Listening Comprehension - Why is it important?
As you can see, one part of my obligatory tasks was to prepare a teaching sequence about the broad topic "Listening Comprehension". But the question is why is it important anyways to teach listening comprehension? Therefore, in this section I want to talk a little bit more about practicing listening comprehension in schools and why it is highly important to teach it.
Being able to listen to what someone is telling you, is very important and essential for the purpose of communicating with other people. This is why teaching listening comprehension skills should take up some time in the English teaching classroom. The internet offers a great variety of different online learning tools which are very useful in terms of teaching listening comprehension. In our teaching section we presented one tool, namely “Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab”.
Randall's Listening Lab offers a very big number of different topics from which teachers and students can choose from, as already mentioned in our teaching sequence. The exercises are structured in such a way that they always offer different types of tasks the students have to complete:
This basic structure is very useful to follow when teaching listening comprehension skills in the classroom. The students always have to focus on some different aspect and, therefore, practice different listening comprehension skills which are all very important and essential for a successful communication.
As I already mentioned, there is an enormous variety of different online learning learning tools, from which some might be better in some aspects than others. It is important for teachers to select from those various tools and to decide what is useful and what is not. It is often possible to only use some parts and to add or integrate one's own ideas. This way teachers are not restricted to what is offered on the website but can rather use them as a kind of suggestion on how to approach the broad topic of listening comprehension.
Another important aspect one has to bear in mind when teaching listening comprehension, is the choice of different dialects of the English language. It is essential to train the students to be able to understand not just one English dialect but various ones, since English is spoken in so many different parts of the world and sometimes it can be quite difficult to understand people when they speak in a totally different dialect than one is used to listen to. Obviously, this aspect can just be fulfilled to some extent but if one has the chance to expose the students to different varieties of the English language, one should definitely do so.
In the following, I listed some links to various websites and different online learning tools which might be very useful in terms of teaching listening comprehension. Just browse through them and see what you could use and what is helpful for your purpose:
Using podcasts in the classroom to practice listening comprehension
Great variety of different English dialects
Practicing listening comprehension
Several stories with questions
Different topics with pre- and post-listening activities
Songs with and without word lists, filling in the gaps
A Guide for Students in Higher Education: Listening Comprehension and Note-Taking
ESL Listening Comprehension: Practical Guidelines for Teachers
Being able to listen to what someone is telling you, is very important and essential for the purpose of communicating with other people. This is why teaching listening comprehension skills should take up some time in the English teaching classroom. The internet offers a great variety of different online learning tools which are very useful in terms of teaching listening comprehension. In our teaching section we presented one tool, namely “Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab”.
Randall's Listening Lab offers a very big number of different topics from which teachers and students can choose from, as already mentioned in our teaching sequence. The exercises are structured in such a way that they always offer different types of tasks the students have to complete:
- Pre-Listening Exercise
- Listening Exercise
- Vocabulary Exercise
- Post-Listening Exercise
This basic structure is very useful to follow when teaching listening comprehension skills in the classroom. The students always have to focus on some different aspect and, therefore, practice different listening comprehension skills which are all very important and essential for a successful communication.
As I already mentioned, there is an enormous variety of different online learning learning tools, from which some might be better in some aspects than others. It is important for teachers to select from those various tools and to decide what is useful and what is not. It is often possible to only use some parts and to add or integrate one's own ideas. This way teachers are not restricted to what is offered on the website but can rather use them as a kind of suggestion on how to approach the broad topic of listening comprehension.
Another important aspect one has to bear in mind when teaching listening comprehension, is the choice of different dialects of the English language. It is essential to train the students to be able to understand not just one English dialect but various ones, since English is spoken in so many different parts of the world and sometimes it can be quite difficult to understand people when they speak in a totally different dialect than one is used to listen to. Obviously, this aspect can just be fulfilled to some extent but if one has the chance to expose the students to different varieties of the English language, one should definitely do so.
In the following, I listed some links to various websites and different online learning tools which might be very useful in terms of teaching listening comprehension. Just browse through them and see what you could use and what is helpful for your purpose:
- Podcasts in English:
Using podcasts in the classroom to practice listening comprehension
- Select Language ESL PodCards:
Great variety of different English dialects
- English Listening Lounge:
Practicing listening comprehension
- Literacy Net – Story Archives:
Several stories with questions
- 1 Language – Listening Center:
Different topics with pre- and post-listening activities
- EFL Club Songs:
Songs with and without word lists, filling in the gaps
- Using English for Academic Purposes:
A Guide for Students in Higher Education: Listening Comprehension and Note-Taking
- The Internet TESL Journal:
ESL Listening Comprehension: Practical Guidelines for Teachers
- Bildungsserver Hessen: http://lernarchiv.bildung.hessen.de/sek_i/englisch/themen/Kommunikative_Fertigkeiten/Hoerverstehen/edu_1225974992.html
