Teaching listening in primary school

¹Ислам Амина Адылжановна

¹ Восточно-Казахстанский университет им. С.Аманжолова, г. Усть-Каменогорск, Казахстан

²Университет, город, страна

aminatt21@mail.ru

 

 

Introduction

Absract

This article discusses a topic of great importance in the education system. Listening is one of the four types of speech activity that cause the greatest difficulties for students in the process of learning a foreign language, especially English.Therefore, in the course of the study, the main difficulties of various kinds that students experience when learning listening at school were identified. The paper emphasizes the importance of teaching listening at the initial stage of training, since at this stage the foundations of communicative competence are laid. Questions are also considered about how listening affects other types of language activities and what skills competencies are developed in the process of learning listening at an early stage. In particular, the game format is considered as one of the ways to form and develop the skills of understanding speech by ear.

Aim:
-Development of a methodology for teaching younger schoolchildren listening and testing its effectiveness and its theoretical justification;

Tasks:

• to carry out a theoretical analysis of psycholinguistic, psychological and pedagogical literature on the problem of research and on this basis to concretize the concept of «listening as a type of educational activity» in relation to younger schoolchildren;
• to specify the structural organization and subject content of listening as a type of speech activity, the features of the educational activity of listening of younger schoolchildren;
• to develop criteria, indicators and levels of the formed ability to listen in younger schoolchildren to determine it in the process of objective control;
• to develop a methodology for teaching younger schoolchildren listening as a type of speech and educational activity;
• to check the effectiveness of the methodology in the process of teaching listening to younger schoolchildren.

Key words: Listening, educational activities, primary school, features of listening, educational activity, listening comprehension, kinds of listening comprehension.

 

Main body

Literature review

The article «Teaching listening and reading in English lessons in elementary school» (Mironova,2014) contains effective exercises and techniques for teaching listening, as well as various types of game exercises for teaching reading that English teachers can use in their lessons, which will be to promote students’ interest and motivation to learn English.

The author of “Listening as one of the ways to learn English” (Zheleznova,2006) examines the importance of listening when teaching a foreign language, identifies approaches that can be used when listening to a text, presents listening strategies, and also offers the most convenient and common way of teaching listening in the classroom.

The article “Teaching listening in elementary school” (Tarasova,2008) is devoted to the basics of teaching listening at the initial stage and its place in the development of communication skills among students in primary school.

The article “Features of listening of younger schoolchildren” (Ibakaeva, 2013) examines the features of listening of younger schoolchildren as a mental process, as well as from the point of view of its development in educational activities, describes the levels of mastery of listening, specifies the skills that distinguish each level, and methodological tasks, the solution of which ensures the dynamics of students in the perception of speech.

The article “Listening as a type of educational activity” (Ibakaeva,2014)  reveals the concept of listening as a type of educational activity, the main theoretical provisions of listening as a type of educational activity. The functions of listening in educational activities are defined. The barriers of listening and the mechanisms responsible for overcoming them are revealed.

The article “Teaching listening in English lessons in elementary school” (Biryukova,2019) is devoted to the process and methodology of mastering listening as a type of speech and educational activity in primary school.

The article “Teaching listening in English lessons at the junior stage of school” (Alexandrova, Semenova, 2015) is devoted to the study of a topic that is quite an important subject of discussion in the education system.

The author of the article «Teaching listening in foreign language lessons in elementary school» (Sedova, 2003) believes that the study of this type of speech activity in the methodology is not deep enough, and the term «listening» is used in the methodological literature relatively recently.

The article “Introduction of the methodology of early English language teaching in the elementary school” (Shelestov, 2012) deals with the problems of the organization of early English language teaching in primary school in the conditions of Kazakhstan multilingualism.

The article “Teaching listening in English lessons and the typology of exercises for the development of this type of speech activity” (Malarova,2005) discusses the concept of listening, the relationship with other types of speech activity, types and stages of listening, and also provides sample exercises for the development and improvement of this skill.

