Teaching English as a Foreign Language, Second Edition

particular use of the present simple: ‘Keegan gets the ball
from Toshack, makes a break along the right and tries to beat
Gordon Hill outside the penalty box. Hill wins the ball and

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Listening and Speaking
73
moves it quickly across the box to Pearson, who skilfully
traps it and sends a long, floating pass to the right wing.’
Many other exercises are possible. One area worth
mentioning is practice in listening for words or grammatical
forms which tell you to expect something else to come
shortly, or refer back to something just mentioned. At the
simplest level, in the first case, a singular third person subject
automatically demands concord with a regular verb in the
present tense. As soon as a native speaker hears ‘a dog’ for
instance, he knows the verb, however far away it is, will
probably be marked with an ‘s’, e.g. ‘a dog…barks’. Beyond
this elementary level, he must learn that if he hears ‘not only’,
he will certainly get ‘but also’ or ‘but…as well’ later in the
sentence; ‘neither the…’ will automatically precede ‘nor…’.
Pronouns point backwards to the nouns they stand for, so do
words like ‘former’ and ‘latter’. Other sentence connections
(however, so, but, while, since, etc.) are widely
misunderstood and should be the source of intensive
listening practice. A very simple way to practise this type of
listening is to have the student listen without a written text
once or twice to a passage containing several sentence
connectors, then give him a written text with blanks where
the connectors are. His task is to fill them in without listening
to the tape again. In general, listening practice is gravely
neglected at the level of discourse. There may be emphasis on
the phonology, lexis and grammar of words and even the
sentence, but the linguistic links that join sentences into a
coherent discourse are usually overlooked, and so the
student’s aural comprehension is sadly impaired.
As we know, it is perfectly possible to hear, but not listen.
Similarly, it is possible to listen but not understand. A technical
lecture on nuclear physics is beyond the grasp of most people,
regardless of the simplicity or difficulty of language it is
couched in. Listening for meaning, therefore, is an important
skill to develop, but it goes without saying that the actual
content of the message should be within the intellectual and
maturational range of the student. There is some gradation
possible here, from everyday events of common experience
(daily life, current events, etc.) for beginners, to
popularisations of more technical material and natural
conversations between two native speakers for intermediate

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students, to a full range of specialist topics and conversations
between several English speakers for the advanced.
Discussions and debates, which are usually structured
somewhat, are useful preliminary listening material before the
student is forced to deal with an informal conversation
between several participants. As many students at this level of
proficiency will be concerned with the study skills necessary
for academic English, it is worth giving practice in the format
of lectures and their specialist content by first providing
practice in listening to the popularising short talks often given
on Radio Three or the World Service of the BBC. These can
range from talks on composers to political reports in the
programme ‘From Our Own Correspondent’.
There are other factors to be considered apart from the
actual subject matter of the aural text. One is the formality of
the language—that is, where it is situated on the following
axis:
Slang—familiar—neutral—formal
Most classes have had little practice with anything other than
neutral English. Another factor is speed of delivery—is it a
rapid conversation or a measured speech? Further, is it
prepared and rehearsed, or impromptu? How many speakers
are involved? Clearly, the more there are, the more difficult it
is. Is the accent of the speaker what the student is accustomed
to hear? English regional or class accents are very confusing,
on first hearing, for someone brought up on RP. Again, lack of
familiarity with these factors can seriously impair the student’s
understanding of the meaning of the passage.
A final consideration, which applies equally to listening for
language or to listening for meaning, is the type of question to
be employed. The simplest are yes/no answers to questions
and true/false exercises. Blank-filling can direct attention to
key-words and phrases. Beyond the purely factual questions
such as these, other types depend on inferences being made
from the passage. This is a difficult exercise for the student, as
it demands that he not only understands what the passage
says, but also what it implies. Clearly, it is best with good
students at higher levels. Multiple-choice questions are widely
used for both factual and inferen-tial exercises. Many of the
books mentioned on pp. 75–6 provide this type of practice.

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Listening and Speaking
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Reading comprehension texts, e.g. in J.Eynon’s Multiple
Choice Questions in English at intermediate level, and in
L.Peterson, D.Bolton, M.Walker and M.Hagéus’ Work and
Leisure, Our Environment and Other Worlds at advanced,
can be readily adapted for listening comprehension, if
necessary.
Many students have a tendency to practise listening
comprehension line by line, without attempting to get an
overall understanding of the passage. There is room, therefore,
for questions on sections of the text, or the whole text, e.g.
What are the main points in this argument? What are the
reasons for…? What would a suitable title for this text be?
A listening comprehension passage can be a springboard
for other work. By asking how the author creates a particular
effect, or why he uses a specific word, it is easy to go on to a
form of literary appreciation. Although this is restricted to
more advanced classes, it is nearly always possible to use an
aural comprehension passage as a basis for questions on the
student’s own experience. A passage on sports naturally leads
to personal questions about the student’s own participation
in, say, tennis, and the ensuing conversation provides good
oral practice and reinforces what has just been learnt.
Fortunately for the teacher, intensive listening materials,
especially for aural comprehension, are commercially
produced and very widely available throughout the world. So
far this is not the case for extensive materials. Listed below are
a few of the many books and tapes on sale. Several publishers
have a range of listening materials available. The Nelson Skills
Programme has four books by Rosemary Aitken designed to
practise listening skills at different levels. Longman and
Oxford University Press have their own series of books on
similar lines. Other examples of such books and tapes include:
L.Blundell and J.Stokes, Task Listening, Cambridge University Press,
1981.
M.Geddes and G.Sturtridge, Listening Links, Heinemann, 1979.
R.R.Jordan, Active Listening, Collins, 1984.
R.Mackin and L.Dickinson, Varieties of Spoken English, Oxford
University Press, 1969.
R.McLintock and B.Stern, Let’s Listen, Heinemann, 1983.
A.Maley and S.Martling, Learning to Listen, Cambridge University
Press, 1981.

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R.O’Neill and R.Scott, Viewpoints, Longman, 1974.
D.Scarborough, Reasons for Listening, Cambridge University Press,
1984.
M.Underwood and P.Barr, Listener, Oxford University Press, various
dates.