James mannion, bespoke programmes leader, ucl institute of education, uk; director, rethinking education, uk; associate, oracy cambridge, uk neil mercer, emeritus professor, hughes hall, university of cambridge, uk; director, oracy

Strategies for promoting listening
Much of the research on listening skills has focused on second language learning; however, many of the insights are relevant to teaching listening more generally. In a review of the literature on second language learning, Berne (1998) highlighted some key points about listening comprehension practices to have emerged from research, which include the following:

1. 
   Less able listeners take cues from both sounds and meaning, while the more able focus just on meaning
   
2. 
   The use of pre-listening activities, particularly those that provide short synopses of the listening passage or allow listeners to preview the comprehension questions, help listening comprehension
   
3. 
   Video presentation helps listeners to attend and comprehend better than audio
   
4. 
   The use of real as opposed to ‘made up’ listening passages leads to greater improvement in listening comprehension
   
5. 
   Training in listening strategies improves comprehension and learners can and should be taught such strategies
   
6. 
   Due to the complex nature of listening comprehension, listening practice should include a variety of situations where listening is required, as well as using different types of listening passages and different modes of presentation (e.g. live, video, audio).
   

It is likely that the proliferation of digital technology in recent years has had an impact on the extent to which, and ways in which, young people engage in speaking and listening, although we are unaware of any recent research specifically on such matters. However, research does suggest that digital technology can play a powerful role in facilitating dialogue and collaboration, including the development of listening skills; to achieve this goal, ‘the technology must be used with a dialogic intention, in the context of activities which are well designed to promote collective thinking’ (Mercer et al., 2019, p. 197).
Research also suggests that it is beneficial to increase students’ metacognitive awareness of how they learn from listening (Wilson, 2003). For example, a study by Vandergrift et al. (2006) found that using a Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ) before and after instruction not only assessed listening over time, but also aided metacognitive reflection (the MALQ was designed as a ‘diagnostic and consciousness-raising tool’, as well as being used for research and self-assessment) (p. 454):
“Using the MALQ can enable and empower… learners to become self-regulated listeners who can better capitalize on the aural input that they receive. By increasing their awareness of the listening process, students can learn how to become better listeners, which, ultimately, will enable them to learn/acquire another language more quickly and more efficiently.”
Dawes (2008) has argued that teaching of listening skills can and should be integrated into everyday activity in classrooms. She describes a set of classroom-tested activities that primary teachers can use to develop listening skills, in whole-class and small-group settings. Drawing on this work by Dawes and that by Zhang (2012), in Table 1 we have summarised a range of metacognitive strategies that students and teachers can use to improve listening comprehension.