TEACHING LISTENING: PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

Abstract

Listening skills are essential for learning languages since they enable students to acquire insights and information, and to achieve success in communicating with others. Life within and outside classroom offers many listening opportunities, but some students fail to seize them because they may concentrate on what they want to say themselves rather than on what a speaker is saying. Listening can be crucial in some situations and it is important that EFL learners develop their listening skills. The aim of this article is to highlight the problems that may interfere with listening comprehension and to suggest some solutions to them.
To facilitate listening tasks and improve the learners' listening skills the teachers should enhance their positive attitude, train them to be responsive and listen for the speaker's purpose, evaluate the supporting materials and look for non-verbal clues.
Not all the tips mentioned above can be followed and not all the problems can be overcome. But if the teacher provides the students with suitable listening materials, background and linguistic knowledge, it will enable them to develop their listening skills and help with EFL comprehension and acquisition.