2017م - 1444هـ
TECHNIQUES FOR TEACHING LISTENING

HANDOUT 1



Theoretical Background



Instructions



Read the following theoretical information about the listening process and teaching it. Highlight or underline all ideas new to you.



The Role of Listening in the English Curriculum



Listening has always been considered an important skill in language learning. The Direct, Audio-lingual, Language Acquisition and Interactive Communicative language approaches have all highlighted the priority of learning this skill. Rivers and Temperly (1978), Oxford (1993) and Celce-Murcia (1995) agree that listening constitutes 45% of daily communication among individuals.



It is surprising, therefore, that teaching listening strategies and techniques has not received as prominent a place in the English curriculum. For instance, early language teaching methodologists referred to reading and listening as passive skills that develop automatically through exposure to the oral aspects of language. The listener therefore, was always at the passive receiving end of the communication process, Celce-Murcia and Larsen Freeman (1991). But, the video segment we are dealing with adopts the more recent view that listening is a complex process and that its strategies and techniques can be and should be taught and learned.