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TEACHING LANGUAGE SKILLS
FOR PROSPECTIVE ENGLISH
TEACHERS

Edited by

Assoc. Prof. Ekrem SOLAK

© Doç. Dr. Ekrem SOLAK

Her hakkı saklıdır. Bu kitabın tamamı veya bir kısmı 5846 sayılı yasanın hükümlerine
göre yazarın önceden iznini almaksızın elektronik, mekanik, fotokopi veya herhangi bir
sistemle basılamaz, çoğaltılamaz ve bilgisayar ortamında tutulamaz.

Nisan 2016

Kapak Tasarım
Ahmet ÇELİK

Sayfa Tasarım
Ümmü KURT

Baskı
Sözkesen Matbaacılık Tic. Ltd. Şti. – ANKARA
Tel: (312) 395 21 10 – 395 59 07
Faks: (312) 395 61 07

ISBN
978 – 605 – 9029 – 52 – 0

GENEL DAĞITIM
PELİKAN TIP ve TEKNİK KİTAPÇILIK TİC. LTD. ŞTİ.
 CONTENTS

±± CHAPTER 1: Teaching Reading Skills

Enisa Mede, Bahcehsehir University
Yeşim Keşli Dollar, Bahcehsehir University...............................................................1

±± CHAPTER 2: Teaching Listening Skills

Ekrem Solak, Amasya University
Gamze Erdem, Amasya University..........................................................................29

±± CHAPTER 3: Teaching Speaking Skills

Eyüp Yaşar Kürüm, Hacettepe University................................................................45

±± CHAPTER 4: Teaching Writing Skills

Betül Bal Gezegin, Amasya University.....................................................................65

±± CHAPTER 5: Teaching Pronunciation

İsmail Fırat Altay, Hacettepe University...................................................................91

±± CHAPTER 6: Teaching Vocabulary

Mehmet Altay, Kocaeli University
Kenan Dikilitaş, Hasan Kalyoncu University...........................................................107

±± CHAPTER 7: Teaching Grammar

Deren Başak Yeşilel, Ondokuz Mayıs University
Müfit Şenel, Ondokuz Mayıs University..................................................................137

±± CHAPTER 8: Teaching Translation and Interpreting Skills

Sedat Mulayim, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
Oktay Eser, Amasya University, Amasya, Turkey
Miranda Lai, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia..............................................171

iii
 FOREWORD
Teaching Language Skills Course is one of the core courses offered in English Language
Teaching (ELT) programs. As we all know, nothing is the same as it was a decade ago,
thus, we need to update our theoretical and practical knowledge in the teaching of these
skills. Therefore, in this book, we aim to highlight the current trends in teaching language
skills from some distinguished faculties’ view points. In each chapter, we review the skills
within the framework of their historical development and pedagogical implications followed
by a sample plan.

In Chapter 1, Dr. Enisa Mede and Dr. Yesim Kesli Dollar draw attention to teaching reading
skill and they help students have an insight into the history of reading, providing them with
the skills and strategies needed to be able to integrate reading in language classrooms.
At the end of the chapter, they introduce some sample lesson plans for reading in order to
help students understand the steps of reading instruction in foreign language education.

In Chapter 2, Dr. Ekrem Solak and Gamze Erdem focus on teaching listening skill which
is called as a Cinderalla Skill overlooked by its elder sister speaking. They maintain that
listening is not a passive skill but an active process of constructing meaning from a stream
of sounds. At the end of the chapter, current issues in the teaching of listening skill are
highlighted to indicate the future direction of this skill. In addition, a sample lesson plan is
added to link the theory and practice in the teaching of this interactive skill.

In Chapter 3, Dr. Yaşar Kürüm places an emphasis on teaching speaking skill and he
states that speaking is more than to form grammatically correct sentences; it rather covers
broad areas of mechanics, functions, pragmatics and social interaction. He also highlights
that in contemporary methodologies, the emphasis in speaking is fluency rather than
accuracy. Awareness raising activities, controlled activities and autonomous activities
are elaborated by the author. In addition, some speaking strategies are introduced to
encourage the unmotivated students to produce speaking in language classroom.

