Bachelor Thesis

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Masaryk University Brno Pedagogical Faculty Department of English language and literature

Teaching Listening

Bakalářská práce

Brno 2009

Author: Eva Macháčková

Supervisor: Mgr. Naďa Vojtková

Prohlášení: Prohlašuji, že jsem bakalářskou práci zpracovala samostatně a použila jen prameny uvedené v seznamu literatury.

.................................. Podpis

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Acknowledgements:

I would like to express my thanks to Mgr. Naďa Vojtková for her help, guidance, inspiring and valuable comments on my bachelor thesis, and time she devoted to me as the supervisor.

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Anotace
Bakalářská práce se zabývá výukou poslechu. V průběhu poslechových aktivit se často učitelé setkávají s problémem, že studenti mají problémy s řádným porozuměním a následné interpretaci slyšeného textu. Cílem bakalářské práce je zaměření se na úlohu učitele a studentů během poslechových aktivit, proces poslechu a jednotlivé stupně poslechu, různé styly a strategie učení. Bakalářská práce je rozdělena na dvě části. Teoretická část poskytuje shrnutí procesů a aktivit poslechu, jednotlivé stupně poslechu, styly a strategie učení a roli učitele a studentů při poslechových aktivitách. Praktická část je zaměřena na samotnou výuku poslechu a poskytuje náhled poslechových aktivit a jejich výsledky.

Abstract
This thesis is concerned with teaching listening. During listening activities teachers encounter a problem that students have difficulties with proper understanding and subsequent interpretation. The objectives of the work are to focus on the role of the teacher and students during listening activities, listening process and stages of listening, different learning styles and individual learning strategies. The work is divided into two parts. The theoretical part provides an account of the listening process and activities, individual stages of listening, learning styles and strategies and a teacher’s and students’ roles. The practical part demonstrates listening activities and presents the results of such activities.

Klíčová slova
Strategie učení, učební styly, poslechové aktivity, průběh poslechu, důvody pro poslech, fáze poslechu, role učitele při poslechu, problémy při poslechu.

Key words
Learning strategies, learning styles, listening activities, listening process, purposes for listening, stages of listening, the teacher's role and difficulties during listening.

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Content
Introduction ................................................................................................. 6 1. Theoretical Part ....................................................................................... 8
1.1 The importance of listening comprehension.............................................8 1.2 Purposes for listening..................................................................................9 1.3 Process of listening ....................................................................................10
1.3.1 Bottom-up listening process........................................................................... 10 1.3.2 Top down process .......................................................................................... 11

1.4 Difficulties during listening ......................................................................12
1.4.1 Problems caused by pronunciation ................................................................ 12 1.4.2 Problems caused by the lack of control of a speaker’s speech speed ............ 13 1.4.3 Problems caused by the inability to get things repeated ................................ 14 1.4.4 Problems caused by the listeners’ limited word stock ................................... 14 1.4.5 Problems caused by the failure to concentrate ............................................... 14 1.4.7 Problems caused by the interpretation ........................................................... 15 1.4.8 Problems caused by the inability to identify the signals ................................ 15 1.4.9 Problems caused by the language .................................................................. 15 1.4.10 Problems caused by the lack of visual support ............................................ 16

1.5 Learning styles and strategies ..................................................................16
1.5.1 Learning styles ............................................................................................... 17 1.5.2 Learning strategies ......................................................................................... 19

1.6 Teacher’s role during listening activities ................................................20
1.6.1 Teacher’s role preceding the listening ........................................................... 22 1.6.2 Teacher’s role during the listening................................................................. 22

1.7 Lesson Planning.........................................................................................23
1.7.1 Pre-listening stage .......................................................................................... 24 1.7.2 While-listening stage...................................................................................... 26 1.7.3 Follow-up stage .............................................................................................. 28 1.7.4 Types of listening exercises ........................................................................... 29

2. Practical part ......................................................................................... 33
Lesson plans .....................................................................................................33
2.1 Lesson Plan 1-Too Many People ...................................................................... 34 2.2 Lesson Plan 2-The Right Job ............................................................................ 38 2.3 Lesson Plan -Football Clubs ............................................................................. 41 2.4 Lesson Plan 4-Death Trap ................................................................................. 43 2.5 Lesson Plan 5- The Woman without a name .................................................... 45

Conclusion .................................................................................................. 48
Summary ..........................................................................................................50 Resumé .............................................................................................................50

Bibliography .............................................................................................. 52 Appendix .................................................................................................... 54
Appendix 1 Reflective Journal .......................................................................54
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Appendix 2 Students’ Journals........................................................................545 Appendix 3 Pictures for lesson 3 .......................................................................55 Appendix 4 Listening Exercises .........................................................................58 Appendix 5 Tapescripts ......................................................................................62

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Introduction
Learning English as a foreign language has become an essential part of our lives. Being a part of the European Union is closely connected with a need to communicate in English. The Czech Republic has also accepted the Common European Framework of Reference for languages which does not describe what to teach but how to teach the target language in the easiest and most efficient way. The other important aspect of teaching languages is that the concept of CEFR has become a part of the National Curriculum. On the basis of the National Curriculum pupils are supposed to start learning languages in their third year and teachers are expected to teach their pupils the four basic skills e.g. Speaking, Listening, Reading and Writing. Because of the recent trend I focus on teaching listening in my bachelor thesis.

In teaching practice I encounter several difficulties such as classes contain more students that it would be ideal for teaching languages as such and this leads into another problem that in these large classes there are learners with a lot of different learning styles and diverse needs. Since listening comprehension belongs among the most difficult skills it is crucial for teachers to help their students to learn good listening strategies because without proper understanding people can not contribute to various discussions and more over listening provide exposure to the target language.

The aim of my work is to centre not only on teacher’s role during the listening activities and various stages and processes of listening but also on students’ role and their personal needs and different learning styles. The main objective is to present listening in the most efficient ways of teaching listening comprehension representing students’ needs and learning styles.

The theoretical part of my bachelor thesis concentrates on the organization of the listening in the most accessible way so that learners can be successful in a variety of listening exercises. This part of my work is also focused on a diverse choice of listening strategies that I suppose could help student with proper understanding of listening exercises. Furthermore I would like to pay attention to students’ motivation, interests in diverse topics and their actual reasons for listening. Moreover I would like to focus on different learning approaches that influence the whole learning and listening process. 6

The practical part of my bachelor thesis is focused on teaching listening and provides five lesson plans for teaching listening. All lesson plans include self-reflection and students’ feedback. In the practical part I will also deal with three main hypotheses. Firstly, from my experience I know that the majority of the students are visual learners and due to this fact I will use pictures as a visual support in the lessons. Secondly, the students need a lot of language support and because of their need I will provide them with key vocabulary before each listening. But on the other hand I know that they will not be given this support at the FCE exam and due to this fact I will reduce the number of the words gradually. Thirdly, I would like to help my students to learn good learning strategies. I will focus on teaching guessing and predicting the possible answers in the listening exercises because I think that this will be helpful during the exam.

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1. Theoretical Part

1.1 The importance of listening comprehension
The importance of listening in language learning has changed over the past years. Listening used to be overlooked and educators supposed that listening abilities would be acquired during the grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation practice (Hedge). This was quite surprising as abilities to listen play an equal role as abilities to speak in successful communication.

There are a lot of reasons why educators are now focused on the ability to understand and contribute to communication. Firstly, pupils at basic schools are encouraged to develop good listening abilities in their mother tongue so that they can be successful in everyday communication. Secondly, students have to develop effective listening strategies that will enable them to learn another language.

Underwood points out that listening is an activity of paying attention to the speaker and subsequent attempt to understand what we hear (1989: 1). Even though listening may be seen as a passive process it is not true because we as listeners have to concentrate on the message to be able to decode it. Underwood argues that hearing can be thought of as a passive condition, listening is always an active process (1989: 2).

There are three main stages involved in the auditory process. During the first stage sounds are structured into meaningful units. The process of organising the sounds into the units is based on learner’s previous knowledge about the language. During the second stage we work on the new information. This means that we compare and contrast words or phrases we heard with already known information. The last step includes transmitting the newly acquired information into the long term memory so that we can use this information later (Underwood).

The importance of listening in language learning is worth considering since when you do not listen you will never learn anything new. 8

1.2 Purposes for listening

In real situations we rarely listen to somebody without any expectations what we are going to hear. This means that we usually have preconceived idea of the content (Ur 1984: 3) and these ideas are based on our knowledge about the heard information.

