Effective techniques to motivate students to listen to english (3)

TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION
PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT
I. Motivation in language learning
I.1. Definitions of motivation
I.2. Types of motivation
I.2.1. Extrinsic motivation
I.2.2. Intrinsic motivation
I.2.3. The relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
I.3.The role of motivation in learning listening comprehension
II. Teaching and learning the listening skill
II.1. An overview of listening
II.1.1. Definition
II.1.2. Classification of listening
II.1.3. The importance of listening
II.2. Learner problems in listening comprehension
II.3. Stages of a listening lesson
III. Some effective techniques to motivate students to listen to English
III.1. Improving the teaching process
III.2. Designing suitable tasks
III.3. Developing listening materials
PART THREE: CONCLUSION
REFERENCES
A sample listening lesson

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION
The real need for good communication skills in English has created a huge demand for English
teaching and learning around the world. Millions of people today want to be able to master English to
a high level of accuracy and fluency. For such an important role, teaching and learning English at
upper secondary schools is a necessity.
Language can be recognized as a media of communication, rather than the simple complex of

sound, vocabulary and grammar. English language teaching, therefore, has long been conducted
through reading, listening as receptive skills and speaking, writing as productive skills in
communication. Among all the factors, listening is an essential section of language competence and it
indicates the comprehension of spoken language.

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It is clear that one of the main goals of learning English is to use it effectively in communication.
Listening skill, more or less, is an important that students must acquire in the learning process.
However, listening is considered to be the most challenging one. Most students find it hard to master
this skill and soon feel bored with listening periods. Obviously, nobody except the teacher has the
ability to make the lesson interesting enough to attain the highest result in motivating students in
listening activities. If students are motivated, they will find it easy to listen and therefore they will
probably be successful. In any case, teachers’ job is to do all they can to arouse their students’ interest
and motivation.
All the reasons mentioned above encouraged me to carry out the study “Effective techniques to
motivate students to listen to English”. This study aims at:
• Clarifying the importance of motivation and listening skill in foreign language teaching and
learning
• Offering some suggestions on effective techniques to promote students’ listening ability
Hopefully, my study will be helpful in some way for teachers in their teaching work and it also
helps students improve their own listening skill.

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT
I. Motivation in language learning
I.1. Definitions of motivation
So far, there have been different definitions of motivation contributed by We should first begin
with the definition of Jeremy Harmer. “Motivation is some kind of internal drive that encourages
somebody to pursue a course of action” (1991:3)

Brown H.D defined it as “the extent to which you make choices about goals to pursue and the
effort you will devote to that pursuit” (1994:34)
According to Kenneth D. Moore, motivation can be defined as “ forces or drives that energize and
direct us to act as we do” (1992:172).
The abstract term “motivation” on its own is rather difficult to define, can interpret it in our own
way, but generally, motivation is the energy that directs us toward a given goal. It is easier and more
useful to think terms of the “motivated’ learner: one who is willing or even eager to invest effort in
learning activities and to progress.
Motivation essentially concerns our own accomplishments. We plan for them, work for them and
then achieve them. If we perceive a goal (that is, something we wish to achieve) and if that goal is
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sufficiently attractive, we will be strongly motivated to do whatever necessary to reach that goal.
Goals can be of different types, we can make a useful distinction between short-term goals and
long- term goals. Long-term goals might have something you do with a wish to get a better job at some
future date, or a desire to be able to communicate with members of a target language community.
Short-term might include such things as wanting to pass an end-of-semester test or ting to finish a unit
in a book.
In general, strongly motivated students with long-term goals are probably easier to teach than
those who have no such goals. Hence, it is necessary for teachers to encourage their students to seek
long-term goals in foreign language study.
I.2. Types of motivation
Motivation can be divided into two main categories: extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. The
former concerns with factors outside the classroom and the latter concerns with what takes place inside
the classroom.
I.2.1. Extrinsic motivation
“Extrinsic motivation is that which derives from the influence of some kind of external incentive,
as distinct from the wish to learn for its own sake or interest in tasks ”(Ur, 1996: 227).
As we know, some students study a language because they have an idea of something they wish to

achieve. It has been suggested that there are two major of such motivation called integrative and
instrumental motivation.
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Students of integrative motivation are attracted by the culture of the language community. In
the strong form of this motivation, they wish to integrate themselves into that culture. In the weak
one, they desire to know as possible about that culture. Thus, students try their best to acquire

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language so as to reach the culture's integration or at least thorough understanding.
Instrumental motivation describes a situation in which students believe mastery of the target
language is an instrument to fulfil their personal such as getting a better job or having a higher
position in the society in the future.

