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OFFICE OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE PROGRAMS
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English Teaching Forum
> Volume 45
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3
Designing Lessons for EFL Listening Comprehension Classes
Justine Ross
Developing the listening comprehension skill is important for
students, especially in a communicative language environment where
activities often revolve around interactions between English language
learners. According to Brown (2001), students with well-developed
listening comprehension skills are able to participate more effectively
in class. For this reason, listening comprehension practice positively
influences second language learning, and lessons based on this
skill are regularly taught in the English as a Foreign Language
(EFL) classroom.
When teachers design listening comprehension lessons, they should
follow some basic principles that serve as useful guides for successful
activities. This article presents the rationale for some of these
basic principles, including descriptions for (1) motivating students
to focus on the learning objective, (2) maintaining the same topic
and objective for consecutive activities, (3) applying appropriate
teaching methods and techniques, (4) selecting materials for listening
comprehension activities, and (5) using authentic materials.
1. Motivating students to focus on the learning objective
When students clearly understand the purpose of a particular
listening comprehension activity, they will be better able to
focus on essential vocabulary and grammar and listen for specific
information. This will help them to complete the learning objectives
in a shorter amount of time. For example, if the teacher informs
the students at the start of a lesson that the objective will
be “understanding directions,” they can focus on listening
for and remembering the vocabulary associated with giving directions.
If students are unaware of the objective for a lesson, they may
be able to complete a simple activity requiring a “Yes”
or “No” answer, but they may not remember specific
vocabulary used in giving directions or be able to reiterate specific
phrases in more open-ended activities. As a result, students will
be less likely to retain the specific learning objectives of the
lesson.
2. Maintaining the same topic and objective for consecutive
activities
Learning is more effective when different activities within a
lesson maintain the same topic and learning objective, as opposed
to a lesson being a series of unrelated activities with changing
topics and objectives. When activities share the same topic and
learning objective, students will reinforce their learning through
repetition and continued association with a familiar topic. For
example, if the topic is “celebrations,” and the objective
is to understand speech that is spoken at a certain rate, teachers
can maintain the same topic and objective throughout several activities
in one lesson. The following example includes a warm-up activity,
a listening comprehension activity, controlled practice, and an
open-ended listening/speaking activity.
- Start with a warm-up question to the class, such as: “What’s
your favorite
celebration?” or “What’s the favorite celebration
in this class?”
- Then, introduce a listening comprehension activity in which
two people have a
conversation about their favorite celebration, and have students
answer True or False
questions based on the conversation.
- Next, conduct a controlled practice activity, which could
be a drill activity that models vocabulary or an important grammatical
structure.
- Finally, introduce an open-ended activity that allows students
the freedom to practice
listening comprehension and speaking, such as interviewing other
members in the class
about their favorite celebration and asking for further information.
In the above example, each activity builds on the preceding one
using the same objective throughout. The idea is that communication
and listening comprehension should expand the students’
knowledge by maintaining a topic throughout consecutive activities
and reinforcing the same learning objective.
3. Applying appropriate teaching methods and techniques
When designing listening comprehension lessons, teachers should
apply the following methods and techniques to make the lessons
challenging, effective, and interesting to the students.
Use a variety of activities
If a teacher always uses the same activities, they will become
boring for students. It is important to vary activities to stimulate
the students’ interest and challenge them with something
new. It is also important to consider activities that involve
group work and problem solving and that instigate communication
and listening comprehension development.
A variation of the simple “Fill in the Missing Word”
listening activity is to use the same listening materials but
to combine pair work with an information-gap activity. For example,
give student A and student B worksheets containing the lyrics
to the same song, but make sure that each student has different
pieces of missing information. Without showing their worksheets
to each other, the two students take turns asking questions about
the missing information, and the answers supplied by their partner
will complete the lyrics to the song. Using this technique, students
have to practice effective communication by accurately forming
the correct questions necessary to elicit the missing words from
their partners. Finally, students can check their answers by listening
to the song.
Another example for a lengthy listening activity is to assign
students different comprehension questions about a listening text
that tells a story or gives a report. Together, the answers to
the questions will explain the story or report. After listening
to a recording and taking notes to answer the questions, students
then ask each other questions about what each class member heard
until they get enough information to complete the big picture.
The teacher can play the recording as many times as is needed,
depending on the level of difficulty and the ability of the students.
This way, the students try to find answers to the questions independently,
rather than knowing that the teacher will give the answers straight
away.
Use effective questioning techniques
The teacher can also use effective questioning techniques to further
develop students’ listening comprehension and to test their
understanding of a particular grammatical structure. For instance,
in an example from Richards, Hull, and Proctor (1998), a conversation
about childhood memories occurs between two individuals and one
speaker, Jane, says, “I used to collect shells when I was
a kid.” Before listening to the conversation, the teacher
introduces the focus question to help the students get the gist,
or general understanding, before listening for specific answers.
An example focus question could be: “What did Jane collect
when she was a kid?”
Another possible question evaluates whether the students understand
the function of the grammatical structure used to, such
as: “Does Jane collect shells now?” The answer should
be “No,” to demonstrate the understanding of an activity
that happened regularly in the past but does not occur anymore.
If the students answer incorrectly, it indicates that they need
a further explanation of the expression used to (Richards, Hull,
and Proctor 1998).
To extend the listening activity, the teacher could arrange the
class into groups and use open-ended questioning techniques to
work further on the listening activity in a communicative context.