These expectations are usually connected with the purpose of listening e.g. if we want to know what the time is we have to ask somebody. According to Ur the heard information which corresponds with the listener’s expectations and needs is more likely to be correctly apprehended and understood than the information that is not relevant or useful. That is why it is so important to provide the learners with some information about the content before listening.

In almost all real-life situations listeners are supposed to give an immediate response to what they just heard. To respond to the information they can use either verbal or nonverbal ways of expressing their opinions. But this is not a case of classroom recordings since they consist of long parts of speech and the response to them is demanded at the end rather than between individual parts and Ur argues that listening tasks should consist of short parts demanding immediate answer.

In everyday situations there are a great number of reasons for listening. Brown and Yule divided the purposes into two main categories interactional and transactional. Interactional purpose convey social reasons of communication such as chatting at a party whereas transactional is used to express exchange of information such as to follow instruction (Hedge).

Galvin claims that there are five main reasons for listening such as to engage in social rituals; to exchange information; to enjoy yourself; to share feelings and to exert control (Hedge 2000: 243).

And according to Underwood teachers should prepare their students for these situations:

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Attending a lesson or a lecture. The aim of this activity is to understand the main concept and to be able to distinguish the main information. Listening to announcements, news and weather forecast. In this situation listener’s objective is to get relevant information. Listening to live situation in which one takes no part. This type of situation is usually connected with eavesdropping. The person listening to the conversation is usually unaware of the context so that he or she cannot interfere into the conversation. Listening to or watching plays, watching TV or listening to a radio for pleasure. The aim of this activity is to entertain oneself. Listening to someone giving a speech. The listener is often interested in views and attitudes of the speaker. Following the instructions. The listener’s objective is to accomplish the task successfully.

Since it is difficult to provide listening that contains natural speech and is highly interesting I consider this list of purposes of individual listening as a support for teachers when they are choosing the listening text for their students.

1.3 Process of listening
When listening to somebody or something we use different strategies in order to understand the message and that is why it is so important for teachers to help their students to learn how to listen. There are two main views of listening bottom-up process and top-down listening process.

1.3.1 Bottom-up listening process
This type of process is linear as the meaning is gained at the end of the process. 10

Hedge (2000: 230) points out that we use our knowledge of the language and our ability to process acoustic signals to make sense of the sounds that speech presents to us. In other words we create the message from the individual parts e.g. from sounds to words to grammatical units to lexical meaning. And at the same time with this process we use any clues that can help us with the meaning. Hedge claims that there are several clues such as the stress implied on certain meaningful units, relationship between stressed and unstressed syllables; we also use our lexical and syntactic knowledge to get the meaning of the words.

1.3.2 Top down process
Previous background knowledge of the topic of the conversation help the listener to explain and interpret what the speaker is talking about and this prior knowledge enables him or her to predict what may come next. The prior knowledge was also termed as schematic knowledge. The top down process also allows the listener to avoid some aspects of the bottom-up process (Celce-Murcia).

According to Brown and Yule the listener must put the language in a context of situation to get the meaning. Native speakers usually use their background and cultural knowledge; and their previous knowledge for listening situations as they expect that certain situations are connected with typical features and language. These above mentioned facts make the listening comprehension easier as they help them to interpret what is being spoken about and what will probably follow (Underwood).

It is teacher’s responsibility to teach their students to pay attention to what they hear, to get the main idea and interpret it and subsequently respond to the information.

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1.4 Difficulties during listening
A great number of students believe that listening is the most difficult skill and they start to panic when they hear the word listening or see a CD player. But on the other hand students, who learn from what they hear, usually achieve better results at listening. Underwood argues that students whose mother tongue contains similar or same intonation and stress patterns have fewer problems in comparison with students whose mother tongue is based on different rhythms.

According to Anderson and Lynch the first thing that learners have to develop is an ability that will enable them to identify the topic of the conversation and help them to find a relevant reaction. Secondly, learners should also develop an ability to predict the development of the topic as this ability will help them to prepare a suitable response in advance. Thirdly, they ought to recognize and also indicate when they do not understand enough to make a relevant response. Learners have to learn how to cope with problems of the topic clarification by using expressions such as “excuse me?, pardon? or Sorry, I do not understand?” or simply by repeating the speaker’s words to show that they are having problems.

As students encounter a lot of problems during listening I provided a list of the most common ones.

1.4.1 Problems caused by pronunciation
One of the most common problems encountered by students is the way English words are pronounced but unfortunately this aspect of English cannot be overlooked as pronunciation of English can cause students problems in recognition, and therefore in comprehension (Rixon 1986: 38). Firstly, students can find it difficult to comprehend with the fact that there are different ways how to pronounce the same sound. For example there are two ways how to pronounce sound /t/. In so called BBC English one of the ways engages aspiration, a

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hissing sound, this happens if the /t/ is placed at the beginning of the syllables. Students who have no experience with aspiration in their mother tongue can hear /st/ (Rixon). Secondly, learners can encounter a difference between sound and spelling. As there is a difference between the spoken and written form of words in English students can fail to identify the pronounced form of words they know in written form. Thirdly, learners must be aware of the fact that words are not pronounced in isolation. The way they are used is called connected speech and this aspect of English can cause students problems to recognize individual words. In natural speech listeners can encounter three main types of a change in sound involving weak form of vowels. This means that words that are in unstressed positions have different pronunciation in comparison with stressed vowels e.g. when to is said in isolation it is pronounced as /tu:/but on the other hand in connected speech the pronunciation changes into /tə/. Another factor of connected speech is called elision. This means a loss of sounds appearing in natural speech e.g. the word probably is pronounced /probli/. The third factor of connected speech is called assimilation. Assimilation means that a pronunciation of a letter can be influenced by the letter before or after it so that it changes its sound e.g. ten bikes can be pronounced /tem baiks/ (Rixon). Finally, students can deal with the rhythm of English. English belongs among stressed timed languages this means that stressed syllables occur in regular rhythms also in case when there are a different number of syllables between the stresses. This fact can cause that listeners can fail to hear unstressed syllables (Rixon).

1.4.2 Problems caused by the lack of control of a speaker’s speech speed
Many students feel that one of the greatest difficulties they have to deal with during listening exercises in comparison with reading exercises is the lack of possibility how to control the speed of speakers’ speech. Students believe that during the listening they can miss important information and in contrast to reading they cannot re-listen to it. Some students can be busy with the meaning of certain words from the first part that they miss important information from the second part or they can stop listening as they are not able to select the correct information so quickly (Underwood). According to Ur students can ask their teacher to speak clearly and slowly but if the teachers decide to do this they will not help their students to cope with the everyday speech. Ur suggests that 13

students should be exposed to as much as natural informal speech as they are able to understand.

1.4.3 Problems caused by the inability to get things repeated
Another problem connected with listening is the fact that listeners cannot always make the speaker repeat what they have just said. If the recordings are under the students’ control they can be played over and over again but this is not possible in everyday classroom environment where the teacher decides whether they will listen to the recording again or not (Underwood). Ur argues that learners should be exposed to the recording more than once in order to understand the discourse.

1.4.4 Problems caused by the listeners’ limited word stock
For listeners who do not know all vocabulary used by the speaker, listening can be very stressful as they usually start thinking about the meaning and as a result of this they miss the following information. Ur claims that learners believe that everything that is said on the recording is equally important to the main meaning and their efforts to understand everything lead in ineffective listening and can also cause that students feel that they did not succeeded. Students ought not to dwell on what exactly has been said but focus on the next information and the context as they do it in their mother tongue since this strategy will help them to be more successful (Underwood).

1.4.5 Problems caused by the failure to concentrate
There are many factors influencing learners concentration e.g. selection of a good topic is very important as it is easier for students to concentrate if the topic is appealing for them. The length of the listening exercise plays an important role as well. According to Ur if the exercise is too long it would be more suitable to break it up into shorter parts by pausing or a change of the speakers. Listeners can also lose their concentration if the recording is in a poor quality or they are disturbed by outside noises (Underwood). 1.4.6 Problems caused by the students’ learning habits 14

Underwood claims that teachers think that their students must understand everything in their lessons so that is why they pronounce words carefully and repeat everything over and over again. But because of this approach students can become worried if they do not understand every word or phrase and only when learners accept the fact that they do not or probably cannot understand everything they are prepared to work with partial understanding (Underwood 1989: 19).

