Listen in

As we all know, learners often find listening the hardest skill of all and there are many reasons for this. One of the new features of 'Network Now A2.1' is the 'Listen in' activity, which appears at the end of each 'Language and culture' section. Click here to find out more on how to help your students develop their listening skills with the help of this task ...

When we listen to others speaking in our native language, we automatically use many different skills depending on whether we are listening for the general idea or gist or whether we need specific information. Listening tasks in coursebooks are designed to train these different skills in the foreign language too.

A new feature of Network Now A2.1 which supports this is the additional task Listen in which can be found at the end of the Language and culture section of each unit. Students can listen to a conversation about one of the topics featured on the Language and culture page. This task develops learners' ability to listen for gist – asking which topic from the Language and culture page is being talked about, together with a general question referring to the topic, concentrating on the main information.


The first Listen in task on page 25 includes a tip to your learners to not worry about understanding each word, but to listen for the general idea of the conversation. Spend some time in the first unit explaining the strategy of gist listening to your students and do the first Listen in task together.
 

The Listen in conversations can be found on the CD, with the track given in the coursebook. (The audioscripts can be found online.)
 

NB: Tell your students that all the other texts in the Language and culture section of Network Now A2.1 can be both read and listened here.