Listening: the most difficult skill to teach

Abstract

With listening skills usually requiring a considerably long period of time to acquire, normally involving the student experiencing a variety of emotions ranging from depression and frustration through to exhilaration and pride, teaching listening skills is one of the most difficult tasks that a teacher faces. The following article evaluates contemporary research with the aim of dissecting and discussing the reasons why the teaching of listening skills seems to be so complex and consequently intends to report upon possible suggestions for improving listening competence in the second language (L2) classroom. Through the consideration of the difficulties encountered when undergoing listening, as well as the evaluation of various strategies and exercises suggested to facilitate the acquisition of listening skills, such as Dictogloss, Listening from the middle and Discovery Learning, this research highlights the important place that the teaching of listening strategies should be ever increasingly assuming in the modern foreign language classroom.

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