1.4.7 Problems caused by the interpretation
A listener who is not familiar with the context and background knowledge of the speaker’s experience can have difficulties in communication. Now learners’ inability to understand is not caused by limited word stock and learning habits but by the fact that the listener and speaker do not share the common meaning. But on the other hand this can even happen to people who use the same language and are from the same background (Underwood).

1.4.8 Problems caused by the inability to identify the signals
For a learner listening to the foreign language is not usually easy to recognise the indications of giving examples, repeating a point and so on so their task is to learn how to listen for these signals which will enable to understand better (Underwood).

1.4.9 Problems caused by the language
A majority of recordings played in the classrooms contain language that is slower, formal and speakers speak clearly but the listening outside of the classrooms does not posses these qualities and contains informal colloquial phrases and teachers preparing their students for real-life listening should know about these features. According to Hedge there are a lot of differences between classroom recordings and natural speech. For example the language used is classrooms have these characteristics slow pace of the speech with very limited variation, clear intonation patterns, words are carefully 15

articulated, the language is more formal and background noises are usually missing, whereas natural speech have these features such as a vast variety of the speed of the language, is very often fast; contains natural intonation and the common features of connected speech, is full of colloquial language and background noises (Hedge). In my opinion teachers ought to expose their students to real life listening but on the other hand classroom books do not contain natural speech that is why I think that the best solution is to bring a mixture of both real-life recordings and classroom recordings since this way of presenting listening would help students to develop good listening skills.

1.4.10 Problems caused by the lack of visual support
In real life listening is not only about hearing some information but also about seeing the other people e.g. their gestures and body language. But in classroom environment teachers usually use audio not video recordings and this can cause problems to some learners since they must focus only on what they hear, which can be restricting for them. This means that teachers must spend time on a good presentation about the background so that the context is presented to the students (Hedge).

1.5 Learning styles and strategies
Learning styles and strategies influence and determine the objectives in teaching and learning. The styles and strategies also influence students’ perception and subsequent recalling of information and also determine the way how people react. For teachers it is vitally important to aware of different learning styles especially when planning and organising the language lesson. Being aware of these differences enables teachers to take them into account and respect them during their lessons.

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1.5.1 Learning styles
Multiple intelligences The theory of multiple intelligences is associated with Dr. Howard Gardner, an American psychologist. The whole concept of this theory was described in Gardner’s book called Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. The theory of multiple intelligences states that the traditional division of intelligence, measured by IQ tests, is not sufficient since it does not cover all learners’ abilities and skills. In his book Gardner introduced seven basic dimensions of learners’ intelligences and I would like to comment on them in connection with listening. Linguistic intelligence- Learners with linguistic intelligence need to be exposed to the language as much as possible because they are able to acquire new phrases easily than students with other types of intelligences. Logical-mathematical intelligenceStudents with logical-mathematical

intelligence need to put everything into classes, charts and categories. This system contributes to their learning progress and that is why mind maps are suitable for them. Spatial intelligence- Learners with spatial intelligence need to visualize objects and it is important for them to use pictures or visualize stories in their minds. Bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence- Students with bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence learn through doing and performing. It is important for these learners to incorporate total physical response into the lessons. Musical intelligence- These learners are sensitive to sounds and rhythms and they need listen to different songs or chants. Interpersonal intelligence- For these learners it is vital to discuss with other learners and teachers should try to incorporate group activities and brainstorming into their listening lessons. Intrapersonal intelligence- These learners prefer to work alone and it is suitable to let them think about the tasks carefully and reflect on their learning process or let them visualize stories in their minds.

After publishing Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences Gardner added another type of intelligence. The last type of intelligence is called naturalistic. 17

Naturalistic intelligence Naturalistic intelligence is a new type. Learners with the naturalistic intelligence need to be in touch with nature and because of this fact the teacher should try to bring listening materials that are connected with environmental issues.

Another division of learning styles is according to different approaches. Flowerdew and Miller describe these learning styles: Deep approach- These students consider all information worth learning. Surface approach- these learners prefer to learn only enough information to finish their tasks. Strategic approach- Students who prefer strategic approach focus only on passing their tests. Holistic (field-independent) approach- Learners who need overall picture and focus on general information belong to this group. Field-dependant approach- these learners want to learn gradually, step by step learning. Converger- These students developed their ways of learning and they follow them. Diverger- These learners are creative and prefer less formal way of learning. Concrete approach- these learners want their own learning experience to be a part of the learning process. Abstract approach- These students prefer abstract theories. Reflective approach- Those students who like to consider their learning progress belong into this group. Active approach- These learners like to experiment in the learning process. Solitary approach- These students prefer learning by themselves. Social approach- These learners love face to face interaction (Richards).

Teachers should be aware of the fact that learning styles overlap with the theory of multiple intelligences as the theory not only covers basic students’ abilities and skills but also the whole area of learners’ thinking.

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1.5.2 Learning strategies
Willing points out that a learning strategy is a specific mental procedure for gathering, processing, associating, categorizing, rehearsing, and retrieving information or patterned skills (2005: 62).

To assist students in acquiring new knowledge in a better way, teachers should support them to develop learning strategies. According to Harmer developing new learning strategies incorporates teaching students to: use textbooks. This involves guiding students; show them how to work with their textbooks. use communicative approach. Teachers should try to discourage students from using the mother tongue during speaking activities. read for the gist. Teachers have to explain and show their students how to deal with texts. deal with unfamiliar vocabulary. Teachers are supposed to provide their learners with the suitable context. use dictionaries. Teachers ought to explain how to make the best use of them.

Learning strategies can be branched into many areas but I will concentrate only on the three main.

According to Flowerdew and Miller learning strategies are distinguished as: Metacognitive strategies. Metacognitive strategies can be described as strategies that are used by the learners to organize, monitor and evaluate their learning process. Cognitive strategies. Cognitive strategies are the ways that the students use to acquire the language. Socioaffective strategies. Socioaffective strategies are the processes in which students employ others to improve their learning.

Being aware of students’ learning styles and strategies and respecting them can help teachers to organise more effective language lessons and to encourage their learners. 19

1.6 Teacher’s role during listening activities
Teachers carry a big responsibility in their classrooms; they have a huge impact on their learners either positive or negative and it is the teacher’s responsibility to create friendly and supportive atmosphere.

According to the division suggested by Harmer there are eight main roles: A teacher as an organiser- one of the most important roles of the teacher since the whole success depends on the teacher’s organization skills. They have to explain what their students are going to do, give clear instructions and at the end of the lesson they must give a constructive feedback. Teachers as organisers prepare the listening lesson covering all three stages and give clear instructions. A teacher as a controller- is a teacher who conducts the whole lesson. It is their responsibility to organize what students do, when they should speak and what language they use. Teachers whose roles are to control the lessons specify what students should do throughout the listening stages. A teacher as an assessor- another important part of teacher’s job is to assess their students, to give the students a feedback on their performance. They should evaluate how good students were. A teacher as a resource- such teacher can facilitate their students by giving advice and is available when the learners need to consult some problems. They usually help with unknown vocabulary or grammatical patterns. A teacher as a tutor- is a teacher who acts as a coach and as a resource (Harmer 1991: 242) and is able to help their students to develop ideas. Teachers as tutors can help their students during each stage and their help is very valuable during the while-listening stage during which they should help their students with prediction of the missing information. A teacher as an investigator- a teacher, who observes the activities in their lessons and subsequently evaluates their efficiency, belongs into this group. They keep reflective journals and evaluate the benefits of each listening activity. A teacher as a prompter- is a teacher who encourages their students and offers suggestions about activities that are being done by the students. They ought to

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support their students during each stage so that the students can be more successful. A teacher as a participant- a teacher can participate as an equal in the set activities but they must beware of leading in these activities. Their participation can also improve the classroom atmosphere. Teachers as participants can participate in pre and post-listening task such as discussions role-plays and so on.

Underwood suggests that teacher’s aims of supporting the students to become better at listening should contain: Introducing learners to a variety of listening experiences. Teachers can use a great number of listening texts that contains range of the usage of the target language. This will prepare their students for different situations in their lives. Helping listeners to gain the insight what listening represents. Teachers ought to make their students change their attitude towards listening and explain the process of it to them. Making listening meaningful for the learners. Teachers should try to bring recordings that are as realistic as possible, contain normal speech, so that the listeners are in touch with the outside classroom listening. Raise learners’ confidence. Teachers must encourage their students during the listening texts to help them to continue with listening. They should also try to bring such listening texts in which the learners can be successful but on the other hand are not too easy.

