Principles for teaching listening

1. Use authentic (real) texts and present them as naturally and realistically as possible. This might mean taping texts from radio broadcasts or interviews. Real language texts are important because they:
- allow background noise or interruptions, which are normal.
- use different voice types and accents.
- avoid out-of-context words
2. Include a variety of types of texts. These can include:
- conversations/dialogues
- humor (jokes)
- lectures
- news (TV or radio) broadcasts
- songs
- narratives (stories)
3. Use primarily meaning-based tasks. Listeners must not only hear sounds; they must understand meaning.
4. State a specific purpose for listening tasks. The task should be designed to practice one or more of the different sub-skills.
5. Introduce a listening task before presenting it.
6. Generally, it is best to avoid pre-teaching vocabulary items. This will allow the students to guess at meaning from context. The only vocabulary words that should be pre-taught are the ones necessary for understanding the main idea of the text.
7. Usually it is best to listen to texts more than once. Often the listeners will not catch the full meaning the first time. But if the text is repeated, each time with a different focus, this will help the students to understand more fully.

Example questions for a repeated text:
First listening: What is the man’s name and what is his job?
Second listening: Why does the man say his job is the best?
Third listening: What does the woman think about the man’s opinion?