Listening activities and exercises

[teachenglish1]

I am looking for advice from anyone who has taught listening skills to foreigners.

My student has a good level of English speaking but his listening is not good at all. He only wants to improve his listening so he can understand natural English being spoken.

Thanks.

[Lady Hawk]

What nationality is your student? Depending on the native language will determine exactly where the confusion of sound lies.

[teachenglish1]

My student is Korean. Thanks!

[teachenglish1]

Also, I live in London so British English is the target language.

Even though he only wants to improve his listening, should I improve speaking also?

[teacherdominic]

Listening and speaking definitely go together - it's hard to imagine one without the other. If you do "pure' listening, are you going to restrict yourself to tapes/cds? That doesn't work in my experience as listening to a tape is quite different to listening in a conversation.

Is this a one-to-one situation? One routine that works quite nicely in dovetailing speaking with listening is reflective listening. You speak and then he has to check his understanding by coming back at you with:

"Do you mean.....?"
"Let me see if I have got this right."
"Are you saying...?"
etc

This is a technique that most good language learners have anyway, but it is also quite teachable.

Depending on level BBC Words in the News is a fantastic resource worth checking out. It is something I have used successfully one-to-one many times - though the learner does need to be int upwards.

There are lots of ways to use the site. You can listen then speak. You can read and listen at the same time etc etc.

[dhenique]

I do agree that listening and speaking can't be separated each other. Watching movies and listening english songs would become interesting additional materials.
Ask your students to find missing words of english songs. Additionally, invite your students to watch movies, after that ask them to retell the story.

That would be interesting activities in your classroom .

[billmcd]

Check out Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab - For ESL/EFL Students but a caution, American accent.

[Ian Heron]

I am looking for advice from anyone who has taught listening skills to foreigners.

My student has a good level of English speaking but his listening is not good at all. He only wants to improve his listening so he can understand natural English being spoken.

Thanks.

Hearing the sounds of a new language will arrive at about the same time as the ability to make the sound correctly. The solutions:- a. Find the misheard sound then practice trying to make it e.g. the "r sound" for the Chinese. I have tried tongue twisters with some success. b. Submerse the students in the language so that they have to discriminate and thus learn to hear the sound. Make the sound important.
Ian