Strategies for developing listening skills

STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING
LISTENING SKILLS
Jonathan Manantan Mensalvas
G8 Adviser
College Instructor
Panpacific University North Philippines

“WHEN PEOPLE TALK, LISTEN
COMPLETELY. MOST PEOPLE NEVER
LISTEN.”
― ERNEST HEMINGWAY*
“We have two ears and only one
tongue in order that we may hear
more and speak less.”
― Diogenes Laertius^
*an American author and journalist
^a biographer of the Greek philosophers

How much do learners retain
from the listening input?

Why is listening
an important
skill to develop
in your
language
learners?

Because language learners need it:
To obtain information
To understand
For enjoyment
To learn
To communicate

Listening is the language modality^
that is used most frequently but…
…why is listening in English
so hard?

Because…
Students have to process the messages as
they come, cope with the speaker’s choice of
vocabulary, structure, and rate of delivery.
The complexity of the listening process is
magnified in second language context where
the listener also has an incomplete control of
the language.

Strategies for developing listening skills

What are listening strategies?
are techniques or activities that contribute
directly to the comprehension and recall of
listening input.
can be classified by how the listener processes
the input.
These are:
Top down, Bottom up and Metacognitive
*STRATEGY -Is a high level plan to achieve one or more goals under
conditions of uncertainty.
--an elaborate and systematic plan of action

Top - Down Listening Strategies
refers to the use of background knowledge in
understanding the meaning of the message.
Background knowledge
Consists of context, the situation and topic, and
co-text(what came before and after).
>>CONDUCT AN ACTIVITY USING THE TOP DOWN LISTENING
STRATEGY

are listener based; the listener taps into
background knowledge of the topic, the
situation or context, the type of text, and
the language. This background knowledge
activates a set of expectations that help
the listener to interpret what is heard and
anticipate what will come next.
STRATEGY

Top-down strategies include:
• listening for the main idea
• Predicting
• drawing inferences
• summarizing

Top down strategy focuses on content.
Students can predict the content of listening
activity beforehand and use various materials
such as pictures and key words to understand
the meaning.
STRATEGY

Top-Down Listening Activities
• putting a series of pictures or sequence of events
in order.
• Listening to conversation and identify where they
take place
• Reading information about a topic then listening
to find whether or not the same points are
mentioned.
• Inferring the relationship between the people
involved.

Bottom – up Listening Strategies
They are text based. The listener relies on the
language in the message (sounds, words, and
grammar that creates meaning)
Bottom-up strategies include:
•listening for specific details
•Recognizing cognates
•Recognizing word-order patterns
>>CONDUCT AN ACTIVITY USING THE BOTTOM UP LISTENING
STRATEGY

Bottom – up Listening Strategies
Bottom up strategy is to know about details and
segments. It concentrates on forms and structure.
Thus, this activity is more related with academic
study. English learning students use this activity to
enhance their listening ability. Dictation and listening
tests are included in this. In class, ‘fill in the blank/s’
activity can increase students’ awareness of forms.
However, bottom-up strategy doesn’t mean that it
excludes all authentic things. When we need deep
concentration on details, we use this activity.
>>CONDUCT AN ACTIVITY USING THE BOTTOM UP LISTENING
STRATEGY

For example, weather forecast, phone number and
advertisement having implied meaning need special
focus on details to understand. Besides, tongue
twists can be a good exercise for students to notice
subtle difference in various English forms and
pronunciation.

Tongue Twister
How much dew does a dewdrop drop
If dewdrops do drop dew?
They do drop, they do
As do dewdrops drop
If dewdrops do drop dew.
Can you imagine an imaginary menagerie manager
imagining managing an imaginary menagerie?

Successful listening depends on the ability
to combine top-down and bottom-up
processing.
Activities which work separately should
help students to combine top-down and
bottom-up processes to become more
effective listeners in real-life or longer
classroom listening.

