Listening is the key to all effective

communication. Without the ability to

listen effectively, messages are
easily misunderstood. As a result,
communication breaks down and the
sender of the message can easily
become frustrated or irritated. The
present report focused on helping to
enhance the listening skill through
different methods and multimedia

LISTENING
SKILL

MEd. Juan Francisco Hidalgo Sandoval

April 28, 2017
 The listening skill

By Med. Juan Francisco Hidalgo Sandoval

University of El Salvador
Western Multidisciplinary Campus
English Language Department

Introduction

Listening is the key to all effective communication. Without the ability to

listen effectively, messages are easily misunderstood. As a result, communication
breaks down and the sender of the message can easily become frustrated or
irritated. The present report focused on helping to enhance the listening skill
through different methods and multimedia.

First, it includes relevant information about the importance of English

listening skill. Also, it provides some hints to become a good listener. Listening is a
process of hearing something, understanding what is being said, and then
determining whether it makes sense to you.

Second, the report describes some problems students may face when
listening. To improve the process of effective listening, it can be helpful to return
the problem of its head, and look at barriers to effective listening, or ineffective
listening. For example, one common problem is that instead of listening closely to
what someone is saying, we often get distracted after a sentence or two, and
instead start to think about what we are going to say in reply. This means that we
do not listen to the rest of the speakers message.

Finally, listening is a very important skill that students have to enhance in

order to be successful English speakers.

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The listening skill

Enhancing the listening skills is not an easy task since students are not
exposed enough to listening activities that help them develop their listening skill.
The listening skill is the first of the four macro skills, so students learn to speak by
listening since they produce what they listen. If students are not able to understand
what they listen, they cannot produce the language. Therefore, students need to be
exposed to listening activities that help them to develop their listening skill.

By using different multimedia resources as teaching tools, students can

develop their listening skill. Also, teachers should include many activities and
strategies that make students comprehend the target language. Magna
publications (2006) establish that a superior teacher encourages his or her
students to listen to English material as much as possible inside and outside the
classroom.

Listening is receiving language through the ears. Listening involves

identifying the sounds of speech and processing them into words and sentences
(English club, 2015). When we listen, we use our ears to receive individual sounds
(letters, stress, rhythm and pauses), and we use our brain to convert these into
messages that mean something to us.

Listening in any language requires focus and attention. It is a skill that some
people need to work harder than others. People who have difficulty concentrating
are typically poor listeners. Developing the listening skill in a second language
requires even great focus ( English Club, 2015).

The process of listening occurs in five stages. People are hearing,

understanding, remembering, evaluating, and responding (English Club, 2015).

Hearing- it is referred to the response caused by sound waves stimulating the

sensory receptors of the ear; it is physical response.

Understanding- this step helps to understand symbols we have seen and heard;
we must analyze the meaning of the stimuli we have perceived; symbolic stimuli
are not only words but also sounds like applause.

Remembering- remembering is an important listening process because it means

that an individual has not only received and interpreted a messages but has also
added it to the minds storage bank.

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Evaluating- only active listeners participate at this stage in listening. At this point,
the active listener weighs evidence, sorts fact from opinion, and determines the
presence or absence of bias or prejudice in a message

Responding- this stage requires that the receiver completes the process through
verbal and/or nonverbal feedback because the speaker has no other way to
determine if a message has been received.

To become a fluent speaker in English, students need to develop strong

listening skills. Listening not only helps to understand what people are saying but
also it helps to speak clearly to other people. It helps to learn how to pronounce
words properly, how to use intonation, and where to place stress in words and
sentences. (English club, 2015)

There are some approaches and methods to teach listening; most

methodologies now in use of various techniques being combined and recombined.
Most methodologies now in use worldwide in the classrooms and materials design
circles and self-access centers cannot be set to subscribe to any one philosophy or
theory of learning or teaching. Most methodologies can thus be describe as
eclectic drowning upon principals education, linguistics psycholinguistics,
language acquisition and instructional designed in aiming to come up with best
teaching practices to particular situations and problems (Michael Rost, 2002).

To help students to improve their listening, teachers need to think about

what they said in the classroom involved the students in listening to the teacher
and to other student. Teachers should encourage students to talk and listening to
each other and provide texts and activities which will develop listening skills.

If teachers main purpose is to develop listening skills, the text should be

just above the students present level of competence. Often in a skills lesson, it is
not essential that students understand every word of a listening text. In general, if
students have an overall idea of the meaning, and understand how the different
parts fit together to make one piece of discourse, they can easily go on to a more
detailed understand. It is essential to build up knowledge of the text gradually to
start with what students already know in order to take tackle the new, to begin with
the easy aspects and go on to the more difficult. (Diane Phillips, 1983)

Teachers should remain students at the listening strategies they employ in

their own language. For example, teacher can encourage them to guess how the
speakers are filling by the intonation. Teachers need to motive students by using
texts that are interesting and that provide a real incentive for the students
experiences, a short discussion task to arouse the students interest to activate
any knowledge they have about the topic.

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 In the first listening, teachers need to set a task to help focus on overall
understanding, and this can be of the form of two or three questions or a task.

Teachers have to give the listening text for the first time (either play the
recording or read the text). Teacher possibly ask the students to discuss the
answers and opinions in pair or groups before elicit them.

In the second listening, teachers have to set a task to focus on more

detailed understanding. Whether teachers are using published material or devising
their own activities, they need try to vary the tasks.

Teachers should give the listening text for the second time. This time the
teachers may want to take the task easier by pausing- especially if the students
have to write notes. They need to monitor and assess how well students are doing
the task, and at the end, provide feedback.

As a conclusion, the use of multimedia resources enhances the listening

skill because students can practice in different context. In order to engage students
from different ages in the same activities and save time designing lessons,
teachers should implement multimedia resources and other methods and
techniques in very day classes.

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 Conclusion

As a conclusion, this report includes the importance of enhancing the

listening skill in students. Listening is also important because it occupies a big
chunk of the time we spend communicating in the language. Also, provides input
that can be very significant for second language acquisition in general and for
development of the speaking skill in particular.

As language teachers, we need to think of how we can incorporate listening

into our teaching and provide opportunities both inside and outside the classroom
for our students to be exposed to significant listening input.

This report provided tips for teachers to focus on the material presented in a
classroom. In that way, students will be able to identify not only the words used in a
lecture but their emphasis and their more complex meanings.

Finally, teachers should remain students at the listening strategies they

employ in their own language in order to enhance their listening skill.

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 Bibliography

Magna publications, inc (2009). The teaching professor. Magna

Publications, inc. 2718 Dryden Drive Madison, Wisconsin 53704 USA

English Club (2015). What is listening? (Online) available at:

https://www.englishclub.com/homework/listeningskills1.html (last accessed
March, 15)

Umar Farooq, (2014). Multimedia aids in education. (ONLINE) available at:

http://www.studylecturenotes.com/curriculum-instructions/audio-visual-aids-
in-education-definition-types-objectives. (last accessed March, 22).

Tesis Enhancing the listening skill of Basic English Students of Profesorado

en Idioma Ingles para tercer Ciclo de Educacin Basica y Educacin Media
by Using Multimedia resources at the western Multidisciplinary Campus of
the University of El Salvador semester I, 2015. (I30411A795e)