 

Music improves listening skills

The main advantages of using songs to learn English:

In English lessons, children not only listen to music, but also sing songs all together. The inclusion of such practice in the learning process helps:

• Improve pronunciation.
• Memorize words faster.
• Expand your vocabulary. Listening to songs in English, the student remembers not only the sound of the word, but also its meaning, the context of use, the grammatical structure of whole phrases, and possibly the spellingFeel more confident when using a foreign language.

 

Features of learning English with the help of movies.

Learning foreign languages with the help of movies and TV shows is a very popular practice in all countries of the world. It allows you to learn to perceive the language by ear, learn new words and phrases, as well as just spend time usefully. To study, it is enough to choose a movie and text accompaniment.

Advantages of learning foreign languages with the help of films:

• Such a training system has many advantages. Firstly, it allows you to learn a new language interactively. The process is not only informative, but also interesting. Thanks to this, even the most inattentive and restless people can learn something new.
• Secondly, words and phrases are remembered very well if they are heard in your favorite movie. In addition, the vocabulary is expanded due to real phrases used by native speakers.
• The last thing is the simplicity of the process. There is no need to look for teachers, premises, schools for training. You don’t have to pay money either, because many TV series and movies are publicly available with subtitles in a variety of languages.

 

Audio lessons in English:

Modern technologies have given new opportunities to learn English. For example, you can learn English using audio lessons. This method makes it possible to quickly and efficiently learn a language even without attending full-time individual or group classes with a teacher.

This technique of learning English has a number of undeniable advantages:

• The training can take place anywhere and at a convenient time for the student. Listening to the audio lesson is possible while traveling on public transport, walking in the park or doing household chores. To do this, it is enough to have a smartphone and headphones at hand;
• You can independently adjust the duration of the lesson. Not everyone has the opportunity to fully engage in training for 2-3 hours a day. But it doesn’t matter. Even short lessons will give results if you practice regularly;
• Audio English lessons help to develop an understanding of spoken language, improve the skills of listening to speech in a foreign language;

The disadvantages of audio tutorials can be called:

• Difficulties in perceiving information by ear, which may be related to the individual characteristics of a particular person;
• The audio course does not develop reading skills in a foreign language;
• The lack of an opportunity to fully study grammar and master the skills of making sentences independently within the audio course.

 

1. What topics should teacher use for listening?
2. What problems can they face during listening?
3. How often does teacher need to conduct listening?
4. What are the most effective methods for listening?
5. Since when is it worth conducting listening?

Analytical table 1.

Questions	Themes	Code
What tasks should teacher use before listening?	Listening Tasks	Tasks
What problems can they face during listening?	Problems during listening	Problems
How often does teacher need to conduct listening?	Listening frequency	Frequency
What are the most effective methods for listening?	Effective methods	Methods
Since when is it worth conducting listening?	Age to start listening	Age

 

Analytical table 2.

Codes	Quotations
Tasks	1.“Brainstorming. 2. Guess what’s happening. 3. Gap-fill
Problems	1. These difficulties can be grouped as follows: 1) difficulties caused by the nature of the language material; 2) difficulties caused by the way the audio text is presented; 3) difficulties caused by the conditions of perception 2. Grammatical difficulties caused by the discrepancy between the spelling and pronunciation of words are especially typical for the English language.
Frequency	1. Listening is an important component factor in language learning. At the initial stage, it is best to give tasks for hearings more and more often.
Methods	Introduction of new words, their explanation. Control of understanding of new words in sentences from audio text using visual clarity. Working out the reading technique on the material of the most difficult audio presentation of sentences from the audio text.
Age	Primary school age (6-10 years) it is the most favorable for learning English.

 

Determination of the level of development of listening skills in 4th grade students.

The purpose of the ascertaining experiment: to establish the level of development of the ability to understand foreign language speech by ear in 4th grade students.
During the ascertaining experiment , the following skills were tested:

• Identify the topic and understand the general content of the text.
• Extract the requested information from the text.
• Fully and accurately understand the content of the statement.
• Formulate the main idea of the text.

The ascertaining experiment was conducted on the basis of one text for two lessons. The text was presented to the students once at each lesson before completing tasks.  When selecting the text, the age characteristics of the students, interests, and the duration of the text were taken into account. The students completed the tasks in writing.