Other aspects of the teacher’s role that will help their students to become better at listening are to include areas into listening course such as employing strategies used in mother tongue during listening activities, building up knowledge of the cultural background of the target language and helping the learners to accept partial understanding (Underwood).

Underwood claims that there are other things teachers have to take into consideration while preparing the lesson plan:

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Whether teachers should prepare a separate listening lesson, which will be focused on listening practice, or incorporate listening into more language lessons which would be more or less focused on general knowledge. The availability of the equipment. During the listening practice teachers usually serve as technical support and that is why they should check before the lesson whether a player is working or not or whether they can handle with the new equipment or not. Amount of time spend on listening practice. Nowadays teachers are required to reserve a part of a lesson for listening and therefore it is their responsibility to outline the time for listening practice. Whether the learners are going to sit for an exam or not, which consists of listening tests. If yes teacher must cover this in their plans.

1.6.1 Teacher’s role preceding the listening
Before the lesson itself teacher should think about several steps. First of all they have to choose appropriate listening text and check the quality of the recording since bad quality recordings can cause serious problems to the listeners. Secondly, they have to take into consideration visual support as the visual aids are helpful for majority of the learners. Thirdly, they ought to think about special equipment which their students will need e.g. scissors, coloured pencils and so on. If the teachers decide that their students will need them it is their responsibility to tell them in advance. Lastly, teachers have to consider the listening procedure e.g. how to organise the stages, whether to use real-life recording or not and so on (Underwood).

1.6.2 Teacher’s role during the listening
At this stage teacher just makes sure that the lesson follows the lesson plan and works mainly as a facilitator. The main aim of the teacher is to encourage their students and help them if needed.

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According to Underwood there are a various ways of creating an encouraging classroom atmosphere: Teachers should offer help if it is needed and they ought to beware of marking the listening activities. Learners ought to be encouraged to change and modify their answers and write down any helpful information they heard. It is also better to omit one or two activities than to hurry since then students will not feel stressed and under pressure. Teachers ought to support their students to cooperate with their classmates and they should include pair or group work since knowing that they can work and compare their answers with their classmates will help them to release the stress caused by listening. Teachers are supposed to give immediate feedback since the later feedback is not efficient as students do not remember what was in the listening text.

All teachers have different approaches to their lessons but I fell that not only teachers but also students can benefit from a supportive atmosphere.

1.7 Lesson Planning
Before starting planning a listening activity teachers first of all should consider three things. Firstly, they ought to choose a type of a listening activity that they find interesting and suitable for their students. Secondly, teachers should select an activity that will practise those listening skills that are relevant for the students. The last thing, but in my opinion one of the most important, that has to be borne in mind is to compile a coherent lesson. This can be done by scaffolding. The term scaffolding means helping students during the listening process when teachers provide their students with support. Nikolic states students of any level can deal with almost any

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short listening passage, providing that the task is simple enough for them to experience success (19). When students do not need this support any more it can be easily removed. Once all three main considerations are taken into account teachers should focus on the lesson planning. According to Rixon a listening is then further divided up into three phases: The first phase, called pre-listening stage, consists of things that students do before the listening, to help students to get the most out of what they are going to listen to. In other words this stage serves as a preparation for listeners in order to get the most from the listening passage. The second phase, called while-listening stage, consists of activities and exercises to be carried out while the learners listen to the listening text, to direct them as they try to seize the main information of the passage. In other words it is the way the teacher controls the listening activity. The last phase, called follow-up stage, contains things to do once the students have apprehended of the meaning and content of the passage and are prepared to look back, to reflect on some aspects of language in it, or to do some additional work based on the content of the listening text.

According to Underwood the phases are called pre-listening, while-listening and postlistening stage.

1.7.1 Pre-listening stage
It would not be fair towards students to draw them straight into the listening without introducing the topic or the type of activity they are going to work on, since in the real life there are not many situations when people are supposed to listen with having no idea what they are going to hear so that is why students should be given a substantial pre-listening support. This pre-listening support will help them to become more confident and successful. Underwood claims that at the very beginning of the whilelistening activity the students should be helped to concentrate on what they are going to hear.

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According to Rixon at this stage, teachers should arrange such challenges that will give the students reasons for even bothering to listen to the listening text. All this involves outlining the setting and giving background information but it is not advised to tell the students too much otherwise the whole listening will be spoiled. At this stage it can be extremely useful to ask the students to predict missing information or the context.

Underwood declares that pre-listening task can consist of a variety of activities, which can help the teacher to focus the students’ minds on the topic by narrowing down the things that the learners anticipate to hear and stimulating relevant previous knowledge and already known language, including: The teacher providing background information; the students read something relevant to the listening text; the students look at some pictures; discussing the topic or situation to the listening text; a question and answer session to the listening text; written exercise to the listening text; following the set of instructions relevant for the while-listening activity; students think about how the while-listening activity will be organised.

Yagang presents a number of tasks for pre-listening stage that can enable the students to gain knowledge that is needed for the listening task. This gained knowledge gives the students confidence that is necessary for successful listening. The tasks include: Starting a discussion about the topic (possibly based on visuals and titles). In this sort of exercise students are asked to make a discussion about a set topic. Brainstorming. In this activity the students are asked to predict vocabulary that is associated with the set topic and the teacher is supposed to write them on the board. Another form of brainstorming activity can be making mind maps. Game. A nice example of warm up activity where either the students or the teacher mimes the words and the rest of the class is supposed to guess the meaning. Guiding questions. Teacher either writes or asks questions that will help students with the listening passage.

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Other aspects of pre-listening activities are to prepare materials that are authentic, thing that can imitate the real life situations; give the students clear instructions so that they know what to do e.g. if they are asked to answer a question teachers have to specify whether the students can use yes/ no answers or more complex answers. There are also a lot of factors affecting the choice of pre-listening activities such as the time, material and class ability. All these factors mentioned above influence the whole process of lesson planning.

1.7.2 While-listening stage
This stage, as it arises from the name, contains activities done by the students during the listening passage. The aim of activities done during this phase is to help the students to catch the main meaning of the text so that they have enough information to interpret the text. Teachers have to point out that at this stage students should not worry about interpreting long and difficult questions and subsequent production of complex answers, but they should be concerned with demonstration of the important information (Rixon)

One of the most important functions of while-listening activities is to present the sound of the target language. This presentation enables students to develop their listening comprehension skills and it also serves as a model of their speech.

When choosing a while-listening activity teachers consider several criteria. Underwood (1989: 46) points out that good while-listening activities help listeners find their way through the listening text and build upon the expectations raised by pre-listening activities. First of all they should choose an activity that would be interesting and challenging for the students at the same time as this will draw their attention and they will be able to concentrate on the listening task. Other criteria that ought to be born in mind are keeping the while-listening activity short enough and trying to do different types of listening exercises, since it would be unsatisfactory and maybe boring to do the same activity over and over again.

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Also knowledge based exercises ought to be omitted since such activities can lead to time consuming revision and students who already know can loose their interest. Another very important issue of while-listening activities is the level of difficulty. That is why exercises have to be selected according to the student abilities as a difficult or too easy listening text can be demotivating and frustrating for the learners. When choosing while-listening activities teachers should also consider graded tasks. Nikolic claims that you can use graded tasks, increasing the task complexity with each consecutive round of listening (19). This means that the learners start with listening to the main gist and then move to more and more complex listening activities, in other words from easy to more difficult exercises and from a lot of teacher’s support to little. There are also a number of other things that can lead into frustration and lack of interest such as exercises containing both listening and writing at the same time as these exercises can be extremely difficult for beginners who have problems with spelling and writing as such. Another discouraging type of a while-listening activity can be putting a great amount of sentences into the correct order according to what the students heard. It is also important to provide the students with some kind of introduction but again the amount of the information should be balanced since too much or too little information can cause the loss of the students’ attention.

The following paragraph provides some examples of while-listening activities. Comparison of the listening passage with the pre-listening stage; following instructions-learners are given a set of instructions and are supposed to show whether they understood them by a physical response; filling in exercise-students listen to a dialogue and are asked to fill in the missing information; spotting the difference- learners make responses only when they hear something different to what they already know about the topic or the speakers; information transfer- learners are asked to fill, forms, lists, maps or plans; sequencing- students are given a set of pictures and they have to put them into the correct order; information search- during the listening learners focus on specific items; Matching- students are asked to match items according to the recording.

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It is also important for teachers not to forget to give their students immediate feedback as it would be quite problematic, not only for the teacher but also for the students, to talk about the listening tasks during the following lesson. This postponed feedback would mean replaying or repeating the listening text and it could be difficult for the teacher to regain the students’ attention. The immediate feedback can be done by providing them with the correct answers, by asking them to talk the solutions over in small groups or by both.

