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Clara Vaz Bauler is an Assistant Professor in the TESOL/Bilingual Program at Adelphi University. Her research interests include Second Language Teaching and Learning Practices, Second Language Writing, Teacher Collaboration, and Technologies as Educational Environments in social settings inside and outside of formal instruction.

There are a number of reasons why one engages in listening; however, very frequently, world language students spend most of their efforts in listening for specific information in order to perform on test-like situations. Although students need to be prepared for listening for testing, this is not the only reason people engage in listening for, especially if we consider communication in the real world. Given the many reasons for listening, in what ways can language teachers create meaningful and purposeful opportunities for students to listen in world language classrooms? To design authentic listening tasks for communication, Willis & Willis (2007) as well as Vandergrift (2012) recommend that teachers bear in mind three important components: purpose, interest, and materials.

Purpose

There are many purposes for listening, including listening for directions, listening for information, listening to music for fun, listening to what a friend has to say, and listening to develop core skills, such as pronunciation. Often times, conventional listening activities mix up these different purposes for listening, leading students to feel confused about what to listen for. It is important for language teachers to choose and focus on one listening purpose per task or to break down the task according to different listening purposes so that students can engage in the listening task successfully. For example, when designing a task for listening for information, teachers can ask students to fill out a graphic organizer outlining the main pieces of information of a short clip of a newscast program. Teachers can also have students collaborate on an information gap task in which one of the students says the directions to a specific destination and the other listens, tracing the route on a map.

Interest

Recent research in cognitive psychology has pointed out the importance of tapping into students’ prior knowledge, experiences and interest by encouraging students to make connections between known and new information (Shatz & Wikinson, 2013). In order for students to maximize their listening experience and outcomes, it is very important that before a listening task is executed, language teachers do pre-listening activities that will build on students’ background and interest. One example of a pre-listening activity is to ask students to brainstorm on what they know about the topic of the listening segment by doing a concept map or by having them share and take notes in pairs. Teachers can also make connections across different cultural backgrounds by first engaging students in comparing and contrasting food-related cultural practices using a Venn Diagram before listening to a video clip about typical dishes of the target culture(s).

Materials

Finally, for language teachers to design meaningful listening tasks, the choice of authentic materials is imperative. Nowadays it is possible for virtually any language teacher to find authentic listening materials in a variety of world languages on the Internet, including pod casts, films, newscast programs, documentaries, animated movies, etc. Having to listen for programs, shows, and films that are made for real audiences in the real world, that is, not for classroom or teaching purposes specifically, affords students a genuine listening experience for communication. In the 21st century, authentic materials also include successful models of second language speakers using the target language, not only native speakers (Cook, 2008). Having a successful model of second language speaker might provide students with the right amount of motivation to persist in learning the target language. One example of authentic material can be interviews, in which one native speaker interviews a second language writer, scientist, or entrepreneur that can successfully speak the target language.   

References

Cook, Vivian. (2008). Second Language Learning and Language Teaching. United Kingdom: Hooder Education.

Shatz, M. & Wilkinson, L. C. (2013). Understanding language in diverse classrooms: a primer for all teachers. New York: Routledge.

Vandergrift, L. G. & Goh, C. C. M. (2012). Teaching and learning second language listening: metacognition in action. London: Routledge.

Willis, Dave & Willis, Jane. (2007). Doing task-based teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.