The Listening Skill. Theoretical and Practical Approaches

Seminar paper from the year 2015 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,3, University of Cologne, language: English, abstract: Nowadays foreign language teaching has become established in the majority of primary schools. The introduction of foreign language teaching in primary schools leads to an improvement of linguistic and communicative competency. Due to the fact that pupils begin to learn English in grade one they automatically extend their learning time and they also start to learn the language in the most opportune moment in their life. Even shy pupils realize that they already know some English words, which they got to know from different kinds of advertising in radio, television or the internet. Another point is that it is possible to communicate in English without knowing much words or structures. As a result, the pupils' motivation to learn the language retains. As a teacher it is important to know which expectations you can have on your pupils and which accomplishments this young learners are able to achieve. Teachers should also be aware of the fact that children will always acquire new language input in a defined order. First they hear new input through listening. Then they attempt to repeat the new input through speaking. Through reading the children will see the written form of the new input and in the last step the children would write the new word themselves (cf. Clausen, 2009, p.8). So listening is a basic skill which is a foundation for any other skill like speaking, reading and writing. According to that this term paper focuses on how to teach listening. Its main purpose is to provide information about theoretical and practical approaches, especially with emphasis on the listening skill in primary school. Moreover it gives an insight into appropriate behaviour of teachers and of different methods a teacher can use to improve children's listening skills.