Developing students’ reasoning abilities through listening instruction

Abstract

The teaching of listening has been the most complicated task for teachers. Since students' learning of listening skills is a complex process that takes place in the brain, the teaching and the evaluation of students' learning are not easy to do. Hence, many teachers have slipped into testing their students listening comprehension rather than teaching them listening strategies. Teachers tend to focus on the product of their students' learning of listening skills rather than on the process of learning listening skills Field (2008). The notion of receptive skill of listening as opposed to productive skill of speaking and writing is often misinterpreted as a passive skill in that all that the students need to do is understand text, both spoken and written, in a very narrow perspective. It has led to a condition that students are not provided with much opportunity to do reasoning and to explore any appropriate learning strategies. It is therefore important that when a teacher teaches listening skill, he/she must facilitate the students with strategies that promote student learning. The strategies adopted should facilitate student learning in that, by means of the strategies, the teacher provides students with opportunities to do reasoning in both written and spoken language. Teachers must bear in mind when teaching receptive skills that they must avoid testing their students. Rather, they had better ask their students about the reasoning behind their answers.