In Chapter 4, Dr. Betül Bal Gezegin addresses teaching writing as a skill for future second
language (L2) writing teachers. She asserts that teachers who teach English as a second/
foreign language need to understand the components of writing, what it means as a skill,
and what it requires to teach it in language classrooms. She provides readers with historical
and theoretical background to teaching writing in English. Then she touches upon main
approaches to teaching writing (product, process and genre based approaches) with their
key ideas and foundational practices. She ends the chapter with a genre-based sample
lesson plan as a suggestion and practical instructional model for teaching writing.

In Chapter 5, Dr. İsmail Fırat Altay elaborates on teaching pronunciation as an integral

part of language learning and teaching process. He draws attention to the fact that Turkish
learners of English may have difficulties in pronunciation as a result of the main differences
between the two languages. To overcome the difficulties, teachers of English language
need to make use of some specific ways of pronunciation teaching. He proposes the audio v
 articulation model and dwells the basic ways of pronunciation teaching on the mentioned
model. Finally, he presents two pronunciation teaching lesson plans to learners to see
pronunciation teaching in a concrete way.

In Chapter 6, Dr. Mehmet Altay and Dr. Kenan Dikilitaş discuss the teaching vocabulary
skill for student teachers. They stress that vocabulary teaching has always been among
the most popular issues of linguistic pedagogy though the needs, strategies, and purposes
of language learners may have shown variation in time. In this chapter, our readers are
introduced to some prominent incidents which shape the conception of vocabulary learning
and teaching. A couple of questions related to the quantitative and qualitative features of
vocabulary competence are discussed. The final part of the chapter includes a sample
lesson plan for vocabulary teaching using the data and certain instruments mentioned
within the chapter.

In Chapter 7, Dr. Deren Başak Yeşilel and Dr. Müfit Şenel center upon teaching grammar
and point out that grammar has always been taken an important part of EFL classes for
years. Grammar has been accepted as the backbone of a language and if it has not been
taught directly, learners cannot produce grammatically correct statements and they will
not be accurate learners of the language. However, in our present day, they stress that
the importance of communicative skills on language learning has been understood; direct
grammar teaching lost its necessity. Therefore, they suggest in the chapter that grammar
teaching should be done integratively. Additionally, two sample lesson plans have been
added to enlighten the readers about grammar teaching in EFL classes.

In Chapter 8, Sedat Mulayim, Oktay Eser and Miranda Lai elaborate on teaching translation
and interpreting skills for pre-service teachers. In this chapter, they aim to help students
have an insight into the history of translation and interpreting, and provide them with the
skills and knowledge needed to be able to translate and interpret functionally. At the end
of the chapter, they offer some sample lesson plans for translation and interpreting in order
to help students to understand translation competence effectively.

All in all, I would like to take the opportunity to offer my sincere thanks to each contributing
author who reflected their experience and knowledge in this work and they devoted
their time, effort and patience without any constraint. I hope, this book will serve to train
distinguished English Teachers.

Ekrem Solak

vi
 CHAPTER 2
Teaching Listening Skills
Ekrem Solak, Amasya University
Gamze Erdem, Amasya University

Content____________________________________________________
1. Learning Objectives
2. Introduction
3. Historical Perspective
4. What is Listening Skill?
5. What Makes a Good Listening Text?
6. Authentic Versus Non-authentic Listening Materials
7. Listening Sources Macro and Micro Listening Skills
8. Approaches to Listening: Bottom-Up and Top-Down
9. Stages in Teaching Listening Skills
10. Current Trends in Teaching Listening Skill
11. Sample Lesson Plans
12. References
13. Biography for Authors
___________________________________________________________

1. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

On successful completion of this chapter, students will be able to:

±± Understand the key components of listening skill

±± Have an insight into the historical development of listening skill

±± Have a basic command on the stages of listening skill

±± Analyse source texts for a listening activity

±± Aware of the approaches to listening skill

±± Foresee the current trends in listening skill

29
±± Link the theory and practice in the teaching of listening skill
 Edited by Ekrem SOLAK
Chapter 2

2. INTRODUCTION

Nunan (1997) calls the listening skill as the ‘Cinderella Skill’ which is overlooked by
its elder sister speaking in language learning. Listening received little attention in
language teaching and learning, because teaching methods emphasized productive
skills and listening was characterized as passive activity (Richards&Renandya,
2010). However, researchers have revealed that listening is not a passive skill but
Teaching Listening Skills

an active process of constructing meaning from a stream of sounds. Listening can

be considered the fundamental skill to speaking, because without understanding the
input at the right level, any learning cannot begin.

