Developing Listening Skills with Authentic Materials
I have read the article Developing Listening Skills with Authentic Materials by Lindsay Miller. The article is indeed interesting and as mentioned that listening has not received wider attention in the past given that it is the language skill most often used in everyday life. However, for second language students this may not be the case.
According to the researchers, there is now a greater awareness among teachers to help students develop their listening skills. They believe that listening lessons should be in a real world context, using authentic texts. It is also mentioned the process for helping learners develop their listening skills; Pre-, While-, and Post-Listening and how this process can be followed while using technology like Radio, TV and the Internet. Radio stations such as BBC World Service (BBC) and Voice of America (VOA) are constantly on-air and send programs, authentic and good for listening in class. This is really extremely important information for me. Sometime back, when I was teaching listening skills in a foundation level class and was trying to get my hands on some good listening materials, I was not able to do that. I know where to find that now. Thanks to this course and Robert for including this kind of important informative readings and activities.
Although radios are easy to access, they are normally hard for the ESL learners to listen to and comprehend. This is because for the beginners non-verbal communication such as facial expression or gestures plays a very important role helping them understand the message. It is better for them to use a television or video in the classroom which allows the learners to access more information. So, they can now see what is happening as well as listen to the text. In addition, with the development of Internet facilities and CD-ROMs we are able to direct our learners to sites on the Internet where they can practice their listening. As mentioned in the article with younger learners’ interest to use their computer skills nowadays, the prospect of developing their language skills with internet facilities seems an attractive technique to these learners. By using the Internet and computer technology there are several authentic activities for the learners which will improve and develop their listening skills. In addition to this, it creates motivation, gives learners more autonomy over their language learning and connects the activities to the real-world.
Hi Roza:
ReplyDeleteGreat to see your reflections and your concern about teaching listening. Does your university have a language lab equipped with modern technologies like Multimedia projector, computers with internet connection, headphones, audio-players and tapes, recorders,, video camera etc? In my university, we have a lab but internet facility is not available in all computers. But still it makes teaching English language skills much more effective. What do you think about it?
You asked me about how my students are doing with the blogs they have created. In fact, they are very slow in responding and many also cannot all the time afford internet access.
Hi Ziaulkarim,
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting.
In our university we have computer labs with internet connectivity (but not specialized for language. so some equipments for language learning are not there) and as my faculty has no lab of our own we share with other faculties. Also, we have internet connection for the teacher in the classes and multimedia projector. So, as you have mentioned the teaching becomes more effective and easy for students as well when they do presentations specially.
Thanks again.