TYPES OF EXERCISES FOR IMPROVING LISTENING SKILLS

Qoramirzayev Asliddin
Islom Boynazarov
Termez State University, Surkhandarya, Uzbekiston

Introduction: The topicality of the research: For many years, listening skills
did not receive priority in language teaching. Teaching methods emphasized
productive skills, and the relationship between receptive and productive skills was
poorly understood. Until recently, the nature of listening in a second language was
ignored by applied linguists, and it was often assumed that listening skills could be
acquired through exposure but not really taught. This position has been replaced by
an active interest in the role of listening comprehension in second language
acquisition, by the development of powerful theories of the nature of language
comprehension, and by the inclusion of carefully developed listening courses in
many ESL programs. Some applied linguists go so far as to argue that listening
comprehension is at the core of second language acquisition and therefore
demands a much greater prominence in language teaching. The papers in this
section explore the nature of second language listening and principles for the
design of teaching activities and classroom materials.
Listening is assuming greater and greater importance in foreign language
classrooms. There are several reasons for this growth in popularity. By
emphasizing the role of comprehensible input, second language acquisition
research has given a major boost to listening. As Rost points out, listening is vital in
the language classroom because it provides input for the learner. Without
understanding input at the right level, any learning simply cannot begin. Listening is
thus fundamental to speaking.
Keywords: Modern methods of teaching listening skills, Interpersonal
Activities, Group Activities, Audio Segments, Video Segment, Instructional Tips,
Listening is the Cinderella skill in language learning.

Modern methods of teaching listening skills

Effective, modern methods of teaching listening skills encompass everything
from interactive exercises to multimedia resources. Listening skills are best learned
through simple, engaging activities that focus more on the learning process than on
the final product. Whether you are working with a large group of students or a small

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one, you can use any of the following examples to develop your own methods for
teaching students how to listen well.
Interpersonal Activities
One effective and nonthreatening way for students to develop stronger
listening skills is through interpersonal activities, such as mock interviews and
storytelling. Assign the students to small groups of two or three, and then give them
a particular listening activity to accomplish. For example, you may have one student
interview another for a job with a company or for an article in a newspaper. Even a
storytelling activity, such as one that answers the question “What was your favorite
movie from last year?” can give students the opportunity to ask one another
questions and then to practice active listening skills.
Group Activities
Larger group activities also serve as a helpful method for teaching listening
skills to students. You can begin with a simple group activity. For the first part,
divide students into groups of five or larger and instruct them to learn one hobby or
interest of at least two other group members. Encourage them to ask clarifying
questions during the activity, and you may allow them to take notes if helpful.
However, as time passes and their skills grow, you should limit students to only
writing notes after the completion of the first part of the group activity. For the
second part, have the students sit in a large circle, and then have each individual
student share the name and the hobby or interest of the group members that she or
he met. This second part of the group activity can also lend itself to additional
listening exercises. For example, you may ask students to name a number of the
hobbies and interests identified during the sharing session.
Audio Segments
You can also teach listening skills through audio segments of radio programs,
online podcasts, instructional lectures and other audio messages. You should
model this interactive listening process in class with your students, and then instruct
them to repeat the exercise on their own. First, instruct students to prepare for
listening by considering anything that they will want to learn from the content of the
audio segment. Once they have written down or shared these ideas, then play the
audio segment, allowing the students to take notes if helpful. Once they have
gained confidence and experience, repeat this activity but instruct students to not
take notes until the completion of the audio segment. You can use shorter or longer
audio segments, and you can choose more accessible or more challenging material
for this type of exercise.

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 Video Segments
Another helpful resource for teaching listening skills are video segments,
including short sketches, news programs, documentary films, interview segments,
and dramatic and comedic material. As with audio segments, select the portion and
length of the video segment based on the skill level of your students. With your
students, first watch the segment without any sound and discuss it together.
Encourage the students to identify what they think will be the content of the
segment. Then, watch the segment again, this time with sound, allowing students to
take notes if helpful for their skill level. After the completion of the video segment,
you can have students write a brief summary of the segment, or you can take time
to discuss as a group how the segment compares with the students’ expectations.
Instructional Tips
Whatever method you use for teaching listening, keep a few key instructional
tips in mind that will help both you and your students navigate the learning process.
One, keep your expectations simple, as even the most experienced listener would
be unable to completely and accurately recall the entirety of a message. Two, keep
your directions accessible and build in opportunities for students not only to ask
clarifying questions, but also to make mistakes. Three, help students navigate their
communication anxiety by developing activities appropriate to their skill and
confidence level, and then strengthen their confidence by celebrating the ways in
which they do improve, no matter how small.
There is no doubt that English has become a universal language. Nowadays,
English is used by at least one billion people around the world, either as a first or as
a second language. Therefore, it is very much considerable to me to be a
professional teacher who is aware of the modern methods of teaching English
language as a foreign language. No one can ignore the need and the value of
methods for teaching English as a foreign language or even as a second language.
Teaching English as a Foreign Language is vital especially in the developing
countries in which English is considered to be a foreign language. It is clear that
people need better opportunities that they can only get with a good group of
English. In Kazakhstan people who want to learn English have a great number of
abilities to know this language. For teachers very important to listening good
spoken English at your level of understanding will improve all aspects of your
speaking, since we normally learn our first language by first listening and hearing it
spoken by others. If you can understand English-language movies and programs,
then listen to news and documentary programs, whose presenters tend to speak
well. For easier work, practice listening to English instructional CDs, mp3s or

