Tuesday, March 24, 2026

Teaching Listening & Speaking to Teens and Young Learners

 

Teaching Listening & Speaking to Teens and Young Learners

-Mark Cormier, 2026



Introduction: This blog contains the activities, and support material for a two hour interactive workshop given on March 27, 2026 for trainees of Peace Corps Costa Rica.   

Session Goals: In today's session we will ...
  • Explore 10 key concepts in the teaching of listening and speaking.
  • Participate in a variety of small group tasks to better understand the key concepts.
  • Create an original proposal for a listening or speaking lesson using either the PWP or PPP framework.
  • Consider a collection of complementary resources to help you learn more about the teaching of these skills. 

Guiding Questions: By the end of the session, you should be able to answer ...
  • Why is learning to listen and speak in a foreign language a serious challenge?
  • What kinds of listening and speaking activities might be engaging for my student population?
  • How can I design an instructional sequence for listening and speaking lessons?




Table of Contents

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

    • How do L2 listeners construct meaning?
    • Task 6: How can I support students' understanding of other classroom listening opportunities?
    • Task 7: How can I increase students' use of English during class time?
    • Task 8: What are some communicative speaking task types?
    • Task 9: How can I support students during speaking tasks?
    • Task 10: How can students improve their speaking performance?
    • What helps students engage in speaking tasks?

  • Practice: Strategies to Plan a Listening & Speaking Lesson
    • PWP: Three Stage Framework for Listening Instruction
    • PPP: Three Stage Framework for Speaking Instruction
    • Self-Assessment Checklist - Listening and Speaking Tasks for Kids and Teens

  • Application: Propose an Activity Sequence

  • Wrap Up: Exit Ticket and Reflection
  • Resources: Materials for Further Study








snrf1 Information: Key Concepts in Listening and Speaking Instruction



snrf2 Task 1: How are the four language skills used to communicate? 

Traditionally, foreign language pedagogy divides language competence into the four "macro skills" of reading, writing, speaking, and listening. However, ACTFL's World Readiness Standards framework (Cutshall, 2012) presents a more holistic description of language skill use by differentiating between three communicative modes depending on context and purpose. 

Instructions: Read the information below and match the three communication modes with their descriptions and decide which of the language skills [ R W S L] are likely to be used in each mode.

INTERPRETIVE - PRESENTATIONAL - INTERPERSONAL
  • _____ Communication: Learners interact and negotiate meaning in real-time to exchange information, reactions, feelings, and opinions.  [ R W S L ]
  • _____ Communication: Learners understand, interpret, and analyze messages on a variety of topics. [ R W S L ]
  • _____ Communication: Learners share information, concepts, and ideas to inform, explain, persuade, and narrate on a vareity of topics.  [ R W S L ]







snrf3 Task 2: How is skill usage distributed? 

We have four "macro skills", but their use in real life and in classroom contexts is not distributed evenly. According to Morley (2001), "on average, we can expect to _____ twice as much as we _____, four times more than we _____, and five times more than we _____" (p. 70).

READ - WRITE - LISTEN - SPEAK

Instructions: Place the four language skills above in the appropriate blanks in the quote from Morley. Then think about your own experiences using the four skills in real life and in a language classsroom. Do these ratios hold up? 









🔑Key Concept 1: The four macro skills are not developed in isolation, so it is good teaching practice to use activities that integrate the skills. However, listening and speaking should receive more attention than reading and writing in a course that follows a communicative methodology.








snrf4 Task 3: What makes L2 listening hard? 

Instructions: Read the list of factors that contribute to L2 listening difficulty. 
  • Can you suggest any additional factors based on your experience as a language learner? 
  • Identify two factors that you find (or found) most challenging in learning to listen in your L2. 
  • Identify any factors that you think a teacher is unable to help students with.

