Listening Skills
The Gateway to Language
Of the four language skills—listening, speaking, reading, and writing—listening is the most used and hence the most important. It is also arguably the easiest to learn. Not easy, mind you, just easier than the others. Listening involves a great deal of mental activity. Still, those in the early stages of language learning can understand much more than they can say. Even native speakers readily understand certain words that do not easily come to mind.
Again, it is best to not require beginning ESL students to speak during the first month or two of class, although those who choose to speak should be allowed and encouraged to do so. Do, however, demand interaction. You can do a lot of Total Physical Response (TPR) and ask a lot of questions that can be answered with gestures or with a few simple words. You can ask, “Where is the window?” or “It’s too hot. What should I open?” to which the student may respond by either saying “the window” or by pointing to a window. You can ask questions that students can answer either by saying “Yes” or “No,” or by nodding or shaking their heads.
Speak in complete sentences much of the time but in such a manner that your students can understand your meaning by identifying familiar key words within those sentences. If you say, “Please open your textbook to page twelve,” students who only understand the words “open” and “twelve” will probably be able to understand what you want them to do, especially if it is about the time that students usually open their books. If not, repeat the request while opening a book and pointing to the number 12.
When practical, it is a good idea to control your vocabulary so that your students understand most of what you say. Use gestures, objects, pictures, or context clues to make your meaning clear. It is not, however, necessary for your students to understand all of what they hear in the early stages of language learning. Although much of the language that you provide should be, as USC professor emeritus Steven Krashen says, comprehensible input, there will be no harm if students are exposed to language that goes over their heads. During the first year or two of study, much of what your students hear outside your classroom will be difficult for them to understand, and they should learn early on to not be intimidated by the incomprehensible. Remember that any contact with the target language serves a purpose. Even when students appear to understand nothing, their subconscious minds are picking up bits and pieces that blend into the pot of language that they learn both in and out of your class.
LEARNING WITH A TAPE RECORDER OR CD PLAYER
The simple tape player and its modern sibling the CD player have been incredible boons to language teachers and learners. Recorded tapes or audio CDs work very well for teaching listening skills. There are all kinds of available taped materials with dialogues, songs, stories, and so forth. Several ESL textbooks come with accompanying tapes or CDs. Recorded lessons offer students unlimited exposure to spoken English while away from the classroom. Now that portable cassette players are available for less than $20, almost any student can afford one.
One hour per day spent listening to repeated dialogues or stories goes a long way for a student who has little opportunity for exposure to English outside of school. Five hours goes even farther. Do not let your students settle for listening to each tape only a time or two. Ten times is good, 20 is better, and 100 may not be too many for students who are having difficulties. A 10-hour taped English course contains enough language to allow a student to function reasonably well among native speakers. A student who listens for one hour per day for a year can hear each lesson in such a course almost 40 times. Most people spend more than one hour per day walking around, standing in line, or doing simple chores during which time they could listen to tapes.
If you have never studied a language with tapes, get a taped language course and practice on yourself. Avoid the phrasebook tapes with side-by-side oral translations. They are designed for tourists, not serious language learners. Find tapes with only the target language, but with accompanying written materials in both the target language and English. Study the lesson, listen to the tape, read a translation or look up unfamiliar words, and repeat, repeat, repeat. You will be surprised how much you can learn as you jog, vacuum the floor, or shop for groceries.
LEARNING WITH SOFTWARE: THE ROSETTA STONE, INSTANT IMMERSION, AND OTHER PROGRAMS
Computer programs now exist that teach listening skills almost as well as one-to-one tutors. These programs begin by presenting objects, saying the word or phrase that identifies them, and then instructing the student to click on the object. Later in the program, students must follow more complex directions. Some even use this technique to teach question forms, complex sentences, and tenses. In such a program, the computer might display several objects—let’s say a ball, a pencil, a book, and a coin—as it says the words. The student would then be asked to select the ball. A later lesson might ask the student to select a ball that is red, or to select the object that can be used to write. Later in the course, the computer might show pictures of someone about to jump, someone jumping, and someone who has just landed, and then ask the student to identify who will jump, who is jumping, and who jumped.
My personal favorite language-teaching computer program is The Rosetta Stone, although it is one of the most expensive. This is a fairly complete course that includes a comprehensive beginning vocabulary and key grammatical structures. You would not go wrong if you made The Rosetta Stone the central curriculum for a beginning class, providing that you supplemented it with other materials and activities. This is not true of most computer-based programs, but most are useful. Among the reasonably priced programs, Instant Immersion is good, but as a supplement rather than as the main course.
If you have good computer skills, you can mix scanned photos or pictures from a digital camera and sound files to create your own cyberlessons to reinforce the lessons learned in your classroom. One caveat: Avoid computer programs that are little more than video worksheets. Such programs are not a total waste of time, but they do not make full use of a computer’s language-teaching potential.
