Teaching listening to young learners

Teaching Listening to Young Learners Gita Rahmi

Materials for Presentation A. Introduction B. Teaching Listening to Young Learners 1. Concept of Teaching Listening to Young Learners 2. Difficulty of Listening 3. Materials for Listening Activity 4. Techniques and Strategies of Teaching Listening to Young Learners C. Synthesis and Comments D. Conclusion

Three people were on a train in England. As they approached what appeared to be Wemberly Station, one of the travelers said, ”Is this Wemberly?” “No,” Replied a second passenger,” it’s Thursday.” Whereupon the third person remarked, ‘Oh, I am too; let’s have a drink!” (Brown, 2001: 247)

Introduction • Teaching listening is very important because listening is considered as the foundation skill for other skills (Linse, 2005: 22) “You need to hear a word before you can say it You need to say a word before you can read it You need to read a word before you can write it”

Teaching Listening to Young Learners Concept of Teaching Listening to Young Learners • Listening and speaking are both active uses of language. Listening is said as active uses of language to access and get other people’s meaning. Speaking is said as active use of language to express meaning. • Listening is also said as receptive skill and as input. (Cameron, 2001: 40, Linse, 2005: 24, Harmer, 2007: 266)

• Listening is the first stage in human development of communication. • Listening is the main channel to let children interact with other languages and cultures. • Listening can be developed both at school and at home through tapes, videos, computer software, and online materials. • Listening is the foundation for development of other skills. Listening helps children get ready to read as in table below. (Curtain&Pesola, 1988: 125, Paul, 2003:71 and Linse, 2005:25)

Skill

How it Prepares for Reading

Listens to and follows instructions such as take out your pencil and your green activity book.

Prepares children for a variety of academic tasks

Can follow an oral sequence of events such as Lucy went to the refrigerator and took out some milk.

Prepares children to comprehend stories

Can listen attentively to stories.

Prepares children to comprehend stories

Can comprehend a story that has been read and/or told.

Prepares children to comprehend stories

Can discriminate between sound such as /b/ and /p/

Prepares children to decode words/ helps to prepare children for phonics instruction

Can identify rhyming sounds.

Prepares children to decode words/ helps to prepare children for phonics instruction

Can segment (or separate) words into syllables such as ap-ple or din-ner.

Prepares children to decode words/ Helps to prepare children for phonics instruction

Language learning process The process of language learning depends on the situation or condition of children. It can be: • Children listen, notice the patterns, and try to use the patterns. • Children read the words and sentences, sound them out, and may (not) hear them afterwards. Paul, 2003:72

Difficulties of Listening Brown (2001: 252-254) declares the factors are: • Clustering • Redundancy • Reduced forms • Performance variables • Colloquial language • Rate of delivery • Stress, rhythm, and intonation • Interaction Pinter (2009: 45-46) states: • The type and the length of the text the children listen to. • The familiarity of the person they are listening to.

Solution • Bottom –up processing • Top-down processing (Pinter, 2009)

Materials for Listening Activity • Extensive Listening Materials. Materials from outside classroom, like materials in children’s home, MP3 Players on the car, audio version, cassette, CD, copies of course book CDs or tapes, recordings, podcast, broadcast online and video on YouTube. • Intensive Listening Materials. Materials used in the classroom, like audio material on tape, CD or hard disk. (Harmer, 2007)

Techniques and Strategies of Teaching Listening to Young Learners

• Total Physical Response (TPR) TPR is a systematized approach to the use of commands and an effective means for teaching foreign language to children and adult. E.g., 1.Commands involving the entire body, large motor skills. For example, point to your ear, clap your hands and shake the teacher’s hand. 2.Commands involving interaction with concrete materials and manipulative, beginning with classroom objects, like pick up your green crayon and lay it under your chair. 3.Commands relating to pictures, maps, numbers, and other indirect materials, like go to the wall chart and point to a food from the fruit and vegetables group.

Positive Aspects of TPR • It uses the auditory, visual and tactile learning channels. Learners can listen and watch the commands given and then they can do the commands by themselves. • It helps to teach children to follow direction and listen attentively. • Children can start speaking when they feel ready. • This method can easily be adapted in many different ways for young learners. • It can be done through songs, finger plays, and story telling (check the examples in video)

• • • • • • • • •

Gouin Series Audio –Motor Unit The Natural Approach Descriptions Demonstrations Telling or Reading a Story Dictation Bottom-up exercise Top-Down Exercise

Some activities related to story that can be done: • The children draw characters or scenes from the story. • Teacher tells story with puppets using direct speech and the children retell the story with their own puppets. • The children arrange the pictures of scenes in the story and put it in the correct order. • Each child has their own word cards and they must do something when their words are mentioned. • If the children know the story in their own native language, teacher can ask them to say what English word appear in the story. • Teacher can stop the story and ask the children to guess what is going to happen next.

Other activities in Listening Class: 1. Listening and Doing • Listen and identify • Bingo • Listen and take away • Find the odd one out • Listen and put 2. Listening and saying • Listen and choose • Listen and short • Tennis game • Guess my animal –actions (Cameron, 2001: 62-66)

Conclusion • Listening is very significant and necessary skill. • Listening is basic skill for learning other skills • Teaching listening to young learners can be done through several techniques and strategies.

Bibliography Brown, H.D. 2001. Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy (2nd ed). New York: Pearson Education. Cameron, L. 2001. Teaching Languages to Young Learners. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. Curtain, H.A., & Pesola, C.A. 1988. Languages and Children Making the Match. Foreign Language Instruction in the Elementary School. United States: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. Harmer, J. 2007. The practice of English Language Teaching th (4 ed). Malaysia: Pearson Education. Linse, C. T. 2005. Practical English language Teaching : Young Learners. New York: McGraw-Hill ESL/ELT. Paul, D. 2003. Teaching English to Children in Asia. Hongkong: Longman asia ELT. Pinter, A. 2009. Teaching Young Language Learners. China: Oxford University Press.

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