Essential Techniques for Developing Primary Listening Skills

Developing Effective Listening Skills in the Primary Classroom

Core Principles of Listening Instruction

Listening instruction is defined by the set of instructions, questions, or praise that the teacher uses with pupils to develop their auditory comprehension skills. Examples include commands like “Line up,” “Sit down,” “Hands up,” or questions such as “Listen please,” and “What is the meaning of...”

Teacher Strategies for Primary Learners

• Building Confidence: A teacher in Primary Education builds pupil confidence by helping them identify what is important to concentrate on. Gestures, tone of voice, and visual aids are crucial for fostering this confidence.
• Explicit Focus: Effective instruction involves explicitly stating which part of the message pupils need to focus on and what task they are expected to perform.
• Techniques and Procedures: Listening development relies on a group of techniques and procedures, such as using visual materials and written support.

Addressing the Pitfalls of Rote Listening

According to educational authors, telling pupils to simply “listen and remember” often has negative effects: it makes them feel anxious, places a great strain on their memory, and tends not to develop genuine listening skills.

Specific Purposes for Listening Instruction

• For Younger Learners: To physically settle pupils (e.g., to calm them when they are too boisterous).
• For Older Pupils: To provide support for literacy (e.g., to make connections between spoken and written English).

The Role of the Teacher and Resources

The teacher's voice is primary, as most classroom listening is based on teacher talk. However, using external listening materials (such as audio recordings or cassettes) is useful to provide a good model of spoken English.

Structuring Listening Activities

Effective listening instruction is typically divided into three stages:

1. Pre-listening Activities: What pupils do in preparation for listening (e.g., brainstorming, warming up).
2. While-listening Activities: Activities performed while listening to ensure pupils remain active (e.g., listen and match, listen and label).
3. Post-listening Activities: Activities performed after listening (e.g., checking understanding, addressing difficulties).

Key Listening Strategies

These strategies help learners actively process auditory information:

• Predicting: Encouraging learners to guess what they think they will hear before listening.
• Working out the meaning from context.
• Recognizing discourse patterns and markers.

Practical Listening Activities

Listen and Guess

Purpose: Listening for detail to pick out key vocabulary used to describe (e.g., parts of an animal’s body). Listening to encourage mental activity and problem-solving.

Materials: Short, spoken descriptions which can be accompanied by a selection of items for pupils to eliminate.

Listen and Label

Purpose: Listening to develop reading and writing skills or to develop concepts. Listening to physically settle pupils. Listening to encourage mental activity and problem-solving.

Materials: Written labels provided for pupils or written words on the blackboard for pupils to copy.

Listen and Match

This activity involves pairing auditory input with corresponding visual or written items.