Many other factors have an impact upon a student's level of extrinsic motivation and most of these
have to do with his or her attitude to the language. This in turn will be affected by the attitude of those
who have on that student such as the parents, members of the student's community and his or her
previous success or failure as a language learner.
I.2.2. Intrinsic motivation
Intrinsic motivation is associated with those who learn for their own self-perceived needs and
goals (intrinsically motivated learners). In other words, it is what learners bring to the learning
environment, that is, their internal attitudes, values, needs and personality factors.
Ur (1996:280) states “Global intrinsic motivation -the generalized desire effort in the learning for
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its own sake- is largely rooted in the attitudes of the learners: whether they see the learning as
worthwhile, whether they like the language and its cultural, political and ethnic associations.”
While it is reasonable that many adult learners have some degree of extrinsic motivation, and

while it is clear that the attitude of students can be affected by members of their communities, there
can be no doubt that intrinsic motivation plays a vital part in most students’ success or failure as
language learners. Many students bring no extrinsic motivation to the classroom. They even have
negative feelings about language learning. For them what happens in the classroom will be of vital
importance in determining their attitude to the language, and in supplying motivation- a component in
successful language learning.
We can some factors affecting intrinsic motivation such as physical conditions, the teacher’s
methods and success.
• Physical conditions have a great effect on learning and can alter a student's motivation either
positively or negatively. So the teacher should try to make their classroom, as well as the
atmosphere, as pleasant as possible.
• The method by which students are taught also affects their motivation. If students lose
confidence in the method, they will find it boring and become passive recipients.
• Success or lack of it is important in the motivational drive of a student. Both complete failure
and complete success may be de-motivating. To assure the success of learning tasks, much of
teacher's work in the classroom should be given the level of challenge right.
I.2.3. The relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
Extrinsic motivation originates from external factors whereas intrinsic one roots from internal
factors. However, they are interrelated. Both of them have an important part to play in classroom
motivation

There is a fact that intrinsic motivation is more stable than extrinsic motivation. Therefore, intrinsic
motives are rarely changed and when a change does occur, it usually occurs slowly while
encouragement of students' intrinsic desire is every teacher's ultimate goal. Moreover, external
incentives are effective means to push intrinsic forward, or we can say that rewards students to learn

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better. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations can be as two parallel processes but integrate with each other

to make the approach to the target language more rapid and more efficient.
II. Teaching and learning the listening skill
A glance through the past century or so of language teaching will give an interesting picture of
how varied approaches and methods applied in language teaching are. New methods have appeared,
developed and replaced the previous ones for the only purpose: to find out the best way to teach a
foreign language. Obviously, using a language well is not a simple question of grammar but overall
appropriateness and acceptability. Thus, what is going to be presented in this paper is in the light of the
communicative approach.
II.1. An overview of listening
II.1.1. Definition
It seems to be difficult to define what listening is. Through years, various definitions of listening
have been proposed. Listening is more than merely hearing words. It is claimed to be a complex and
active process.
Howatt and Dakin (1974) define listening as the ability to identify and understand what others are
saying. This involves understanding a speaker’s accent or pronunciation, his grammar and vocabulary,
and grasping his meaning. An able listener is capable of doing these four things simultaneously.
Besides, according to Rost (1991), listening comprises some component skills such as
discriminating between sounds, recognizing words, identifying grammatical groupings of words,
identifying expressions and sets of utterances that act to create meaning, connecting linguistic cues to
non-linguistic and paralinguistic cues, using background knowledge to predict and later to confirm
meaning and recalling important words and ideas.
II.1.2. Classification of listening
According to Ur (1996: 105), listening can be divided into real-life listening and classroom
listening. Many learners of English find themselves in a variety of situations where they need or want
to listen to English being used in real - life for different purposes. There is, however, a big gap
between listening activities in the classroom and actual listening situations in real life. This is because
listening materials which learners usually listen to (dialogues or conversations for example) are very
grammatical and controlled in so many ways as the speakers often speak at perfectly controlled speed,
with perfect voice tone, accent and correct grammar. Whereas, in real - life conversations, different
people speak with different accents, speed and voice tones without or less paying attention to

grammar.

