Authentic listening activities¹

Features of authentic language use are beginning to make their way into ELT materials, although it continues to be characteristic of listening materials that they are recognizable as not being the ‘real thing’. There is still a long way to go in the design of listening materials which incorporate features of real use, but at least the value of exposing learners to such features is widely accepted. It is not so widely accepted, however, that the authentic listening experience involves more than exposure to certain features of language: It also involves a great variety of listening activities, and these are rarely exploited in ELT methodology. In this article a number of authentic listening experiences are outlined and discussed. A set of sample classroom activities is then presented, in which authentic texts are exploited. The aim of each activity is to replicate authentic listening experiences and outputs while taking pedagogic constraints into account