YL: Developing Listening Skills at B1(and beyond), Ben Crompton

For many young learners, learning English involves sitting official exams, and very often their course materials are designed specifically towards these tests. This often means that listening, a skill which many learners find challenging to master, is treated in course material as an opportunity to practice the test. This idea is nothing new; Susan Sheerin commented in 1987 that course materials were found to ‘test rather than teach’, and the work of Cauldwell, Conti, Field, and Thorn (to name just a few) has extolled the need to develop listening and decoding skills. Nevertheless, the majority of coursebooks continue to test rather than develop.

There’s another side to this that needs considering: the learner’s perspective. Several studies (Zhai 2015, Namaziandost et al. 2018, Adnan et al. 2019) show that listening anxiety can have detrimental effects on learners’ self-efficacy and comprehension. My own classroom-based research indicates that listening anxiety is more common in the classroom than the exam hall.

This practical workshop is not all doom and gloom. Attendees first get to experience what a stressful experience classroom listening can be and reflect on what made this task difficult. After a brief but informative overview of the theory behind listening anxiety, the task they did at the beginning is transformed into a more positive one, where learners are encouraged to reflect on what they heard rather than what they got right. The workshop then gives participants a chance to see five practical and effective activities which they can use with any listening text. My aim is to provide teachers with activities that are easy to plan and teach, and don’t require extra materials or classroom time. They will see that developing their learners’ listening skills is something everyone can achieve in their classes.

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