Oh, my listening!

Turning a receptive skill into the driver of language learning

Certified Chinese Language Teacher Certificate in Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages, Columbia University, USA

​

Worked at top Russian universities –

Moscow State University, Higher School of Economics

​

Author of 8 Chinese language textbooks

​

Oh, my Chinese

• Chinese language classes based on learning & listening method
• Telegram channel: Oh, my Chinese (listening tasks)
• Instagram: Oh_my_Chinese_listening
• Written translations and teacher consulting

Daria Zhigulskaia

Listening is not only a skill area in language performance, but is also ______________of acquiring a second language (L2).

​

(Michael Rost, 2001)

​

Of all of the skills ESL students need to develop to improve their overall English fluency, listening is probably the most _______. Think about it. They can take as long as they need to read or write. They can carefully choose what to say when they speak, if they choose to speak at all. But weak listening places students in the most ________situations.

​

(How to teach listening like a PRO, p. 3)

Listening is not only a skill area in language performance, but is also a critical means of acquiring a second language (L2).

(Michael Rost, 2001)

​

Of all of the skills ESL students need to develop to improve their overall English fluency, listening is probably the most frustrating. Think about it. They can take as long as they need to read or write. They can carefully choose what to say when they speak, if they choose to speak at all. But weak listening places students in the most frustrating situations.

(How to teach listening like a PRO, p. 3)

"Listening" by Ralph G. Nichols

…writing ?

…reading ?

…listening ?

…speaking ?

How much time of 70% do we spend on…

writing: 9%

reading: 16%

listening: 45%

speaking: 30%

"Listening" by Ralph G. Nichols

Listening is like any other skill or muscle in our body – it needs training

​

How Can We Train Listening Skills?

through listening

to a teacher

TTT

How Can We Train Listening Skills?

through listening

to each other

Peer

interaction

Peer interaction, a collaborative process where students engage in activities such as feedback, reflection, discussions, and debates, plays a pivotal role in language learning.

(Saeid, S. F. (2024). Using Peer Interaction to Improve Listening and Speaking Skills in Secondary EFL Context. Journal of Philology and Educational Sciences, 3(2), 23–37.)

Peer interaction, a collaborative process where students engage in activities such as debates, discussions, feedback, and reflection, plays a pivotal role in language learning.

through listening

to a teacher

through listening

to each other

NO

If we listen to the same person over and over again, we get used to their intonation, speed, gestures, and other specific features.

​

• variety of pronunciations
• accents
• speed
• background noise
• other specific features (man or woman/ grown-up or kid/ young or old)

​

Challenges outside the classroom

listening to non-authentic materials

How Can We Train Listening Skills?

Non-authentic materials are…

• purpose-written and scripted listening materials created for language learners
• simplified in grammar, vocabulary, and sometimes speech rate
• performed in controlled studio conditions rather than occurring naturally in real-life communication

J. Field

What are the most common types of listening tasks in language textbooks?

• Answer questions after listening
• Multiple choice
• True/false

Using audio recordings of new words, texts, phrases as listening materials

Introducing new words through listening

1. Tone/stress recognition

2. Mixed word order

3. Incorrect tones/stress

4. Fill the gap in the word

Introducing the text through listening

1. Pre-listening stage

• According to follow-up pictures and questions after the text create a story using a target language

​

2. Listening stage

• Listen to the recording of the text from the textbook
• Listen sentence by sentence and repeat, answer questions, do some extra work, translate sentence by sentence, etc.

​

3. Post-listening stage:

• Working with the written version of the text

Consolidating what has been learned through listening

Convert monologue into dialogue or

convert dialogue into monologue.

AI

Experiment

Standard Course 3 Lesson 16, dialogue 1

AI contestants:

• Chat GPT
• DeepSeek
• Perplexity
• KIMI

Task: convert the dialogue into a text without adding any words or rephrasing

Text

into

audio

text-to-speech.online

listening to authentic materials

How Can We Train Listening Skills?

Authentic materials

• YouTube
• Films
• TV series
• News
• Short videos
• TikToks
• Radio
• TV
• Songs

But what are the difficulties?

How to pick appropriate materials?

Relevance

Interest

Grammar&vocabulary

Ease/effectiveness

Logistics

How to make scripts?

Notta AI

DeepL

Sonix

​

​

ZeemoAI

• Fill in the gaps
• Correct mistakes
• Listen to some particular information
• Find the odd information
• Put in the right order

How to create tasks?

• Listen to the recording and find the missing character/word
• Listen to the recording and count how many times they mention one particular word
• Listen to the recording to write down the script
• Listen to the recording and think of a title for the text
• Listen to the recording and prepare several questions
• Listen to the recording and match the beginning and the ending of each phrase

Other tasks that you can use

you can use this AI tool to generate tasks

Inaccuracies in working with authentic materials

• TV series:
• Pick a film and divide it into fragments (DO NOT choose TV series with many seasons and episodes)

​

• Films (and TV series):
• Pick casual movies that easy to follow (DO NOT choose masterpieces)

​

• Subtitles:
• when you use subtitles, you are still developing listening skills

​

• Songs:
• use songs as a tool for learning collocations

Songs

Tools for…

Words are dancing, but they won’t stick,

Sounds get blurry, it feels like a trick.

Can’t quite grasp what’s in the air,

Fluent chatter feels so rare.

​

At first, it’s noise, just sounds in the air,

So many voices — I stop and stare.

But little by little, the meaning comes through,

Each word I catch brings me closer to you.

• developing listening skills through songs

• creating new songs

Questions?

Doubts?

Thank you!

Daria Zhigulskaia

dariachinese@gmail.com