1.7.3 Follow-up stage
During the follow-up activities students use their knowledge gained during the previous stage, while-listening stage, for completing the exercises.

There are a number of purposes why to incorporate follow-up activities into the lesson plans. One of them, in my opinion the crucial one, can be checking if the learners understood the listening passage or whether they finished the task successfully. According to Underwood another reason for a follow-up activity can be a reflection on why some students have not been successful or missed some parts of the text. A good activity for finding a solution to this problem can be a discussion about the problematic parts of the listening text; teachers can draw students’ attention to various lexical forms or features of the sound system. When dealing with some grammar forms teachers can find showing the examples of the grammar structures in the listening text extremely useful as this shows their student the natural form and usage. But on the other hand it would be problematic to deal with the whole text again. Thirdly, during the follow-up phase learners can be given a possibility to think about the attitude of the speaker or speakers since this can be found very difficult by the students. One of the other reasons for incorporating the follow-up stage is to broaden students’ knowledge about specific topics. This could be done by a decision making or asking them to express their views.

There are several activities that can be used in the follow-up stage:

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Problem solving and decision-making tasks- where students are trying to find out a solution for a problem from the recording. Role play- students can be asked to try out newly acquired things. Summarizing- students can be asked to summarize a story they heard. This activity can be linked with problem solving. Written work- students can be asked to write the end of the story.

Underwood presents that when selecting follow-up activities teachers ought to consider the following factors as they may find to keep students’ attention difficult: Whether the teacher has enough time for a post-listening activity How much language work the teacher wants to do in connection with the listening text. Whether the post-listening work should consist of speaking, reading or writing Whether the post-listening phase can be done as pair/group work or individual work Possibility of doing the activity as homework The level of motivation and a possibility to increase students’ motivation

Underwood argues that although teachers are not always able to organise lessons and choose suitable materials but they have some opportunities to give their students listening experience.

1.7.4 Types of listening exercises
Types of listening exercises can be divided into four main groups listening with no respond, with a limited respond, with a long respond and with an extended respond (Ur).

Listening without any respond This mirror a real-life situations as there are some situations when no response is demanded. This type of exercise is useful when teachers provide their students with a vast amount of listening experience. During such exercises no response is needed but 29

there are several ways how teachers can detect whether the students are listening or not such as body language. Listening without any respond involves these activities: A written text- this type contains reading a text and listening to it at the same time. The advantage of this activity is that students can acquire the pronunciation of different phrases and words but on the other hand students will not develop strategies for listening comprehension without any text support. Listening to book based materials- this is mainly based on students’ previous knowledge about well known stories. Although it is quite difficult to find out how good or bad the students were in the listening comprehension this type of activity is useful as hearing a familiar material certainly has value as a sort of easy transition between listening for perception and listening for comprehension (Ur, 2000: 52). Listening with visual support- the visual support involves pictures, graphs, maps and so on. While listening to a listening passage students have to follow the visual aid. Listening for pleasure- such activities contain listening to songs, stories watching films and TV programs. The advantage of these activities is that students will enjoy them and the target language is presented in different way but on the other hand students can just listen for pleasure without any willingness to understand it (Ur).

Listening with a limited respond Exercises that are based on limited responds are usually made of long listening parts but are cut into short chunks and students are supposed to give a limited response to them. During these exercises students give short and simple verbal or non-verbal answers. Listening with limited respond contains these activities: Following the instructions- students are supposed to act according to the instructions either by physical movements, drawing a picture this task is more suitable for beginners. Ticking of the words they heard- students are usually provided with a list of words or phrases and they must tick them of when they hear them. This activity is suitable for beginners especially for vocabulary practice. 30

True or false activities- students have to decide whether the information was true or false. Spotting the difference- students listen to a text and when they hear wrong information they make a response. Guessing- teachers or students describe somebody or something and the class guesses what it can be. Describing - in this type of an activity students are given a set of pictures, maps and so on and they are supposed to either order the pictures or identify the main features (Ur).

Listening with a long respond For these activities students are demanded to give comprehensive answers that prove that they understood the main idea of the text. Listening with long respond involves these activities: Summarizing, paraphrasing and translating- for these activities students are demanded to either to summarize the main ideas of the text or retell the story in their own words in the target language or in their mother tongue. Gap filling- during the listening students are supposed to fill in missing information according to what they heard. Answering questions- students are asked to answer questions according to the listening text. The most common form of this exercise is a multiple choice exercise where only one answer is the correct one. This activity represents one of the most difficult ones as the listener has to store the information from the recording for a long time (Ur).

Listening with an extended respond This last group involves more skills than just listening since students are demanded to analyse and interpret the listening text (Ur). Listening with an extended respond involves these activities: Problem solving- students listen to a text where a problems is mentioned after listening to the recording they have to discuss the issue and try to find an appropriate solution to it.

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Jigsaw listening- students are divided into groups and each groups is given different part of a listening text. After the listening they find partners from different groups and exchange the information in order to complete the task. Interpreting the listening text- students are asked to interpret various areas of the listening text such as the speaker’s attitude, the meaning of the passage and so on (Ur).

This sub-chapter provided a list of the most common listening activities used in language classes for teaching listening comprehension. In my opinion every teacher who is planning a listening lesson should take into consideration not only the above mentioned list of listening activities but also graded tasks since this will unable their students to develop their listening skills.

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2. Practical part

Lesson plans
Since I teach at a language school I work with students from different age groups, with different learning styles and my classes usually contain from 15 to 18 students. Because of this fact it is always difficult to prepare suitable listening activities that could develop their listening skills and help them to acquire good learning strategies. In this chapter I prepared five lesson plans for a group of students attending Pomaturitní studium, and who are going to sit for FCE exams. I chose this group because the students have so many different learning styles and strategies, and have mixed level of English. But what they had in common were unsatisfactory results of listening. Statistically expressed about forty percent of the students would not passed the listening part of the exam. This is an average percentage resulting from the listening tests done at the beginning of the term. Before organizing the listening lessons I did a survey in this class. I asked the students to describe their problems they face during listening exercises. According to the students the most common problems connected with listening are not being accustomed to speakers’ pronunciation, difficulty to concentrate when the listening text is long, not knowing the vocabulary, too fast speech of speakers and disturbing noises on the recording. Results of the survey corresponded with my personal experience from the previous lessons. I realized that the students had the biggest problems with sentence completion and because of this fact I focused on this type in the thesis and prepared three lesson plans that are focused on the sentence completion. I think that the reasons for their failure in sentence completion exercises were that the students did not have any strategy for listening and they had difficulties with orientation in the listening text and they did not realize the key information which let into bad interpretation of the listening text and subsequent unsatisfactory results. The second type of listening which caused problems to the students is a multiple choice exercise. In my opinion this was caused by the fact that they could not find the key information in the listening text and were not able to interpret the listening text correctly, which was similar to the sentence completion, whereas the strategy did not 33

cause any serious problems to the students. That is why I devoted only two lessons to this type. On the basis of these findings my aim was to help my students with the understanding of the listening text and help them to acquire strategies suitable for these types of exercises and that is why the practical part of my work is focused on the sentence completion and multiple choice exercises which are similar in their forms. Due to the similar form and frequent re-run of the exercises the students should acquire suitable skills and strategies that are necessary for successful listening. I used listening texts from the textbooks and I tried to invent exercises that could be connected with the listening. The lessons tend to follow the same pattern because I have found out throughout the term that the majority of the students are visual and auditory types and they need the visual stimulation and because of this fact I provided them with the pictures. Since their range of vocabulary is not vast and they need a lot of language support and that is why I included the brainstorming and pre-teaching of key vocabulary in each lesson. I think that this strategy will help them to build up their confidence and they will not feel under the pressure because I tend to think that the majority of mistakes are caused by stress. But on the other hand I am aware of the fact that at the FCE exam nobody will help them with translation and that is why I decided to reduce the number of words gradually so that they could learn to predict the words from the context. During the original teaching I kept a self-reflective journal (see appendix 1) in which I evaluated each lesson and because I use journals with my classes I also asked the students to assess the lessons in their journals (see appendix 2). My self-reflection and students’ feedback are provided after each lesson plan. Moreover I monitored the students’ progress after each listening lesson and their results are mentioned after my self-reflection.

