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I E X P R O: University

Ensayo sobre la enseñanza de la habilidad de listening en ambientes de adquisición del inglés como segunda lengua.

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Elizabeth Ramos
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88 views4 pages

I E X P R O: University

Ensayo sobre la enseñanza de la habilidad de listening en ambientes de adquisición del inglés como segunda lengua.

Uploaded by

Elizabeth Ramos
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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I E X P R O

UNIVERSITY

DEVELOPING LANGUAGE SKILLS IN


THE CLASSROOM

Teaching listening

Teacher: Cecilia Ivette Calderón Gómez


Student: Elizabeth Ramos Castillo
T E A C H I N G L I S T E N I N G

It is difficult to point out how much of our communication on a daily basis is base
on the speaking form, nevertheless, it is true to say that we don’t spent a day in our
lifes without speaking, perhaps in those cases where there are physical
impediments, but we always are surrounded by auditive input. Of course, we are
mainly exposed to that input that belongs to our mother tongue, but in this
technology era, we have the oportunity to interact with different sources of
information and entertainment that are actually provide in a variety of languages.

We already are used to receive language information in the form of auditive


sources, so our brain and thoughts most of the time are structured with the
relationship the sounds and meaning have. This activity, listening, is frequently
parallel to Reading (Michael Rost. 1990: 9), we associate the sounds to the
gramatical forms of the words and that’s the reason why it is very helpful to
combine such activities when learning a second language.

The fact that these two activities share a common ground, lead us to other
similarities they share; as Swain (1990: vii) points out, we can see the presence of
“Untidy” elements in both of them, but even so, they are different, while in the
spoken language, these untidy elements tend to appear in a coloquial way, the
input the learners receive most frequently is the formal one, a kind of use of the
language where we hardly find hessitations, interruptions or other personal factors
regarding to the use of the language that the speaker may have; in other hand,
these elements can be present too in the writing, and even when most of the writen
input that the learners receive comes from exercises books, they are also exposed
to the untidy elements when the teacher writes on the board or they perform an
activity with other classmates.

The main difference between Reading and listening, lies on the fact that listening
involves a more active role frome the learner since they are focused on interpreting
the message and interacting with it. When Reading, they can step backward and
check the information the number of times it is needed, while the listening input
sometimes cannot be repeated once it has been said.

We have already talked about the different sources of input that we can be
exposed to in these times, but now the debate is on if it is better to handle
authentic input, such as the conversations of native speakers, or is it better to
simplify this input? I think it is a matter of the language skills of our students, while
it is a fact that some students may find a source of motivation to be in contact with
harder texts and audios, some others may feel threatened and start believing
English “is not their thing”, how can we overcome this motivation difficulties?

In listening comprehension, we have two different types of processing: Bottom up


processing and Top down processing; while the first belongs to a traditional view
where we can extract the meaning directly from the words spoken, the Top down
processing gives us an extra and very interesting tool: the previous knowledge; in
this second process we start from the meaning, the listener has to match what they
already know with what they are listening, this means use the language and call
out the knowledge they pocess from the world and express it and blend it with the
target language.

For me this part has been very useful, I teach English and Science, the Science
signature is in English too, so my students have to combine what they know, what
they can observe and the elements of the English language they have. Regarding
to the previous knowledge, I truly think it gives them confidence, because they
have the idea of what they want to say and they just focus on how to elaborate this
idea in the second language form. We also use different sources of listening input,
such as scientific videos, and since I teach for Young childrens, I do not have to
simplify a lot the input, because there’s a huge amount of science youtube
channels and tutorials that are actually carried out by children, and it is also very
interesting because even when those childrens have the same age that my
students have, they also have some untidy forms when speaking, but it makes it
easier and more comfortable for them to listen to a person who sounds like they
do.
Reading:

Ms. Nicky Hockly, Dr. Elena de Prada (Universidad de Granada). Universidad


IEXPRO (n.d.) Approaches to language in the classroom context. (pp 24-51).

Video:

Cambridge University Press ELT. 25-july-2011. Jack C. Richards on Listening


Comprehension. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K21mag4VnDI

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