Listening is known as the main channel by which children make initial contact with the target language. That’s why there is an enormous amount of listening in the young learner classroom. They listen to a great variety of texts which help to tune into English and absorb the language before being able to produce anything.
Sources of listening material
Teacher talk is always the first and most valuable source of listening material. Young learner teachers talk a lot – when greeting learners and chatting with them, when giving instructions, feedback, praise/encouragement, and when modelling pronunciation and vocabulary use. It is a good start for young learners to get used to the intonation patterns and sounds of the language. However, to continue developing their listening skills, teachers should also incorporate other “voices”, which include stories, songs, rhymes, chants, and tongue twisters. Apart from providing enjoyable listening practice, their repetitive patterns make new language stand out.
When choosing listening material, it is important to keep in mind its type and length. This means that:
- The material should be appropriate for the learners’ level.
- It should be interesting.
- It shouldn’t be long as children have short attention spans.
Mourão and Ellis (2020: 70) also suggest asking yourself the following questions:
- Is it useful?
- Does it contain enough language the children already know?
- Does it include lots of repetition?
- Are there opportunities for including movement?
- Are there opportunities for varied repetition?
- Do you like it?
Teacher mediation
We shouldn’t forget that children are meaning-bound, therefore when they are listening, they focus primarily on the meaning.
To ensure learners understand the meaning when they are listening, teachers should:
- Prepare them for the context.
- Pre-teach lexis (visuals/realia).
- Use non-verbal cues to help with the meaning (hand gestures, facial expressions, body language).
- Keep listening active, giving the learners a task, so that they have a purpose/reason for listening.
Activities
When choosing listening activities for young learners, it is always recommended to start with "listen and do" tasks. The nonverbal contributions help to make sense of the content (Pinter, 2017: 58), and it is easy for teachers to monitor what children have understood from the listening text.
Once the children become familiar with the lexis (the language focus of the text), they should be provided with activities at word, phrase, and sentence levels (this will depend on their linguistic proficiency).
Below are different ways to check learners' comprehension which can be used with different age groups (adapted from Shin and Crandall, 2014: 116):
Nonverbal demonstration of comprehension
- Doing: respond physically (Total Physical Response)
- Transferring: transform information into another form (drawing, e.g. picture dictations)
Nonverbal but can require some reading
- Choosing: select from alternatives (matching, putting in order, taking away, sorting, choosing pictures according to description)
Require production
- Answering: answer questions about the message
- Condensing: reduce the message (notetaking, mind maps)
Once the children are familiar with the text, teachers should try to include post-listening activities, which can involve creativity and personal responses. If learners struggle to express themselves in the L2, accept the comments in their L1 and incorporate them into the target language.
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