2.1 Lesson Plan 1-Too Many People
Materials: CD, handouts, CD player, pictures Assumptions: though the level of their knowledge is sufficient they will not know some key vocabulary, the topic can be interesting for them since some of them could have visited some of these places. 34

Aims: to help them to find suitable listening strategies and prepare the students for the FCE listening paper that is focused on sentence completion. During this type of an exercise students are asked to listen for specific words or phrases and give written answers.

Stages and Procedures
Pre-Listening Stage a, Introduce the topic: Show the students the set of pictures and ask them to identify the places (a group activity- each group will be given a set of four pictures). If they need some help, write down names of several cities and places (e.g. Paris, London, New York, The Great Wall of China, The Pyramids in Giza, and the Colosseum in Rome, The Tower of London and The Grand Canyon). b, Brainstorming: ask students to brainstorm as many words or phrases as they can about the pictures and the topic. Teacher writes down the ideas. c, Discussion: ask students to discuss these questions in their groups. Have you ever visited these places? If yes can you describe your experience? Would you like to visit them? Why/ Why not? Can you name and describe your experience of the scenic views, the wildlife, the flora, outdoor recreation other interesting places you have visited? d, Pre-teaching: pre-teach the vocabulary you expect that the students will not be familiar with. Wonders, accessible, vegetation, first sight, drop, declare, safeguard, draw up, tackle, boundaries, availability, pipeline, upstream, profound, river flow, release, extinct, boulders, downstream, awesome, a lack of.

While-Listening Stage a, Now, you will hear a woman talking about a problem faced by the Grand Canyon National Park Service and your first task is to read the article (see appendix 5) and try to predict the possible answers (a group activity- Teacher goes round the class monitors and helps). b, Listen to the woman and complete the sentences. After the listening check you answers with your partner and discuss your answers. c, Listen to the woman again and fill in the rest and check your answers. Check your answers with your partner. d, Group check- check the answers and explain why. 35

e, Listen for the third time with the tapescript.

Post listening Stage There are a number of beautiful national parks in the United States including Alaska National Parks, East Coast National Parks, Rocky Mountain, Yosemite, and Yellowstone and so on. What things would you consider most when planning a vacation to this area? Rank the ideas below from the most important to the least important: ___ price of trip ___ destination ___ accommodations ___ sites and attractions ___ length of stay ___ travel companions ___ language(s) spoken at destination

Self-reflection:
Pre-listening stage- Introduction: At the beginning I had to deal with was a bad quality of the copies of the pictures. One of the pictures was difficult to identify but I stuck the colourful pictures on the walls which helped them to identify the place. I did not have to write down any names of famous cities or places as my students were able to identify the pictures without this help. I suppose this activity as useful because the students have different learning styles and the majority of them are visual types that need to be supported by various visual aids as I was describing in chapter 5. Next time I would transform the activity and would bring more pictures and divide the students into groups of three or four and each group will be given one picture. I will ask them to talk about their pictures and their personal experience with the places then they can describe the picture to their classmates. Discussion: They spoke about their personal experience and in their groups they chose their favourite place and they also expressed their opinions about the issues. I think this is a good way of introducing the topic because this will prepare them for the listening. And as some students mentioned in their journals the fact that they were using vocabulary especially about Grand Canyon which helped them with the listening text 36

because they knew the context of some vocabulary. In my opinion the personalization of the language plays a great role because it can draw their attention and moreover they are interested in the topic. In my opinion pre-teaching the vocabulary was a big support for them as they did not know the majority of them and in the survey, I did before, they mentioned that they had problems when they did not understand the important vocabulary. While-listening stage- Before the listening we tried to guess and predict what the missing information in the exercise could be because I think that guessing and predicting words from the context is a very useful learning strategy and this strategy can be used by the students during the exam. Students found this strategy very useful too and wrote about it in their journals. After the first listening I gave them enough time to compare their answers with their partners and I let them talk about their answers in order to make them feel more comfortable because they could exchange the missing information. Then I asked them whether they want to listen to the recording with a tape script or without and out of 15 students 13 voted for the tapescript. In my opinion it was a useful support for the majority of them at this stage because they had had problems with the listening in the previous lessons and complained that it was difficult for them to listen and write at the same time and I found it useful to provide them with a visual support. Post listening stage was firstly done in their groups and then we had a class discussion about their opinions and suggestions but again this activity was limited by lack of time. I think that this activity had a value because it enabled the students to use the new vocabulary.

Students’ results of the listening: The listening was completed by 15 students,
thereof one student got the maximum number of points (e.g. 10 points), other student got nine points, three students got eight, other three students seven, four students got six points and three did not reached the borderline sixty per cent.

Students’ feedback: According to the students pre-teaching the vocabulary was
extremely useful for them as they could hear and see the form and the meaning of the words. The majority of students thought that using the pictures was a useful way of introducing the topic and just 3 students said that it was not needed. After the lesson I 37

decided that the following lesson I would explain the benefits of a partial understanding since it is not a disadvantage for them because this is common in the real-life and they will have to deal with it during the exam.

2.2 Lesson Plan 2-The Right Job
Materials: CD, handouts, CD player, pictures Assumptions: though the level of their knowledge is sufficient they will not know some key vocabulary the topic can be interesting for them since it is connected with their future occupations. Aims: to help them to find suitable listening strategies and prepare the students for the FCE listening paper is focused on sentence completion. During this type of an exercise students are demanded to listen for specific words or phrases and give written answers.

Stages and Procedures
Pre-Listening Stage a, Introduce the topic: Show students the set of pictures and ask them to identify the jobs: a window cleaner, a vet, a detective, a plumber, a singer, a dentist, a surgeon, a chef and an astronaut (a group activity). If needed help them to identify the jobs either by explaining or miming. b, Brainstorming: ask students to brainstorm as many words or phrases connected with these particular jobs as they can. Teacher writes down the ideas. This should be a revision of vocabulary connected with jobs. c, Discussion: ask students to discuss this question in their groups. How do you feel about each job? Would you be interested in doing this kind of job? Why/ Why not? d, Pre-teaching: pre teach the vocabulary you expect the students will not be familiar with. Explain or mime the meaning. Range from, cookery school, confident, vital; come about, lucky break, fairly.

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While Listening Stage a, Now, you will hear a part of a radio interview with a woman, called Christine Whitelaw, talking about her job and your first task is to read the article (see appendix 5) and try to predict the possible answers (a group activity- teacher goes round the class monitors and helps). b, Listen to Christine and complete the sentences. After the listening check your answers with your partner and discuss your answers. c, Listen again and fill in the rest and check your answers. Pair-check. d, Group check- check the answers and explain why. e, Listen for the third time with the tapescript.

Post Listening Stage What job do you do? Do you enjoy the job? If they are not working ask about their part time or weekend jobs or what they would like to do after they finish their studies. Which factor do you consider as the most crucial when looking for a new job? Can you order the following points according to importance and then explain your reason: ___ opportunities for promotion ___ working hours ___ holiday ___ interest level ___ salary ___ benefits such life insurance, car and so on ___ sick or maternity leave ___ possibility of part time job If you want you can add your own possibilities

Self reflection:
Pre-listening stage- The topic jobs was mainly a revision and students proved to remember quite a lot of the phrases and that is why I think that it was easier for them to talk about the professions and again the personalizing of the language enable them to discuss the questions and express their views in an appropriate way. Maybe the only thing I would change next time is the description of the pictures, it would be possible to 39

give each group one picture and ask them to describe the job and the rest of the class would guess the job because it will be a change for them. Due to my previous experience with pre-teaching the key vocabulary I pre-taught the vocabulary so that the students could get familiar with the form and the meaning of the vocabulary but as I have mentioned in the introduction I kept reducing the number of key vocabulary. While-listening activities- After the first listening I asked the students whether they wanted to listen to the recording with the tapescrip or whether they wanted me to stop the recording at the key information and all of them chose the second option. I decided to offer this option because some of the students mentioned this in their journals and I thought that it was a good and helpful support in this case because I realized that the speaker spoke fast for them and I did not want to discourage them by it. I am aware of the fact that this will not happen at the exam and that is why I explained them the disadvantage of this and explained the advantages of partial understanding because at the exam they will not know every word and that is why they should get used to the partial understanding.

Students’ results of the listening: The listening was completed by 13 students,
thereof one student got the maximum number of points (e.g. 10 points), other two students got nine points, two students got eight, other four students seven, three students got six points and one student did not reached the borderline sixty per cent.