L2 LISTENING CHALLENGES
  1. [  ] You encounter new words, expressions, and grammar structures.
  2. [  ] You are not familiar with the speaker's accent.
  3. [  ] Words blend together in connected speech (ex. "I don't know = áono)
  4. [  ] Speaking is ephemeral and leaves no visual record to refer to.
  5. [  ] Speakers  talk too fast for you to keep up.
  6. [  ] Speakers refer to people, places, ideas, or cultural concepts that are unknown to you.
  7. [  ] Unlike writing, speech not typically composed of nice, complete sentences and instead is often a mess of choppy phrases, incomplete ideas, false starts, and rephrasing. 
  8. [  ] ...
  9. [  ] ...




 


snrf5 How do L2 listeners construct meaning?

Interactive Processing: Learners make use of both linguistic and non-linguistic knowledge in order to accurately processin the meaning of messages they hear (Buck, 2001). The combination of bottom-up and top-down processing described below is know 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 speakers mean. We use knowledge of the subject and context of the communication to make meaning.

Adequate Copmrehension Requires Both: When unfamilar 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. This is why it is important to do preparation activities (PRE-listening stage) before having students complete a listening task in order to. 

  • Activate or build background knowledge and understanding of the context of the listening for students to apply top-down processing.
  • Review important vocab, grammar, and pronunciation features and/ore pre-teach unkown elements that are essential to understand in order to help students apply bottom-up processing.









🔑Key Concept 2: Learners construct the meaning of what they hear or read through a combination of top-down and bottom-up processing. It is essential teaching practice to incorporate opportunities to use both processing strategies. 








snrf6 Task 4: How can I know if students understand the listening? 

Because listening comprehension is a cognitive activitie that occurs in the minds of the learners, it can't be directly observed. 

  • Discuss: What are some strategies to make students' thinking "visible" during a listening activity?









🔑Key Concept 3: Checking listening comprehension requires a response from learners (physical, oral, or written). There are MANY ways to do this! The phrase "Students listen and ..." should feature prominently in your lesson plan. 








snrf 7 Task 5: How can I support student engagement in a listening task? 

Let's participate in a listening activity to experience a range of possible student response activities that you can incorporate in your listening lessons. Please note that this activity was designed for training purposes and contains a much greater variety of response types than I would suggest doing in a single listening lesson with your students.
  • Instructions: CLICK HERE to read the description of the six response types used in this listening lesson and match them with activities in the chart. The first is done for you.

EXTENDING - CHOOSING - TRANSFERRING - DUPLICATING - CONDENSING - DOING









🔑Key Concept 4: Checking comprehension does not have to come at the end of the listening passage. Tehe WHILE-listening stage of a lesson is critical and often overlooked. Break the text up into multiple sections with small comprehension checks and processing tasks along the way. 








snrf8 Task 6: How can I support students' understanding of other classroom listening opportunities? 

The source of most of the listening that students do in an EFL class is the teacher as he or she gives instructions to the group during the lesson. It is always a good idea to familiarize students with common classroom phrases so they can follow along without having to revert to Spanish. 

Instructions: Read the list of classroom phrases. What additional phrases would you suggest teaching your students?

  • Come in
  • Sit down / Stand up
  • Attention please
  • Be quiet
  • Come to the board
  • Open your books
  • Turn to page ...
  • ...
  • ...
  • ...








🔑Key Concept 5: When following a communicative methodology, English is not just the topic of study, it is the medium of instruction in the classroom. This means we need to teach students common classroom phrases so we can give instructions in English and increase students' exposure to L2 listening.








snrf9 Task 7: How can I increase students' use of English during class time?  

The language that students need to participate in classroom life is often absent from the official curriculum. It is a great strategy to teach these phrases to students at the beginning of a course and create a poster or some other permanent visual reference that students can look at in case they forget. 

Instructions: Read the lists of classroom phrases below. What other phrases would you include in these lists?

  • Clarification Strategies: 
    • I have a question.
    • I don't understand.
    • Can you help me?
    • What do we have to do?
    • Can you repeat?
    • What does _____ mean?
    • How do you say _____ in English?
    • How do you spell _____?
    • ...
    • ...

