It has been estimated that approximately 75% of the western world are 'visual' learners. That is, they learn about subjects, school, life, through visual stimuli. This means that the majority of your students will find it easier to understand what is written than to understand what is spoken. Or, in other words, listening will probably be difficult for the great majority of your students.

In general, you will probably be asking your students to listen to yourself, their colleagues or a tape or video.

Listening to you, the teacher, is generally the easiest form of listening for the students. You speak clearly and they generally know why they should be listening to you. Listening to tapes or videos is more difficult; the actual quality of the sound may not be very good, (there is not a lot that you can do about that), and they may not really understand why they are supposed to be listening. This you can do something about. Listening to each other is often the most difficult aspect of listening for students - they often see little point in trying to understand what their classmates are saying in a foreign language.

One way in which you can help students with their listening is by explaining why it is important. It is half the communication process of listening and speaking. By setting tasks which can only be completed by listening for the information, either from a tape or from each other, you help in two ways. You give them a focus for their listening, a specific reason or reasons for listening and you help to demonstrate that listening is often necessary to obtain information.

If you are using a tape and the text is quite difficult, then it is necessary to set tasks which are easy, otherwise the students become demoralised. If, on the other hand the text is easy, and the equipment produces good quality sound, then you can set a difficult task, e.g. writing down every word they hear. Whatever kind of text you use, a lot of students appreciate seeing the tapescript at some point. It can be very reassuring for students and help motivation if, after the various exercises you set, you then allow them to look at the tapescript whilst you play the tape again, for the last time.