Now a little warm up activity

The way people speak is often significantly different from the way they write. Listening is good for our students pronunciation, in that the more they hear and understand English being spoken, the more they absorb appropriate pitch and intonation, stress and the sounds of both individual words and those which blend together in connected speech.

Listening texts are good pronunciation models, in other words, and the more students listen, the better they get, not only at understanding speech, but also at speaking themselves. Indeed, it is worth remembering that successful spoken communication depends not just on our ability to speak, but also on the effectiveness of the way we listen. It is important, where possible, for students to be exposed to more that just that one voice.

Students need to be exposed to different Englishes, but teachers need to exercise judgment about the number (and degree) of the varieties which they hear. A lot will depend on the students level of competence, and on what variety or varieties they have so far been exposed to.

Extensive listening is which the students often do away from the classroom, for pleasure or some other reason. The audio material they consume in this way should consist of texts that they can enjoy listening to because they more or less understand them without the intervention of a teacher or course materials to help them. Students can also use CDs to listen their course book dialogues again after they have studied them in class.

Intensive listening is different from extensive listening in that students listen specifically in order to work on listening skills, and in order to study the way in which English is spoken. It usually takes place in classrooms or language laboratories, and typically occurs when teachers are present to guide students through any listening difficulties, and point them to areas of interest.

A lot of listening is experienced from recorded extracts on CD or via MP3 players of some kind, but there is no reason why teachers should not record their own listening materials, using themselves or their friends or colleagues. We can download a huge amount of extremely useful listening material from the Internet, too, provided that we are not breaking any rules of copyright.

Recorded extracts are quite distinct from live listening, the name given to real-life face-to-face encounters in the classroom. The main advantage of live listening over recorded extracts is that the students can interact with the speaker on the basis of what they are saying, making the whole listening experience far more dynamic and exciting

1. Guest Speaker
Bringing a guest speaker into your classroom is a great benefit to your students. Whether you know it or not, teachers of ESL naturally slow their speech, articulate more and exaggerate intonation. In fact, anyone who talks to a nonnative speaker does these things! A guest speaker will not have experienced that shift in pronunciation and speaking style if she does not work with internationals, so although your speaker may present a challenge to your students listening comprehension, it will also be a good time for them to practice. You can bring in a speaker on any topic that you are covering in class, or just bring in someone who has the free time to talk about .

2. Another Teacher
When you have another teacher come and give your class a lesson, try to get someone who is not an ESL teacher and who is the opposite gender. Exposing your students to a different quality of voice is beneficial to their language learning process. If that teacher presents content material to your class, you can follow with a short quiz. If not, lead a class discussion asking what the other person said and what your class learned from him or her.

3. TV Commercials
TV commercials are short and often simple. Though you may not want to advertise a particular product in your classroom, the actors use clear but somewhat natural speech that should be easier for your students to understand. Though they will not get some of the comprehension clues they would from a live speaker, they will still be able to see facial expressions and the context of the language.

4. Weather Reports
The next step up on the listening activity difficulty spectrum would be using a weather report that has appeared on the news. Though its benefits are similar to that of the commercial, there is less context for your students to infer meaning as they watch. After playing the report for your students two or three times, ask some comprehension questions to see just how much information they are absorbing. You can also ask about the symbols that the actor used as a visual message with his or her report and whether they aided your students understanding.

5. Movies & TV
Movies and television shows are the next step up in listening comprehension practice. An entire movie may be too long both for your class periods and for how much information your students can take in at one time. Try to limit your selection to about ten minutes. With movies or television, your students still get visual input, but the speech will be more natural than the language used on news programs. In addition, you may have characters with accents, which will most likely be a difficult challenge for your students. After watching a segment two times, ask your students to write a summary of what happened in the scene.

6. Radio
The benefit of radio voices in a news segment, weather segment or talk segment is that pronunciation is clearer, easier for your students to understand. The challenge with a radio clip will come with the lack of visual input that your students have to assist them. Surprisingly, being present where a conversation takes place is of great help for nonnative speakers and their comprehension, so taking away that visual will challenge your students. You can ask your students to listen for answers to specific questions or challenge them to infer the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary from the context.

7. Video Lectures
A video-recorded lecture is one step up in difficulty from radio material. . You can also find instructional videos online quite easily. Though your students will have visual input if you use a lecture as a listening exercise, the speakers use of English will be far more natural than the language you would use in a lecture. In addition, your students will not be able to ask clarifying questions, which will add to the challenge. Try following the listening exercise with a short true/false quiz on the material.

8. Audio Books
Now that your students are getting quite proficient at listening, try a recorded book for a listening exercise. Of course, you will want to take a short selection for students who have less experience and proficiency in English, but advanced students should be able to listen to material in segments of at least fifteen minutes. An audio book takes away the visual that the recorded lecture provided but uses more careful pronunciation and speaking rhythm.

