About two and a half years ago I wrote a blog post entitled, Decoding skills: a neglected part of listening comprehension? In the time since then it seems that many of us have stopped neglecting those poor decoding skills, and that an interest in how decoding can help develop both listening and reading skills is on the rise.
A recent question posed by Mike Harrison on the IATEFL Facebook page about developing (rather than testing) listening skills led to a flurry of useful links in the comments, which I list below:
A presentation by John Field on Rethinking the Comprehension Approach to Listening
A summary of Sandy Millin’s 2014 presentation at IATEFL on teaching rather than testing listening
Olga Sergeeva’s blog on using authentic video clips to focus on bottom up skills.
A series of Listening Skills books written by Sheila Thorn (which I have mentioned before but which have now been re-published by Collins)
Hancock and McDonald’s forthcoming Authentic Listening Resource pack, which looks great.
Richard Cauldwell’s innovative app Cool Speech
And last, but not least, I can now reveal (drum roll), that I have spent the last eighteen months working on a new adult coursebook series for OUP, Navigate, which has a spread in each unit focusing on decoding activities to develop listening and reading skills. Here’s a short video of me talking about the theory behind a listening skills lesson I gave in Oxford over the summer.
You can also see a fuller version of the lesson and download the materials and lesson plan here.
It’s great to see so much happening in this area, and I’d be very happy to add any other links that people have- just comment below.
