pairs, and before listening to the text a second time, write
their doubts on the blackboard. Thus, you will be doing two good things: your students
will be listening again with a specific objective instead of a boring “listen
again” and you will be preventing those possible frustration feelings from part
of the students that did not get the right answer.
Now your turn:
What do you usually do to enhance your
students’ listening skills? How would
you rate your techniques?
Let us know by dropping a few lines sharing your
experience with us and our readers!
References
Source: Teaching Language in Context
Alice C. Omaggio
BIODATA:
DE LA LAMA, MARIA, holds a
Master´s Degree in Applied Linguistics and Bachelor´s Degree in Theoretical
Linguistics from the University of California; MBA Universidad del Pacífico. Current Director at Centro de Idiomas de la Universidad
del Pacifico.