9. YouTube Videos
Real people using real language is a real challenge for nonnative speakers. The time has finally brought us to YouTube videos. The challenge is that these are real people, not actors clearly delivering a line. They have real, and sometimes ungrammatical, speech patterns. They speak with accents and at a higher rate than your students are probably used to hearing. This material will not be easy for your students. With that said, be sure to warn them!

10. Recorded Conversations

Very similar to the YouTube video but without the visual input, a recorded conversation between two or more people will be the ultimate challenge for your students. Take note, this is not a scripted conversation between people who know they are being recorded, the type that may come along with your grammar or textbooks them for your class and then edit out the first part of the conversation. If they know they are being recorded they will most likely start their conversation carefully with unnatural speech patterns. Edit this section out to get to the challenging material that will surface when they are no longer paying close attention to their speech. The second option for this type of material is to record strangers in a public place having a conversation. The first option will give you a better recording but chance that the speech will not be completely natural. The second will ensure that your students are exposed to real, authentic speech, which will be challenging to listen to.

11. Bonus
If you are able to recruit volunteers who are native speakers to simply come and talk with your students from time to time, their listening abilities will improve. This requires no lesson plans, though you can give some discussion questions to stimulate discussion if necessary, and no special materials. Many native English speakers will be willing to be a conversation partner for the social benefit or the exposure to individuals from foreign lands.

LISTENING LEVELS

1. IGNORING
IS THE LOWEST LEVEL OF LISTENING MEANS NOT LISTENING AT ALL. FOR EXAMPLE WHEN SOMEONE IS SPEAKING YOU START A CONVERSATION WITH SOMEONE ELSE.

2. PRETEND LISTENING
It is when you are talking and the other person responds yes and ok but not really listening

3. SELECTIVE LISTENING
DURING SELECTIVE LISTENING WE PAY ATTENTION TO THE SPEAKER AS LONG AS THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT THINGS WE LIKE OR AGREE WITH. IF THEY MOVE ON THE OTHER THINGS WE SLIP DOWN TO PRETEND LISTENING OR IGNOR THEM ALL TOGETHER.

4.ATTENTIVE LISTENING
OCCURS WHEN WE CAREFULLY LISTEN TO THE OTHER PERSON, BUT WHILE THEY ARE SPEAKING, WE ARE DECIDING WHETHER WE AGREE OR DISAGREE.

5.EMPATHIC LISTENING
IS THE TOP LEVEL OF LISTENING, AND THE HARDEST TO ACCOMPLISH, FOR THIS YOU MUST TEACH YOURSELF TO TREAT EVERY THING SPOKEN, AS THOUGH THIS IS THE FIRST TIME YOU HEAR IT.

ACTIVITIES TO USE FOR IMPROVING LISTENING SKILLS

Stand up/sit down When working on individual sounds, give students a target sound and then read a script out loud that contains multiple examples of this sound. For example, if you are practicing the /ae/ sound (like in cat, hat, etc, you could read the following script. Yesterday, my cat ate a plastic toy and swallowed it fast. Whenever students hear this sound for the first time (cat), they should stand. When they hear it again (plastic), sit down. Read slowly enough for them to have time to stand up or sit down. This activity is great because it gets them out of their seats and lets them get some excess energy out

VOWEL DISCRIMINATION
Another good activity to do when you are studying specific vowel sounds is to give students two different color note cards (e.g. one red card and one blue card). For a review activity, assign one vowel to the red card (e.g. the /ae/ sound as in bat) and another card to the blue card (e.g. the /ei/ sound as in bay). When you read a word, have students raise the card in the air for the correct vowel/sound they heard. For a more advanced game, give students several colors of cards to correspond with several different vowels. Also, you could give the students several cards and read a sentence where each word represents a different vowel. Students must recreate the pattern of sounds they heard by lining up their note cards in the correct order.

Listening Principles
Principle 1. Encourage students to listen as often and as much as possible.
The more students listen, the better they get at listening, and the better they get at understanding pronunciation and at using it appropriately themselves, it could be Via the Internet, Podcasts, CDs, tapes, etc.

Principle 2. Help students prepare to listen. This means that they will need to look at pictures, discuss the topic, or read the questions first in order to be in a position to predict what is coming.

Principle 3. Once may not be enough. There are almost no occasion when the teacher will play an audio track only once. Students will want to hear it again to pick up the things they missed the first time.

Principle 4. Different listening stages demand different listening tasks. Because there are different things we want to do with a listening text, we need to set different tasks for different listening stages. This means that, for a first listening, the task(s) may need to be fairly straightforward and general. That way, the students general understanding and response can be successful and the stress associated with listening can be reduced.

Principle 5. Consider text, difficulty and authenticity.

Spoken languages are very different from written language. It is more redundant, full of false starts, rephrasing and elaborations. Incomplete sentences, pauses, and overlaps are common. Learners need exposure to and practice with natural sounding language. When learners talk about text difficulty, the first thing many mention is speed, indeed which can be a problem. But the solution is not to give them unnaturally slow, clear recordings. Those can actually distort the way the language sounds.

