Overview: Module 7
Overview: Module 7
Overview: Module 7
The four language skills are listening, reading, writing and speaking. These skills can be
broken down into two groups: receptive (or passive) and productive (or active) skills.
Listening and reading are both classed as receptive skills because they require learners to
receive language and understand it.
Speaking and writing, on the other hand, are productive skills which require students to
produce language for themselves.
Learners often find it easier to develop their receptive skills, especially at the beginning, as they
need to be exposed to the language before they can go on to produce it.
However, all the four skills are linked and need to be developed more or less simultaneously.
For example, if a student is able to pronounce a word correctly, then they are more likely to be
able to understand it when they hear it spoken.
Similarly, working on reading skills can help to enhance a student’s writing. The four skills
naturally support and complement one another.
In the following modules we’re going to look at each of the four skills in more detail and focus
on ways of developing each when teaching EFL.
But first, it’s critical that we explore Learning Styles. These influence what materials and
examples you will use, and the way you will present them, when teaching your learners. An
awareness of learning styles is paramount when teaching the 4 skills, and vocabulary and
grammar.
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Unit 1: Questions
A learning style is a more or less consistent way in which a person perceives, conceptualises,
organises and recalls information.
Check answer
Proponents of learning styles say that learning styles are influenced wholly by the individual’s
genetic make-up.
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There is only one approach used to determine an individual’s learning style: the VAK approach.
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Any individual will operate in all three learning style modalities, but with a preference for one or
two.
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A kinesthetic learner will likely benefit from being involved in role playing.
Check answer
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Unit 2: Listening
Although listening is a receptive skill, some students do still find it very intimidating. It may
seem to them that people speak too fast, they don’t understand the accent or can’t tell
where one word finishes and another starts.
Aside from this, listening isn’t just about understanding each word; students may need to
listen for gist or for detail, they may need to infer a speaker’s attitude or comprehend the
meaning behind what is said.
In real-life situations we always have a context when listening; we can see the speakers,
know/can infer their relationship and have an idea of what they’re talking about based on
previous conversations or previous knowledge.
When listening to a recording in a foreign language, however, we don’t have any of this, which
makes listening even harder. It can also be difficult because spoken language is generally much
less well organised than written language.
There may be hesitations, incomplete sentences or a sudden change of topic.
This is very challenging for students and that’s why it’s important to expose them to
both authentic listening material which prepares them for the challenge of real language,
as well as ‘graded’ material to build their confidence.
You should also consider the different types of spoken language which exist. These are a few
examples:
Conversations
Songs
Speeches
Announcements
Advertisements
Stories
Lectures
Listening involves being able to understand a range of different ‘spoken texts’ and to take
meaning from them.
In the classroom we can expose students to a variety of these text types via CDs, DVDs and, of
course, our own speech. As we’ve already mentioned, when listening to a recording, whether
authentic or otherwise, we can’t see the speakers and therefore can’t infer context, whereas
in real life we usually have at least some idea of what we’re going to hear.
So, when using CDs in the classroom it’s a bit unfair to expect students to “listen to the
recording and answer the questions” without any introduction at all. If we approach listening
lessons like this, students are either able to understand and get the right answers or not, but
if not then there’s no way for them to improve.
Instead, there are a number of ways we can actually develop listening skills. The British Council
gives some really fun and interesting pre-listening tasks which can really help. They include:
Setting the context – giving students an idea of who is speaking, where, when and an outline
of the situation
Warmers to generate interest – if you’re listening to a dialogue about food, you could start
off by asking students their favourite foods etc.
Activating knowledge – asking students what they already know about the topic to bring
relevant vocabulary to the forefront of their minds or giving them a short, fun quiz
Predicting content – once they know the context they can guess what might/might not be
mentioned
Giving students the questions before they listen – this means that they can focus and listen
out for cues in the dialogue rather than being overwhelmed trying to listen for absolutely
everything
Predicting answers – give students time to read all the questions and make notes on possible
answers so that they’re not concentrating on reading a question when they should be
concentrating on listening!
While listening, learners often have to answer a variety of questions. It’s usually best to start
with questions which assess the students’ understanding of the general gist of the dialogue,
such as ‘why did the girl phone her friend?’, before asking them to concentrate on more
specific details i.e. ‘what time did they arrange to meet?’. This way they are less likely to
become overwhelmed and think, ‘I don’t understand anything at all!’.
Additionally, some students may have understood what they heard but may be unable to
vocalise it. For example, if they listen to a story which they have understood, they might not
necessarily be able to re-tell that story. It’s unreasonable, therefore, to ask hugely generalised
questions such as, “Okay, so what did you hear?” that students may not be able to respond
to.
Use tasks such as true/false questions or table completion to help focus students’
attention and allow you to assess accurately whether they have understood.
After listening, the students need to feedback the answers and this can be done in several ways.
A good one is getting students to check what they’ve written in pairs and if they have wildly
different responses you may need to play the recording again. If there are still problems then
you need to grade the questions or activities to a more appropriate level and then build up.
You can grade tasks rather than the recording so that students are exposed to authentic
material from an early stage but aren’t asked to complete overly-complicated activities.
Even a BBC radio interview could technically be used as a listening exercise for lower levels
where you ask them just to listen for who is being interviewed, for example. The same piece can
then be used for more advanced levels as they can be asked to identify attitudes, opinions and
more specific details.
Obviously some recordings are always going to be more appropriate for different levels but don
’t get stuck in the notion that lower levels can’t handle realistic material – they may find it an
interesting challenge!
