WEEK3 Developing listening with authentic materials

      This week I have read an article by Lindsay Miller about Developping Listening Skills with Authentic Materials. The article has changed my attitude about teaching listening. In my school, listening has always been a neglected skill because of the lack of teaching materials and the number of students. On the rare occasions when we venture into teaching listening, we follow the traditional listening method which consists in recording with a tape recorder a dialogue read aloud by two or three colleagues. We then use this material as the text of our listening lesson. A variation of this method consists for the teacher in reading aloud a text with gaps for the students to listen and find the missing words. Our expectation during such listening courses is that listeners should understand every word instead of just the sense of what is implied. Reading Miller’s article allowed me to understand that students can’t remember all the words heard in a listening exercise, but they should be able to remember the main ideas. I was consequently glad to discover the opportunities provided by the web to teachers seeking professional recordings that are suited to listening activities.

      But Miller goes further, suggesting ideas for teaching listening through technological media. The activities which her article suggests are excellent, but need to be adApted instead of adOpted by teachers if the latter want these activities to suit their teaching objectives and operate in their teaching environment.

      What I finally retain from this article is that if our aim is to prepare our learners to use English effectively, we need to develop this important skill which is listening. It is indeed unfair to teach students to speak a language but not to understand it when spoken. Personally, I am going to teach listening on a regular basis from now on. Our masters in the Teachers’ Training College taught us that the more regularly our learners will hear spoken English, the more probable it is that they will be able to understand it. 

      I also advise my peer teachers to expose learners to spoken language as often as possible to improve their listening. Those who cannot or will not use authentic listening texts should, even so, read the article of Lindsay Miller which contains many suggestions for teaching listening with authentic materials.