Principle 6. Remove Distractions. Focus on what is being said: Do not permit students to doodle, shuffle papers, look out the window, or similar. Avoid unnecessary interruptions. These behaviours disrupt the listening process and send messages to the speaker that students are bored or distracted.

Listening Sequences
The following listening sequences are pitched at different levels. As with all other skill-based sequences, they will often lend in work on other skills or present opportunities for language study and further activation of some kind.

Description of the Sequences

Live Interview The following sequence works when teachers can bring visitors to the classroom or when they themselves play a role as if they were a visitor. The teacher primes a visitor to the class by giving them an idea of the students level and what they may or may not understand.

The students are told that a visitor is coming to the lesson, and that they should think of a number of questions to ask which will tell them as much as possible about who the person is. The teacher checks the questions and students ask and take notes. For live listening to work well, students need to have phrases to help them such as Im sorry, I dont understand what means, their questions will depend on the students' level.
Students can use their notes to write a profile of the visitor.

Buying Tickets Students will see some pictures. The teacher encourages them to describe what is going on in each picture. Students now hear some conversations which they have to match with the pictures. After this general listening task, students listen again to slot in various key language items in blanks from the audio script. The technique of matching what students hear to pictures can be used in many different ways at many different levels. Booking and buying tickets take place in all languages and cultures, too.

Prerecorded Authentic Interview-Narrative

Students are going to hear two excerpts from a recorded authentic interview. It is important that they are both fully engaged with what is going on and also ready to listen.
Students are first shown the picture of some person and asked to speculate about who the person is, where he or she comes from, what he or she does, etc. Then students look some questions before they hear the speak, they discuss the questions, perhaps in pairs and try to predict the answers. Now the teacher plays an audio track, students go through the questions again in pairs to see if they agree with the answers, if students have difficulty catching the main points of the story, the teacher will play again the audio track. Having established who the person was students listen to the second audio track again to answer more straightforward information questions. The two audio tracks and the audio scripts provide ample opportunity for various kinds of study. Another useful activity is to get students to retells all the story. Retelling is a good way of fixing some of the language in their minds.

Activities
http://eslgamesworld.com/members/games/vo cabulary/memoryaudio/jobs%20high/index.ht ml http://fog.ccsf.cc.ca.us/~lfried/call/abadday.ht ml

MORE LISTENING SUGGESTIONS

JIGSAW LISTENING
The teacher divides the class into groups. Each group listens to different parts of the story on the audio cassette. In the next stage learners send one or two members from their group to other groups. They will be asked several questions and will have to respond and give information. The various groups this collect the missing sequences of the story. Now, in their original groups they speculate on the last part or the ending of the story.

MESSAGE TAKING
Students listen to a phone message being given. They have to write down the message on a message pad.

Students can fill in blanks in song lyrics, rearrange lines or verses, or listen to songs and say what mood or message they convey. We can use instrumental music to get students in the right mood, or as a stimulus for any number of creative tasks.

NEWS AND OTHER RADIO GENRES

Students listen to a news broadcast and have to say which topics from a list occur in the bulletin and in which order.

Radio commercials, they have to match commercials with pictures or say why is different from the rest.

Radio phone-ins they can match speakers to topics.

POETRY
Students can listen to poems being read aloud and say what mood they convey.

They can hear a poem and then try to come up with an appropriate title.

They can listen to a poem which has no punctuation and put in comas and full stops where they think they should occur.

STORIES
We can let the students listen to stories meanwhile they can put pictures in the order which the story is told.

Let the students listen to a story but not tell the end. Students have to guess what it is and then.

MONOLOGUES
We can ask students to listen to lectures and take notes.
Students can listen to Vox-pop interviews where they have to match the speakers with the different opinions. Students can listen to dramatic or comic monologues and ask the students to say how the speaker feels.

AUDIO AND VIDEO

We need to choose the Video/audio material according to the level and interest of our students.

Video is richer than audio: speakers can be seen; their body movements give clues as to meaning; so do the clothes they wear, their location, etc.

Play the video without sound: Students and teacher discuss what they see and what clues it gives them and what the characters are actually saying. After this the teacher plays the video with sound to see if they were right.

Play audio without the picture: while the students listens, they try to judge where the speakers are, what they look like, what is going on, etc. When they have predicted this, they listen again, this time with the visual images.

Freeze frame: The teacher presses the pause button and asks the students whats going to happen. (Can they predict the action and the language that will be used?) Dividing the class in half: Half the class faces the screen. The other half sit with their backs to it. The screen half describes the visual images to the wall half.

Conclusions
We need to expose students to different varieties of English, and different kinds of listening.

The difference between intensive listening and extensive is that in extensive listening students should listen to things they can more or less understand, mostly for pleasure.
Live listening allows students to interact with speakers, they cannot do this with speakers on audio tracks. Students need to hear people speaking in different genres, and that while we want them all to hear authentic English, at lower levels this may not be feasible. Preparation is a major part of the sequence, and showing how listening leads on to follow-up tasks.