Tuesday, December 9, 2025

PD Talk #84 - Designing Communicative Listening Tasks with AI Support

 

Designing Communicative Listening Tasks with AI Support

-Pablo Torres & Mark Cormier, 2025





Introduction: This blog contains the video recording, content, activities, and support material for a two hour interactive webinar given on December 12, 2025 for Centro Cultural Costarricense Norteamericano as the 84th epidosde of the PD Talks: Professional Development Sessions webinar series.  


Session Goals: 
  • Summarize key concepts in the teaching and learning of listening in a foreign language.
  • Consider more communicative alternatives to traditional listening comprehension questions. 
  • Explore a framework for developing listening materials with AI support. 

Guiding Questions: 
  • How do people learn to listen in a foreign language?
  • How can I design more communicative, student-centered listening activities?
  • How can generative AI tools help me develop engaging listening materials? 

Table of Contents

Click the links below to access the section of the blog you would like to see.

Topic 5: Key Session Takeaways














Topic 1: Theory Input - Key Concepts in Second Language Listening 

Let's start by reviewing some important concepts about the role of listening in foreign language teaching and learning. 



Key Concept 1: Listening is the forgotten skill in language teaching and deserves more attention in the classroom. 

  • Of the four skills, listening is "probably the least understood, the least researched, and historically, the least valued" (Wilson, 2008, pg. 17). 
  • Listening is "the Cinderella skill ... constantly overlooked by its elder sister, speaking" (Nunan, 1999, pg. 199).
  • Listening is invisible because it occurs in the mind of the learners, but it is an active skill, not a passive one. 
  • Morely (2001) estimates that "on average, we can expect to listen twice as much as we speak, four times more than we read, and five times more than we write" (p. 70). What are we doing in our language classes to address this critical skill?







Key Concept 2: Listening provides essential opportunities for language acquisition . 

  • Meaning-Focused Input (MFI) is "learning through listening and reading where the learner's attention is on the ideas and messages conveyed by the language" (Nation & Newton, 2009, p. 1).
  • Listening is a source of comprehensible input. "We acquire ... only when we understand language that contains structure that is 'a little beyond' where we are now" (Krashen, 1982, p. 21).
  • "The type of input that learners need for acquisition is meaning based or communicative in nature. It must be language to which learners are supposed to respond for its meaning" (Wong & VanPatten, 2008, p. 409). 
  • Listening tasks in language classes can support student learning in several ways:
    • Develop Receptive Skills
    • Introduce New Language in Context
    • Model Appropriate Discourse
    • Build Background Knowedge on the Lesson Theme
    • Stimulate Student Language Production








Key Concept 3: Listening is an active process. Learners construct the meaning of what they hear through a combination of top-down and bottom-up processing. 


Interactive Processing: Learners make use of both linguistic and non-linguistic knowledge in order to accurately process the meaning of messages they hear (Buck, 2001). The combination of bottom-up and top-down processing described below is known as interactive processing (Hegelsen, 2003). 
  • Bottom-Up Processing: We build understanding of what we hear by combining sounds to form words, words to form phrases, phrases to form sentences, etc. We use our knowledge of the language to make meaning of what we hear. 
  • Top-Down Processing: We use background knowledge (schema) to make logical inferences about what is happening and interpret what learners mean. We use knowledge of the world and context to make meaning of what we hear. 
  • Adequate Comprehension Requires Both: When unfamiliar words, structures, or accents are encountered, we use knowledge of topic and context to infer meaning. When this knowledge is missing, we must rely more on our understanding of sounds, words, and sentences to construct meaning. Effective listening instruction should account for and support both kinds of processing.






Key Concept 4: Designing effective listening tasks is a process of cognitive load management. 


