Unit 7 - Listening

What is listening?

Listening is one of the four language skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking. Like reading, listening is a receptive skill, as it involves responding to language rather than producing it. Listening involves making sense of the meaningful sounds of language. We do this by making use of context, language and our knowledge of the world.

Written language	Spoken language
Stays on the page; doesn’t disappear.	Disappears as soon as it is spoken. Sometimes it is spoken fast and sometimes slowly, with or without pauses.
Uses punctuation and capital letters to show sentences.	Indicates sentences and meaningful groups of words through stress and intonation.
Consists of letters, written words and sentences, and punctuation joined together into text.	Consists of sounds, single words, sentences, utterances (complete sense units) and incomplete sentences joined together in connected speech.
Often has no visual support.	The speaker uses body language to support his/her communication; for example, gestures (movements of hands or arms to help people understand us), and facial expressions (the expressions on our faces).
Is usually quite well organized: sentences are complete, follow one another in a logical sequence and are joined to previous or following sentences. Topics are usually separate from one another.	Is not so well organized; e.g. it contains interruptions, hesitations (pausing when speaking because you’re not sure what to say or how to say it), repetitions and frequent changes of topic.
Usually uses quite exact vocabulary and more complex grammar.	Often uses rather general vocabulary and simple grammar.

Reference:

Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2012). The TKT Teaching Knowledge Test Course Modules 1,2 and 3 (Vol. Second edition). United Kingdom: Cambridge English.