Prácticas de comprensión en la enseñanza del inglés en el Nivel Primario

Lesson 2: Teaching listening

Introduction

In the previous lesson, we focussed on the characteristics of young learners and on language as a
social practice. In this lesson, we are going to see how these topics have a direct bearing on
listening. We will also deal with how we can offer instances of meaningful listening tasks to young
learners in the primary school.

Objectives:

● Understand primary school children’s listening processes and strategies

when they learn a second language.
● Evaluate and modify teaching materials to work on listening.

Listening and the context

It is important to remember that language is always used in a specific context, not in a context
meaning any context, and that participants interact and construct meanings together, even though
there may be no linguistic performance on the part of the listeners. Of similar importance is the
fact that listening requires understanding, otherwise it is an instance of hearing. Let’s compare two
examples.

Reflection 1:

Read these two situations. In which of the two is there interaction and construction of
meaning?

Situation 1
A teacher shows a pencil and tells his students, “This is a pencil.”

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 Situation 2
A teacher shows a pencil, a pen and an eraser. Using gestures, she shows her
students they have to close their eyes. She puts the pencil in a box and hides
the other two. Once the children open their eyes, she shakes the box and says,

agreement or disagreement using gestures. 👍👎

“This is a pencil.” She invites children to nod or shake their head, or to show

what’s inside and says naturally, “Yes, this is a pencil.”

She opens the box, shows

Most probably, you have chosen the second situation. In the first one, most students will
understand the concept of pencil. If we consider that language is a social practice which entails
interaction, we can see there is none. In what contexts would this situation be meaningful? As we
showed in Lesson 1, we understand what somebody is saying, but not why that person is saying it.
We can see interaction in the second situation. There’s a reason why the teacher is saying “This is a
pencil” since she had put one of the elements in the box. Students are involved in the situation.

The second situation is an instance of a discourse event, whereas the first one is a sentence. It is
necessary to remember that in society we interact by using texts, not sentences. Listening is
developed by means of discursive events.

What is the process of listening?

We can read some definitions by specialists in teaching English to young learners. Shin and
Crandall state that “the process of listening is active. The listener must interact with what is heard
and interpret the message accurately in order to make sense of it” (2014, p. 110). Kirkgöz says
that “it is the process of interpreting messages by using context and one’s knowledge of language
and the world” (2019, p. 171). Pinter asserts that “learners are not yet able to analyse and
manipulate language in an abstract way. They are learning by understanding meaningful
messages” (2017, p. 167). What is common to these definitions of listening is that there is
interpretation on the part of the listeners, and that the messages have to be meaningful to the

learners. The context, therefore, is of crucial importance.

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 Reflection 2:

Consider your learners’ lives. What instances of listening do they take part in on a daily
basis, at school, at home and in other contexts. How can we tell if they have
understood?

Most probably, some of the examples you have thought about are in our selection, which is not
exhaustive. Some listening situations:

● Greetings

● Instructions and directions

● Rules

● Invitations

● Requests

● Complaints

● Stories and anecdotes

● Problems to solve

● Explanations

● Excuses

How can we tell if they have understood? In all these situations, the listener responds. This
response may be physical or verbal. Whenever we say something, we check if our interlocutor has
understood. We focus on different signals, such as body language, gestures, actions carried out as
a result of listening, verbal responses, to name but a few. The most important part of listening is to
check if the listener has understood. We do not consider this is a situation to use language
correctly or an instance of language production. We should replicate this when we teach listening.

How are these principles translated to teaching listening?

First and foremost, we should remember that listening has to be contextualised and meaningful.

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When we talk about contextualization, we mean it should refer to a context our students are
familiar with. Whenever we listen, we do so with a purpose and have expectations as to the
content, based on our knowledge of the context and the world. That’s why it is absolutely
necessary to consider the contexts our learners are familiar with, and not to think about imaginary
situations which may be totally alien to our students.

Listening involves constructing meanings. This means we have to help our students understand
what we say. How can we do so? By using gestures, body language, making reference to what our
students know. Learners are involved in a cognitive process in which they look for clues in the
context and in the oral text, and this is how they construct meanings. If we translate, there is no
need for learners to look for clues and make connections. Therefore, their learning is stopped.

To check understanding, we need to design some sort of response. The most frequent activities to
check listening, which we may find in teaching materials, are those in which learners have to
number, point, show, match, circle, do TPR (total physical response), among other options. The
listening texts for these activities tend to be short since children need time to do the activity. In
general, they are related with lexical areas or short communicative situations – e.g. greetings or
classroom instructions. How can we go about listening when the texts are longer? As indicated
before, we always have ideas which aid understanding. What we have to do in class is, precisely,
help students make predictions based on clues in the context. This context may be represented
with a picture that clearly shows the situation. If there is no image, we should introduce some
clues so that students can make predictions related to the text as a whole.

Reflection 3:

PublicDomainPictures.net

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 Take a look at this picture. What situation does it represent? What interactions can you
think of?