Meta cognitive Listening Strategies
In general, metacognition is thinking about thinking.
More specifically, Taylor (1999) defines metacognition
as “an appreciation of what one already knows,
together with a correct apprehension of the learning
task and what knowledge and skills it requires,
combined with the agility to make correct inferences
about how to apply one’s strategic knowledge to a
particular situation, and to do so efficiently and
reliably.”
>>CONDUCT AN ACTIVITY USING THE META COGNITIVE LISTENING STRATEGY
Metacognition is defined as "cognition about cognition", or "knowing about
knowing."[1] It can take many forms; it includes knowledge about when and how to use
particular strategies for learning or for problem solving. There are generally two
components of metacognition: knowledge about cognition, and regulation of cognition.

Used to plan, monitor, and evaluate their
listening.
•They plan deciding which listening strategies
will serve best in particular situation
•They monitor their comprehension and the
effectiveness of the selected strategies

They evaluate by determining
whether they have achieved their
listening comprehension goals and
whether the combination of
listening strategies selected was an
effective one

Actions that the learner deliberately
takes to enhance comprehension and
oversee and regulate the listening
process. They include actions such as:
planning, monitoring, evaluation and
problem solving.
META COGNITIVE LISTENING STRATEGIES

Advanced Organization:
 anticipating to the listening task, predicting,
clarifying objectives for listening
Directed attention:
 deciding to maintain attention to the listening
task, avoiding Distractors.
Selective attention:
 planning to pay attention or language
situational aspects that may facilitate

My Predictions
Vocabulary
 diets
 rules at home
 overweight strict
 meals
 table
 The topic: What may parents do to
prevent their children from gaining

Comprehension monitoring:
 Checking, verifying or correcting one’s
understanding.
Double check monitoring:
 checking one’s understanding during the
second listening or across the task.

Monitoring comprehension
 I have understood
 the stricter parents are at table, the more
likely are to become overweight.
 I need to listen harder
 something about highly demanding that I
couldn’t understand in the first listening.

Performance evaluation:
 judging one’s performance in the execution of
the listening task.
Strategy evaluation:
 evaluating the strategies used and their
effectiveness.

Problem solving:
 Identifying what needs resolution in a
listening task, or an aspect that interferes
with its accomplishment. Then, using a
cognitive strategy to solve the problem.

Tips for Helping our Students Become Active Listeners
Activate your students’ prior knowledge before
any listening activity in order to predict or
anticipate content.
Assess your students' background knowledge on
the topic and linguistic content of the text.

Tips for Helping our Students Become Active Listeners
If students are to complete a written task
during or immediately after listening,
allow them to read through it before
listening.
Use questions to focus students' attention
on the elements of the text crucial to
comprehension of the whole.

Use predicting to encourage students to
monitor their comprehension as they listen
Remind students to review what they are
hearing to see if it makes sense in the
context of their prior knowledge and what
they already know of the topic or events of
the passage.
Use visual aids such as maps, diagrams,
pictures, or the images on the video to help
contextualize the input and provide clues to
meaning. >>NEXT SLIDE-SUMMARY

To sum it up….
The three
strategies for
developing
Listening Skills
Top down -refers to the use of
background knowledge in
understanding the meaning of the
message.
putting a series of pictures or sequence of events
in order.
 Listening to conversation and identify where they
take place
 Reading information about a topic then listening
to find whether or not the same points are
mentioned.
 Inferring the relationship between the people
involved.

To sum it up….
The three strategies for
developing Listening
Skills are:
Bottom up - know about details and
segments. It concentrates on forms and
structure. Thus, this strategy is more
related with academic study. English
learning students use this activity to
enhance their listening ability.
•Dictation and listening tests are included in this.
•In class, ‘fill in the blank/s’ activity can increase
students’ awareness of forms.
•tongue twists can be a good exercise for students to
notice subtle difference in various English forms and
pronunciation.

Strategies for developing listening skills

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