Oxford English File PreIntermediate Third Edition Class Audio 12
Elfreda Dasovich
This article reports a study on the implementation of meaningful oral tasks to promote listening fluency in ten pre-intermediate English as a foreign language learners in the English language teaching program at a Colombian public university. The tasks were implemented to overcome the weaknesses these students had to understand oral messages from audio materials and daily-life conversations in classes. A qualitative action-research study with observation field-notes and semi-structured interviews served as the basis for this research. Results indicate that this methodology provided suitable opportunities to foster listening fluency through the development of meaningful oral tasks. Participants developed dynamic assignments that included pre, while, and post intensive-extensive listening practices which allowed them to understand, to interpret oral messages, and to provide suitable responses to do the required tasks.
Theparticipants of this study were ten EFL learners. Six of them were male andfour female. The age range was from 17 to 20 years old. They were all in thethird semester, in which they had to take a pre-intermediate English coursethat was part of their education process in the EFL program. These studentsfaced different conditions and situations that affected them in theirsuccessful development of listening. First, the geographical context where theuniversity is located impeded learners having contact with native Englishspeakers. Second, most students expressed that they did not practice listeningat home and they also stated that the majority of English language teachershave taught them using listening activities in the class just to test them.Some of the activities they used to do before the implementation of meaningfullistening tasks were filling the gaps, finding the missing words of a text,recognizing the pronunciation of words, or understanding the intended messageof a word.
TBLT created a new atmosphere in the classroom to practice listeningand speaking, I first listened to the materials at home, to make connectionswith the speaker and the message. Then, when the audio was played in the class,I could understand, talk with my classmate, and report my thoughts about thematerials. (Interview 2, Participant 1)
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