ABSTRACT
Listening is an important skill: it enables language learners to receive and interact with language input and facilitates the emergence of other language skills. Compared with writing and reading, or even speaking, however, the development of listening receives the least systematic attention from teachers and instructional materials. While language learners are often taught how to plan and draft a composition or deliver an oral presentation, learners are seldom taught how to approach listening or how to manage their listening when attending to spoken texts or messages. Although they are exposed to more listening activities in classrooms today, learners are still left to develop their listening abilities on their own with little direct support from the teacher. A possible reason for this is that many teachers are themselves unsure of how to teach listening in a principled manner. We believe that every language teacher needs to have a clear understanding of the processes involved in listening and in particular how strategies can be used to manage comprehension efforts. A teacher also needs to know how to harness the potential for learning inherent in every student, so as to help them achieve success in developing listening and overall language proficiency.
