Unit 7.

LISTENING.

 

Knudge.me, & Gupta, N. (2017). Listening. Retrieved from https://images.app.goo.gl/wXc6wXFaE5Ni7uLN6

 

     The seventh unit in the book “The TKT Course Modules 1, 2 and 3” is focused on listening. This unit will answer the questions: What can one learn from this? And, How teachers can apply that knowledge in a teaching situation?

 

To start with, what is listening? According to the TKT book, (Spratt, Pulverness y Williams 2011) is one of the four language skill and it is a receptive skill due to it involves responding to a language rather than producing it and making sense of the meaningful sounds of language. In addition, according to Tyagi (2013), is a modality of the language and a psychological process of receiving and responding messages. Furthermore, Listening involves dealing with the characteristics of spoken language and understanding a range of relevant text types, different speeds of speech and accents because each person speaks differently, it means some people speak slow and others fast. Finally, listening has several different subskills which depend on our reason. We might listen for gist, specific information, detail or infer attitude. Also, other ways of listening are intensively and extensively listening.

To sum up, one can say that listening is just as important as the other language skills and it involves doing many things like understanding the grammar, vocabulary, and functions of what we hear. For this reason, there are some listening activities and sources that teachers can apply in the classroom in order to develop it in a good way. For example:

1. In each class, as teachers, we can enhance the listening skill using different tools whether auditory or auditory-visual, such as songs, videos, conversations, short stories, etc., due to those tools are interesting for any learner and useful. Also, those sources help students to like listening.
2. Writing tasks are also useful because we can use listening recordings to complete those tasks, which will improve listening understanding. For example, completing conversation, putting events in order or choosing the correct event are other useful tasks to understand and develop listening because in this way students focus on the main details of the audio.
3. According to Ali, (n.d.), we can use a listening sequence in a class. Pre-listening (students try to predict the topic), while listening (development of activities), and post-listening (reflection about their listening experience). This pattern or sequence will be helpful in a classroom in order to have a good activity organization.

For further information:

Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2011). The TKT Course Modules 1, 2 and 3 (Second). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139062398.003

Ali, R. (n.d.). How to teach listening effectively? Ministry of Education and Higher Education. 22. Retrieved from http://www.edu.gov.qa/Ar/SECInstitutes/EducationInstitute/CS/English/QatarUniversityConference/How to teach listening effectively.pdf

Tyagi, B. (2013). Listening: An Important Skill and Its Various Aspects. The Criterion: An International Journal in English, 12(12), 1–8. Retrieved from http://www.the-criterion.com/V4/n1/Babita.pdf