Teaching Active Listening:

Strategies and Skills

Russell Hampton
Inquiry Question:

Is it important to develop listening skills

while learning a second language? If so,
what are some strategies and skills that
educators can use to develop an
individual's active listening abilities?
 What is the Difference Between
Hearing and Listening?
Hearing
Hearing is the act of receiving
sounds.
Listening
Listening is the process of consciously
processing and comprehending the
sound that is being heard.

"Listening comprehension is an active process in which the listener digests aural

information into relatable chunks that contain meaning." (Corrales & Call,1989; O’Malley, Uhl
Chamot, & Kupper, 1989)
Why is listening an important skill to
develop in the classroom?
According to research, listening
occupies approximately 45% of
the time individuals spend in
communication. This is
"significantly more than speaking,
which accounts for 30%, and
reading and writing, which make
up 16% and 9% respectively"
(Hedge, pg. 228).
Why is listening an important skill to
develop in the classroom?
Unfortunately, listening skills
rarely get the attention they
need in the classroom. This is
surprising as ELL learners
often feel that listening is
often the most challenging
of all the skills in learning the
English Language (Ahmed,
2015).
What Listening Strategies Should
Teachers Develop?

ELL students face significant challenges

in comprehending social conversations, teacher
lectures, and day-to-day talk.
While these challenges are often out of the
student's control, there are a few strategies that
English Language Learners can use to help them
in the process.
Strategy #1:
Active Listening

Summarizing or otherwise referring to what others have talked about

can also be a great way to demonstrate active listening.

Active listening occurs when:

A student listens to what is being said instead of waiting to speak
A student checks for understanding by asking follow-up questions
Ex: "If I understand you correctly,…"
A student refers to what others have said while speaking
Ex: "As Robin stated,…"
Strategy #2:
Focused Listening

Focused listening is an important academic skill because it encourages

ELLs to record and listen for specific and detailed information.

Focused listening skills include:

Transcribing recorded conversations.

Having students repeat information given in short video clips

Requiring students to summarize the key points of an oral presentation or

speech.

"Focused listening takes practice and can be a great help

academically, but be careful not to use it exclusively. When
academically based listening exercises are overused, students
tend to zone out" (Hamel, 2018)
Strategy #3:
Think-Aloud Strategy

The Think-Aloud Strategy allows the teacher and student to discuss what
connections they are making during the listening task (Mackey & Gass, 2011).

Think-Aloud occurs when:

The teacher allows for pauses in the activity to encourage think-aloud

The teacher allows time for students to share their ideas with a small group
Ex. Think-Pair-Share

"As the students think aloud, they...observe how on task their

comments are. Are they making connections that help them
synthesize the information?" (McLafferty, 2015)
What Listening Skills Should Be
Practiced in the Classroom?
Teacher's should practice the following skills with their students on a
regular basis:

Predicting Content
Listening for the Gist of a Conversation
Detecting Signposts
Listening for Details
Inferring Meaning
What Listening Skills Should Be
Practiced in the Classroom?
Predicting Content
Depending on the context, you
can often predict the kinds of
words or style of language that a
speaker may use.
When we predict the topic of a
conversation all the related
vocabulary in our brains is
activated to help us understand
what we are listening too
(Ahmed, 2015).
Strategies for Predicting
Practice:
Listen to a recorded conversation
or TV program. Pause every few
sentences and try to predict what
might happen or what the
speaker will say next!
Tip: If students are taking a listening
test, have them skim through the
questions first and try to predict what
kind of information they need to listen
for.
 What Listening Skills Should Be
Practiced in the Classroom?
Listening for Gist
When listening, it is possible to
understand a conversation
without understanding the
meaning of every word.
Student's should listen for
keywords or specific vocabulary
that give them a 'picture' of what
the conversation is all about
(Ahmed, 2015).
Tip: When learning new words or vocabulary, try to
group them with relatable words that would be
used in a similar context
Strategies for Listening for Gist
Practice:
Find a short video with subtitles.
Use the title to help predict the
content than listen out for content
specific words without the use of
subtitles.
Listen through a second time, with
subtitles. How much did you
understand the first time versus the
second time?
Repeat the process with the same
video a week or so later.
What Listening Skills Should Be
Practiced in the Classroom?
Detecting Signposts Strategies for Detecting Signposts
Signposts are linking phrases that are Practice:
particularly important in presentations Find an example of a business
and lectures. They let listeners know lecture or presentation and have
where the conversation is heading. students identify as many
signpost phrases as they can.
For example, one might say, "I am
going to talk about 3 factors important
for listening..."
Tip: In a notebook, group signpost
Good listeners will now look for phrases phrases by their function. Continue to
such as 'First of all' or 'secondly' to know add new phrases as you come across
when the next key information is about
them
to be presented.
What Listening Skills Should Be
Practiced in the Classroom?
Listening for Details
When listening for details, students
are interested in a very specific
type of information such as a
name, number, or object.
In this case, students can ignore
anything that does not sound
relevant to what they are listening
for.
This allows individuals to narrow
down information and find the
specific information they are
looking for.
Strategies for Listening for Details
Prior to watching or listening to a
conversation, give students a
specific type of detailed
information you want them to
listen for.
For example, watch a news clip
and ask them to identify the day's
weather.
Tip: Before beginning a test or
assignment, skim through the
questions and underline important
words or ideas so that you will know
what specific details you will need to
identify
What Listening Skills Should Be
Practiced in the Classroom?
Inferring Meaning
Use clues from the conversation
and prior knowledge or
experience about a situation to
work out the meaning of what we
hear.
Even though students may not
understand every word of a
conversation, using inferencing,
they can probably identify its
significance or meaning (Ahmed,
2015).
Strategies for Inferring Meaning
Find a video clip from a popular
movie of TV show. First, just listen
to the dialogue and try to infer
what is taking place during the
scene.
Play the clip a second time, this
time while watching too.
See how close your students were
to predicting the situation.
Tip: The next time you don't understand a
word or phrase, try to predict its meaning
using the situation or context to help you.
 Personal
Reflection
I found this inquiry to be both an interesting
and rewarding pursuit. While reflecting on my
own practice, I hav e seen just how little time I
actually spend in the classroom working on
listening skills. As the research indicates,
listening is not just an important skill, but a v ital
aspect of communication, especially for ELL
students.
On the whole, I think that practicing listening
skills can be beneficial for both ELL students
and English students a like. This has challenged
me to incorporate some listening practice into
my own teaching throughout the year. I am
excited to take some of these skills and
strategies and to apply them into my teaching
practice.
References
Ahmed, Raphael. "Five Essential Listening Skills for English Learners." British
Council: June 18th, 2015. https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/five-
essential-listening-skills-english-learners
Corrales, O. & Call, M. E. (1989). At a loss for words: the use of communication
strategies to convey lexical meaning. Foreign Language Annals, 22, 227-24.
Hamel, Matthew. "Chapter 4, Lesson 2: Teaching Listening Strategies for ELL
Students." Study.com, 2018. https://study.com/academy/lesson/teaching-
listening-strategies-for-ell-students.html
Hedge, Trica. "Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom." OUP Oxford:
January 13, 2000.
Mackey, A., & Gass, S. M. (2011). Second language research: Methodology and
design. Mahwah, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum.
McLafferty, Ana. "Listening Strategies for English Language Learner
Comprehension: A Teacher Resource Guide." Hamline University: December 12,
2015. https://digitalcommons.hamline.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1266&c
ontext=hse_all