Some various definitions of listening are presented below to highlight its different
aspects.

Listening is the process of receiving, constructing meaning from and responding to

spoken and/or non-verbal messages (Brownell, 2002).

Listening is an active, purposeful process of making sense of what we hear

(Helgesen, 2003).

Listening comprehension is a highly complex problem-solving activity that can be

broken down into a set of distinct sub-skills (Byrnes, 1984).

Listening is an active and interactional process in which a listener receives speech

sounds and tries to attach meaning to the spoken words. The listener tries to
understand the intended message of the oral text to respond effectively to oral
communication.

Listening and hearing are considered different process. While hearing is considered
as physical, passive and natural process, listening is physical & mental, active and
learnt process and is defined as a skill.

Although listeners can understand messages presented at a rate of 380 words per
minute, an average person speaks at a rate of about 150 words per minute. The
following table shows the percentage of the use of language skills with formal years
of training in daily life.

Table 1

Percentage of Communication

Mode of Communication Formal Years of Training Percentage of Time Used

Writing 12 years 9%
Reading 6-8 years 16%
Speaking 1-2 years 30%
30 Listening 0-few years 45%
 Edited by Ekrem SOLAK

According to Table 1, Listening skill is the most used skill at a rate of 45% and it

Chapter 2
does not require any formal years of training. Next, people spend 30% of daily life
communication by speaking and one to two years is necessary for formal training
of speaking. While reading corresponds to 16% of our daily life language activities,
finally writing occupies only 9% and 12 years formal education is required for its
practice (Celce-Murcia, 2001).

Teaching Listening Skills

3. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

More than a century ago, as a dominant method of language teaching, grammar

translation gave no importance to listening skill, because the aim was to read and
translate scientific texts from target language (mostly Latin) to native language.
Then, there was a paradigm shift from written language to oral skills with the emerge
of the Direct Method.

In the second half of the 20th century, Audio Lingual Method emphasized the
importance of listening skill and gave priority to oral proficiency. There were
abundant use of language laboratories, tapes and cassettes to achieve native-
like pronunciation. During 70s, alternative methods were proposed by various
researchers, listening skill was given prominence as the common characteristics of
these methods. According to Krashen’s Input Hypothesis (1985), learners could learn
best by exposure to comprehensible input which was slightly beyond their current
level competence. Krashen (1985) pointed out that second language learning was
similar to first language acquisition, thus listening was the first step on the way to
language proficiency. Similarly, in his Total Physical Response, Asher (1977) stated
that oral language was primary to written language and listening comprehension
should precede speech production. He also emphasized that learners were
supposed to listen and obey the orders given by the instructor through actions. In
Communicative Language Teaching, language teaching was based on a view of
language as communication and listening was the most prevailing part of daily life
communication. In communicative context, four language skills were taught in an
integrated way, supporting one after another. Listening was primarily used as a
prompter or a first step before productive skills. In content-based instruction, listening
and speaking were practiced in an integrated way such as viewing and discussion
of a film and performing an interview. As from task-based language teaching, tasks
provide both the oral and written input and output processing for language acquisition.

In the light of this shift, now listening plays an important role in language classroom.
The current developments in both visual and audio technology enrich the varieties
of listening materials and help to draw particularly young learners’ attention and
31
motivate them better to reach the learning objectives.
 Edited by Ekrem SOLAK
Chapter 2

4. WHAT MAKES A GOOD LISTENING TEXT?

Listening comprehension is an extremely important part of a language learning

phenomenon. Second language acquisition (SLA) studies have illustrated that
comprehensible output and input are crucial for the acquisition of a language
(Swain, 1995). Therefore, we need to question the properties of a good listening
text for language learning classes. There are various factors affecting a listening
Teaching Listening Skills

text’s quality but, in common, we can divide the quality of a text into two categories:
“content” and “delivery”.

