Exploring Teaching Beliefs on EFL Listening
Huei-Chun Teng
Department of Applied Foreign Languages, National Taiwan University of Science & Technology
tenghc@mail.ntust.edu.tw
Abstract
The study aims to explore teaching beliefs on EFL listening instruction. The participants were 36 EFL
teachers in junior high schools in Taiwan. The participating teachers first completed the questionnaires ofteachers’ beliefs. Then, eight of them were recruited voluntarily for classroom observations, and finally,semi-structured interviews were held with the eight volunteer teachers to explore more specific insights
based on their questionnaire responses and classroom behaviors. Results show that the EFL teachers
regarded listening as the most important English skill. The teaching belief most often held by the teachers is‘building up students’ confidence in their own listening ability’. According to the teachers’ perspectives, theimportant EFL listening skills are the ability to detect key words and the ability to guess the meanings ofwords from the contexts. The important teaching activities are to make listening work enjoyable and create
pre-listening activities that give a useful preview of the content and procedures in the activity.
Keywords
Extensive reading (ER), reading attitude, English as a foreign language (EFL)
1 Introduction
In Taiwan, there has been increased attention to the teaching of EFL listening in recent years. Many learners
realize that they need good listening skills to support the demands made on them in school, work, travel orother settings. Moreover, the Ministry of Education has decided to include the listening test in English
entrance exams for both senior high schools and universities. As a result, language institutes and publishers
have responded to these needs by providing a range of courses and materials to support the teaching of EFL
listening. In a sense then EFL listening instruction has never been in a better state in Taiwan, with few
questioning its usefulness and with a wide variety of teaching resources for teachers to utilize. However,there are fundamental questions concerning the pedagogy of EFL listening. Acting on washback, how do
EFL teachers look upon teaching listening in high schools? According to Allen (2013), there is a complex
relationship between teachers’ beliefs and their classroom practices. It is generally accepted that teachers’
beliefs influence their curricular and instructional choices, as well as many other aspects involved inteaching. Thus, a critical issue of EFL listening instruction in Taiwan is to examine teachers’ beliefs inteaching listening with the hope of facilitating their teaching effectiveness and further improving students’listening proficiency. The present research aims to explore teacher beliefs in L2 listening instruction. The
study will mainly examine the beliefs held by EFL teachers toward teaching listening in junior high schoolsin Taiwan.
As indicated by a number of researchers (e.g. Mendelsohn 2001, 2006; Berne 2004; LeLoup & Pontiero2007), it is important to develop L2 listening competence not only valuable for its own sake but useful forthe growth of other aspects of language use, yet learners are rarely taught how to listen effectively.
According to Vandergrift (2007), if L2 listening research is seen as a building project, more work is stillneeded to shore up the foundations to further our understanding of how to teach this important skill. Besides,
Pajares (1992) argued that the beliefs teachers hold influence their perceptions and judgments, which, inturn, affect their behavior in the classroom. Understanding the belief structures of teachers is essential to
improving their professional preparation and teaching practices. Given the significance of teachers’ beliefsin L2 listening, however, there has been little research conducted, especially in EFL context. As a result,researchers are encouraged to provide specific insights into this critical issue and thus generate more
effective suggestions for L2 listening pedagogy.
92 Research on L2 teachers’ beliefs
There has been a growing body of research on the investigation of foreign/second language teachers’ beliefs
about a wide variety of aspects of language teaching and learning. For example, Allen (2010, 2013)
analyzed teachers’ beliefs about developing language proficiency within the context of study abroad in orderto determine if their beliefs are compatible with the literature on foreign language teaching. Sakui and Gaies(2003) explored the relationship between teachers’ beliefs and their self-identity. Bell (2005) studied
teachers’ beliefs about effective teaching behaviors. Lacorte (2005) examined the relationship between
teachers’ knowledge and beliefs and their practices in Spanish classrooms in the USA. Borg (2011) studied
the impact of professional development on teachers’ beliefs.
A number of studies compared teachers’ beliefs about certain aspects of their work with the beliefs held by