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♦ Real-life listening
In real life, there are two ways in which we often listen:
 Casual listening
Sometimes, we listen with no particular purpose in mind, often without much concentration.
Usually, we do not listen very closely, unless we hear something that particularly interests us, and
afterwards, we may not remember much of what we hear, for example, listening to the radio while
chatting to a friend.
 Focused listening
Sometimes, we listen for a particular purpose to find out information we need to know or to study
the language. In this situation, we listen much more closely, trying to get the content as much as we
can, for example, listening to your friend explaining how to use a new cassette player.

♦ Classroom listening
Listening in the classroom may be divided into intensive listening and extensive listening.
 Intensive listening
Intensive listening is the careful, focused listening to a short passage for full, detailed
comprehension, for example, listening to a dialogue on the tape to study its structures,
intonation patterns in an English class.
In the classroom context, there are two possible types of intensive listening exercises:
1. Exercises focusing on detailed comprehension of meaning:
This can be done through
+ Comprehension questions which may be:
- Factual (where the answer is clearly stated somewhere in the passage)
- Inferential (where the learner has to make some sort of connection for himself)
- Personal (where the question is related to the learner's own experience or opinion)

+ Summary questions (where the learner listens to a passage and has to summarize it)
+ Logical problems
2. Intensive listening for language
Teachers often do more detailed work on language once the learners can understand what they are
listening to.
 Extensive listening
Extensive listening is the freer, more general listening to natural language for a general idea, not
for a particular detail and not necessarily under the teacher's direct guidance. With this type of
listening, the learner is not reinforcing a structure or practicing a grammar point linked to the rest of
the course. Extensive exercises are those where the learner is primarily concerned with following a
story, or finding something out from the passage he is listening to.
In summary, to a large extent, however, the division between intensive and extensive listening is
somewhat artificial. Listening does not lend itself neatly to this type of classification in the way that
reading does. It is perfectly easy to use the same listening passage for both extensive and intensive
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listening.
II.1.3. The importance of listening
It is now widely accepted that oral communication cannot take place without listening and listening
plays a central and possibly predominant part in the whole process of language learning.
As mentioned before, listening is an important, active skill of spoken language as it involves
various kinds of the listener’s knowledge: knowledge of phonology, vocabulary, semantics of the
language in use, culture of its people, his life experience in the topic, his ability to predict and respond,
etc. It decides his comprehension, content and attitude in response to the speaker’s speech as well.
In learning English as a foreign language, the learner cannot develop speaking skill unless he
develops listening skill. To have a successful conversation, he must understand what is said to him.
Later on, the ability to understand the native speaker in direct conversations, on the radio or tape may
be very important for him to further study the language and communicate in it.
Besides, listening to spoken English is an important way of acquiring the language – of “picking

up” structures, vocabulary. In the Vietnamese situation where the learners do not have a chance to hear
English spoken around them every day and cannot acquire it easily the teacher needs to give them as
much opportunity to listen to spoken English on tape as possible.
To conclude, listening provides a foundation for all aspects of language and cognitive
development. It can be said to be not only the end but also the means of teaching, learning languages
in general and English in particular.
II.2. Learner problems in listening comprehension
It can’t be denied that listening is considered to be the most difficult among the four skills. Many
learners have difficulties with different aspects of listening comprehension. These difficulties are
closely associated with the characteristics of spoken language.
Underwood (1990) identifies seven potential problems learners often encounter in their learning
listening.
• Inability to control the speed of the speaker: Many students of English cannot keep up with the
speed at which a speaker speaks. They feel that the utterances disappear before they can elicit
the information, while in a written text, in reading comprehension for example, words remain
on the page and they can look back or reexamine them thoroughly. They often try to
understand everything they hear. When they fail in sorting out the meaning of one part, the
following will be missed. This can lead to the ignorance of the whole chunk of discourse.
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Obviously they fail to listen.
Inability to get things repeated: Another difficulty connected with controlling the "input" (what
the speaker says) is that the leaner is not always in a position to get the speaker to repeat an