As from “content”, the listening text should, firstly, be interesting for audiences. It is
important to know your target students’ profiles because what interests one group
of learners may seem dull for another group. In a listening class, pre-task activities
actually serve the aim of arousing interest in students before the main activity. Apart
from this, cultural accessibility is a crucial factor too. Learning about a new culture
is beneficial for improving inter-cultural competence (Wilson, 2008) but if the aim is
to understand a listening text, then any possible culturally based meanings in the
text should be understandable for the target group. Density of the listening text also
influences the listening text quality. If the text includes repetition of key terms, words
and phrases, it will be less demanding for listeners. In addition, the more complex
grammatical structures the text includes, the more demanding it will be for listeners.
In addition to content, how you present the material is equally important. In terms
of“delivery”, important factors include length, quality of the material, accent and the
method of delivery. The listening text should be delivered in a non-distractive manner
that is suitable for the target group of learners (Wilson, 2008).

5. AUTHENTIC VERSUS NON-AUTHENTIC LISTENING MATERIALS

In the selection of the right listening material for language classrooms, the distinction
between authentic and pedagogic materials should be highlighted. They both have
advantages and disadvantages depending on your target group and the aim of the
activity. Authentic materials can be texts which are prepared by native speakers
and are not originally intended as language learning materials (Bacon, 1992; Joiner,
1991; Joiner et al., 1989; Scarcella& Oxford, 1992). Authentic materials can often
include more unfamiliar use of language, and mostly, it can be difficult for learners
to cope with. If the teacher wants to use authentic material, he/she should write a
lesson plan based on the material and find appropriate supporting materials. Richards
(2006) also states three advantages of integrating authentic materials in a classroom
environment: (i) the culture of the target language is introduced, (ii) the use of real
32
language is shown, and (iii) a more creative way of teaching is achieved. In sum, it
 Edited by Ekrem SOLAK

can be expressed that the choice of authentic or pedagogic material is mostly related

Chapter 2
to the aim, target group and the context in the teaching process.

6. LISTENING SOURCES

Comparing listening in one’s native language, listening in a foreign language is a

more challenging task: “How well L2 listeners cope with these limitations will depend

Teaching Listening Skills

on their ability to make use of all the available resources to interpret what they
hear” (Vandergrift, 2007, p. 193). Therefore, in a listening phenomenon, the use of
appropriate listening sources has a crucial effect in comprehension.

Various listening sources can be used in a language classroom. These are teacher
talk, student talk, guest speakers, textbook recordings, TV, video, DVD, radio, songs
and the internet (Wilson,2008). Teacher talk is valuable input for learners of a foreign
language. The teacher can regulate the pace of speaking according to the students’
level and interest, repeat important parts and change the input as desired. Teacher
talk can also be evaluated in terms of its quality. It should be clear, coherent and
interesting for listeners. Teacher talk should be interactive in a way that students can
ask questions and get an answer, which facilitates and supports student talk. Another
way of exposing students to an authentic conversation is inviting guest speakers to
the classroom, which provides learners a chance to interact in a more authentic way.

Technological improvements have increased the types of listening resources in

recent years. Both teachers and students can access listening materials easily via
the internet. The computer and interactive technologies allow teachers to select
materials of all kinds, support them as learners’ needs dictate, and use the visual
options of screen presentation or the interactive capabilities of computer controls to
help students develop good listening techniques (Garrett, 1991, p. 95).

7. MACRO AND MICRO LISTENING SKILLS

In most language classrooms, the listening process is skipped at the expense of

listening outcome (Rezaei & Fatimah Hashim, 2013). Macro and micro listening
skills can help to achieve listening awareness. Vandergrift &Tafaghodtari (2010)
state that metalinguistic awareness and explicit teaching are crucial parts of listening
comprehension tasks.

Brown (2007) offers a simplified list of micro-skills and macro-skills for conversational
listening, The macro-skills isolate those skills that relate to the discourse level of
organization, while those that remain at sentence level continue to be called micro-
33
skills.
 Edited by Ekrem SOLAK

Brown’s (2007) listening comprehension micro-skills for conversational discourse

Chapter 2

are as follows.