Students’ feedback: The students really appreciated that I pre-taught the vocabulary
as this helped them to get used to the pronunciation and I knew that they still needed the language support. They also mentioned that they liked the lesson as the topic was interesting and they had something to say about it, which I think is important because if the students are personally involved in the topic they will be more focused on the listening text and it is one of the teacher’s tasks to try to choose an interesting topic as I was writing in chapter Teacher’s roles. Although the majority of the class welcomed that I was pausing the recording at the key information since it was easier for them to remember and write down the words I decided that I would use this strategy into the third listening in the following lesson.

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2.3 Lesson Plan -Football Clubs
Materials: CD, handouts, CD player, pictures Assumptions: though the level of their knowledge is sufficient they will not know some key vocabulary the topic can be interesting not only for boys but also for girls. Aims: to help them to find suitable listening strategies and prepare the students for the FCE listening paper that is focused on sentence completion. During this type of an exercise students are demanded to listen for specific words or phrases and give written answers.

Stages and Procedures
Pre-Listening Stage a, Introduce the topic: Show students the set of pictures and ask them to identify the sports (a group activity). If needed help them to identify the jobs either by explaining or miming. b, Brainstorming: ask students to brainstorm as many words or phrases connected with these particular sports as they can. Teacher writes down the ideas. This listening lesson should be a revision of vocabulary connected with sports. c, Discussion: ask students to discuss this question in their groups. How do you keep fit? What advice would you give to someone who is not fit? d, Pre-teaching: pre teach the vocabulary you expect the students will not be familiar with. Explain or mime the meaning. Promote, scarf, reward, sold out, allowing, enormous, associated with.

While Listening Stage a, Now, you will hear a part of a radio interview with a woman, Amelia Unwin, talks about one of the most successful football clubs in the world, your first task is to read the article (see appendix 5) and try to predict the possible answers (a group activity- teacher goes round the class monitors and helps). b, Listen to Amelia and complete the sentences. After the listening check your answers with your partner and discuss your answers. c, Listen again and fill in the rest and check your answers. Pair-check. d, Group check- check the answers and explain why. 41

e, Listen for the third time with the tapescript.

Post Listening Stage Why do you think football is the most popular sport? Do you like football? In 30 seconds, can you explain what football is? Do you think professional footballers get paid too much? Can football authorities change the rules to make the game more exciting?

Self reflection:
Pre-listening stage- Since I know that there are two student with logical-mathematical intelligence in the class I decided to try to use mind maps instead of brainstorming because I think that mind maps enabled them to organise words and phrases into wellarranged units which are needed by learners with logical-mathematical intelligence who need to put everything into classes and categories as I was describing in chapter five. Because of the fact that the students still needed some language support I pre-taught key vocabulary but again I reduced the number because I wanted the students to be more dependant on the context of the listening rather than on the words. Before listening to the recording we tried to predict what the missing information could be because I believe that the strategy is very useful and can be used at the exam. While-listening stage- After the first listening I asked them whether they wanted to listen to the recording with the tapescript or not and the majority, 14 out of 16, did not want the support. During the third listening I stopped the recording at the key information so that the students could realise where the right answer was. I employed this strategy as it showed the students that everything was on the recording and they did not have to make up the answers and the students admitted that this helped them to realize their mistakes. Post-listening stage- Due to the fact that nearly nobody was interested in football I introduced a new question “What do you think about the recent situation in football?” (The aggression, alcohol and so on). I think that changing the topic was a good idea because they were interested in the question and were willing to express their thoughts and points of view.

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Students’ results of the listening: The listening was completed by 16 students,
thereof two students got the maximum number of points (e.g. 10 points), other two students got nine points, three students got eight, other four students seven, five students got six points. All of the students reached the borderline in the listening.

Students’ feedback: Again they welcomed pre-teaching the unknown vocabulary
because they still needed the language support and they praised that we tried to predict the missing words as they found it so helpful. They appreciated the mind mapping activity since this helped them to retrieve vocabulary connected with sports. They only thing the complained about was the fast speech of the speaker.

2.4 Lesson Plan 4-Death Trap
Materials: CD, handouts, CD player, pictures Assumptions: though the level of their knowledge is sufficient they will not know some key vocabulary, the topic can be interesting. Aims: to help them to find suitable listening strategies and prepare the students for the FCE listening paper multiple choice exercise. During this type of an exercise students are supposed to listen for an opinion, attitude or specific information expressed in the main idea of the listening text. This type of an exercise is based on a long text.

Stages and Procedures
Pre-Listening Stage a, Introduce the topic: Show students the set of pictures and ask them to identify the natural disasters (a group activity). If needed help them to identify them. b, Brainstorming: ask students to brainstorm as many words or phrases connected with these natural disasters as they can. Teacher writes down the ideas. c, Discussion: ask students to discuss this question in their groups. What is a disaster? Have you ever been in a disaster? What are the different kinds of disasters? What kinds of disasters are common in our country?

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d, Pre-teaching: pre-teach the vocabulary you expect the students will not be familiar with. Explain or mime the meaning. Riot, flames, heat, shout, scream, fear the worst.

While Listening Stage a, Now, you will hear a man and woman talking about how the fire affected them, your first task is to read the questions and options (see appendix 5) and try to predict the possible options (a group activity- teacher goes round the class monitors and helps). Point out that questions 1-2 are about the man, while 3-5 are about the woman. b, Listen to the recording and choose the best option. After the listening check your answers with your partner and discuss your answers. c, Listen again and choose the best answer and check your answers. Pair-check. d, Group check- check the answers and explain why. e, Listen for the third time with the tapescript.

Post Listening Stage Do you know anyone who has done any voluntary work? What was it? Did he or she enjoy it? How can you help after a disaster? If you could volunteer to help after a disaster, what could you do? What is the difference between natural disasters and manmade disasters?

Self reflection:
Pre-listening stage- Due to my positive experience with mind maps I decided to use them again because they proved very helpful for the students with logical-mathematical intelligence and the other reason for using the activity was to organise vocabulary connected with natural disasters. Although I had chosen an easier listening text I pretaught several words because I knew that the students still needed the language support. I followed my plan to reduce the number of the vocabulary and pre-taught just six words because I wanted my students to get used to being dependant on the context rather than on words. While-listening stage- Because of the outside noises on the recording the students did not feel comfortable and were quite stressed by that so I decided to use the tapescripts

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during the second listening. In my opinion the tapescripts served as a visual support and enable them to feel more comfortable and be more successful. I know that this will not be possible at the exam but I decided that I will adopt the listening text according to their needs during the exam preparation in order to build up their confidence.

Students’ results of the listening: The listening was completed by 16 students,
thereof five students got the maximum number of points (e.g. 5 points), other five students got four points and six students got three points. All of the students reached the borderline in the listening.

Students’ feedback: The students admitted that the listening text was easier but they
also mentioned that the background noises were quite disturbing and said that using the tapescripts was helpful in this case.

2.5 Lesson Plan 5- The Woman without a name
Materials: CD, handouts, CD player, pictures Assumptions: though the level of their knowledge is sufficient they will not know some key vocabulary and the topic can be interesting. Aims: to help them to find suitable listening strategies and prepare the students for the FCE listening paper multiple choice exercise. During this type of an exercise students are supposed to listen for an opinion, attitude or specific information expressed in the main idea of the listening text. This type of an exercise is based on a long text.

Stages and Procedures
Pre-Listening Stage a, Introduce the topic: Show students the set of pictures (names of plays and pictures of famous writers and actors) and ask them to identify the topic of the lesson (a group activity). The teacher helps with the pictures if needed. b, Brainstorming: ask students to brainstorm as many words or phrases connected with the topic as they can. Teacher writes down the ideas.

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c, Discussion: ask students to discuss this question in their groups. When do you usually listen to the radio? What do you usually listen to? Where do you usually read? What do you usually read? Who is your favourite author? Have you ever been to a play? If so, when was the last time? d, Pre-teaching: pre-teach the vocabulary you expect the students will not be familiar with. Explain or mime the meaning- easy listening. Research into, make up.

While Listening Stage a, Now, you will hear a scene from a radio play, your first task is to read the statements (see appendix 5) and try to predict the possible answers (a group activity- teacher goes round the class monitors and helps). Point out that they have to decide whether the statements are true or false. b, Listen to the recording and choose the best option. After the listening check your answers with your partner and discuss your answers. c, Listen again and choose the best answer and check your answers. Pair-check. d, Group check- check the answers and explain why. e, Listen for the third time with the tapescript.

Post Listening Stage Now discuss these questions: Why is the woman talking to the man? What do you think is going to happen next?

