ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the place of listening in a language curriculum, building upon the ideas concerning development of listening ability addressed. Then turns to the place of listening in what is referred to as a task-based approach to syllabus design. A first distinction in curriculum design is that between language 'products' and learner 'processes' as the appropriate orientation towards the curriculum. Anderson and Lynch provide a useful visualization of grading as a set of slide controls. Reasoning-gap tasks are activities in which learners are presented the same body of information, and are required to reason toward solutions, positions, or verdicts. A marked advantage of content approaches is that classroom tasks can be sequentially and thematically connected. Intensive listening exercises are aimed at focusing learner attention on features of the language system once text meaning has been established to some extent.
