| Twelve top tips for listening |
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Here are my twelve techniques to help students learn better listening skills. Make the listening task simple, not the listening text. Every class, read something you have already done from the textbook as a short dictation. It boosts confidence. Expose your students to texts from as many different sources as possible (long, short, formal, informal, different accents and dialects, both native and non-native). Explain your listening procedure before you start. Make sure they hear the whole text at least once and then segmented as necessary. Encourage them to listen to the radio, pop songs, satellite TV or anything English as background noise whilst doing other activities (driving to work, doing the ironing, etc). It will sensitise them to intonation patterns. Teach them how to ask for clarification from day one so that they have the tools at hand when needed. A student who is too embarrassed to ask for help will just switch off Let them see the written text after hearing it and follow it with a finger. Ask them to tell you what they didn’t hear or heard differently. Allow them to control, stop and start the tape. Encourage them to compare after each listening. Let them use L1 to discuss what they heard. Train them to mark stress, intonation patterns and features of pronunciation (elision, intrusion, etc) on short texts and sentences. Teach them to pick out the key (prominent) words in the text. Focus on listening activities which help them to do this. Always lead into the listening task by creating the scene and introducing/ checking key vocabulary before you start. Julie Hetherington Jaén, Spain |
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