their students. Peacock (1998) examined teachers’ and students’ beliefs about the usefulness of certainclassroom activities. Levine (2003) studied teachers’ and students’ beliefs about anxiety associated withtarget language use and found that teachers believed their students to be more anxious than did the students
themselves. Chavez (2007) compared teachers’ beliefs about the degree of accuracy needed to obtain agrade of A with what students believed. Brown (2009) compared beliefs held by teachers and students about
what constitutes effective teacher behaviors. Recently, Hu & Tian (2012) have investigated the beliefs ofteachers and students regarding strategies for learning and teaching Chinese tones, which constitute a crucial
feature of the spoken language and often cause problems for learners.
In terms of language policy, Farrel and Kun (2008) investigated the impact of language policy on the beliefs
and classroom practices of three primary school teachers concerning the use of Singlish in their classrooms.
Results indicate that teachers’ reaction to language policy is not a straightforward process and it is importantto understand the role teachers play in the enactment of language policy. McMillan and Rivers (2011)
surveyed 29 ‘native-English speaker’ teachers at a Japanese university where the exclusive use of the target
language is promoted as a key feature of the optimal foreign language learning environment. Results showed
that, contrary to the official policy, many teachers believed that selective use of the students’ L1 could
enhance L2 learning in various ways within a communicative framework. In addition, Yavuz (2012)
examined the attitudes of English teachers in Turkey about the use of L1 in the teaching of L2. The researchconcludes that EFL teachers emphasize the necessary use of L1 in structural teaching and prefer the ‘teachEnglish in English’ motto in communicative teaching.
Another area that has attracted the interest of researchers is communicative language teaching and teachers’
beliefs. Kocaman and Cansız (2012) studied teachers’ beliefs about teaching English to elementary school
children. They compared beliefs held by 192 non-native in-service and pre-service teachers in Turkey.
Results indicated that both groups strongly supported communicative language teaching methodology,emphasizing the need for addressing children’s educational and emotional needs.
Besides, teachers’ beliefs on grammar and focus on form, and error correction have also received
considerable attention. A large scale study conducted by Borg and Burns (2008) examined the beliefs andpractices about the integration of grammar and skills teaching of 176 English teachers from 18 countries.
They found that teachers made judgments about the effectiveness of their grammar teaching practice inpractical and experiential ways, without referring to SLA theory. Phipps and Borg (2009) also studied
tensions in the grammar teaching beliefs and practices of three practicing English teachers in Turkey. They
argued that the study of tensions between stated beliefs and classroom behaviors should be grounded onteachers’ actual classroom practices.
Among the relatively few studies that have examined beliefs in L2 listening, most of the research focused on
beliefs about the problems associated with the skill. An early study by Powers (1986) investigated theperspectives of Canadian and US university educators of non-native speakers of English. A questionnaire
gathered the teachers’ views on the importance of various listening activities for academic success and the
difficulties non-native speakers experienced. According to the results, educators believed that L2 learners
10had greater difficulties with both top-down and bottom-up processing. Except Power’s study (1986), most of
the later studies have examined perceptions of L2 listening difficulties from the learners’ point of view. For
example, a series of research by Goh (1997, 1999, 2000) gathered data from Chinese learners of English.
She proposed that the factors learners believed influenced their listening included vocabulary used in thetext, prior knowledge of the passage’s theme, speech rate, type of input, and speaker’s accent. Vogely (1995)
and Hasan (2000) also investigated learners’ perceptions of listening comprehension problems and learners’
perceived strategy use on authentic listening tasks, respectively. Moreover, Graham (2006) examined theperceptions held by English speakers regarding listening comprehension in French and how they view thereasons behind their lack of success in listening.
Pajares (1992) argued that the beliefs teachers hold influence their perceptions and judgments, which, in turn,affect their behavior in the classroom. Understanding the belief structures of teachers is essential to
improving their professional preparation and teaching practices. Given the significance of teacher beliefs in
L2 listening, however, there has been little research conducted, especially in EFL context. As a result,researchers are encouraged to provide specific insights into this critical issue and thus generate more
effective suggestions for L2 listening pedagogy. In terms of the literature reviewed above, we can hardly