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utterance.
Vocabulary limitation: Listeners have to try their best to follow the speakers and sometimes to
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guess the meaning of a word or phrase from its content. Native listeners can guess the meaning
with the help of context clues, but for foreign language learners, a new word can be a barrier
which makes them stop and think about the meaning of the word and thus makes them miss the
next part of speech. The problems often occurs when learners have been taught English with
more emphasis on accuracy than on fluency, more stress on the forms of language than its
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functions.
Failure to recognize the signals: To move from one point to another, or give an example, or
repeat a point, speakers use many different signals. For foreign listening, these signals can
easily be missed. In order to be able to connect the various utterances and ideas in the way the
speakers intended them to be connected, students need to be taught to listen to these signals.
For example, in a formal situation, when giving a new point the speakers can use expression
like "Secondly... or then...", or they may pause or increase loudness, make use of a different

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intonation...
Problems of interpretation: Problems of interpretation can also hinder communication.
Students who are unfamiliar with the context may have difficulty in interpreting the words they
hear. And the listeners from other cultures can easily misinterpret the meaning of non-verbal

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clues-facial expressions, nods, gestures, tone of voice...
Inability to concentrate: Even the shortest break in listening can seriously affect
comprehension. Therefore, lack of concentration is a major problem. Students will concentrate
easily if they find the topic interesting or familiar. But if they make enormous effort to follow
what they hear word by word, the listening work will be tiring. Such factors as equipment,

poor recording, unacoustically suitable rooms for the use of recorded material can also make

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concentration difficult
Establish learning habits: Teachers often teach students to understand everything in the
English lesson by repeating and pronouncing words carefully. Students can form the habit of
listening word by word from this teaching method of teachers. So when they fail to understand
a particular word or phrase, they will be worried and become discouraged by their lack of
success. This habit will cause a lot of difficulties when the learners deal with real-life listening
situations.

II.3. Stages of a listening lesson
Normally language teachers often facilitate the development of listening skill by creating listening
lessons that guide learners through three stages: pre-listening, while-listening and post-listening.
II.3.1. Pre-listening stage

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It is widely accepted that this stage is conducted before learners listen to the text. The prelistening phase is a kind of preparatory work which ought to make the context explicit, clarify
purposes and establish roles, procedures and goals for listening” (Rost,1991:232). Thus its main aim is
to contextualize the listening text, providing any information needed to help learners appreciate the
setting and the role relationships between participants.
Agreeing with that Hedge, T (2000:249) points out “at this stage the teacher will need to decide
what kind of listening purpose is appropriate to the text. The learners will need to “tune in” to the
context and the topic of the text, perhaps express attitudes towards that topic, certainly bring to the
front of their minds anything that they already know about the topic and most probably hear and use
some of the less familiar language in the text which would otherwise distract or create anxiety during
listening”.

II.3.2. While-listening stage
While-listening activities can be shortly defined as all tasks that students are asked to do during
the time of listening to the text. The nature of these activities is to help learners to listen for meaning
that is to elicit a message from spoken language. Rixon (1986:70-1) points out that, at the whilelistening stage students should not worry about interpreting long questions or giving full answers, but
they should concentrate on comprehension, whether they have understood important information from
the passage.
The work at the while-listening stage needs to link in relevant ways to the pre-listening work.
While they listen, learners will need to be involved in an authentic purpose for listening and
encouraged to attend to the next more intensively or more extensively, for gist or for specific
information. (Hedge, T. 2000:252)
II.3.3. Post-listening stage
This is the last stage of a lesson so it is for student’s production. Post-listening activities allow the
learners to ‘reflect’ on the language from the passage; on sound, grammar and vocabulary as they last
longer than while-listening activities so the students have time to think, discuss or write. (Rixon
1986:64-97).
Activities for this stage are aimed at helping learners to use what they have learnt from the
listening text. Therefore teachers should create and vary the activities for learners to do depending on
their level of English. Hedge, T (2000:252) emphasizes that the work at this stage can also usefully
involve integration with other skills through development of the topic into reading, speaking and
writing activities.
III. Some effective techniques to motivate students to listen to English
Success in English teaching and learning comes easily if teachers can use motivational strategies
effectively and arouse interest in learning the subject. In learning English, listening skill is very
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important, therefore, it is worth seeking techniques to make the teaching and learning the listening skill
successful.
III.1. Improving the teaching process
III.1.1 Techniques for pre-listening

