Helping Students

Helping ESL students understand what you say

Introduction

It is important that ESL students become efficient listeners for two reasons:
• In general, they spend much more lesson timelistening than they do speaking, reading or writing.
• Listening is the basis of most classroom activities. Students cannot perform these activities correctly unless they understand the relevantinstructions or information.
Like any skill, the skill of listening can be improved if it is practised under the guidance of an experienced and competent trainer (in this case, the teacher!) The pointslisted below summarize what the teacher should know and can do in order to improve the ESL student's ability to listen effectively and understand more of what is said.

Points for consideration

1.It is important to be aware of the cognitive processes underlying the skill of listening. Listening is not a passive process; it is an active skill of interpreting the verbal and non-verbal output ofthe speaker in order to understand the message
(The verbal output comprises the actual words used by the speaker, while the non-verbal output includes the speaker's use of intonation, pauses, facialexpression, body language, etc.)
2. If students are to be expected to listen to long texts or lectures, it is usually desirable to activate their existing knowledge of the topic (by asking questionsand making connections with previously taught material, by discussing opinions, making predictions, etc.) and sometimes by pre-teaching key words. It is also helpful if students are told what theywill have to do after they have finished listening so they can focus on the forthcoming task.
3. Effective listening presupposes that students can hear what is being said, and are not being distracted.The teacher can wait for silence before speaking and ensure that students listen to each other. Teacher repetition of a student's question or comment is often necessary or helpful. The teacher may...