  • Interaction Strategies: 
    • It's my / your / his / her turn.
    • I don't know.
    • In my opinion _____. 
    • I agree / disagree because _____. 
    • You think _____?
    • Really? That's interesting.
    • Tell me more about _____. 
    • ...
    • ...

  • Other Classroom Language: 
    • Can I go to the bathroom?
    • I'm (not) finished.
    • I'm (not) ready. 
    • What page are we on?
    • Can I borrow a pencil / eraser / etc.?
    • ...
    • ...    








🔑Key Concept 6: We can reduce the need for student L1 use by teaching language to support basic classroom behaviors such as asking for help or clarification, supporting interaction between students, and other common scenarios. 








snrf10 Task 8: What are some communicative speaking task types?   

Instructions: CLICK HERE to access the document. Read your assigned section with your partners and prepare to share the following with another group in your own words: 

  • What is the activity type and how does it work?
  • What are the benefits? 
  • Share an example! 









🔑Key Concept 7: Authentic oral communication in a foreign language class goes beyond mindless parroting. Teachers must design opportunities for students to express, interpret, and respond to real ideas. Even low level students are capable of expressing something with the right support. 








snrf11 Task 9: How can I support students during speaking tasks?    

"Cognitive load refers to the amount of information our working memory can process at any given time. For education purposes, cognitive load theory helps us to avoid overloading learners with more than they can effectively process..." (Medical College of Wisconsin, 2022) 

Speaking a second language is a very cognitively demanding task for learners. Even though you teach them the necessary vocab and grammar for the speaking activity, they often forget or struggle to use it during spontaneious performance and interaction. Include useful phrases, sentence starters, question stems, and key vocabulary in the design of the materials that students use during the task. 

Instructions: Refer to your assigned speaking activity. How did ( or could) the design of the materials reduce the cognitive load needed to participate in the task?   








🔑Key Concept 8: Teaching and practicing speaking is not the same as testing speaking. Give students langauge frames and reference material during speaking tasks to reduce cognitive load and help them articulate their ideas. 








snrf12 Task 10: How can students improve their speaking performance?    

Do it Again: We can helps student develop their speaking confidence, fluency, and accuracy by intentionally incorporating task repetition in the design of our speaking tasks. Here are some ideas:
  
  • Same: Students repeat the same task with a new partner.
  • Different: Students keep the same partners and do a different but similar task that requires the same communication strategies and language.
  • Beyond: Students do extention activities after the main task that require similar speaking strategies and language.  

Instructions: Refer to your assigned speaking activity. How did (or could) the design of the task incorporate opportunities for repetition?







🔑Key Concept 9: Speaking is like any other complex skill. Task repetition over time leads to improved fluency, accuracy, and confidence. Design speaking activities to allow for some degree of meaningful task repetition. 







snrf13 What helps students engage in speaking tasks?

Simply telling students to talk about a specific topic without adequate preparation is not likely to result in a successful speaking activity. You need to help students build a personal connection with the topic so that they have some thing meaningful to say. 







🔑Key Concept 10: Better input leads to better output! Listenings, readings, short videos, and rich, teacher-led class discussions can serve as stimulus material for a speaking activity and/or modeling for the task.








snrf14 Practice: Strategies to Plan a Listening and Speaking Lesson



snrf15 PWP: Three Stage Framework for Listening Instruction


Click image to view full screen or click here to view in another tab.





snrf16 PPP: Three Stage Framework for Speaking Instruction



Click image to view full screen or click here to view in another tab.







snrf17 Self-Assessment Checklist for Speaking & Listening Tasks

This checklist adapted from Peck (2001) provides seven criteria to consider when designing your own speaking and listening tasks. 