It is commonly recognized that pre-listening is a preparation of the listening class. In this stage,
teachers tend to arouse learners’ expectation and interest of the language text they are going to listen.
For teachers, when planning lessons, time must be allocated for pre-listening activities and these
activities should not be rushed. The techniques before listening are varied and depend on a number of
factors: time, material, the ability of the class, the interest of the class, the nature and content of the
listening text itself, etc. It is, therefore, of great importance to let students know what to expect for the
tasks before listening. The techniques used at this stage are:
•
•
•
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Using visual aids / games to introduce the topic of the text
Giving background information
Using pre-listening questions
Pre-teaching new vocabulary in the listening text

• Giving listening tasks
In general, pre-listening plays a role of warming-up and the main aim of this stage is to make
learners focus their attention on the following while-listening stage and decrease the difficulties of the
text. It is more important in its relating to and being of help to many other aspects which will be
represented later.
III.1.2 Techniques for while-listening
While-listening is the main procedure of listening information input. In this stage, learners are
given some audio materials for listening. Learners may be requested to deal with some questions with
the listening materials, such as:











Multiple choice
True/false statements
Comprehension questions
Gap-filling
Information transfer
Differences or mistake detection
Pictures or statements sequencing
Matching
Note taking

Usually learners need to answer the questions simultaneously or take note of some main points of
the listening materials. Teachers, as a guide during this process take control of the speed of the
materials, start or pause of the machine and raise some questions for discussions or give necessary
explanations to help the learner comprehend the materials. Depending on the learners’ language level
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and the difficulty level of the materials, teachers can decide the times of presenting the listening
materials. The purpose of while-listening is to provide the learners with audio material input with
exercises and therefore promote the learners’ listening competence.
Giving feedback is an essential step in while-listening stage as it helps the teacher to see how well
his students have done the tasks. This will help students to assess their ability, recognize their strong
points and weak points and to find out the reason why they have not perform the tasks well so that
they will make an effort and get better results in the next listening lessons.

The fact is that most of the teacher’s work related to a listening lesson has been done in prelistening stage. During the lesson, the teacher should exceed his role of supervising, and only give help
to the students when really necessary. The teacher’s mission is to create and maintain an encouraging
atmosphere in class.
III.1.3. Techniques for post-listening
Post-listening is also an important stage as it reviews and checks the listening efficiency and result.
During this stage, teachers are not only supposed to check the answers, they also need to lead the
learners to consolidate the comprehension of the listening input. Apart from the techniques for pre and
while listening stages, techniques for post - listening is very necessary and important.
• Organizing further discussions on the listening text
• Summing up appeared language rules and designing some related exercises
• Role-play or simulation
• Summarizing the listening text
Obviously, learners have received many comprehensible input through the first two stages, thus, the
purpose of post-listening is to transfer these input into intake. In other words, the stage of postlistening can be considered as a transformation of language knowledge to language competence in
listening teaching section.
III.2. Designing suitable tasks
No single textbook is completely suitable for any specific class. One of the teacher’s roles is to
make it more appropriate and relevant to students’ background, levels, and interests. This can be done
by simply changing the order of some parts of the tasks, or by getting rid of some exercises or tasks
and adding others. Therefore, designing and assigning listening tasks is necessary. The tasks not only
provide students with opportunities to use the target language, but they also cover a satisfactory range
of language items and skills for students.
A task is an activity which requires learners to use language, with emphasis on meaning, to attain
an objective. It involves communicative language use in which the user's attention is focused on
meaning rather than grammatical form. A task is goal-oriented, meaning-focused first and formfocused then, contextualized. Upon designing listening tasks for the students, it is a good idea to
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remember that a language recognition task is easier for students than a language production one.
What’s more, information that the students need to listen should not be too close to each other so that

the students have enough time to complete parts of the tasks and not to miss any important part of the
listening text.
Students can easily be demotivated when faced by tasks that are very challenging, particularly the
first few times, but if you show them that you will gradually lead them to an understanding of the text,
they will gradually start to relax more about dealing with more difficult texts. And once you have
shown them a few times that they can gradually understand a challenging text, then, in the long run
they will develop a much greater sense of achievement and experience far less stress when dealing
with challenging situations in the real world.
To sum up, it is not easy for every teacher of English to make changes in order to bring about
effective teaching and learning English. The work does take time and efforts from all teachers. In order
to obtain the goal, teachers must be flexible and adaptive so as to respond to the requirements of the
new teaching circumstance.
III.3. Developing listening materials
Supplementary materials play a very important role in the process of teaching and learning
English in general, and in teaching and learning the listening skill in particular. They show their great
importance when the core textbook cannot meet the requirements of the course. Therefore, except for
listening materials in the textbooks, students have chances to listen to the supplementary listening
materials taken from different sources. When selecting materials, teachers should consider the
following criteria:
• Topic
The topics of the listening text are important as they will involve students and make students
want to listen. Thus, the content of the reading texts must be accessible to the students and suitable for
their interests. If students have to do the same kind of work again and again, they may get bored .The
topics should be various, familiar and related to everyday life; therefore, it can help the teacher
motivate the students to develop their listening skill as well as expose them to valuable extra contact
with spoken language.
•

