How to teach listening and reading in MFL [3 min read]

Reading and listening are an essential part of teaching languages. Here are my ideas for how to teach them in a way that ensures your students fully understand the texts in depth.

As always, I recommend including listening and/or reading tasks as part of my "exploiting one text" method of lesson planning, and we should always try to see it as a gradual transition from passive understanding of the language to active production.

Here are my 5 tips:

1. Start with passive understanding before production: Begin with target language into English activities, focusing on listening and reading (passive skills) before moving to speaking and writing (active skills). This ensures students have sufficient input before being asked to produce language.

2. Use one text for multiple activities: Exploit a single text in various ways to deepen understanding. Start with general comprehension questions, move to more detailed tasks, and eventually use the text for translation exercises.

3. Prepare students with vocabulary activities: Before introducing a listening or reading text, do vocabulary activities related to the content. This helps students prepare for the upcoming task and increases their chances of understanding the material. Check out this blog post for more ideas about how to introduce and practise vocab.

4. Gradually increase task difficulty: Begin with general comprehension questions to get the gist of the text, then progress to more detailed questions. This allows students to build confidence and understanding step by step.

5. Include a variety of question types: Use different formats such as true/false, multiple choice, filling in blanks, and identifying information from different time frames (past, present, future). This keeps students engaged and helps assess various aspects of their comprehension.

To go into all of this in more depth, get your hands on my online self-paced course here. In it, I go through the steps in more detail and give lots of examples of great low-prep activities to do in class today!