It is normal for people to have gaps when listening to a second language. A certain amount of informed guesswork will always be necessary. Learners need to be able to link what they hear with the visual cues they see and the prior knowledge they possess to fill in these gaps. Not only will this help them understand the message, but will allow them to conserve energy by skipping over unnecessary details or redundancy in speech.

B: Techniques for Teaching Listening

Many of the interactive teaching strategies discussed in the workshop will help your learner improve her listening skills. TPR (Total Physical Response), LEA (Language Experience Approach) and information gap exercises all have listening components to them. Other exercises can be adapted to increase listening proficiency. For example, vocabulary classification can be done orally rather than with cue cards.

However, you will find it beneficial to do additional activities, which focus on developing different types of listening skills. Below are some activities that can be used to help learners improve specific types of listening skills.

1. Listening Activities for Beginning and Intermediate Learners

a. Listening for perception

Many of the listening discrimination activities in Session 7 of the workshop will assist the learner in being able to differentiate the sounds of English. For learners who want practice at the sentence level, there is a number of activities that you could try.

i. Repetition

Have the learner repeat sentences that you say. These sentences could focus on a number of different things such as sound reductions (including schwa), intonation or word stress. Have the learner repeat these sentences in their proper (or ideal) form, and their reduced forms.

If your learner is having difficulty repeating sentences in their reduced form, you may want to start by having her analyze the number of words that are present in an utterance. How many words does wotcha doin'represent in it's ideal form?