Development of Listening Skills in Teaching a Foreign Language

Abstract

This article deals with the formation and development of listening skills of students learning a foreign language. The authors have pointed out some difficulties of comprehension of foreign speech by listening. According to the authors, for effective planning and conducting classes it is necessary to diagnose students’ abilities, taking into account their mother tongue and education background. A set of exercises may be used to reveal students’ listening skills, attention, abilities to imitate and logical thinking. Besides, a range of assignments for developing language, speech and communicative skills are given. The authors emphasize that an intensive work on the development of listening skills must be conducted at all levels of mastering a foreign language, i.e. to be of a successive character. Some recommendations on the development of listening skills in a non-native group are also suggested.
Key words: listening skills; testing; language competence; speech competence; communicative skills; stages of teaching and learning; techniques.