Language
Using listening texts of the right level will not only develop students’ listening skill but also

contribute to students’ overall language learning. The language used in the listening texts should also
be within the students' current ability so that students find it interesting when listening. Moreover, it is
also good for students to be faced with language that they should be capable of understanding
although it is slightly above their current level of use.
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•

Length
The length of the listening text should be taken into consideration. There is no doubt that it is

difficult for high school students to listen attentively for a too long text, whereas, teachers will not
motivate students if the text is too short. Thus, the teacher had better select a listening text of suitable
length so that learners can have chances to get to grips with the content, have several tries at difficult
parts and to be fitted within the time allowed for a lesson.
Failure can easily and rapidly lead to de-motivation. The level of difficulty can be adjusted by
giving support (which can be done at the pre-listening stage). It is advisable to provide while-listening
activities which are a challenge for the more advanced students, but not discouraging those who only
gain little success.
In short, to ensure the success of the teacher in activating his students and improving their
listening skill, teachers have to note the importance of finding well-recorded material of the right
length, with interesting content, and with suitable level.

PART THREE: CONCLUSION
1. Summary
Over the past few years, the process of English teaching and learning has experienced a lot of
changes. Instead of emphasizing much on ‘linguistic competence’, teachers and students have paid
their attention to ‘communicative competence’. Nowadays, both teachers and students of English are

aware of the importance of English in general and listening skill in particular. So the teachers of
English have an important role in finding out the ways to make their speaking lessons more interesting
and more attractive. How to motivate students in learning to listen to English, which is often
considered difficult, has become my great concern.
As I have done so far, theoretical background about motivation and listening skill has been
mentioned briefly. The study also includes some suggestive techniques to improve students’ listening
skill. It is essential for teachers to help their students to become efficient listeners. The teachers have
to adjust the time and efforts to manage the class and make their students involve in the listening
lesson by varying teaching strategies in three stages of a listening lesson and designing suitable tasks.
Finally, along with the listening lessons in the textbooks, supplementary listening materials should be
carefully selected and provided.
In conclusion, teaching listening is not a simple task, but it can be quite rewarding if we find ways
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to help our students improve their listening ability and make progress. In some ways, we are helping
them cope with vocabulary and grammar, as we do in other subjects, but there are also many unique
aspects of the listening process that we can help them grasp. When our students understand how to
listen and what to listen to, the foundation for improvement in their listening skill will be set. Our own
ability to teach listening will also be improved as we work to better grasp the strategies and skills our
students need.
2. Implications
To take advantage of teaching and learning listening in the new textbook and its underlying
communicative methodology more effectively, greater efforts should be made on the part of the
teachers, the students, the educational authorities and the whole society in general. Hence, I have some
recommendations as follows:
 Getting students to listen to spoken English is to let them hear different accents and varieties
apart from their teacher and that way better prepare them for real world listening. Encouraging
students to participate in English-speaking clubs, communicate with native speakers to practise
listening and speaking skills.

 Providing professional support for teachers. They should be introduced to new skills and
classroom techniques related to the new methodology such as presentation of new language,
listening activities appropriate to a certain group of students, pair work or group work, and
teaching aids in teaching listening.
 A lack of assessment in listening skill may be an important issue that reduces students’ motivation in
listening. Teachers should mark students’ good performance in the listening process to stimulate them. In
other words, the standardized tests, including progressive and achievement examinations, included
in the school curriculum to stimulate students’ instrumental motivation. To some extent, it forces
teachers’ responsibility for planning and teaching listening skill more carefully and
appropriately.
It is hoped that my findings in this study will be some sort of supplementary information from
theory to practical application for teachers interested in the topic. In any research, mistakes are
unavoidable so all the constructive remarks and suggestions on this study will be highly appreciated.