find research exploring teachers’ beliefs in listening instruction. Based on the researcher’s extensive work on
EFL listening research and instruction in the past two decades, the current study aims to help fill this void byexamining junior high school EFL teachers’ beliefs in listening instruction. By providing empiricaldescriptions of EFL teachers’ beliefs, this study is expected to contribute to the limited body of research onteachers’ beliefs in L2 listening instruction.
3 Method
3.1 Participants
The participants in this study were 344 first-year students at a private Japanese university. The students were
three cohorts of International Studies majors enrolled in a mandatory, communicative English course.
Almost all of the participants were L1 Japanese speakers, aged between 18-20 years old. The English
proficiency levels of the participants varied widely as indicated by their TOEIC results, with participants’scores during the year of the study ranging from 180 to 750.
3.2 Instruments
The instruments used in the study consisted of a questionnaire, an observation form, and an interview guide.
The questionnaire of teachers’ beliefs in EFL listening instruction (see Appendix) was designed based on
previous research (Richards, 1983; Shohamy, 1985; Underwood, 1989; Goh, 2000; Flowerdew & Miller,
2005; Rost, 2011). It contained 40 statements about listening instruction comprising beliefs in five areas,
including objectives of teaching listening, listening difficulties, specific listening skills, activities of teachinglistening, and listening assessment. The closed questions required participants to choose from a five-point
Likert scale indicating varying degrees of agreement on teacher beliefs. The Cronbach’s alpha was 0.869 interms of the reliability of the questionnaire.
As a global construct, teacher belief does not lend itself easily to empirical investigation (Pajares, 1992).
According to Munby (1984), qualitative measures such as open-ended interviews, responses to dilemmas,
and observation of behavior should be included if richer and more accurate inferences are to be made. By
echoing the multiple instruments adopted in the recent literature (e.g., De Costa, 2011; Peng, 2011; Busse,
2013), the present study employed classroom observations and semi-structured interviews to sensitively
capture the complex nature of teachers’ beliefs. The classroom observation form based on Rhoads et al.
(2011) included ten sections, i.e., subject matter content, organization, rapport, teaching methods,
presentation, management, sensitivity, assistance to students, personal and physical aspects of classroom.
Finally, an interview guide of seven main questions based on Trindler (2013) was developed to further
explore participants’ beliefs in teaching EFL listening.
3.3 Procedures
The study was conducted separately in three junior high schools in Taiwan. First, 12 EFL teachers in each of
11the three schools were sent an invitation letter to participate in the study and informed of the purpose andprocedures of the study. Secondly, participants answered the questionnaires of teachers’ beliefs in EFL
listening instruction. Furthermore, eight of the participants were recruited voluntarily for classroom
observations and follow-up interviews. Classroom observations were conducted by the research assistants,
who were graduate students specializing in SLA and TESOL. Finally, semi-structured interviews were heldwith the eight volunteer participants to explore more specific insights based on their questionnaire responses
and classroom behaviors.
3.4 Data analysis
Questionnaire data were analyzed by SPSS version 18.0 with answers coded along a scale of 1 (strongly
disagree), 2 (disagree), 3 (undecided), 4 (agree), to 5 (strongly agree). Cronbach’s alpha was computed toconfirm the internal consistency reliability of the questionnaire. Independent-sample t-tests were used tocompare the teachers’ beliefs held by groups of different genders, ages, degrees, and teaching periods. Basedon content analysis, the data of classroom observations and semi-structured interviews were fullytranscribed and categorized.
4 Results
4.1 Teachers’ responses to questionnaire on EFL listening instruction
Based on the frequency counting of each item, the results of the teacher belief questionnaire completed byparticipants are described below. The first item asked how the EFL teachers considered the importance ofthe four language skills. Results show that listening is the most important English skill, followed byspeaking and reading. The teachers regarded writing as the least important skill.
Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics of the five categories of listening teaching beliefs held by theparticipants. Among the five categories, ‘listening assessment’ has the highest average agreement. Then,following the order are ‘teaching activities’, ‘teaching objectives’, and ‘listening skills’. ‘Listening
difficulties’ has the lowest average agreement.
Table 1: Descriptive statistics of teachers’ beliefs
Category

