Listening Skills in an ESL Classroom

Listening Skills in an ESL Classroom

Listening Skills in an ESL Classroom

Effective listening is one of the most crucial ESL classroom skills that you can develop as a TEFL teacher. Skilled language teachers listen more than they talk, providing their students with maximum talk time. The importance of listening in the classroom can be approached on two levels, both equally important in successful teaching.

The first is on a professional level as a teaching skill. As a language teacher, you need to be able to listen to students and understand what they are trying to say to you so that you can assess whether they are communicating effectively. This includes listening to what they are saying in a number of ways: phonetics, fluency, appropriacy, accuracy and discourse.

The other is on an interpersonal level. Your role as a TEFL teacher requires you to be interested in your students and what they have to say. In order to develop and maintain rapport with your students, listen actively and respond accordingly. Listening actively allows you to develop an interpersonal connection with your ESL students, which facilitates a secure and encouraging language learning environment.

Tips on Effective Listening

The following are some ways that you can be an effective listener:

Give 100% of your attention to the speaker by putting a hold on all other activities. Make an active effort to fight distraction and concentrate on your speaker.

Respond to show comprehension and interest. This can be verbal or non-verbal, such as asking follow-up questions or nodding.

Demonstrate understanding by restating their main idea. This is not to prove you are listening, but to show that you understand what they are telling you. It is also a way to clarify miscommunication before it gets too far along.

Show respect to the speaker by meeting them on their ground. In terms of ESL learners this means rough-tuning your language to their level and giving validity to their ideas despite a lack of linguistic ability. This is especially important when working with adult language learners. They have fully formed and complicated ideas, but are often frustrated by their lack of ability to communicate these with the same eloquence they are able to in their own language.

Mirror the speaker. For example, use approximately the same level of verbal communication in terms of volume, emotional range, tone, etc. If the speaker leans in, also lean in (within reason, of course!).

Focus on content, not delivery errors.

Let the speaker finish before you give a final response or assessment.

Hopefully you can use some of these listening skills in your TEFL classroom soon.

Happy teaching!

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