1. Retain chunks of language of different lengths in short-term memory.

2. Discriminate among the distinctive sounds of English.

3. Recognize English stress patterns, words in stressed and unstressed

positions. rhythmic structure, intonational contours, and their role in signaling
Teaching Listening Skills

information.

4. Recognize reduced forms of words.

5. Distinguish word boundaries, recognize a core of words, and interpret word

order patterns and their significance.

6. Process speech containing pauses, errors, corrections, and other

performance variables.

7. Process speech at different rates of delivery.

8. Recognize grammatical word classes (nouns, verbs, etc.), systems (e.g.,

tense, agreement, pluralization), patterns, rules, and elliptical forms.

9. Detect sentence constituents and distinguish between major and minor

constituents.

10. Recognize that a particular meaning may be expressed in different

grammatical forms” (p. 308).

Brown’s (2007) macro-skills for conversational discourse are:

1. “Recognize cohesive devices in spoken discourse.

2. Recognize the communicative functions of utterances, according to

situations, participants, goals.

3. Infer situations, participants, goals using real-world knowledge (pragmatic

competence).

4. From events, ideas, etc., describe, predict outcomes, infer links and
connections between events, deduce causes and effects, and detect
such relations such as main idea, supporting idea, new information, given
information, generalization, and exemplification.

5. Distinguish between literal and implied meanings.

6. Use facial, kinetic, body language, and other nonverbal cues to decipher
meanings.

7. Develop and use a battery of  listening strategies, such as detecting key
words, guessing the meaning of words from context, appealing for help, and
34
signaling comprehension or lack thereof” (p. 308).
 Edited by Ekrem SOLAK

8. LISTENING SUB-SKILLS

Chapter 2
There are various types of listening sub-skills to help listeners make sense of the
listening text. Most commonly used listening sub-skills in language classrooms are:

Listening for-gist: listening to get a general idea

Teaching Listening Skills

Listening for specific information: listening just to get a specific piece of information

Listening in detail: listening to every detail, and try to understand as much as possible

Listening to infer: listening to understand how listeners feel

Listening to questions and responding: listening to answer questions

Listening to descriptions: listening for a specific description

9. APPROACHES TO LISTENING: BOTTOM-UP AND TOP-DOWN

The bottom-up and top-down concepts originated from computer science before
being adopted by the field of linguistics. In computer science, bottom-up means
“data-driven” and top-down means “knowledge-driven” (Field,1999). The cognitive
process of listening and reading in the target language indicates bottom-up and
top-down processes in SLA (Clement, 2007). If listeners use linguistic knowledge
clues such as phonemes, syllables, words, phrases and sentences to understand,
it means that they use a bottom-up strategy. However, if they use context and prior
knowledge such as topic, genre, culture and other schema knowledge stored in long-
term memory to decide the meaning, they use a top-down strategy. During a listening
process, a combination of the two processes is used to make the text sensible for
the listener. Thus, it is generally accepted that top-down and bottom-up processes
are utilized together during the listening process (Vandergrift, 2007). Nevertheless,
the aim of listening determines the priority. To illustrate the point, think about the two
situations given below:

You are chatting with your friend, and she tells you a story about an exam that
she failed. You listen to your friend to say something that will console her.

One evening, a friend of yours calls and invites you to her birthday party. You
carefully take note of the address, time and day of the activity.

In the first situation, we just listen to understand the main idea and give the expected
social response. However, in the second situation, we need to listen carefully and
understand the actual words in order not to have a problem later. While we use top-
35
down processes in the first example, bottom-up processing is used in the second.
 Edited by Ekrem SOLAK

Other Top-down Listening Activities

Chapter 2

Wilson (2003) states that learners use top-down processing to make up for their
insufficient knowledge when they listen to a text where they have no prior knowledge
about the topic. For example, by showing some relevant pictures or giving some key
words before the listening activity, teachers can stimulate top-down process. Thus,
learners can use their prior knowledge to compensate the unknown vocabulary. Other
Teaching Listening Skills

examples of top-down listening activities, giving a series of pictures or a sequence of

events, or predicting the relationship between the people in the listening text.