N

Mean

SD

Rank

Teaching Objectives

36

4.10

0.40

3

Listening Difficulties

36

3.77

0.42

5

Listening Skills

36

4.09

0.48

4

Teaching Activities

36

4.14

0.41

2

Listening Assessment

36

4.17

0.48

1

Table 2: Eight frequent teachers’ beliefs in EFL listening instruction
Category
Objectives
Activities
SkillsAssessment
Assessment
Activities
Objectives
Assessment

Teacher Belief
Building up students’ confidence in their own listening ability
Make listening work enjoyable
Ability to detect key words
Simulate test conditions with a full current-version test administeredas the actual test will be, with actual time constraints
Have students be familiar with the format of the tests they will take,including all subsections of the test
Create pre-listening activities that give a useful preview of the content
and procedures in the activity
Exposing students to a range of listening experiences.
Speech rates that are very fast should be avoided
12

Rank
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

Moreover, Table 2 lists the eight beliefs most often held by the teachers among the 40 beliefs in EFL
listening instruction. Results show that ‘building up students’ confidence in their own listening ability’ is themost frequent teacher belief, and next is ‘make listening work enjoyable,’ followed by ‘ability to detect key
words.’In regard to the beliefs on how to teach EFL listening, Table 3 indicates that among the eight beliefs inlistening teaching activities, the belief ‘make listening work enjoyable’ has the highest average agreement.
The belief ‘decrease the amount of oral or written production that is required of the students during thelistening phase of the activity’ has the lowest agreement.
Table 3: Beliefs in listening teaching activities
Item

N

Mean

SD

Rank

Make English the language of your classroom.

36

4.17

0.56

5

Create pre-listening activities that give a
useful preview of the content and proceduresin the activity.

36

4.39

0.64

2

Break down the steps of the activity in orderto provide sub-goals.

36

4.03

0.70

6

Decrease the amount of oral or written
production that is required of the students
during the listening phase of the activity.

36

3.42

0.94

8

Set activities for listening that personallyengage your students.

36

4.28

0.66

3

Not treating the activities as tests to bemarked and scored.

36

3.94

0.92

7

Give visual support for the listening activity.

36

4.19

0.82

4

Make listening work enjoyable.

36

4.67

0.53

1

4.2 Teachers’ answers to interview on EFL listening instruction
In order to sensitively capture the complex nature of teachers’ beliefs, semi-structured interviews wereadopted to collect teachers’ perceptions toward EFL listening instruction. The following section shows theparticipants’ responses to some of the interview questions.
In your opinion, is it important to have good EFL listening skills? Why or why not?
Teachers all believe that it is important to have good EFL listening skills because to understand what otherpeople said, one must learn how to listen first. If one knows how to listen, one will know how to give aproper response. Therefore, many of the teachers believe that listening is the most fundamental skill and thisskill should be first acquired. Moreover, many of the teachers believe that good EFL listening skills facilitatecommunication. Many teachers think that the purpose of using language is communication. Good listening
skills help absorb correct information and give a proper response. Therefore, good listening skills facilitatecommunication.
Last, many of the teachers believe that if students do not have good EFL listening skills will negatively
affect their learning. Teachers state that students will fail to enjoy the fun of learning English in theirlearning process because they cannot learn English by listening. For example, one of the teachers said
students who do not have good EFL listening skill could only learn a new word by rote. Also, two of them13

