listening

A receptive skill.
 Listening.
 We have different types of spoken language.

 Conversations
 Stories Which of these do you think
 Announcements are more commonly used in
 Songs classes?
 Instructions
 Lectures
 Advertisements
 Why is listening an
important skill?
• It has been estimated that adults
spend almost half their
communication time listening, and
students may receive as much as 90%
of their in-school information
through listening to instructors and to
one another.
 Differenciating written from oral language.

written spoken
Stays on the page Disappears upon speaking

Uses punctuation and capital letters Uses stress and intonation to group
to show sentences meaning

Consists of letter, words and Consists of connected speech,

sentences joined together sentences, or incomplete sentences,
or single words

Has no visual support at times Supported by body language,

gestures and facial expressions
 written spoken
Well organized: sentences Not so well organized.
follow a logical sequence Interruptions, hesitations,
repetitions and changes of
topic

Usually uses exact General vocabulary use

vocabulary and complex and simple grammar
grammar
How hard is for you to lead
listening activities?
• Get in teams and discuss what you think is the
best way to lead a listening ativity.

• What strategies you use to make sure

everyone is paying attention and
understanding.
Strategies to lead listening activities.
• For gist
• For specific information
• For detail
• For attitude (what attitude a speaker represents)
• For extensive listening (listening to a story or an
article)
 To develop listening skills, students
should listen to controlled and authentic use of
language.

Listening tasks should have specific

objectives. These objectives could be based on
comprehending surface structures, such as phonemes, words,
intonation or a grammar category.

Determining pragmatic categories. monologue, interpersonal

dialogue, transactional dialogue, and who is speaking, to whom, when and where.
The context.
Using the details or the general message to
understand the complete meaning of a
conversation, monologue, song etc…
 listening activities are:
Bottom–up
Discriminate among the distinct
sounds in English (beard - bird)
Retain chunks of language for
repetitive use
Recognize stress and intonation
patterns
Recognized reduced forms of
words
Top-down
Recognize communicative
functions according to real life
situations
Infer situations, participants and
goals
Predict outcomes, infer connections
between events, deduce causes and
effects, main idea, supporting
ideas, new information
Distinguish between literal and
implied meanings
 a c t i v i t y:
• Individually, make a list describing different ways in
which you make your students focus on the listening
activity.

• Share with a partner.

• Compare and comment.

• Define if they are top-down or bottom-up.

 Remember, when an activity is top-
down:
• It encourages students to use their knowledge of
the topic to help them understand the content.

• They guess the meaning of an unknown word.

(using the context)

• They may understand the general idea without

getting distracted by knowledge gaps
 They may also:
• Infer the order of events

• Infer relations betwen people involved

• Identify or guess the place and context

where the message is taking place.
 Bottom-up listening
activities can
• help learners to understand enough linguistic
elements of what they hear to then be able use
their top-down skills.

• Get ss attention by making them fill in the gaps.

• Help learners recognize the divisions between

words
activity
 Organization.
• Teacher’s rol can change among lessons, but
organization is always a task for him/her.

• The main part of a lesson is the AIM or

objective it holds.

• Be clear in the objective of every activity.

 Listening Activity Pattern:
Pre-listening: warm up with visualization, tell a story, sing
a song, an action, a KWL chart. Focusing activity if necessary

Main:
First Listening: Ask questions
Second Listening: Focus on specific questions, respond to the
questions

Post Listening: summarize, feedback, response,

 Here we have some activities:
 Listen and correct .
 Listen and put the sentences in the correct order
 Listen and write down the words in a category
 Listen and match the pictures to the sentences
 Listen and check the correct answer.
 Listen and complete the chart.
 Listen and draw a picture.
 Listen and show directions on a map.
 Listen and color a picture.
 Listen and follow the directions

Using the chart above, Identify those that are bottom-up or top-down activities.
Share with a fellow teacher. Compare.
Share with the class.
 Remember, everything not
understood in more than one way, is not
understood at all!.

Thaks a lot!!