Other Bottom-up Listening Activities

Paying attention to linguistic features and decoding each sound and word for
semantic meaning requires the use of bottom-up listening process (Siegel, 2011).
Clement (2007) explains in detail how a learner makes sense of a newly encountered
word by giving the example of the word “founder”. She states that the learners call
to mind words that sound similar like “found, fan” at the time they hear the first letter
of the word. As the next sounds are activated, some of the words that do not match
are sifted out. As the word found and founder will be activated till the –er sound is
realized, it will take some time to isolate the word “founder”. Field (1999) asserts that
this process takes no more than 25 seconds. As an example of bottom-up strategy, a
dictogloss, which helps learners to notice the divisions between words, can be given.
The teacher reads a few sentences and asks students to write down how many
words there should be in the written form. The task may sound simple, but weak
forms can be problematic for some learners: therefore, the teacher should speak in
a natural way. Some example sentences are “She doesn’t like it”, “I’d better leave
soon”, “Let’s go to cinema” etc.

10. STAGES IN TEACHING LISTENING SKILLS

Vandergrift (1999) states that listening sequences improve students’ metacognitive

abilities, especially in the first two years of language learning. These listening
sequences may be divided into three stages as pre-listening, while-listening and
post-listening and each of the three stages has its own specific purpose (Underwood,
1989).

While-listening activities are the main activities of the listening tasks. Learners
listen to the input and make decisions about the strategy to use according to the
requirements of the task. Finally, in post-listening activities, learners discuss and
evaluate their strategy choices and their effectiveness. Feedback is provided by self-
36
evaluation and also group discussions (Guan, 2015).
 Edited by Ekrem SOLAK

Pre-listening

Chapter 2
Pre-listening activities help to hear and give some clues about the activity expectations
mostly by activating schemata.

Imagine that you enter the classroom a little bit late and you see that the teacher has
already started lecturing. Most probably, it will be difficult for you to grasp the topic

Teaching Listening Skills

and understand what is going on. Why do you think this happens? As you do not know
the context and you do not have any prior knowledge about the context, the context
will initially be inaccessible. Consequently, pre-listening activities serve the goal of
ensuring students know what they need to know before they listen. Listeners need to
know things like the speaker’s way of talking, the length of the text, the listener’s role,
information about the topic, specialized vocabulary, and the relationship between
listener and speaker (Wilson, 2008). A study conducted by Zohrabi et al. (2015)
states that learners who are exposed to pre-listening activities performed better than
those who did not take pre-listening activities. They also assert that pre-listening
tasks are effective for students in understanding authentic English movies.

Pre-listening activities activate the schemata and help students to predict what they
will hear. Activating schemata means activating students’ prior knowledge. Activities
to activate learners’ schemata might include brainstorming, visuals, realia, text and
words, situations and opinions, ideas and facts. Brainstorming activities aim to
produce ideas based on a topic or a problem. Brainstorming can be realized via a
poster display in which students prepare a poster based on a given topic, brainwalking
in which they walk around the classroom and enlarge the ideas collaboratively,
boardwriting, in which they work in groups and they brainstorm about the same topic
or a different one, and from one to many in which students work individually, take
notes and then share the ideas with the group (Wilson, 2008).

Besides brainstorming activities, visuals are also effective for pre-listening activities.
There is an axiom saying “a picture is worth a thousand words. For example, a
picture can be shown to students and they can predict the ongoing. Alternatively, a
sequence of pictures can be given to students and they can tell a story related to the
picture sequence.

Using realia is also helpful in activating schemata. For example a photo, a map, a
brochure or any other object related to the listening text make students activate their
37
prior knowledge and help them better understand the listening (Wilson, 2008).
 Edited by Ekrem SOLAK

Things to avoid during the pre-listening stage.

Chapter 2

OO A pre-listening task should not be too long. It should be precise and clear.
OO The activity should not give too much information about the listening text. It
should just introduce the topic.
OO The teacher should not talk too much: he or she should let the students talk and
share their ideas.
Teaching Listening Skills

OO A pre-listening activity topic should not be too general and unrelated to the
listening text (Wilson, 2008).

While-Listening
While-listening activities are directly related to the listening text and students
perform the task either during the listening process or immediately after the listening.
Therefore, the teacher needs to match the activities to the instructional goal, the
listening purpose, and the students’ proficiency level. Underwood (1989) explains the
goal of while-listening tasks as being something that helps the learners understand
the messages of the listening text. She also gives some specific examples of while-
listening activities:

-“making/checking items in pictures

-Which picture?

