A Syllabus for Listening

Book excerpt: A Syllabus for Listening: Decoding is for teachers, teacher trainers, textbook and course book authors in English language teaching (ELT). This book will help you add a decoding dimension to all your listening activities, which means that your students will be better prepared for real-world spontaneous speech encounters. If you are designing a listening course, or writing listening exercises for a course book, this is essential reading. There are four parts. Decoding and Perceptionpresents key ideas which are essential to understanding why the teaching and learning of listening needs to be improved. A Critique of Training, Theory and Practice presents a critical analysis of conventional approaches to listening in teacher training and the ELT classroom. A Syllabus for Listening presents specific items for the syllabus, including word clusters, streamlining processes and, crucially, ear-training. Education, Tools and Activities describes innovative classroom activities for teaching decoding: exploiting recordings and classroom language, using pen-and-paper prompts, together with the voices of teachers and learners. Sound files are available for download from www.speechinaction.com My teaching of listening has changed utterly. Happy teacher. Happy students. It's fabulous. Jane Hadcock, Teacher, Essex Integration. To inspire ELT, another original book from a pioneer of teaching listening. Alice Henderson, Associate Professor of English, Université Savoie Mont Blanc, France Interesting and challenging ideas that will stir up your views on listening. Martin Hewings, author of English Pronunciation in Use: Advanced. The product of years of scholarship and research - this is a triumph! Sheila Thorn, founder of The Listening Business, author of Real Lives, Real Listening.