Listening is a Complex Cognitive Task: A key concept in listening instruction is the topic of cognitive load. One of the challenges of second language listening is that students' cognitive processing capacities can easily become overwhelmed by factors such as speed, complexit, length, and accent of the recording, lack of sufficient context, as well as the nature of the tasks they are asked to complete. The Centre for Educational Statistics and Evaluation (2017) summarizes the work of Sweller (2010) on Cognitive Load Theory, which describes the processing limitations of working memory:
  • Intrinsic Load: This is the inherent processing difficulty of a particular concept to be learned or task to be completed by students. We can't change the difficulty of a listening passage, but we can SIMPLFY the intrinsic load with various techniques such as slowing the audio down or breaking the audio into discreet, more easily digestible chunks with specific processing tasks for each one. 
  • Extraneous Load: This is the unnecessary processing difficulties caused by the way information is presented to students that distracts their focus during the listening task. We can REDUCE the extraneous load by creating simple, easy to follow instructions for listening tasks and by ensuring that students understand what information they need to extract from the passage before they listen.
  • Germane Load: This is the optimal level of challenge or cognitive effort needed to learn a concept or make sense of a text. The idea of listening instruction is not to eliminate all effort required of students but to ENHANCE the germane cognitive load through the careful design of support materials and listening tasks that promote effective processing of the passage.    






Key Concept 5: Checking comprehension does not have to come at the end of the listening text. The WHILE-Listening stage of a listening lesson is critical and often overlooked. You can break the text up into multiple sections with small comprehension checks and processing tasks along the way.


Teaching not Testing: Teaching listening is not the same as testing listening. When we design listening activities, we need to incorporate listening response tasks that support understanding of the message and personal engagement with the text. Wilson (2008) says that effective listening activities: 
  • "Provide a focus, showing students what is important about any given passage;
  • Allow them to perceive the text's structure (causes and effects, problems and solutions, etc.)
  • Help them to 'chunk' the listening into sections or units of informatin;
  • Provide clues as to how they might respond;
  • Keep them concentrating throughout the passage;
  • Contribute towards the entertainment factor of the lesson by highlighting points of interest, irony, humour, etc." (p. 81).

Let's consider some ways teachers can do this!










Topic 2: Exploring PWP Stages, Rationale, and Options for Designing Instruction

The long-established Pre-While-Post framework (Axbey, 1989) provides an excellent template for designing listening lessons. The primary aim of this blog post is to explore alternatives to traditional activities in the WHILE-listening stage, but it is important to review the purpose of each of the three stages first. 




Pre-While-Post Instructional Sequence 

  • Pre-Listening Activities: Engage students in activities to activate background knowledge about the topic of the audio and raise interest in the task to come. This builds contextual knowledge needed to apply top-down listening strategies. Review important vocab from the audio that students already know and “pre-teach” any unfamiliar terms to aid their bottom-up processing.
  • How: Questions, images, predictions, vocabulary review, make personal connections with the topic, etc. 

  • While-Listening Activities: Help students process the audio by breaking it down into manageable chunks in a variety of tasks to demonstrate their understanding of what they hear. Tasks should occur during the audio, not just at the end. Replay sections of the audio if needed, but always give students a task to complete.
  • How: See Lund's (1990) taxonomy of listener response types below.

  • Post-Listening Activities: Wrap up the cycle by checking and clarifying answers, reviewing difficult sections, asking students opinions about the audio, or doing a speaking or writing task inspired by the topic of the listening.
  • How: Check answers, help with misunderstandings, analyze languagein the text, audio also serves as stimulus for speaking or writing. 







Listening Response Types 

Teachers have many options when it comes to deciding how students will listen and respond to a text. Let's start by reviewing traditional types of comprehension questions before considering more student-centered and communicative alternatives. 

  • Traditional Response Types: Traditionally, students are asked to complete listening comprehension questions in a sequence that helps them identify information from general topic to specific details. Nunan (1999) provides a comprehensive list of typical questions:
  • Listen for Gist: Is the speaker talking about a family celebration or a work meeting? Is the podcast episode about sports or politics?
  • Listen for Purpose: Are the speakers making plans to travel or discussing a past trip? What is the speaker trying to do?
  • Listen for Main Idea: Why is the woman giving the man directions? What is the speaker's opinion about the movie?
  • Listen for Specific Information: What time does the bus leave tomorrow morning? How many guests are expected at the event? 
  • Listen for Inference: What can we guess about the man's relationship with his boss? What does the woman mean when she says, "Well, that's one way to handle it"?
  • Listen to Identify Attitude: Does the speaker sound enthusiastic or bored? Is the speaker being sincere or sarcastic?
  • Listen for Stress: Listen to how the man says, "I just bought the watch here yesterday". What sounds more important, where he bought the watch, or when?
  • Listen for Phonetic Distinctions: Did the man say "sheet" or "seat"?