said these students also fail to enjoy a more fun and interesting way to learn English.
Please describe your past experience of learning EFL listening.
When examining teachers’ learning process, there is a common reason explaining why EFL listening
teaching is not much emphasized. Their high school teachers’ teaching method is very traditional. Only
reading ability, vocabulary size, and writing ability are much emphasized. Besides, their teachers teachEnglish in Chinese, which makes them have fewer chances of listening in English. One of the teachers
explained, “The main reason may be EFL listening test is not a part of the entrance exam.”
Please describe your student’s EFL listening difficulties.
Most of the teacher’s students encounter the same EFL listening difficulties: lack of vocabulary. Most
teachers stated that students could not understand what had been heard because their students’ vocabulary
size is not large enough. This leads to the failure on listening comprehension and choosing correct answers.
Some of the teachers say that students may lose their focus when conducting a long listening practice. One
teacher said, “Students would listen attentively in the beginning but start to lose their attention and even get
sleepy after a while.”
Some of the teachers say that if the speed of the recording were too fast, students would get nervous and failto understand what has been said. Besides, some thought that students get nervous easily for two reasons:fast speed and lack of practice. One teacher said, “If one is too nervous to understand the first sentence, they
will fail to understand the follow-up sentences.”
What are the challenges for you to teach EFL listening in junior high schools?
The interviewed teachers think that teaching materials hinder them from effective teaching. There is only
one kind of teaching material for all students of different levels. Besides, most teachers rely on the textbook,which is not diverse enough for EFL listening practice. One of the teachers said that students tend to getsleepy while doing the listening drills. Moreover, most of the teachers face the same challenge, i.e., highly
limited instruction time. Teachers have to follow the school curriculum while students have to study for the
mid-term tests and simulation tests coming one after another. Therefore, teachers spend much time onteaching vocabulary, text, and grammar, and the time spent on EFL listening instruction is comparatively
much less. One teacher said, “The time proportioned for listening instruction is only around one period.”
Another teacher even said, “Some of the ninth graders are not willing to spend much time on listening,
because this is not the major part of the test.”
Some teachers complained that there is a huge gap between advanced and lower-level students. For
advanced students, EFL listening is not that difficult while the lower-level students do not think so. One
teacher said that advanced students even “demand more difficult listening materials.” Other teachers also
assert that teaching EFL listening by grouping student’s ability is a must.
Do you feel confident in teaching EFL listening? Why or why not?
Some of the teachers do not have confidence in teaching EFL listening because of the tight schedule. They
have to follow school teaching schedules and therefore spend less time on EFL listening instruction. Someteachers have no idea how to teach EFL listening because they did not learn the teaching methods when theystudied in universities. Many teachers also admit that they need to absorb related knowledge on EFL
listening instruction. Besides, some teachers do not know whether their strategy of EFL listening instruction
is effective or not. Its effect is not apparent and immediate. Even though a student is drifting off to sleep, heor she can still choose an answer. Therefore, it is hard to evaluate students’ performance and teacher’steaching method. Moreover, when playing the recording, students all go silent, teachers then fail to knowwhether students are concentrated on listening or not while some students fail to tell teachers which part
they do not listen clearly.
In your opinion, what are the ways to improve EFL listening instruction?
Most of the teachers believe that movies, animations and TV series can spark students’ interests. Some of14