-storyline picture sets

-putting pictures in order

-true/false

-form/chart completion

-completing grids

-predicting

-carrying out actions

-multiple choice completion” (p. 49-72).

Well-designed while-listening activities help students to understand the listening text,

to give clues about how to respond, to provide a focus, to indicate the important
parts while listening, to keep listeners alert and to permit them to understand the
text’s structure (Wilson, 2008). An example to while-listening activity is “bingo”. This
activity is especially enjoyable for young learners. In this task the teacher writes
38
a list of words on the board, which are included in the listening text. The students
 Edited by Ekrem SOLAK

individually select and write seven words on a piece of paper. Then, they listen to the

Chapter 2
passage and put a tick on that specific word when the word is heard. When all the
words are ticked, they shout “bingo”. It is a good activity for selective listening even
if it hinders listening extensively (Wilson, 2008).

Post-Listening

Teaching Listening Skills

In the post-listening stage, students work in detail applying both top-down and bottom-
up strategies to link up the classroom activities and their real lives (Wilson,2008).

Underwood (1989) describes the post-listening task as an activity that is realized

after the listening, merging all the work performed. Post-listening tasks may be
directly related to the pre- and while-listening activities or they can just be loosely
related to these activities. She also asserts that post-listening tasks require more
time than the other tasks because students deal with thinking, discussing, reflecting
and writing processes. It can be named as the more reflective part of the lesson.

“Checking and summarizing” is one activity type that can be performed as post-
listening task. In this activity, first the teacher puts students into small groups to lower
individual speaking anxiety. The teacher’s role, here, is to monitor students and to
stimulate them by attracting their attention to the related and interesting points. Then,
they share their ideas as a class and then students can summarize the important
parts. Other types of post-listening activities are discussions, creative responses,
critical responses, information exchanges, problem solving, deconstructing the
listening text and reconstructing the listening text (Wilson, 2008).

11. CURRENT TRENDS IN TEACHING LISTENING SKILLS

Although teaching listening skill has gained prominence in language classroom

recently, a paradigm shift can be observed in the learning and teaching of this
interactive skill. Listening is now considered as an interactive skill rather than
passive, because human brain is active during this process of hearing information. A
learner consciously receives the new data, parse and then utilize it. In this process,
she/he takes advantage of metacognitive, cognitive and affective strategies. There is
a general consensus among researchers that metacognition enhances thinking and
comprehension (Vandergrift, 2012). Therefore, learners who can plan, monitor and
evaluate their listening process are more successful listeners or language learners
than those who cannot. In the new trend, learners’ metacognitive awareness should
be raised and this can also help to boost the motivation of the learners by leading to
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better success.
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As result of the new trend, the focus has also shifted to the comprehension of details
Chapter 2

and the gist of messages that have a communicative purpose. In other words, text-
oriented instruction which consists of decoding skills, imitation and memorization of
sound and grammar patterns, discriminating sounds, and answering comprehension
questions based on a listening passage gives way to communicative and learner-
centered instruction. There is a tendency to learn how learners listen and manage
the learner autonomy. Teachers should use pre-communication activities as a way of
Teaching Listening Skills

raising learners’ awareness about listening processes. In addition, Richards (2005)

suggests that tasks should include opportunities for learners to play an active role in
their own learning.

As a part of communicative instruction, listening, speaking, reading, and writing are

taught in a series of lessons or units so that learners can practice each skill in relation
to the topic. In communicative classrooms, listening activities are used mainly to
provide background knowledge or important vocabulary for the two productive skills.

Another shift in listening has been the emphasizing the top-down approach rather
than bottom-up. Recalling the background information of the listeners particularly
at the beginning of a listening activity is believed to help the listening proficiency in
comparison to discriminating individual sounds. It is also emphasized that listening
is considered as a process rather than a product (Vandergrift, 2007). Listening
should be taken into consideration from beginning to the end as an active process
of meaning making.

