The ways how to improve students' listening skills in English.

by English teacher Zhaksylykova D. K.

Almaty, region Karasay," Kazakh high school in st.Chamalgan with a preschool mini-center".

June 2015.

It is important for us to learn language especially English since it is an international language which is used as a means of communication among nation in the world either in spoken or written interaction. In addition, the use of English is very important as a means of communication so that the interest in learning English grow very rapidly. Ramelan said that English is the first foreign language to be taught in Indonesia. It is taught from elementary school up to university. As the first foreign language, English is considered difficult to learn by Indonesian students because learning English is something new for them. It is different from learning their native language. They have been surrounded by their mother tongue and spoken in their native language since their childhood. In teaching and learning process students must demonstrate proficient skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. One of the important aspects in learning a foreign language is listening. Listening plays an important role in the language learning. It is a demanding process, not only because of the complexity of the process itself but also due to factors that characterize the listener, the speaker, the content of the message and any visual support that accompanies the message. It gives the learner information from which to build the knowledge necessary for using the language. Listening provides the necessary input for learners to acquire the language needed for practicing a language.

My students often ask me, "what should we listen to?". In today's world there are so many things you can listen to. Most textbooks today come with a cassette player or CD. I like cassettes better because they are easier to rewind when you want to hear just one word or sentence again. Besides textbook materials, you can listen to songs or DVDs in English. Those are great ways to improve not only your speaking ability, but to learn about other cultures at the same time. If you live in a big city, you can watch TV or listen to the radio in English too.

The next question my students ask me is "HOW should we listen?". This seems like a simple question, but in reality, it's not. There are two general approaches to listening. One is called "intensive listening" and the other is called "extensive listening". The first one, "intensive listening", is what students usually learn in the classroom. The teacher plays a cassette or says a sentence and the students must try to understand 100% of what they hear. After listening, student can repeat what they heard, either speaking out loud or speaking quietly to themselves. Sometimes students write the sentence (a dictation) or write a response. With "intensive listening", you can learn to say the sentences very precisely. The problem with "intensive listening" is that it takes a lot of time just to learn a few sentences. It can also be very boring if you do too much at one time.

Students need to do a lot of listening in order to really learn well. The way to listen to a lot of English is to do "extensive listening". When you do "extensive listening", you do NOT have to understand 100%. You only have to try to understand MORE than you did at the beginning. So, if you understand 20% the first time, and then understand 25% after listening a few times, then you have succeeded. Or if you understand 90% at the beginning, then 93% after studying is good. Students sometimes feel uncomfortable if they don't understand 100%, but this kind of listening is very valuable.

"Extensive listening" is not only more interesting than "intensive listening", but it gives you the opportunity to hear so many different voices, so many different styles. It also helps you get used to the natural speed of spoken English. As you listen to more and more videos and songs, you will see that the most important words and sentence structures come up again and again. You will be able to learn them naturally. On the negative side, students who do only "extensive listening" sometimes get lazy when they speak and make too many mistakes. That is why students must do BOTH "intensive listening" and "extensive listening".

I think students know how to do "intensive listening" quite well, because you have done it in your classrooms. Basically, you just listen, repeat, listen, repeat, listen, repeat! However, students are not so used to doing "extensive listening", so here are some tips to help you:

1. Find something you enjoy, and just enjoy! Because you it, you will probably listen many times, which will effortlessly improve your English.

2. If you are using a DVD or VCD, use the subtitles to help you see which words or sounds are difficult for you.

3. After you have advanced a bit, turn the subtitles off (or cover them) to really test your listening ability.

4. When something seems very fast to you, just focus on the rhythm of English, then worry about the individual sounds later.

5. Try "shadow practice" as you listen. That means you should try to move your lips as you listen. In this way, you can do speaking practice and listening practice at the same time.

6. Listen for the word

Using popular culture media is always a good way to practice listening skills. Using songs, watching TV shows, or even listening to podcasts will help build skills. To go an extra step, have an additional task while listening to the song or TV show such as assign students different words to listen for and have them keep track of how often they hear these words. This is particularly helpful with reductions like gonna, wanna, hafta.

Listening to various media is also a good time to practice unfamiliar words. Encourage students to write down words they have never heard before. Without subtitles or lyrics, students will have to rely on the sounds they think they heard to make a guess at how to spell this unfamiliar word. Encourage students to write down other surrounding words to help you decipher what the word might be or to write down the time when they heard the word so you can go back to the spot and listen again. These are important skills for students to master so that they can continue learning even outside of the classroom by hearing new words.

7. Student-designed quizzes

If students are in a computer lab or if they have iPads/iPhones, give each student a dialogue, lecture, or song to listen to. These can be easily found on various free listening websites. Have students listen to the lecture multiple times and then create a quiz for another student to take. Students will be excited to “play teacher” by creating quiz questions, and they will have to rely on their listening skills to write accurate questions.

8. Describe the...

Place students into pairs and have them sit back to back. Give one student in the pair a unique picture with a lot of simple shapes drawn on it. I prefer to draw my own pictures with randomly placed hearts, flowers, stars, houses, stick figures, etc. Put these shapes in different places, angles, and with extra features as desired. Give the second student in the pair a blank piece of paper. The student with the picture must dictate to his/her partner how to draw the picture. Make sure to emphasize no cheating or peeking! When finished, change the pictures around the groups and have the partners switch roles. When everyone has drawn once, the team with the most similar pictures win!

Annotation:

This article about the definitions of listening , learning to listening, types of listening, listening problems, types of classroom listening performance, and assessment of listening.

Bibliography:

McErlain, Tricia. (1999). The Nature of Listening: The need for listening in English for Academic Purposes Retrieved on June 15, 2011.Brown, H. Douglas. (2001).

Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach toLanguage Pedagogy.

New York: Pearson Education.Brown, H. Douglas. (2004).

Language Assessment: Principles and Classroom

Nunan, David (2003). Practical English Language Teaching Singapore