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Learning to listen and listening to learn

This week I want to dig into the purpose of listening in our language lessons, and where that takes us


When I first started teaching, I was using Studio for French and Echo for German (later on I started to teach Spanish too, and worked from Viva). I noticed even in my training year the pattern whereby a set of vocabulary and grammar was the learning outcome for the double page spread. To start with this would be introduced passively - it seemed to alternate between a bit of reading and a bit of listening first, and then the other would come. Then the students would be expected to produce what they had learned. 


It struck me as making perfect sense: the students were very clearly listening to learn whatever the language point(s) were for that particular lesson or series of lessons. 


So one of the key reasons why we listen, then, is to learn. From a language-learning point of view, that might be listening to learn the language, like the example I have just given above. Or, more broadly, it’s listening to learn facts - which is what we see in classrooms all over the country in every subject - the students listen, and then the students learn. That simple, right?! (well, obviously not, but that’s the underlying aim!)


Listening to learn facts

In language lessons there might be two levels of ‘facts’ we’re listening to learn. In the early stages, the ‘facts’ that are being transmitted are likely to be about some random hypothetical person or place - Bruno has a brother and a sister, in my town you can go swimming but you can’t go ice-skating, I like to eat paella but my dad prefers churros. Every now and then there might be an actual fact that’s worth retaining - there is no coastline in Switzerland, Vienna is the capital of Austria, etc.


Listening to learn the language

That means that in early language learning, the facts are really a vehicle to allow us to learn the language. I’ve never actually spoken to anyone who has contributed to a textbook (would love to though! Get in touch!), but I’m assuming the idea goes - here’s a language point (vocab or grammar) we want to embed, so we will create a passage that contains it, and the students will hear it, and hey presto, the students will learn it. We are listening to learn the language. Job done.


Learning to listen

If a student is ‘listening to learn (the language)’ this relies on one great big assumption: that the student can make out what they are listening to. Because if what they hear is a great big mess of ‘obl-obl-obl-haw-hee-haw-hee’ with the occasional cognate thrown in, no amount of playing the track and replaying is going to enable the student to actually learn through listening. 

Because then, there’s another assumption - that the student has already learned to listen, just like that, without much specific or explicit instruction. It’s just - the more listening you do, the better you’ll get at it, and the more meaning you’ll be able to extract from it. Some might, but many will not. And even those who DO manage to muddle through might well do a lot better with some specific instruction. 


I have broken it my thoughts into this diagram.

It basically argues that until you have actually learned to listen, you can’t listen to learn. 


So how then do you teach your students to listen? Classroom ideas

I think there are two key elements to this: motivational, and linguistic.

The motivational

 is about asking your students - what is your experience when you hear all this? The point being, to show them that they are not alone in hearing ‘haw-hee-haw-hee-cinema-haw-hee’. Remember that if listening happens in the mind, not only do you as the teacher have minimal grasp on what’s going on in your students mind UNLESS YOU ASK THEM, but each student also has minimal grasp on what other students might be perceiving. This is vastly different from productive skills, where students can see exactly what their peers are capable of. It’s about sharing that experience so you can build on it and so students don’t come away from the listening section of the lesson saying ‘listening is impossible’ - because there’s an entirely possible subtext here that ‘and everyone else is better than me at it’.

The linguistic

Think of the grammar or vocabulary point that you or the textbook is aiming to teach. Give your students a transcript that allows access to as much as possible. You might even initially give them a full transcript. Then slowly strip out a few words - the ones that are key in the learning outcome for the lesson, perhaps in a gapfill exercise. Do the same gapfill exercise several times with different or increasing numbers of words missing. Listen again and again and again. Not just the twice the textbook will have you do it - you might do it five, six, seven times. You want to show your students that with time and effort the blurred target language can ‘come into focus’ and more sense can be made of it. Some students might be willing, by the end, to listen without the transcript and note how much progress they have made by really careful listening.

I sometimes get students to read the transcript aloud with me too before they listen; this different take on dual coding seems to get them to make better sense of it when they listen back. 

Strategy use / metacognition

There are ongoing debates within language education whether scarce lesson time is better used to teach strategy, or to actually teach the language. Where strategies can boost achievement and, crucially, motivation or self-efficacy (a sense of ‘I can do this’) in listening, this might be a valuable diversion as it begins a virtuous circle. Strategies might be:

  • Keep calm, keep breathing, remember everyone finds this difficult

  • Use context to help me build meaning

  • Use my ‘echo memory’ to note down words in the target language and then think about what they are later when the recording has stopped

Talk to your class about what strategies they might have used to help them understand, too. 


They key message here though is:

Ask your students about their experience of listening. You are an experienced listener of the language you are teaching and it’s hard to remember what it was like not to be able to make things out. Build a classroom environment where students are happy to talk about their challenges and together you can all learn to listen to each other, as well as to the target language. 

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