Look at the following procedure for a listening skills lesson adapted from Scrivener’s Learning
Teaching and put the items in the correct order:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Show students a picture of a bus station and ask 'Where is this?', 'What do you think is
happening?' etc
Set task: 'Why is the old lady worried?' (this involves listening to a longer section of the
recording and interpreting information in it))
Introduce the topic (long-distance buses) and discuss a little. Ask students if they've ever been
on a long distance bus, especially in the UK or US.)
Lead into a communicative activity based around the topic of travel problems.
Students compare answers in pairs and give answers. If correct, continue, if not, play recording
again.
Play recording.
Set task: 'How many people are speaking?' , 'Where are they?'
Play recording
Students compare answers in pairs and give answers. If correct, continue, if not, play recording
again.
Check answer
Remember this: You have learned enough so far in this course to ensure you can plan a good
listening lesson.
However, if you are like some of our other students who want to study more about lesson
planning and have a lesson-planning template that you can use for every lesson, then it would
be wise to explore our Module 16: Lesson Planning Plus in our 150-hour course.
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Effective Strategies/Activities
Effective Strategies/Activities for Developing Students’ Listening Skills
If your students are going to be able to operate effectively, they need to be exposed to a wide
variety of different listening strategies and activities. Your goal is to make these listening events
interesting, productive, enjoyable and fun (but not too much fun with adults).
Here are some of the most practical approaches:
1. Strategies
Questions and answers
Very short exchanges can be used to provide elementary or lower intermediate students with
practice in listening and understanding. Exchanges like this can later be practised by the
students themselves, and preferably recorded.
Recording the students on tape is almost always universally enjoyed by students even when
they laughingly protest a little at the beginning because they are shy about hearing their own
voice on tape.
Short dialogues
The way in which the dialogue is recorded will affect its authenticity; traffic noise or café noise in
the background adds a further degree of authenticity.
Short passages
Unlike dialogues, it's not so easy to make the language authentic in a short passage; however, a
story with a touch of humour always appeals to learners. A wide range of factual questions
could be prepared together with one or two deductive questions.
Reordering information
The students are given a number of items on paper, written out in the wrong order: actions,
description, events and so on. They are also given one or more specific tasks, and then they
listen to the text. The task(s) may involve categorising information, reordering actions in the
correct order, classifying events and so on.
Information transfer
Information transfer activities involve students translating part of the spoken message into a
new format, such as a table, chart, picture, map and so on. They may then use this new format
to carry out a further activity, such as working in pairs with a friend to solve a related problem.
Note that information transfer activities involve any transfer of any information in a text or
utterance to a new format: a listening passage to a table; a reading text to a dialogue; a
telephone conversation to a map and so on.
Using humour to develop listening skills
Language learning is much less painful if the students have something to smile about from time
to time, and a bit of humour can do this.
Dictation
Dictation went out of fashion in language teaching for a long time, but it can be a valuable form
of listening practice and it has now returned in revised forms. The important thing is that the
dictation passage should normally be one which the students have met already.
It would normally be inappropriate with English language students to give them a dictation
passage that they have never met before. This would be tantamount to a test, which is very
different from practice.
Jigsaw listening
This involves students listening to different parts of a passage or a conversation (or different
passages and different conversations), and then coming together in pairs to try to complete a
particular task. Each person has a different piece of information.
The task might, for example, involve completing another dialogue or filling in a table or drawing
a map. With a large class, the students can first be divided into two different groups so that
they listen to two different tapes.
Then they get together in pairs with one person from each group. It is possible to prepare such
materials yourself, but you will occasionally find that jigsaw listening and reading tasks are
provided in your coursebook.
2. Some activities
Choose passages, topics and exercises that are participative, interesting and good fun.
Here are some tried and tested suggestions:
Add on
One student starts off with I went to the market and I bought some apples. The next student
adds to this: I went to the market and I bought some apples and a spoon. This continues until
the sentence is unmanageably long and the students start to get a bit confused.
This could be a competitive game with teams but would be better as a co-operative activity. It’
s good fun and you can change the model sentence to anything you like so that you can do this
again and again in future classes.
Pass the message
This activity can be used to emphasise the importance of listening. One student thinks of a
'message' and writes it down. The student then whispers this to another student, swiftly, and so
on. The message can only be said once, but it must be spoken clearly.
Nevertheless, however clearly the message is spoken, it will almost always be distorted in some
way or other which often produces a comical sentence. It can then be compared with the
original sentence.
Think of a verb
Each group writes a short passage of about 3-4 sentences. The verbs (excluding the verb to
be) are removed from the passage. One member of, say, group A, then reads out the passage
and the other groups suggest appropriate verbs to fit the space.
The final version of the newly constructed passage can then be read in full and is then
compared to the original passage. This will often provide a lot of laughs. It can be done again in
future classes by changing the verb to a noun or adverb, i.e. linked hopefully to whatever else
they are studying.
What’s the word?
You spell out words quickly, and the students have to shout out the word.
Hands up!
You write up 5-10 words relating to what the students have been currently studying. You then
incorporate these words into a passage. You read out the passage. Students put their hands up
as soon as they hear each of the words.
Missing word
You write up 5 words relating to what the students have been currently studying. You read out a
short passage – incorporating 4 of the words. After the passage has been read out, students
suggest the missing word.
That’s not right
You speak out an incorrect sentence-nothing too difficult, e.g. An elephant big is. Students have
to decide what the correct version should be.
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Unit 2: Questions
Which of the following is NOT an example of a feature of spoken language?
Check answer
Check answer
Unlike dialogues, it's easy to make the language authentic in a short passage.
Check answer
It would normally be appropriate with English language students to give them a dictation
passage that they have never met before.
Check answer
Check answer
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