Richards (2005) suggests that listening materials should be based on a wide range
of authentic texts, including both monologues and dialogues. In other words, real life
listening materials assist listeners to be motivated highly to reach the communicative
objectives, because language is a social phenomenon and authenticity is an
important part of that whole. In this context, today via network-based multimedia,
such as online audio and video, YouTube, podcasts and blogs present a wide range
of opportunities to serve realistic goals.

Learners listen for two purposes as comprehension and acquisition. While learning to
listen (comprehension) involves enhancing comprehension abilities in understanding
the language process, listening to learn (acquisition) involves creating new meaning
and form linking and then repeating the meaning and form linking, thus this helps
learners to be ready for paying more attention to the syntax and lexis of the language
through listening. Therefore, teachers should view listening skills as a kind of
enhancement to language acquisition rather than comprehension (Kurita, 2012).
Listeners are expected not only to understand the spoken messages but also to
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create new meaning and to make connection between the ideas.
 Edited by Ekrem SOLAK

12. SAMPLE LESSON PLAN

Chapter 2
PART I

Lesson English

Teaching Listening Skills

Class Preparatory Class
Proficiency Pre- Intermediate
Age 17- 19
Unit No Unit 3 The World of Work
Subject The Man with Thirteen Jobs
Time 40’’

PART II

Gains of Students The students will be able to;

OO construct on their current knowledge,
OO locate the pictures to the right order,
OO recognize coherence and cohesion in listening
OO order the sequences of events/ actions in listening,
OO identify the pronunciation of –es while listening,
OO recognize correct pronunciation of some jobs,
OO interact with group members continuously,
OO construct new positive, negative, interrogative sentences
with simple present tense in writing assignment.
Concepts and OO Affirmative/ negative forms of simple present tense
Symbols He eats, she drives, we don’t etc.
OO Jobs; policeman, taxi- driver, barman etc.
Teaching-Learning Communicative Language Teaching;
Methods and Question & Answer, Pair work, Group work, Role-play,
Techniques Listening-speaking, Repetition, Memorization, Matching,
Using chart
Educational Teacher’s book, Student’s book, English dictionaries, The
Technology-Materials blackboard, grammar books, Cds, boardmarker, computer,
and Equipments speaker, flashcards, projector etc.
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 Edited by Ekrem SOLAK
Chapter 2

Teaching-Learning OO Greet the students and ask how they are

Activities OO Ask what they did last weekend
OO Catching attention
OO Ask if students know anyone who have more than one job
OO Motivation in order to interest them
OO Revision OO Explain what to do during the lesson
OO Introduction OO Present the title of the listening part and expect them to
Teaching Listening Skills

OO Pair work activitiy make predictions about the text

OO Presenting the OO Ask students to be in pairs
subject OO Have students look at the pictures and sentences on the
OO Individual activity page carefully
OO Group work OO Match the sentences with pictures
activity OO Control the answers
OO Summary OO Listen to ‘the man with thirteen jobs’
OO Assignment OO Complete the chart
OO Control the answers
OO Read the conversations about ‘the man with thirteen jobs’
OO Predict the job of McSporran in each conversation
OO Play the dialog in front of the classroom
OO Make a summary
OO Make relation with the prior lesson
OO Give assignment

PART III

Measurement and Evaluation

OO Measurement and Evaluation activities OO Individual questions are asked.

aimed at individual learning. OO Pairwork activity is done.
OO Measurement and Evaluation activities OO Groupwork activity is done.
aimed at group learning.
OO Additional Measurement and Evaluation
activities aimed at the students who learn
slower / faster.

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REFERENCES

Chapter 2
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Teaching Listening Skills

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AUTHORS’ BIO

Ekrem SOLAK is currently an associate professor in the Department of English

Language Teaching, at Amasya University, Amasya, Turkey. He holds a bachelor’s
degree in ELT from İstanbul University, a master’s degree and a doctoral degree
in ELT from Gazi University. He has also a second master’s degree in Educational
Management and Inspection from the same university. The focus of his studies is
e-learning in ELT context, syllabus design, teaching language skills and educational
technology. He has some articles and books published at the national and
international level.

Gamze ERDEM works at Amasya University, Foreign Language Education

Department, Amasya, Turkey. Currently she is doing her master’s degree in the
field of English Language Teaching at METU. Her interest areas are the use of
technology in foreign language teaching and learning, material development and
second language acquisition.

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