Speaking and listening tasks for kids and teens should:
  • ☑️ Focus primariliy on the expression and understanding of meaning, not just correctness.
  • ☑️ Focus on the value of the activity, not just the language.
  • ☑️ Focus on collaboration and social development.
  • ☑️ Provide a rich context, include movment, the senses, pictures, and a variety of activities.
  • ☑️ Teach English holistically, integrating other macro skills.
  • ☑️ Treat learners appropriately in light of their age and interests.
  • ☑️ Use language for authentic communication, not just as an object of analysis.









snrf18 Application: Propose an Activity Sequence




Plan your Listening or Speaking Lesson Outline: 

Instructions: Now it's time to plan a listening or speaking lesson based on content from the MEP curriculum following either the PWP or PPP framework. Time is limited, so begin by planning the While-Stage (listening) or Produce-Stage (speaking) tasks before addressing the other stages. 

  • Choose the Skill: Decide if you want to focus on listening or speaking.
  • Brainstorm the Rest: If you have time, think about activities you could include in the other two stages of the lesson.







snrf19 Wrap Up: Exit Ticket and Reflection

Instructions: Skim through the list of 12 bolded questions we have considered throughout this workshop. They help highlight important issues in the teaching of listening and speaking in English language teaching. Choose one that you think you can confidently and clearly answer now that you would not have been able to explain as well before participating in today's workshop. Then tell your partner your question and answer. 

  • How are the four language skills used to communicate?
  • How is skill usage distributed?
  • What makes L2 listening hard?
  • How do L2 listeners construct meaning?
  • How can I know if students understand the listening?
  • How can I support student engagement in a listening task?
  • How can I support students' understanding of other classroom listening opportunities?
  • How can I increase students' use of English during class time?
  • What are some communicative speaking task types?
  • How can I support students during speaking tasks?
  • How can students improve their speaking performance?
  • What helps students engage in speaking tasks?










snrf20 Resources: Materials for Further Study

  • Webinar and Blog: Designing Communicative Listening Tasks with AI Support (Cormier & Torres, 2025) 
  • Book Chapter: Teaching Listening and Reading for Young Learners (Shin & Crandall, 2014)
  • Book Chapter: Developing Children's Listening and Speaking in ESL (Peck, 2001)
  • Book Chapter: Aural Comprehension Instruction: Principles and Practices (Morley, 2001)
  • Full Book: Teaching ESL/EFL Listening and Speaking (Nation & Newton, 2009)
  • Warm Up: Padlet link for the warm up we did. 






snrf21 References:

Acuña, J. & Cormier, M. (2024, May 22-25). Backward Design Applied to Formative Oral Assessment [Presentation]. NCTE 2024, San José, Costa Rica. 

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

Cormier, M. & Torres, P. (2025, December 12) Designing Communicative Listening Tasks with AI Support. [Presentation]. PD Talks: Professional Development Sessions Webinar Series, San José, Costa Rica.

Cutshall, S. (2012). More Than a Decade of Standards: Integrating "Communication" in Your Language Instruction. The Language Educator. American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. 

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

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.

Medical College of Wisconsin. (2022, May). Cognitive load theory: A guide to applying cognitive load theory to your teaching. https://www.mcw.edu/-/media/MCW/Education/Academic-Affairs/OEI/Faculty-Quick-Guides/Cognitive-Load-Theory.pdf

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

Peck, S. (2001). Develoing Children's Listening and Speaking in ESL. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language (3rd ed pp. 139-149). Heinle & Heinle.












snrf22 Session Details and Author Information

Session Title: Teaching Listening and Speaking to Teens and Young Learners

Session Abstract: The macro skills of listening and speaking should form the core of any communicative second language curriculum, but they present real challenges for early career teachers especially when working with teenagers and young learners. Through completion of a series of collaborative tasks, participants in this workshop will discover 10 key concepts in the teaching of second language listening and speaking, as well as practical ideas for communicative listening and speaking tasks, frameworks for planning listening and writing instruction, a self-assessment checklist, and a collection of resources for further study. 

Author: Mark Foster Cormier

Author Bio: 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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