2017م - 1444هـ
Listening

Listening skills





From listening to speaking

Getting the listening level right

Authentic listening versus graded listening

Preparing for listening

Adapting listening up or down a level



We learn a language through listening. Hearing your voice will be important for students. Don?t feel tempted to slip into the students? language when they are struggling to understand you. This struggle is part of learning and they need time and help to tune in to you. Your main advantage is your role as a listening and speech model for students. We need to make them want to listen. But how?

From listening to speaking

Listening and speaking are usually practiced together. The two levels of listening we need to focus on are:

Listening for gist (to get the general idea or meaning)

This means ignoring the detail and just following the overall topic even if you do not understand every word.

Listening for detail (to get the specific facts)

This means selectively extracting information to suit our purpose.

Example: A recorded message at an airline will give information for all customers and situations, but we may only need opening times of the sales office so we listen for that.

There are specific tasks which train students in these types of listening skills and you need to decide what your aim is for each listening you use.

Some tapes, songs and videos will be listened to numerous times until students are satisfied they have extracted what they need. The first