In the first lesson, students listened to the text once and completed tasks to determine the topic and understand the general content of the text, and to extract the requested information from the text. In the second lesson, students re-listened to the text and completed tasks aimed at testing the ability to fully and accurately understand the content of the statement, formulate the main idea of the text, establish logical connections within the text, express an opinion about the content of the text (to evaluate events, heroes)

.

Installation for students:

0 points:	1 point:	2 points:	3 points:	4 points:	5 points:
The students did not cope with the task, making more than 7 mistakes when placing proposals in the correct order.	The students did not cope with the task, making more than 7 mistakes when placing proposals in the correct order.	The students coped with the task by making 5 mistakes when placing the proposals in the correct order.	Students coped with the task, making 3-4 mistakes when placing proposals in the correct order.	Students coped with the task, making 1-2 mistakes when placing proposals in the correct order.	The students coped with the task without mistakes, placing all the sentences in the correct order.

Express an opinion on the content of the text (to evaluate events, heroes).
0 points: — did not complete the task.

1 point: — answered the question without arguing their opinion.

2 points: — answered and argued their opinion.

 

Students	Skills
	1. Identify the topic and understand the general content of the text.	2. Extract the requested information from the text.	3. Fully and accurately understand the content of the statement	4. Formulate the main idea of the text.	5. Establish logical connections within the text.	6. Express an opinion on the content of the text (evaluate events, heroes)
	Number of points   Task No.
Aidyn.Z.	3	0	2	0	3	0
Amantaeva.M	5	4	4	1	4	0
Zheniskhanova. A	5	4	4	1	5	1
Zhunusbekov. A	4	4	5	0	4	2
Abilmanov. B	4	3	4	1	4	1
Bolatbek. N	5	5	4	1	5	1
Kaiyrzhan. E	4	2	1	1	3	0
Kabitkhanova. M	4	4	2	1	4	0
Niyazbekov. T	5	2	5	1	5	2
Keneskhanova. D	4.3	3.1	3.4	0.7	4.1	0.7
Nishanov. K	88%	55%	66%	77%	77%	55%

 

From the histogram No. 1 it can be seen that the 4th grade students have the highest level of formation of listening skills for determining the topic and understanding the general content of the text. The average level of formation of listening skills for the formulation of the main idea of the text, for the establishment of logical connections within the text and for a complete and accurate understanding of the content of the utterance. The students demonstrated the lowest level of formation of skills when performing tasks to express an opinion about the content of the text and to extract the requested information from the text.

Conclusion
         In this way,in the decision it is desired to say that perception composes the basis of communication, the study of oral communication is tied to it. Possession of such a variant of verbal activity, as if listening, allows a person to comprehend what is being reported to him and adequately respond to what has been said, helps to specifically retell his protest to an opponent, which is the basis of dialogic speech. In the same spirit, perception has significance in the study of sounds, as they perceive everything from the voice, and it is important that the children clearly grasp the sound, and with the support of the teacher, manage to restore it. It is impossible to downplay the importance of listening when teaching a foreign language. However, as if the role of other variants of verbal activity, it is impossible to isolate perception through speaking, writing, or reading. The communicative side of listening, as if a variant of verbal efficiency, has the dominant significance at all stages of teaching a foreign syllable and the constantly increasing conditions for the level of possession of foreign syllables asks from a modern teacher an indispensable connection in the edifying course of assignments for listening.

References

1. Teaching listening and reading in English lessons in elementary school (Mironova,2014)
2. Listening as one of the ways to learn English (Zheleznova,2006)
3. Teaching listening in elementary school (Tarasova,2008)
4. Features of listening of younger schoolchildren (Ibakaeva,2013)
5. Listening as a type of educational activity (Ibakaeva,2014)
6. Teaching listening in English lessons in elementary school (Biryukova,2009)
7. Teaching listening in english lessons at the junior stage of school (Alexandrova, Semenova,2015)
8. Teaching listening in foreign language lessons in elementary school (Sedova,2003)
9. Introduction of the methodology of early English language teaching in the elementary school (Shelestov,2012)
10. Teaching listening in English lessons and the typology of exercises for the development of this type of speech activity (Malarova,2005)