THE GREAT ESL FILM FESTIVAL
During at least the first few months of class, it is a good idea to show a number of English movies. Students enjoy them, and they provide quite a bit of contact with English. This activity also helps encourage students to begin “studying” English at home on their own television sets.
Even though beginning students will understand almost none of the language in an English language film, it is important that they focus on what they hear. One way to get this focus is to give them several words to “hunt.” Present, define, and drill the words and then offer a small prize or some sort of recognition to those who first raise their hands upon hearing one of those words. Limit each student to a set number of guesses, perhaps one per scene or three per film. If you do not include such a rule, some of your students will be venturing wild guesses every few seconds. At the very first, you might want to limit the hunt to greetings, numbers, and place names. Later, you can pick words that will be repeated often in the film. For The Wizard of Oz, for example, you might ask students to hunt for the following words: Dorothy, Kansas, storm, yellow, west, slippers, scarecrow, tin, lion, and balloon. For Cinderella, you could use kingdom, ugly, prince, stepsister, mouse, ball, and slipper.
It is also helpful to provide a brief synopsis of each movie in the students’ native language before they view it, so that they can follow the thread of the plot even through sections they do not understand. As students become more advanced, you can use films to present information, to reinforce vocabulary and structures, and as a springboard for class discussions.
DICTATION
Dictation, in which teachers speak and students copy the words exactly as spoken, is a valuable tool for teaching not only writing but listening as well. To correctly take dictation, students must know not only how to spell a word, but also how to recognize its sounds. Early in the course you can help students learn to identify English words and sounds with number dictations. Because our number system is pretty much universal, all but the youngest students should be prepared for this activity. Once students can understand a few hundred words, you can do a pre-dictation activity in which the teacher speaks and the students draw pictures depicting what the teacher describes. Once your students have some English writing skills, you can have them write your exact words. There will be more about dictation in Chapter 12.
ENCOURAGING LISTENING AS A STAND-ALONE SKILL
It is best that students do not see the written word in the early stages of language study. People do not come with speech balloons. It takes some time and practice to learn to identify the sounds of a foreign language. Some students who begin reading and listening together come to use the text as a crutch, and this may interfere with learning to hear and differentiate English sounds. For students who know the Roman alphabet, it is easier to recognize an English word that is seen than one that is heard. It is better, however, for beginning students to tough it out for the first two months or so and learn to identify the new sounds of English as they hear them.
Early dependence on the written word can also result in bad speaking habits. Consider the following example. The sound of the English short o exists in Spanish, but it is written with the letter a. The Spanish o is similar to the English long o, so many native speakers of Spanish pronounce the English word “not” like “note,” even after they have become fluent English speakers. This is because they had let reading get ahead of oral language. It is better to wait until students have been exposed to all of the sounds in English and can make some sense of the English they hear before they start their reading lessons. Once they have mastered the English sound system, they can then learn written and oral language together. If students are to spend three years or more mastering English, it is not unreasonable to allot the first two months of study to listening skills only.
TEACHING WITH MINIMAL PAIRS: BIT, BET, BAIT, BEET, BITE
Some students, especially older ones, will have trouble distinguishing English sounds, even after much contact with oral English. For such students, sound recognition can be drilled with minimal pair exercises. Many English learners have trouble distinguishing between the words bet and bit, or between ship and sheep, or between ban and van. You can help them train their ears by presenting the words and having them choose which you said.
After your students begin to read, you can write similar words on opposite sides of the chalkboard and have them point to the appropriate word as you say it. Another way is to mix the words and have students count. Say, “Bit, bet, bit, bit, bet” and ask them to count bit. You may then add other similar words, like bait, beet, and bite. After your students begin to write, you can dictate paired words, either in isolation or embedded in short sentences.
You can make minimal pair practice amusing by having students identify pictures as you describe them. Show a picture of a chambermaid making a bed and a person bidding at an auction and then ask, “Who is making a bed?” and “Who is making a bid?” Or show a picture of a child riding a sheep and another of a sailor on the deck of a ship. Ask “Who is on a sheep?” and “Who is on a ship?” Many of your students, especially the younger ones, will learn to differentiate English sounds without drills. For them, pair drills will be counterproductive, or at least a waste of time. Save these drills for the second semester, and use them with only those students who need them.
Working With Younger Students
Taped language courses are of little use for small children. Tapes with English songs, stories, or rhymes, however, will be useful. There are some good computer English language courses designed specifically for young children. Although nominally a Spanish course, Jump Start Spanish can be set to teach English. This program covers a vocabulary of only about 100 words, but children love it. It is not normally necessary to teach minimal pairs to young children. With enough exposure to the language, they will learn to distinguish sounds on their own.