You may have thought in a greeting situation – either saying hello or goodbye. Most probably,
language is informal, both participants know each other and are relatives. This is a prediction.
From this analysis, we can make a second prediction thinking that we may hear words such as
Hello or Goodbye. In a classroom situation, once you have helped the children analyse the
situation and make predictions, we listen to check if the predictions are right or if we need to
modify them. When working with young children, it is common for them to think it is a mistake if
their predictions were wrong. We need to help them realise that comprehending a prediction is
wrong means you have understood the text, which is the important thing. This is not about
winning or losing, getting it right or not. As children develop their listening skills, their predictions
will be more accurate.

Listening and tasks

The first time students listen to a text, the task should be global. What do we mean by this? That
students have to check something general with respect to the oral text as opposed to identifying
specific information or extracting it. Most learners will be able to solve this first task, which is
motivating to everybody. For the second time they listen to the same text, we should design
another task. This time, it may be an instance of recognition or identification, which is less
demanding than extracting specific information. This task of extracting specific information can be
assigned to the third time they listen. Once they have listened to the text three times, it is easier to
identify details and extract information. Moreover, as learners have been presented with different
tasks, they will not have this idea that they had to listen several times to solve the task because
they could not understand. It is quite rare to find different tasks for the same oral text in
commercial materials and materials online. Therefore, we need to design them.

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Reflection 4:

Transcript:
Hi, Mum. We’re in the park. We’re having a picnic. Frank and Bobby are eating now.
Brenda’s reading with her friends and Firulais is playing with a ball. Please, come!

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Let’s analyse this activity considering what we have been discussing.

It is a voice message, which is a type of text of social use. Its length is OK for young learners. The
first activity helps students make predictions related to the content of the text. It requires global
listening. Students are given options, which provides the scaffolding they need. The second activity
requires a more detailed listening and again, students are given options in the form of images.

Based on this analysis, we can conclude that this is a good listening activity for young learners.

ESL Game: Listen Carefully

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SejE7LdWDAQ&t=4s

After you have watched the video, analyse the activity proposed in it.

Is this a meaningful activity?

Can listening in this activity be meaningful for learners or is it just a language practice
activity?

Even though the suggestion is that students should practise making sentences, the focus is on
listening for meaning, not listening as language practice. Therefore, this activity can be meaningful
to learners.

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Listening and NAP Lenguas Extranjeras
Let’s consider now the Núcleos de Aprendizajes Prioritarios (NAP) para Lenguas Extranjeras,
https://www.educ.ar/recursos/132577/nap-lenguas-extranjeras-educacion-primaria-y-secundaria,
and let’s focus on the listening process for the first cycle of the primary school, listed below:

● La aproximación a la comprensión de que un texto oral puede abordarse

aunque no se conozca el significado de todas las palabras que lo
constituyen, y de que el sentido de un texto no depende exclusivamente
de las palabras que lo conforman.

● La comprensión de consignas orales en lengua extranjera apoyándose en

el lenguaje gestual u otros soportes.

● La escucha de diferentes textos orales expresados por el/la docente o

provenientes de fuentes diversas (grabaciones de audio y video, entre
otras). Esto supone:

o el inicio en la identificación de la situación comunicativa, los

interlocutores y el tema abordado, es decir, de elementos
relacionados con el contexto de enunciación;

o la adecuación del tipo de escucha –global o focalizada– a la tarea

comunicativa a realizar, con la ayuda del/la docente.

● La formulación de anticipaciones e hipótesis sobre el sentido de los textos

a partir de palabras o expresiones relacionadas con el tema, del tono de
voz de quien habla, entre otras pistas temáticas, lingüístico-discursivas,
paraverbales y no verbales.

● La escucha global de textos orales breves del universo infantil (ficcionales

y no ficcionales como, por ejemplo, cuentos, relatos de la vida cotidiana,

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 canciones, poesías, adivinanzas, trabalenguas), con el apoyo de material
rico en imágenes y de propuestas lúdicas.

● La apreciación del ritmo y la musicalidad en los textos trabajados.

● El inicio en la reflexión sobre algunas características de la oralidad como,

por ejemplo, las marcas de registro formal e informal en los saludos, la
entonación en preguntas y exclamaciones, entre otras.

(p. 17)

We can see that the activity we have proposed is in keeping with many of the bulleted points and
does not contradict any.

With respect to the second cycle, that is, for students that start learning English in the second cycle
of primary school, we can see the same as before.

● La aproximación a la comprensión de que un texto oral puede abordarse

aunque no se conozca el significado de todas las palabras que lo
constituyen, y de que el sentido de un texto no depende exclusivamente
de las palabras que lo conforman.

● La escucha de diferentes textos orales provenientes de fuentes diversas

(el/la docente, otros hablantes de la lengua que se aprende, grabaciones,
entre otras). Esto supone:

o la identificación de elementos relevantes de la situación

comunicativa, los interlocutores y el tema abordado, es decir, de
elementos relacionados con el contexto de enunciación;

o la adecuación del tipo de escucha –global o focalizada– al

propósito comunicativo con la ayuda del/la docente.

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 ● La formulación de anticipaciones e hipótesis sobre el sentido de los textos
a partir de palabras o expresiones relacionadas con el tema, del tono de
voz de quien habla, entre otras pistas temáticas, lingüístico-discursivas,
paraverbales y no verbales.