This is done with questions about the students’ childhood
memories, thereby giving them the opportunity to use the grammatical
form used to in a context that is directly related to
their lives.
4. Selecting materials for listening comprehension activities
When selecting materials, the following criteria can be used
to make listening comprehension activities both productive and
engaging.
Make material relevant to students
When selecting listening comprehension materials, it is important
to decide how relevant they are to the learner’s life and
long-term learning goals. One way to determine this is to conduct
a needs assessment of the learners: identify the students’
interests, language learning strengths and weaknesses, and the
real-life situations they are likely to encounter. Then set appropriate
learning objectives. This way, the content of the didactic material
will be relevant and will appeal to the students. This approach
will go a long way towards maintaining students’ interest
and motivation levels.
If materials are not selected carefully, student performance will
suffer. For example, Japanese students would have little interest
in developing listening comprehension skills by listening to a
radio commentary about the game of cricket. Apart from not understanding
the vocabulary involved, they would not be motivated to understand
something that they cannot relate to. Consequently, the true level
of their listening comprehension skills would be misleading because
wrong answers could signify a lack of interest or knowledge of
specific vocabulary, rather than the actual level of their listening
comprehension skills.
Regarding long-term learning goals, in Japan younger students
may be more interested in developing their listening skills through
music or general interest topics. In contrast, an EFL class consisting
of students specializing in the hospitality industry might be
more interested in being able to comprehend conversations in a
hotel or restaurant setting, in understanding how to take orders
correctly, or in answering customers’ questions. Every student
is different, and it is particularly important to identify the
learning goals of each individual.
Focus on the clear design and layout of materials
The design and layout of the materials are another factor to consider
when developing listening comprehension activities. Teachers should
avoid including too many activities that may cause the learner
to feel overwhelmed and unable to focus on each listening comprehension
task. When designing listening comprehension materials, give clear
instructions at the beginning of each activity and one or two
examples of the expected response. This confirms the expected
outcome by students and prevents feelings of confusion and frustration.
If students misunderstand the expected response, they may give
teachers the wrong impression of their listening comprehension
ability.
Emphasize prediction in listening comprehension materials
Any activity worksheet used for listening comprehension should
contain the correct schema to help students predict the type of
language they will hear. One technique is to use pictures that
relate to the topic or situation in a listening activity. This
will provide the correct schema and aid students’ comprehension
ability. The presentation of a worksheet will either assist or
detract from students’ ability to give correct indications
of their actual listening-comprehension skill. To maximize students’
learning ability, assist them by taking the time to design a worksheet
that is user-friendly.
Select materials appropriate for students’ level
When evaluating listening materials, carefully consider the level
of difficulty and the language level of the students. The responses
required should be appropriate for their level. For example, it
would be unrealistic to use a listening activity in which beginning
students listen to a conversation involving two friends discussing
environmental problems and then expect the students to give their
opinions on the environmental problems, based on the comments
of the speakers in the listening activity.
It would be more appropriate to give beginning students a listening
activity that requires them to give a short answer that confirms
information given in the listening activity or which asks them
to directly transfer what they have heard in a gap-fill activity.
These activities are more appropriate to help beginning students
develop their linguistic knowledge, thus avoiding the danger of
overestimating their comprehension and language ability.
5. Using authentic materials
The use of authentic texts helps students to further develop
their communicative skills (Porter and Roberts 1987; Brown 2001;
Mangubhai 2002). When designing listening comprehension materials,
the teacher should be aware that authentic materials give the
learner the chance to develop skills that are needed in real-life
situations.
With the use of authentic listening materials, students learn
to comprehend challenging language elements such as a natural
rate of delivery and intonation, false starts, slang, reduced
forms, abbreviations, and other characteristics of spoken language.
This exposure helps students comprehend real-life, everyday language,
make allowances for performance errors by other speakers, deal
with interruptions, and so on. Some texts are limited in the amount
of authentic listening activities they provide, especially for
the lower levels. It is therefore important to take the opportunity,
wherever possible, to help students become communicatively competent
by exposing them to examples of how language is actually used.
The use of authentic materials is beneficial for learners because
the skills that are developed transfer beyond the classroom. Some
examples are listening to a telephone message to understand a
cancelled appointment, to a newscast to learn abut current events,
or to songs to relax and learn about the English lyrics and popular
bands.
Conclusion
The most important factor to bear in mind when designing lessons
to develop listening comprehension skills is that students need
to be motivated and to stay motivated. I hope that the principles
outlined in this article help teachers design successful lessons
that motivate their students to improve their listening skills
and become more communicatively competent.
References
Brown, D. 2001. Teaching by principles: An interactive approach
to language pedagogy. 2nd ed. White Plains, NY: Longman.
Mangubhai, F. 2002. Methodology in teaching a second language:
Study book.
Toowoomba, Australia: University of Southern Queensland.
Porter, D., and J. Roberts. 1987. Authentic listening activities.
In Methodology in TESOL:
A book of readings. ed. M. H. Long and J. C. Richards, 177–90.
New York: Newbury House.
Richards, J. C., J. Hull, and S. Proctor. 1998. New interchange
student’s book 2: English for
international communication. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Justine Ross is a lecturer in English as a Foreign
Language at Kyoto Sangyo University, Kyoto, Japan. Previously,
she taught ESL in her native Australia. Her research interests
are in the areas of creative writing and second language acquisition
pedagogy.
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