  • Lund's Taxonomy: Randall Lund's (1990) taxonomy of listening response types includes answering traditional comprehension questions along with eight other alternatives which teachers can use to develop listening activities that engage learners and support their processing of the text. 
  • 1) Doing Activities: Require a physical response of some kind rather than a spoken or written one. For example, learners listen and point, sit or stand, move from one side of the room to another, perform gestures, raise thier hand or perform other actions based on what they hear. 
  • 2) Choosing Activities: Require selection from among alternatives. Examples include selecting the right pictures, objects, texts or actions; matching, placing pictures in the right order, or picking up objects according to description.
  • 3) Transferring Activities: Require learners to take information in one form and transfer it to another. Most of the time this involves drawing a picture or completing a graphic of some kind. Examples include making a map, tracing a route, completing a chart or table, or labeling a diagram. 
  • 4) Extending Activities: Require the listener to provide a text that goes beyond what is given. Examples include creating some kind of ‘finish’ to an incomplete story, solving a problem, and filling in missing lines of dialogue.
  • 5) Duplicating Activities: Require the learners to replicate all or part of the message, either verbatim in the L2 or as a translation in the L1. Examples include repeating the exact message orally or in writing in either the L2 or a translation in the L1.
  • 6) Condensing Activities: Require the listener to represent the message in a reduced form. Examples include completing outlines, notes, bullet points, oral or written summaries.
  • 7) Modeling Activities: Require the listener to use the text as a model for imitation or for another action. For example, parts of the audio are used for a pronunciation lesson or the audio models a similar speaking activity to come.
  • 8) Conversing Activities: Require the listener to have an interactive exchange with the teacher or peers about the content of the audio. Examples include giving opinions about the topic, story, characters, or ideas in the audio.
  • 9) Answering Activities: Require the listener to answer traditional true/false, multiple choice, or short answer questions about gist, main idea, purpose, specific details, inference, and other aspects of the text.  








Topic 3: Designing Listening Tasks - Frameworks and Options

Merging Lund's Taxonomy with AI Supported Materials Development: Until very recently, teachers' choice of audios to include in a listening lesson was limited to audio tracts from the textbook, authentic materials, homemade recordings, and in-class dictations. Now, with the advent of generative AI tools, it is easy for teachers to write audio scripts that better fit their learners' needs and interests and they can easily utilize online text-to-speech tools to generate lifelike audio recordings.  The following sample activities include scripts, recordings, images, and response tasks that were developed with AI support. 

Note: The following sample activities only show the WHILE (and some POST) stages of the listening lesson and do not indicate what teachers and students can do to prepare learners to engage with the  audio. 


Sample 1 - Office Mystery


Materials and Procedure: Students access the worksheet below. The teacher plays the audio in sections giving the students instructions about what they must do in the next panel before playing the audio. 
  • Audio 1: CLICK HERE - Listen and circle Jake's lunch.
  • Audio 2: CLICK HERE - Listen and draw the map to trace Jakes's steps.
  • Audio 3: CLICK HERE - Listen and copy the question Lucy asked.
  • Audio 4: CLICK HERE - Listen and perform the actions and emotions.
  • Audio 5: CLICK HERE - Listen and complete the summary
  • Audio 6: CLICK HERE - Listen and continue the story.

Comentary: This audio is rather long but it is broken into manageable chunks with specific learner response tasks for each section. It shows a variety of Lund's listening response types including: choosing, transfering, duplicating, doing, condensing, and extending. For Audio 4, the teacher selects two students to be actors. They must carry out the actions while expressing the emotions listed on the worksheet as they listen to the track. Their classmates will decide who the better actor is. 

Tools: The audio script, listening tasks, and images were created with ChaptGPT. The audio was generated using Microsoft Clipchamp's text-to-speech tool. 