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computer software, at home or at a school language auditory. You can also find
English-language radio, TV and instructional materials on the Internet. In the
modern world we have much more opportunities to rich a language. Modern
Methods of Teaching Listening Skills Effective, modern methods of teaching
listening skills get everything from interactive exercises to multimedia resources.
There are many methods of teaching languages. Some have fallen into history and
others are widely used; still others have a small following, but offer useful. [4, с. 52]
Contribute insights that may be absorbed into the generally accepted mix. Uses of
modern technology in classroom teaching is very useful for learners. There are a lot
of capacity to make a teaching process easy and productive. . Many schools now
carefully consider cost and application when debating how to best use new
technology. Unfortunately, in Kazakhstan schools’ teachers use computers or
another technology very rarely. Most of the lessons are classical. As the result
pupils who finish school cannot understand oral speech or have another problem
with foreign language. But what can help to the teacher to improve the level of
pupils? It’s Teacher-Centered Technology. Gadgets that are used strictly by
teachers are designed to enhance presentations, help with book keeping or assist
with outside communications. Projection devices have become more affordable and
now are nearly standard in many classrooms. Interactive whiteboards, although still
expensive, provide an instant interface between the classroom and cyberspace,
allowing teachers to transform lectures into real-time multimedia presentations.
Listening is the Cinderella skill in language learning
Listening is the Cinderella skill in language learning. All too often, it has been
overlooked by its elder sister – speaking. For most people, being able to claim
knowledge of a second language means being able to speak and write in that
language. Listening and reading are therefore secondary skills – means to other
ends, rather than ends in themselves.
Every so often, however, listening comes into fashion. In the 1960s, the
emphasis on oral language skills gave it a boost. It became fashionable again in the
1980s, when Krashen’s (1982) ideas about comprehensible input gained
prominence. A short time later, it was reinforced by James Asher’s (1988) Total
Physical Response, a methodology drawing sustenance from Krashen’s work, and
based on the belief that a second language is learned most effectively in the early
stages if the pressure for production is taken off the learners.
During the 1980s, proponents of listening in a second language were also
encouraged by work in the first language field. Here, people such as Gillian Brown
(see, for example, Brown, 1990) were able to demonstrate the importance of

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developing oracy (the ability to listen and speak) as well as literacy, in school. Prior
to this, it was taken for granted that first language speakers needed instruction in
how to read and write, but not in how to listen and speak, because these skills were
automatically bequeathed to them as native speakers.
Two views of listening have dominated language pedagogy since the early
1980s. These are the bottom-up processing view and the top-down interpretation
view. The bottom-up processing model assumes that listening is a process of
decoding the sounds that one hears in a linear fashion, from the smallest
meaningful units (phonemes) to complete texts. According to this view, phonemic
units are decoded and linked together to form words, words are linked together to
form phrases, phrases are linked together to form utterances, and utterances are
linked together to form complete, meaningful texts. In other words, the process is a
linear one, in which meaning itself is derived as the last step in the process. In their
introduction to listening, Anderson and Lynch (1988) call this the listener as tape
recorder view’ of listening because it assumes that the listener takes in and stores
messages sequentially, in much the same way as a tape recorder–one sound, one
word, one phrase, and one utterance at a time.
CONCLUSION
In summary, listening purpose is an important variable. Listening to a news
broadcast to get a general idea of the news of the day involves different processes
and strategies from listening to the same broadcast for specific information, such as
the results of an important sporting event.In designing listening tasks, it is important
to teach learners to adopt flexible range of listening strategies. This can be done by
holding the listening text constant (working, say, with a radio news broadcast
reporting a series of international events) and getting learners to listen to the text
several times–however, following different instructions each time. They might, in the
first instance, be required to listen for gist, simply identifying the countries where
the events have taken place. The second time they listen, they might be required to
match the places with a list of events. Finally, they might be required to listen for
detail, discriminating between specific aspects of the event, or perhaps comparing
the radio broadcast with newspaper accounts of the same events and noting
discrepancies or differences of emphasis.

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 REFERENCES:

1. Jalolov, J.J., Makhkamova, G.T., Ashurov Sh. S., English Language

Teaching Methodology. Tashkent. 2015. [p. 91-163]
2. Anderson, A., & Lynch, T. (1988). Listening. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
3. Brown, G. (1990). Listening to spoken English.2nd ed. London:
Longman.
4. Allison, D., & Martyn, E. (1993). The teaching of spoken English. In
(Eds.), Language and communication. New York: Longman.
5. Boynazarov, I. (2021). Investigating Factors Causing EFL Instructors’
Demotivation and Finding Possible Solutions. International Journal of Development
and Public Policy, 1(7), 45-47.
6. Boynazarov, I. (2022). Understanding Intercultural Competence and its
Assessment Tools. Eurasian Scientific Herald, 9, 135-138.

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