Self reflection:
Pre-listening stage- I think the topic “The Film Stars” was interesting for the students because they were engaged in their discussions and they tried to use new words and phrases. It was nice to see them involved in the discussions and again I had to praise the personalizing of the topic because it really helps with listening and other activities. I followed my plan to reduce the number of pre-taught vocabulary and this time I reduced it to two new phrases. I must admit that students were quite surprised and wanted more words but I explained the importance of partial understanding to them and I remembered that they did well in the previous lessons. I did it because I think that they 46

needed to be praised for their previous successes since this built up their confidence and also I wanted them to realise the benefits of partial understanding because at the exam they will have to use this strategy. While-listening stage- After the first listening I gave them time to compare their answers with their partners because in my opinion this helped them to calm down and feel more comfortable. I think that at this stage they did realise the importance of partial understanding because they tried to imply the strategy of prediction from the context and they were really focused on the listening. Post listening stage- I asked them to write a short paragraph about the question “What do you think is going to happen next?” because I think that this is a good way of practicing writing skills.

Students’ results of the listening: The listening was completed by 13 students,
thereof two students got the maximum number of points (e.g. 8 points), other three students got seven points, three students got six points and five students got five points. All of the students reached the borderline in the listening.

Students’ feedback: They praised the topic as they had a lot to say, which is always
good when the students personalise the topic because it draws their attention and they are more focused on the listening.

The results of the practical part provided me with a constructive feedback and helped me to identify my strong and weak points. During the listening lessons I learner a lot of interesting facts about my students and I hope that I will be able to help them to acquire good listening strategies. I also learned how important it is to help the students to find suitable learning strategies and how important role the learning styles play in language learning.

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Conclusion
My bachelor thesis focuses on teaching listening and outlines the features and benefits of listening. In the work I tried to concentrate on different learning styles and strategies as they influence the whole teaching process and teachers should be aware of them.

The first part of my work involves the theoretical background of teaching listening. In this part I have outlined the teacher’s role; looked at student’s learning styles and strategies; touched purposes for listening and the listening process; summarized the most common problems connected with listening; and focused on the process of listening as such.

The practical part is based on the original teaching listening to a class of 18 students in which scaffolding is needed. In this part of the thesis I have framed five lesson plans that are based on a survey. In the survey I asked my students to describe their most common difficulties they have to deal with during a listening exercise. According to the students the most common problems connected with listening are not being accustomed to speakers’ pronunciation, not knowing the vocabulary, too fast speech of speakers, difficulty to concentrate when the listening text is long and disturbing noises on the recording. During the listening practice I kept a self-reflective journal in which I reflected on each listening lesson. I also asked my students to evaluate each lesson in their journals. I found this way as a very useful as my reflections and their evaluation helped me to realize the importance of listening in language teaching.

Thanks to the original teaching I have learnt how important it is for the students to be provided with language support which is regularly reduced because they will gradually get used to the partial understanding and focus on the prediction from the context of the listening text rather than on the meaning of the individual words. I also learnt how efficient the strategy of guessing and predicting the possible answers is for the students because it will enable them to concentrate on specific information during the listening and they can use this strategy during the listening part of the test.

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My last hypothesis was about using visual aids and to be honest was not confirmed entirely because some of the students, predominantly students with linguistic intelligence, did not find it relevant to the listening. On the basis of these findings I will alter this activity. Instead of describing pictures I will tell students a story or a joke that will be related to the topic and then write down some words from the story on the board and let my students guess the theme of the listening. I think that this will not only help to the students with language intelligence, because they need to be exposed to the language as much as possible, but also to the students with visual because they can visualize my story. With respect to this fact I will try to combine both approaches in order to prepare all my students for the listening.

Due to the frequent re-run of the exercises which have the similar form the students achieved better results with every listening and their improvement has had a positive influence on their motivation. Additionally, the students feel more confident and are less stressed during the listening. Their progress was evident during the five listening lessons as it arises from their results of listening.

The thesis helped me realize the importance of scaffolding and its gradual reduction when teaching a class in which a language support is needed. I also found out how important it is to plan the listening lesson carefully and pay attention to each step in order to help students to develop good listening skills and strategies which are necessary in today’s multicultural world.

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Summary
The bachelor thesis is called Teaching Listening and the aim of this work is to outline the main features and benefits of listening in language teaching. The thesis is divided into two parts, theoretical and practical.

The theoretical part focuses on the listening comprehension, purposes for listening, possible problems encountered by the listeners, and this part also deals with the process of listening and the purposes for listening. The last chapter provides information about how to organize a listening lesson and covers both stages of listening and the types of listening activities.

The practical part concentrates on the original teaching of listening. The teaching practice, which was based on these lesson plans, was realized with students attending Pomaturitní studium at a language school. This part is also provided with the selfreflection and students’ feedback of the five lesson plans.

Resumé
Bakalářské práce je nazvána Výuka Poslechu a jejím cílem je nastínit hlavní znaky a výhody poslechu ve výuce jazyka. Bakalářská práce je rozdělena do dvou částí, teoretické a praktické.

V teoretické části se zabývám porozumění slyšenému textu, důvody poslechu a pravděpodobnými problémy se kterými se studenti mohou setkat při poslechu. Tato část se také zaměřuje na proces poslechu a samotnými důvody poslechových aktivit. Poslední kapitola praktické části je věnována organizaci poslechu v hodinách anglického jazyka a obsahuje jak jednotlivé stupně poslechu tak i druhy poslechových aktivit.

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Praktická část se zaměřuje na samotnou výuku poslechu. Výuka poslechu, která je založena na pěti výukových plánech, byla realizována se studenty pomaturitního studia na jazykové škole. Tato část bakalářské práce také obsahuje zhodnocení přínosu hodin a to nejen z mé strany, ale i ze strany studentů.

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Bibliography
1. Ur, Penny. A Course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. 2. Ur, Penny. Teaching Listening Comprehension. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. 3. White, Goodith. Listening. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. 4. Underwood, Mary. Teaching Listening. New York: Longman, 1989. 5. Rixon, Shelagh. Developing Listening Skills. London: Macmillan, 1986. 6. Rost, Micahel. Listening in Language Learning. New York: Longman, 1990. 7. Harmer, Jeremy. The Practice of English Language Teaching. New ed. New York: Longman, 1991. 8. Scrivener, Jim. Learning Teaching: a Guidebook for English Language Teachers. Oxford: Macmillan, 2005. 9. Celce-Murcia, Marianne. Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language. Thomson learning, 2001. 10. Anderson, Ann, Lynch. Listening. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. 11. Willing in Flowerdew, John, Miller. Second Language Listening: Theory and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 12. Flowerdew, John, Miller. Second Language Listening: Theory and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 13. Hedge, Tricia. Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. 14. Scarbrough, David. Reasons for Listening. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. 15. Lynch, Tony. Study Listening. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 16. Nikolic, Vesna. Scaffolding. English Teaching Professional 15 July 2008: 18-21.

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17. Smith, Mark K. “Howard Gardner and Multiple Intelligences”. The Encyclopedia of Informal Education. 2008. 17 November 2008. <http://www.infed.org/thinkers/gardner.html>. 18. “Multiple Intelligences explained”. LdPride. 2008. 17 November 2008. <http://www.ldpride.net/learningstyles.MI.htm#Multiple Intelligences Explained>. 19. “Teaching Listening”. The National Capital Language Resource Center. 2004. 17 November 2008. <http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/listening/liindex.htm>. 20. Yagang in Pospieszy’nska, Magdalena. Listening in FL Classrooms- Few Recipes. 2001. 17 November 2008. <http://ifa.amu.edu.pl/fa/files/ifa/papers/pospiesz.htm>. 21. O’Neill, Robert. New Success at First Certificate. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. 22. Capel, Annette, Sharp. Objective First Certificate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 23. Cambridge Advanced Dictionary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

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Appendix
Appendix 1 Reflective Journal

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Appendix 2 Students’ Journals

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Appendix 3 Pictures for lesson 3

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Appendix 4 Listening Exercises

Figure 1: Listening Exercise 1

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Figure 2: Listening Exercise 2

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Figure 3: Listening Exercise 3

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Figure 4: Listening Exercise 4

Figure 5: Listening Exercise 5

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Appendix 5 Tapescripts

Figure 6: Tapescript 1 62

Figure 7: Tapescript 2

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Figure 8: Tapescript 3

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Figure 9: Tapescript 4

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Figure 10: Tapescript 5

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