● La comprensión y construcción del sentido del texto oral apelando a

diferentes estrategias. En este ciclo, esto supone:

o valerse de objetos y de otros soportes visuales para contextualizar

la escucha;

o confirmar o modificar las anticipaciones e hipótesis formuladas;

o retomar conocimientos previos;

o solicitar repetición, aclaración o reformulación.

● La escucha global o focalizada de descripciones y narraciones breves

(textos ficcionales y no ficcionales como, por ejemplo, diálogos, cuentos,
canciones, relatos, poesías, entre otros) y propuestas lúdicas.

● La apreciación del ritmo y la musicalidad en los textos trabajados.

● La reflexión sobre algunas características de la oralidad como, por

ejemplo, el uso de expresiones convencionales para solicitar repetición, el
uso de expresiones propias de la oralidad como interjecciones,
marcadores de inicio y cierre de intercambios, las diferencias de registro
que pueden aparecer en función de la relación que existe entre los
interlocutores, entre otras.

(pp. 40/1)

Let’s analyse the activity in Reflection 4 in relation to the NAP. We don’t expect students to
understand all the words for the first task since it aims at global listening. Students are asked to
predict what the topic may be, and then they listen to check their predictions. Students are
familiar with the text type and they can reflect on different characteristics of this oral text once

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they have worked with the tasks provided, the topic of the next section.

How can our learners reflect on listening?

Once we have worked with the listening activity, we can ask students to think if the text is formal
or informal, when they send or receive voice messages, if the level of formality or register may
change depending on the situation, among other ideas.

How to go on
You might be wondering how to go on teaching after this activity. The oral text shows the Present
Continuous being used naturally and meaningfully. It can then be used to expose children to this
tense. Why is it imperative to present content from meaningful texts, as opposed to sentences?
Knowing about a language does not mean we can use it, i.e. listen, read, speak and write. If we
present language in meaningful, communicative situations, meaning and use are clear and evident,
and we should only help students reflect on form. Once the teacher has worked with the two
activities, he/she can take some examples from the text and help students reflect on the meaning,
and how this meaning is expressed in English.

Reflection 5

Analyse this listening activity by focusing on the questions proposed.

Questions about the activity

Is the oral text used in society?

Is there a global task first?

Is there a task to identify specific information?

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 Transcript:

Bob, this is mum. Your bedroom is a mess. Please put your shoes in the box,
your toys on your bed, your schoolbag under the table, your books on the
table and your racket next to the table. I’ll be home at 5. Love you !

Here are possible answers to the questions.

The text is an audio that people send all the time. So it is a text used in society.

The first task is global: listen and identify mum’s feelings. She says the bedroom is a mess, and
gives instructions for the boy to tidy it up. They can relate this to their lives, at some point, most
kids’ bedrooms are a mess.

Finally, there is a task to identify specific information: where the boy should place his belongings.

The following is a guide that you can use when planning or when teaching

Tips for a listening or reading activity:

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 · Text: can the students find it outside the classroom, i.e. outside a teaching situation?

· Predicting – global task

· Specific task (recognising or identifying information, extracting information)

Closing the class

In this lesson we have focused on the process of listening and on listening tasks, and worked on
how to connect the concepts in lesson 1 –language as a social practice and young learners– when
teaching listening. As you may have realised, listening should not be taken for granted because it
does not just depend on being able to hear. There are global tasks and more specific ones in which
learners are asked to identify or extract information. They need time and plenty of exposure to
learn how to do so successfully. Moreover, what they learn about listening can be transferred to
any other listening situation, even though the language may not be English.

Reading materials (compulsory)

Consejo Federal de Educación (2012). Núcleos de Aprendizajes Prioritarios. Lenguas Extranjeras.
Educación Primaria y Secundaria. Resolución Nº 181/12: Recorrido de 4 niveles, Comprensión oral,
Nivel 1 y 2; recorrido de 3 niveles, Comprensión oral, nivel 1.

Reading Materials (optional)

Ahmed, R. (2015) Five essential listening skills for English learners. Voices Magazine. British
Council. Retrieved from:
https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/five-essential-listening-skills-english-learners

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References
Kirkgöz, Y. (2019). Fostering Young Learners’ Listening and Speaking Skills, in Garton, S. & Copland,
F. eds (2019). The Routledge Handbook of Teaching English to Young Learners. New York:
Routledge.

Pinter, A. (2017). Teaching Young Language Learners (second edition). Oxford: Oxford University
Press.

Shin, J.K., & Crandall, J. (2014). Teaching young learners English: from theory to practice. New York:
Heinle Cengage Learning.

Créditos
Autoras: María Leonor Corradi, Ana Paula Pino

Cómo citar este texto:

Corradi, M. L. y Pino, A. P. (2023). Clase Nro: 2. Teaching Listening. Prácticas de comprensión en la

enseñanza del inglés en el Nivel Primario. Buenos Aires: Ministerio de Educación de la Nación.

Esta obra está bajo una licencia Creative Commons

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