the teachers say that the videos can be the extension materials of textbook. They can also learn vocabulary
and some useful sentences from the videos. Besides, students would be eager to know what the video is allabout and try to listen to its narration or conversation. When asked if there is any way to improve EFL
listening instruction, most of the teachers started with the phrase “If we are not on the tight schedule…” Thismeans that teachers need more time on EFL instruction. Besides, some teachers think if students do notstudy for tests, they will learn English better. Since teachers do not have much time for teaching EFL
listening, they have to find other ways to compensate for students’ lack of listening practice. Therefore,
some teachers teach in English and others encourage students to speak English more in class. Some teachers
also encourage students to answer questions and deliver their thoughts in English. Besides, two of theteachers think that EFL listening ability should be acquired along with speaking and one of them makes
English conversations with students in class.
4.3 Description of Classroom Observation
The study also adopted classroom observations to examine teachers’ beliefs and triangulate the findings
from questionnaires and interviews. With regard to organization, instructors had specific teaching objectives,
starting their instructions from smaller units of language, such as vocabulary and sentence structures, tolarger units, such as dialogue and text. In regard to rapport, instructors encouraged students to participate in
the class activities. Some students were enthusiastic while some low proficiency students were unwilling totake part in the activity and have a tendency to speak Chinese or distract from the class. Regarding teaching
methods, instructors enhanced students’ learning by using diverse teaching materials, such as videos,
flashcards and learning sheets. They provided understandable examples to students as well; however, owing
to the limited time, some questions were unable to proceed. In terms of presentation, most instructors
utilized multimedia appropriately and have clear voice. The instructors spoke mainly Chinese in class, andthey attempted to use English to ask listening comprehension questions, but sometimes they spoke too fast.
5 Discussion
In the current study, results indicate that EFL teachers in junior high schools regarded listening as the mostimportant skill among the four English language skills. The finding is mostly due to the new educational
policy in Taiwan that the senior high school entrance exam has included the English listening test since 2015.
According to Bailey (1998), the effect of a test has on teaching and learning is known as washback. In termsof the social and educational contexts in which assessment is used, testing always influences the goals of
instruction by way of washback effect (Rost, 2011). Moreover, with the prevalence of communicative
language teaching in recent years, no wonder the junior high teachers considered listening the mostimportant skill to teach in EFL classrooms.
With regard to teachers’ beliefs in listening teaching objectives, the results of the present study echoes
Underwood’s (1989) claim on the teacher’s objectives of listening instruction. Second language (L2)teachers can adopt a variety of listening texts to expose students to a range of listening experiences.
Extensive listening is generally considered appropriate for all students (Waring, 2010). Teachers can explain
the listening process to students, and teach them the effective listening strategies. Most of the junior highstudents only have beginner or intermediate-low proficiency of EFL listening. The teachers should try hardto build up students’ confidence in their listening ability by providing experiences and activities in which
they can be successful. Besides, the study found that ‘teaching listening through attention to accuracy andanalysis of form’ is the least frequent belief among the 40 teachers’ beliefs. The result is consistent with
Brown’s (2009) which indicated that L2 teachers preferred a more communicative rather than agrammar-based approach.
In terms of the beliefs in listening difficulties, the study results show that ‘do not recognize words theyknow’, ‘understand words but not the intended message’, and ‘lack control over the speech rate’ are thefrequent listening difficulties. The findings support the previous research (Powers, 1986; Underwood, 1989;
Goh, 1997, 1999, 2000) which proposed that L2 listeners had greater difficulties in words used in the text,15

