Developing Listening Skills in CLIL

Abstract

Listening, like reading, writing, and speaking, is a complex process best developed by consistent practice. Listening is the vital skill providing the basis for the successful communication and successful Professional career. Effective listening skills enhance the ability to learn and adapt new information, knowledge, and skills. Listening comprehension is more than extracting meaning from incoming speech. It is a process of matching speech with the background knowledge, i.e. what the listeners already know about the subject. Listening in a CLIL environment is different from listening in a content class conducted in the mother-tongue and from listening comprehension tasks in the language class. The aim of this paper is to analyse how CLIL methodology could be useful in developing listening comprehension in both content and language classes. It is very important to teach students how to listen. In this light, listening emerges first and foremost as a process and second as a product. Consequently learners become responsible for their own learning and gain control over the listening process. Listening skills can be developed by the instruction of general learning strategies. The CLIL approach could be of great help in reaching this goal and is going to be discussed in a greater detail in this paper.