Teaching listening strategies for English language listening comprehension: A practical approach

Over the years, the teaching & learning of English listening skills lacked a clear practical approach. Some educators focused on listening skills through a bottom-up processing approach while others adopted a top- down processing approach.

According to Goh and Vandergrift (2022), best practices combine both processes, which use listening strategies to aid students with their listening comprehension abilities. In this talk, I will recount my experiences teaching a course called: Comprehension of Modern Spoken English: Culture & Context. This course aims to strengthen students’ listening strategies to help improve their ability to listen. Listening strategies such as activating prior knowledge and predicting the content have been found to engage the students in class during teaching & learning activities. The materials and test development for this course will be explained in terms of rationale and approach. In addition, students' comments on the course noted in their reflective journals, particularly focused on how they were cognitively and emotionally engaged will be shared too.