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Press.
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and S. P. Corder
5. Moore, K.D. (1992). Classroom Teaching Skills. NewYork: Mc.Graw - Hill, Inc.
6. Rixon, S. (1986). Developing listening skills. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
7. Rost, M. (1991). Listening in Action. Activities for developing listening in language teaching.
Hertfordshire, UK: Prentice Hall International Ltd.
8. Underwood, M. (1990). Teaching listening. Longman, New York.

9. Ur, P. (1996). A Course in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

A sample listening lesson
15


UNIT 5: TECHNOLOGY ( grade 10 Intensive)
I.
II.
-

III.
IV.
Time
7’

Period 4: Listening
Aim: listen to the operations of a technical device: a digital camera.
Objectives: By the end of the lesson, Ss will be able to:
Know how to use a digital camera.
Improve listening skill through different tasks and related vocabulary
Materials: Textbook, cassette, a real digital camera
Procedure
Stages and Content
I. Warm up:
Look at the pictures and give the names of the
devices

T’s activities

Ss’ activities

- Show pictures on -Answer:
1.
the screen and ask
2.
questions:
………
What are they ?

-Sts:
- Focus on the digital To record data

Modern
devices

and images
To take photos

camera
What’s it used for?

- Discuss
- Gather ideas
and introduce

Discuss the questions:
- How often do you take photos? On which occasions?
- Have you ever used a digital camera?
-Have you ever had your photos taken by a digital camera?

10’

7’

Unit 5: Technology
(Listening)
II. Pre-listening:
* Teaching vocabulary
+ Vocabulary :
- power button ['pauə 'bʌtn] (n)
- lens
[lenz] (n)
- zoom button
[zu:m 'bʌtn ] (n)
- shutter button ['∫ʌtə(r)](n)
- LCD screen
[skri:n]( n)
- mode dial
[məud daiəl](n)
Give some practice on pronunciation.
* Checking vocabulary:
Label parts of a digital camera

the

listening.

- Listen and
Elicit meaning from take part

SS
or
give presenting

in

vocabulary
explanations
picture
picture+ explanation - Copy down.
picture
picture
picture+ explanation
picture+ explanation
-

Check

Practise

-

(whole

class

and individual
III. While listening:

work )

+ TASK 1: Ordering
Set the scene:
Lisa is asking John how to use a digital camera.
16

- Tell Ss to study the

-

Study

the


Listen to the conversation and choose the right

pictures carefully

steps (A, B, C or D) John suggests

and have a guess of
the order of the

pictures
-

State

their

ideas.

steps.
- Give explanation
for each picture if
necessary
- Listen and
Picture a: hold camera firmly, position the dog in LCD

8’

screen, press zoom button.
Picture b: press shutter button fully down, hear click sound,
image has been recorded
Picture c: select automatic mode, turn power button on
Picture d: press shutter button half way down, hear beep
sound .

their answers with a
friend.

take notes
- Listen.
- Discuss the
answers.
- Take notes

- Call on some Ss to
give their answers in

front of the class.
- Check the answers

Give correct answers:
l. c 2.a 3.d 4.b

- Do the task
- Listen

+ TASK 2: Answering questions
Listen again and answer the questions.
1. Who gave Lisa the digital camera?
2. Whose photos do Lisa and John want to take?
3. What does John advise Lisa to do before pressing

10’

-Play the tape
- Ask Ss to compare

- Ask Ss to listen to - Write down
the tape again
the answers
- Encourage Ss to
Take
write the answers -

the zoom button?
quickly
while part in the

4. What sound does Lisa hear when the images is
game
listening to the tape
recorded?
-Take notes
Checking : Game “ Lucky stars”
-Divide the class
into 2 groups :A & B
Give correct answers:
1. Her father.
2. A dog.
3. John advises Lisa to hold the camera
firmly with both hands and position the

3’

dog in LCD screen.
4. The sound click is heard.

- Make necessary
corrections.

-Discuss in
pairs
- Make a mini
talk on the

IV. Post-listening :
17

Mini Presentation

- Go around the class

topic in front

Ask Ss to work in pairs and look at the pictures

and provide help

of the class.

again to tell their partner how to take photos.

when necessary.
- Call on some Ss to

Notes: When giving instructions, you ...
• use imperative form
• use chronological connectors
• ……………………………..

speak

Give suggested answers:

pronunciation

-Make

necessary

corrections regarding
intonation.

V. Homework:

- Summarize the main points.
- Assign homework.

18

and