Sample 2 - Teenage Dilemmas



Materials and Procedure: Students access the worksheet below. The teacher plays the audio the first time and students listen to three teenagers describing a problem they are facing. For each speaker, students need to identify key details by drawing a line between the speaker and images. Not all images will be relevant. Then they discuss their choices with a partner. In the second listening students complete a chart by putting a checkmark next to any people mentioned by each speaker. For the thrid and final listening, students articulate the speakers' dilemmas using simple phrases, and put a check next to what they think the speaker should do next. Then they discuss their choices with a partner. They finish by chosing one of the characters and improvising a brief roleplay exploring what might happen next in the story.

Comentary: The audio is long but broken into three segments that the teacher can easily pause between to allow students to think and process the information. The worksheet requires the students to listen to the audio multiple times, each for a different purpose and a number of Lund's response ideas are included: choosing, transferring, condensing, conversing, and extending. Tasks one and two make use of pictures that represent key details from the audio but it is up to students to interpret what these images represent which encourages more personal engagement with the task.

Tools: The audio scripts and tasks one, two, and three were written by the author. The images in task one were sourced from www.flaticon.com. The voices were produced using Google Gemini and ChatGPT conversation function and the roleplay cards in task four were created using ChatGPT.  







Sample 3 - Daily Routines, Habits, and Eating Preferences



Materials and Procedure: Students access the worksheet below. The teacher plays the three audios and students are asked to identify the speaker of each audio by matching them with a picture. They should also be encouraged to recall as many details about each person as they can. Then the teacher plays the audios again and students take keyword notes in the table. After each track, students can compare their responses with the person sitting near them. The tracks can be played one more time if needed before students complete tasks three and four in which they analyze and respond to the ideas mentioned by the speaker before creating a similar text about themselves using a narrative frame. 

Comentary: This worksheet makes use of a very useful technique called guided note taking which is a combination of Lund's transfering and condensing response types. The note taking table identifies specific information learners must find and includes short phrases to help them write the required details. Each audio script follows a similar structure and students are required to extract the same information. Once they complete the note taking table, they can refer to the information there in order to complete the personal response in task three and the audios serve as a kind of model for students to describe their own habits and routines in task four.

Tools: The audio scripts, character images, and discussion questions were created using ChatGPT. The notetaking table in task two and narrative frame in task four were created by the author. The audios were generated using the text-to-speech feature at luvvoice.com.  








Sample 4 - Animal Behaviors



Materials and Procedure: Students access the worksheet below. The teacher plays the audio the first time and students identify the animals and the order they were mentioned by drawing a line between each picture and the numbers in the chart. Then the teacher assigns each student two numbers at random. On the second listening, students have to take keyword notes to complete the chart about their two assigned animals. The teacher can play the track a third time if needed. Then students are put in small groups. First they help their partners complete the missing information from their chart and then they discuss the questions. 

Comentary: This worksheet includes a variation of the note taking response strategy mixed with a jigsaw listening task in which students are only responsible for taking notes about portions of the audio. After listening, students complete a speaking task in which they help each other complete the missing portions of their table. The audios also serve as a model for the students' description of an additional animal in task three.

Tools: The audio scripts and images were created with ChatGPT. The audio was generated with Microsoft's Clipchamp text-to-speech tool and the table and task instructions were written by the author.









Topic 4: Developing Listening Materials with AI Support

I work at Centro Cultural Costarricense Norteamericano where we are always looking for new teachers to join the team. In addition, I help organize three free professional development initiatives that I encourage you to take advantage of. 








Topic 5: Key Session Takeaways

Seven Principles: This session has reviewed theoretical support and practical idas for developing meaning-focused listening tasks. The following principles will help you continue exploring this topic in your classes.
  • 1) Development over Testing: Teaching and developing students' listening skills is not the same as testing them. Tasks should encourage meaning-focused processing of and response to the ideas of the text, not simply surface level reacall of ideas. 
  • 2) Task before Text: Always give students tasks to do while processing the text. Never have students listen before sharing and clarifying the specific task they must complete.
  • 3) Multiple Interactions: Help students construct the meaning of the text through multiple encounters, each with a different task. 
  • 4) Time on Task: In a Pre-While-Post cycle, the While-Listening stage should get the most time. The Pre-Listening should be just long enough to provide necessary context, motivation, and expectations for the While-Listening and Post-Listening stages to come. Don't overdo the preparation. 
  • 5) Alone and Together: Students should have the chance to process the input individually as well as through pair discussion and collaboration. 
  • 6) Yeah, So What?: Students must be given the chance to react to and evaluate the ideas presented in the text to develop their voice as independent users of English.
  • 7) Speaking through Listening: Receptive skills like listening and reading can be practiced in a communicative way with plenty of opportunities for authentic communication before, during, and after. 









