Students at a Colombian high school lacked English listening and speaking skills. While learning a new language is a long process, listening from an early stage is important even if students understand little at first. In the observed class, there was no interaction in English, a focus only on writing and reading, and the teacher spoke only in Spanish. To develop English skills, teachers must set a rule to use only English in class and incorporate audio tools to expose students to real English pronunciation and accents, as the teacher was non-native.

1. WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO DEVELOP LISTENING SKILLS IN YOUNG LEARNER THROUG AUDIO TOOLS?
As the acquisition of a new language is a long process and even when we are adults we are still learning
new grammar structures and stuff like that there is a necessity in many classrooms specially in the 9th
grade of “San Pedro Alejandrino” school which I observed and is related with the listening exercise in
the English class.
I got to some conclusions from the lack of understanding and production in the target language students
have in the questioned school; first of all we need to focus on the fact that when learning any foreign
language, people (and teenagers in this case) have to be surrounded by that language, which means the
students have to listen a lot, no matter if they understand just a bit at the beginning, because with time
they will be able to understand (cause is a process).
In the classroom, I observed that:
- There was not interaction in the target language
- During the class there was a focus just in the writing and reading skills
- And the teacher spoke in Spanish all the time
By the end of some classes I tried to have a short interaction in English with some students but they
didn’t understand what I was trying to communicate even with easy vocabulary they already knew and
they weren’t able to speak a single word.
Hence I focused my attention on what is the necessity in the classroom. As we know, in Colombian high
schools we don’t have native speakers working as teachers, so is really complicated to get the real
context or real English, but as teachers we need to look for tools and to set at least the rule of using just
English in the class (Jeremy Harmer, how to teach English).
As Harmer says, to learn English, it is important to listen to the real language, because there is a lot of
accents in English, and the globe is becoming smaller so it is necessary for the teacher (if is not native) to
use audio tools when teaching English.
ANDRÉS MAURICIO POTES
051350302009