How to Teach Listening: Tips for Effective Listening Lessons
Show Notes
In this week's episode, we're continuing our series on helping students develop their receptive skills, but today we're shifting our focus to listening! We discuss why listening comprehension needs its own targeted focus and why reading out the transcript isn't as helpful as playing an audio file. Then we walk through specific, practical tips on how to make sure your listening lessons are successful, including how to manage timing, how to deal with tech malfunctions, how to coach students through particularly challenging audio texts, and how to get the most out of feedback.
In this Episode
On Teaching Listening in General
Listening is a skill that needs to be developed through practice
Any listening isn’t necessarily developing students’ listening comprehension- just listening to you give instructions, for example, doesn’t count
Why students need specific, targeted focus on developing their listening comprehension
Why playing an audio recording is preferable to the teacher reading out a transcript
How to avoid audio trouble- make sure you set up and check your tech in advance!
Tips for Listening Lessons
Why it’s especially important to set context in a listening lesson, and how to do this. Check out our blog post on lead-ins if you need a refresher on setting context!
An example of how you might set context in a listening lesson
“Task before text”- why you want to set a clear task or give the students a structured activity before you push play
Why the first listening comprehension activity should be very general to help students warm up
How knowing what they’re listening for helps students feel less intimidated and more motivated to tackle difficult audio texts
How to deal with difficult accents/ fast speakers in recordings - it’s ok to warn students, but don’t freak them out!
Why it’s better to play the audio track all the way through rather than pausing after each section
Why you should be playing the audio track at least twice in the lesson- if not more!
Why it’s ok if students don’t get all the answers right away
Why you shouldn’t give the students the audio transcript to read along with as they listen
How to effectively monitor in a listening lesson- strategies for doing it without being distracting
What you should be listening for as students check answers to the listening tasks in pairs
How to get the most out of feedback sessions- what to do if the students aren’t sure about an answer or couldn’t understand everything
How to manage timing if you need to replay the audio several more times
Why you shouldn’t give students the transcript until you’ve played the recording multiple times without it
Listening Lesson Troubleshooting
What to do if your audio tech malfunctions
When it IS ok to use the transcript
What to do if students still don’t understand the audio, even after you’ve played it multiple times
What do if your audio track is unusually long or especially challenging
How to manage timing to ensure you have enough time to achieve your listening aims
Why you want to keep your lead-in short
Specific strategies for what to do if you have too much time or too little time as you go through your listening lesson