BROADENING THE LISTENING MATERIALS IN SECOND/FOREIGN LANGUAGE CONTEXT

Literature is replete with studies that take a product-based approach towards designing and assigning listening materials and activities. This product-based view of listening is starkly at odds with the current advances in language teaching which advocate a more process-based view towards mastering language skills. Favoring outcome at the cost of the underlying processes will bring about test likeness for the task and anxiety for the learners. In the present article, the authors argue against the inherent characteristics of a product-based approach to listening, arguing that this approach favors an efferent view of designing listening materials where learners only seek to spot some specific pieces of information. Throughout the article, some listening activities of different in-market English course books are investigated. Then, the two broad product and process based approaches to listening are compared and contrasted. Later, some process-based alternatives to product-based activities are offered and following that some criteria for the evaluation of listening materials are suggested. The findings have certain implications for teachers as curriculum developers in EFL/ESL settings.