Listening, speaking, reading and writing = language and literacy.

I have been teaching English language learners for a little over a year now. It was a big change from teaching older native speakers English and social studies.

I teach lots of speaking, reading and writing, but I have been neglecting to teach listening as a skill. Usually, students practice listening to each other during show and tell, and to me when I’m talking or reading stories. They listen to and sing along with songs, but really I have not helped them to practice and have success in listening.

Thanks to the British Council and the U.S. State Department, we have excellent resources for learning to teach English! Face-to-face classes and workshops, webinars, online classes. I’m learning so much. (See at the end of this post just a few of the resources I got today.)

Today, however, I attended one of the best webinars. It was on teaching listening. I will be a better teacher tomorrow because of it. I just wanted to share the resources for other ELL teachers and anyone who wants to teach listening skills.  The webinar is led by Kevin McCaughey, a Regional English Language Officer in Kyiv, Ukraine. It was a great presentation with a wealth of practical activities, and beautifully designed for the Earth Day audience enjoying it today.

Here is the PDF article, “Practical Tips for Increasing Listening Practice Time,” if you’d rather read the content (but don’t miss Kevin’s warm delivery, and with singing too.)

Do you teach listening? How? To whom?

More Resources

etseverywhere.com – Free ELT audio from Kevin McCaughey
elllo.org – Free, fun, natural and meaningful listening lessons from Todd Beuckens. Elllo on Twitter.
American English – “A Website for Teachers and Learners of English as a Foreign Language Abroad” by the US State Department