problems of interpretation, and speech rate. The teachers in the study also consider that their students often
neglect the incoming message when thinking about word meaning. This may be explained by the fact thatjunior high students have very few chances of EFL listening and do not know how to effectively approach it.
Besides, the participating teachers regarded the ability to use real world knowledge and the ability to predict
outcomes as important listening skills. The results confirm Buck’s (2001), which indicated that the ability tomake inferences and to incorporate background knowledge into text processing is one of the top-level
attributes for listening test performance. As for teaching activities, the frequent teachers’ beliefs include‘making listening work enjoyable’ and ‘creating pre-listening activities’. The beliefs echo Underwood (1989)
and Rost (2011) who suggested that L2 students need to be at ease and calm to listen attentively and that
pre-listening can be a warm-up activity to remind students of the content and vocabulary they will need for
schema activation.
In regard to listening assessment, the participating teachers believe it is important to simulate test conditions
and get students familiar with the format of the tests they will take. The finding supports Rost’s (2011)
which suggest it is useful to simulate test conditions and have students be familiar with the test format for
helping students do their best on tests and thus creating a positive washback effect on instruction. Besides,
the teachers think that speech rates that are very fast should be avoided in listening tests. When outlining
factors to consider for preparing listening tests, Thompson (1995) also suggested that speech rates that arevery fast should be avoided. In order not to raise students’ listening anxiety, EFL teachers should prepare orchoose listening test material with moderate and natural speech rates which meet the students’ proficiency
level.
6 Conclusion
As indicated by a number of researchers (e.g., Mendelsohn 2001; Berne 2004; LeLoup & Pontiero 2007), it
is important to develop L2 listening competence not only valuable for its own sake but for the growth ofother aspects of language use, yet learners are rarely taught how to listen effectively. According to
Vandergrift (2007), if L2 listening research is seen as a building project, more work is still needed to shore
up the foundations to further our understanding of how to teach this important skill. The current study foundthat the junior high school EFL teachers regarded listening as the most important English skill. Based on
their teaching beliefs, EFL teachers must build up students’ confidence in their own listening ability. The
important listening skills which should be taught are the ability to detect key words and the ability to guessthe meanings of words from the contexts. Moreover, EFL teachers need to make listening work enjoyable,
create pre-listening activities, and get students familiar with the format of the listening tests they will take.
To sum up, understanding the belief structures of teachers is essential to improving their professional
preparation and teaching practices. By providing empirical descriptions of EFL teachers’ beliefs, this study
is expected to offer specific insights into this critical issue and thus generate more effective suggestions forL2 listening pedagogy, and ultimately to teach high school students to become more effective EFL listeners.
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Appendix A. Questionnaire of teachers’ beliefs in EFL listening instruction
Background information
Gender: Female______ Male______
Age: 21-30_____
31-40_____ 41-50_____
51-60_____
61-70_____
Highest Degree of Education Obtained:
College/University______
Master_______
Ph.D._____How many years have you been teaching EFL in junior high schools?
0-1____ 2-5____ 6-10 ____11-15____ 16-20____ 21-25_____ 26-30___
Importance of four language skills
Please rank the importance of the four language skills.
(1: most important, 2: second important, 3: third important, 4: least important)
Listening _____
Speaking ______
Reading ______
Writing_____
Based on your experiences as an EFL teacher, please circle the response on agreement to indicate yourbeliefs in the following aspects of EFL listening instruction.
1: Strongly Disagree; 2: Disagree; 3: Undecided; 4: Agree; 5: Strongly Agree
Objectives of teaching listening
1. Exposing students to a range of listening experiences.
2. Making listening purposeful for the students.
3. Helping students understand what listening entails and how they might
approach it.
4. Building up students’ confidence in their own listening ability.
5. Teaching listening through face-to-face interaction.
6. Teaching listening through focusing on meaning to learn new and important
content in the target language.
7. Teaching listening through work on comprehension activities.
8. Teaching listening through attention to accuracy and an analysis of form.
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Listening difficulties
9. Lack control over the speed at which speakers speak.
10. Unable to get things repeated.
11. Do not recognize words they know.
12. Unable to concentrate.
13. Quickly forget what is heard.
14. Cannot chunk streams of speech
15. Understand words but not the intended message.
16. Neglect the next part when thinking about meaning.
Specific listening skills
17. Ability to retain chunks of language of different lengths for short periods.
18. Ability to discriminate among the distinctive sounds of the target language.
19. Ability to recognize reduced forms of words.
20. Ability to detect key words (i.e., those which identify topics and propositions).
21. Ability to guess the meanings of words from the contexts in which they occur.
22. Ability to use real world knowledge and experience to work out purposes, goals, settings, procedures.
23. Ability to predict outcomes from events described.
24. Ability to make use of facial, paralinguistic, and other clues to work out meanings.
Activities of teaching listening
25. Make English the language of your classroom.
26. Create pre-listening activities that give a useful preview of the content and procedures in the activity.
27. Break down the steps of the activity in order to provide sub-goals.
28. Decrease the amount of oral or written production that is required of the students during the listening
phase of the activity.
29. Set activities for listening that personally engage your students.
30. Do not treat the activities as tests to be marked and scored.
31. Give visual support for the listening activity.
32. Make listening work enjoyable.
Listening assessment
33. Have students be familiar with the format of the tests they will take, including all subsections of the test.
34. Simulate test conditions with a full current-version test administered as the actual test will be, withactual time constraints.
35. Specialized vocabulary needs to be avoided in general listening tests.
36. Speech rates that are very fast (e.g., above 200 wpm) should be avoided.
37. Test passages should be short, around two or three minutes.
38. Listening comprehension tests should not ask memory questions and should allow students to take notes.
39. Consideration should be given to the amount of prior knowledge that students may require tocomprehend the text.
40. Inserting discourse markers may aid comprehension (e.g., Today I am going to talk about ...).

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