Teaching listening

Course Description ► Listening, as well as reading are considered the receptive skills that together with the productive skills, speaking and writing, make the competence of a person. So, it is important for teachers to gain abilities and techniques to efficiently teach and help students develop their abilities in listening comprehension. Even though the four skills are used in interaction inreal life, it is advisable to design lesson that focus in each of them. As Edelsky says: ► “. . . what people learn when they learn a language is not separate parts (words, sounds, sentences) but a supersystem of social practices whose conventions and systematicity both constrain and liberate” In Richard-Amato, 1996, 61 ► This module pretends to present the basic considerations of this importantskill and some useful techniques to practice in the classroom and outside it. ►Resources:  Readings  Articles  Power point presentations  Web links  Sample activities ►Length of the course: 6 hours Academic Profile ► The participants, at the end of the module, will have developed the following competences:  S/He will understand the rationale for listening comprehension, in order to teach it moreefficiently and supported by adequate theory.  S/He will distinguish different techniques to teach listening in her/his classroom.  S/He will review activities designed to practice listening comprehension in a group of children. Topics ►Topic 1: Teaching listening 1.1 A rationale for teaching listening 1.2 Types of authentic assessment 1.3 Activities and tips to practice listening with childrenMain Objective ► At the end of the module, the participant. . .  Will distinguish the characteristics of this important skill: listening  Will identify different techniques to teach listening  Will analyze different possibilities to plan listening activities for children TOPIC #1- A rationale for teaching listening As an introduction to the topic, read and reflect about listening throughthe following articles: Teaching Listening Listening skills are vital for your learners. Of the 'four skills,' listening is by far the most frequently used. Listening and speaking are often taught together, but beginners, especially non-literate ones, should be given more listening than speaking practice. It's important to speak as close to natural speed as possible, although with beginners someslowing is usually necessary. Without reducing your speaking speed, you can make your language easier to comprehend by simplifying your vocabulary, using shorter sentences, and increasing the number and length of pauses in your speech. Far from passively receiving and recording aural input, listeners actively involve themselves in the interpretation of what they hear, bringing their own backgroundknowledge and linguistic knowledge to bear on the information contained in the aural text. Not all listening is the same; casual greetings, for example, require a different sort of listening capability than do academic lectures. Language learning requires intentional listening that employs strategies for identifying sounds and making meaning from them. Listening involves a sender (a person, radio,and television), a message, and a receiver (the listener). Listeners often must process messages as they come, even if they are still processing what they have just heard, without backtracking or looking ahead. In addition, listeners must cope with the sender's choice of vocabulary, structure, and rate of delivery. The complexity of the listening process is magnified in second language contexts,where the receiver also has incomplete control of the language. Given the importance of listening in language learning and teaching it is essential for language teachers to help their students become effective listeners. In the communicative approach to language teaching, this means modeling listening strategies and providing listening practice in authentic situations: those that learners are...