References:

Buck, G. (2001). Assessing Listening. Cambridge University Press.

Centre for Educational Statistics and Evaluation. (2017). Cognitive Load Theory: Research that Teachers Need to Understand. NSW Department of Education.

Helgesen, M. (2003). Listening. In D. Nunan (Ed.), Practical English Language Teaching (pp. 23-46). McGraw Hill.

Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and Practice in Second Langauge Acquisition. Pergamon Press Ing.

Lund, R. J. (1990). A taxonomy for teaching second language listening. Foreign Language Annals, 23. 105-115.

Morley, J. (2001). Aural comprehension instruction: Principles and practices. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language (pp. 69-85). Heinle Cengage.

Nation, I.S.P. & Newton, J. (2009). Teaching ESL/EFL Listening and Speaking. Routledge. 

Nunan, D. (1999). Second Language Teaching & Learning. Heinle & Heinle.

Seller, J. (2010). Element interactivity and intrinsic, extraneous, and germane cognitive load. Educational Psychology Review, 22(2), 123-138. 

Wilson, J.J. (2008). How to Teach Listening. Pearson Education Limited.

Wong, W.& VanPatten, B. (2008). The Evidence is IN: Drills are OUT. Foreign Language Annals 36(3). 403-423. 











Session Details and Author Information

Session Title: Designing Communicative Listening Tasks with AI Support

Session Abstract: Listening is an essential language skill that supports learners’ ability to engage in real-world communication, but it also comes with its own set of challenges for both teachers and learners. The well-established Pre-While-Post instructional framework for receptive skills provides a powerful guide for sequencing listening lessons, but teachers often find it difficult to design appropriate activities for the “While-Listening” stage that genuinely support skill development rather than simply test comprehension. Participants in this workshop will explore several practical frameworks for listening task design, engage in demonstration activities to better understand the frameworks, and see how a selection of AI tools and prompts can help them develop their own listening materials that are better adapted to their curriculum and students’ needs than traditional textbook sources.

Authors: Pablo Torres Marín & Mark Foster Cormier

Author Bios: Pablo Torres Marín is an English teacher, curriculum designer, and AI-enhanced learning specialist with more than fifteen years of experience in ELT, materials design, teacher development, Business English and ESP instruction for professional and corporate contexts. Pablo earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Costa Rica and a master’s degree in Educational Technologies and Digital Competences from Universidad Internacional de La Rioja in Spain. He currently works at Centro Cultural Costarricense Norteamericano where he holds the position of Curriculum Designer He has developed placement test materials, designed evaluations aligned with international standards, and created AI-driven chatbots for language learning, interactive practice platforms, as well as digital resources that enhance learner engagement, assessment, and personalization. His corporate and ESP teaching background includes delivering customized courses for organizations such as Edwards Lifesciences, Bayer, ADN, Starbucks, CFIA, Motiva, Bomberos de Costa Rica, and the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, emphasizing 21st-century skills, professional communication, and technical English.

Mark Foster Cormier is an English teacher and teacher educator who is passionate about materials development, reflective practice, and professional development in ELT. He earned a master of arts in TESOL from Marlboro College and bachelor’s degrees in English teaching and Latin American studies from Universidad Americana and Appalachian State University. Mark has been an EFL teacher in Costa Rica for 17 years and has specialized in teacher development for over a decade. He currently works as Head of Training and Educational Quality at Centro Cultural Costarricense Norteamericano where he is in charge of new teacher recruiting and training, planning ongoing professional development initiatives, and hosting the monthly webinar series for language teachers called PD Talks: Professional Development Sessions. Click here to connect with Mark on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-cormier-elt/
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