Helping Students Become More Effective Listeners

Nowadays, the internet gives us easy access to audio (and audio-visual) recordings, and, naturally, many learners of English will want / need / try to listen to some of what’s available. However, and despite the amount of time spent ‘doing’ listening in the language classroom, they will often feel frustrated when they try to follow such recordings. What is it that makes listening to authentic speech so difficult, and how can we go about teaching rather than testing listening in our classes?

In this workshop, we’ll analyse some of the challenges non-expert listeners face. We’ll also consider features of classroom activities designed to mediate the inherent difficulty level of a listening text. These activities can help our learners become more effective, confident and autonomous listeners.