Developing receptive skills - listening and reading

Listening comprehension encompasses the multiple processes involved in understanding and

making sense of spoken language. These include recognizing speech sounds, understanding
the meaning of individual words, and/or understanding the syntax of sentences in which they
are presented.
When learning to listen, children are actively engaged in constructing meaning and making
sense of what they hear. They need plenty of opportunities (exposure) to listen to language
embedded in engaging and meaningful contexts. Thus they become familiar with the sounds,
rhythm and intonation of English, and can recognise, understand and respond to language
non-verbally before they produce it themselves. When listening, students use not just
language but also their knowledge of the world;,their expectations about the intentions of the
speaker; predictions about what they will listen to. There are different types of listening:
• Listening for gist (general understanding)
• Listening for detail (for specific information)
• Intensive listening – in class, requires focus and work on tasks to find answers or do
follow-up work
• Extensive listening – done at home for pleasure; maximises students’ exposure to the
language and effortless acquisition of vocabulary and structures.
There is also a classification of listening task depending on the listener’s response:
• No overt response: stories, songs, entertainment;
• Short responses: obeying instructions, ticking off items, True/False, detecting mistakes,
cloze,
guessing definitions, skimming and scanning;
• Longer responses: answering questions, notetaking, paraphrasing and translating,
summarizing, long gap-filling;
• Extended responses: problem-solving, interpretation
The whole process of listening comprehension involves three stages – pre- , while- and post
listening.
The strategy includes following pre-listening activities:
• Introduce the topic of the text
• Contextualise the topic, give background information if necessary
• Pre-teach or recycle key vocabulary
• Discuss a visual prop – picture, photo, poster, related to the listening text
• Check students’ predictions; brainstorm ideas
• Give instruction and check if students know what to do
While-listening
• Listen and repeat
• Listen and guess
• Listen and read/ write
• Listen and match
• Listen and respond non-verbally
• Distinguish phonemic pairs and stress patterns
• Highlight forms/ examples
• Tick off multiple-choice items
• Fill gaps or charts
• Find the differences between what you hear and what you read/know
• Draw or colour a picture
• Make notes;
Post-listening
• Listen and decide if the statements are true or false; True/ False or Not Given
• Listen and answer the questions
• Listen and write questions to ask others
• Listen and express an attitude/ opinion
• Listen and draw an illustrtaion
• Listen and choose /write a title
• Listen to the beginning of the story and say/ write what happens next
• Integrate listening with the other skills
What problems encounter learners while listening:
• Chunking or clustering – having to retain longer bits of language in memory;
• Pronunciation – having trouble with accents, sounds, stress and intonation patters;
• Vocabulary – having to understand every word;
• Grammar – understanding fast, natural native speech, reduced forms, contractions;
• Redundancy – re-phrasings, repetitions, false starts, hedges.
• Lack of focused attention and concentration
• Speed of delivery – too fast
• Lack of visual support
• Foreign accent
• Chunking the language
• Recognising words, phrases, contractions and intonation patterns
• Retaining longer bits of language in short-term memory
Listening can support crucial skills necessary for improving reading. There are two key areas
influencing reading level: vocabulary and background knowledge. Students with larger
vocabularies can read and understand more complex texts. And students with background
knowledge of a subject perform better on reading tests than those who encounter the subject
for the first time, even if they are lower level readers.
What is the nature of reading: Reading is a receptive literacy skill based on the automatic
recognition of discourse patterns and features in a a written text. The reader responds to the
context, interacts with the written text, and indirectly, with the writer. In this interaction the
text is analysed at different levels, starting from the smallest units–individual words – to the
text as a whole. What are the main features of the reading task:
• Permanence - the reader can re-read the passage he or she did not understand the first time;
• Processing time - different readers need different amount of time to process the text;
• Distance – physical and temporal;
• Orthography - difficulties due its deep nature;
• Complexity - longer clauses and more subordination than speech;
• Vocabulary - a greater variety than in spoken English;
• Formality - prescribed forms and conformity to conventions.
Types of reading
• Reading for gist (skimming)
• Reading for detail and specific information (scanning)
• Silent reading – done for comprehension; checked with true/false statements or questions;
• Reading aloud – practised for improving pronunciation and for fun;
• Intensive reading – in class, requires focus and work on tasks to find answers or do follow-
up work
• Extensive reading – done at home for pleasure; maximises students’ exposure to the
language and
effortless acquisition of vocabulary and structures.
Difficulties in reading
• Lack of focused attention and concentration
• Inability to read in mother tongue or the official language
• Lack of reading habits
• Deep orthography of the target language
• A lot of unfamiliar words in the text
• Learning disorders such as dyslexia due to problems identifying speech sounds and learning
how they relate to letters and words (decoding).
Pre-reading activities
• introduction or lead-in;
• getting students interested in the topic;
• providing some background (sociocultural) knowledge which is necessary for
comprehending the text;
• asking for predictions, expressing opinions and attitudes, personalisation;
• pre-teaching or revising key vocabulary and structures;
• discussing pictures;
• giving instructions.
While-reading
• fast reading for getting the gist (skimming);
• checking the text against predictions;
• guessing the title;
• putting events in chronological order;
• second reading for details (scanning) and locatingspecific information;
• matching pictures to text(s);
• making notes;
• underlining words or parts of the text which supportanswers to a task;
• arranging paragraphs, etc.
Post-reading
• answering comprehension questions;
• discussion of answers;
• comparing answers to predictions;
• discussion of the content/ meaning of the text;
• True/ False/ Not given;
• writing questions to the text;
• integration of reading with other skills, e.g. writing;
• personalization,
• interactive tasks.
Careful listening and reading are valuable lifelong skills. They help us learn language,
integrate stories from our past, forge human relationships, and succeed in school and the
workplace. Starting from a very early age, listening followed by reading are the key skills in
helping children learn to read and speak the language and become better
readers. Understanding the connection between listening and reading is critical in supporting
literacy.