Pre-listening Stage and Teaching Listening from the Adult Learner’s Perspective

Since  the  beginning  of  Communicative  Language  Teaching  we  have  taken  for  granted  that teaching listening comprehension should be an integral part of every general English course and that a listening session in the classroom should consist of three stages:  1. pre-listening, 2. whilelistening and 3. post-listening. However, how often do we teach listening specifically? Do we know what  exactly  happens  in  each  stage?  Is  the pre-listening  stage  useful  for  all  proficiency  levels? Should  we  use  the  same  pre-listening  techniques  for  higher  and  lower  proficiency  levels?  We decided  to  ask  the  students  in  our  face-to-face  courses  in  the  Department  of  Language  Studies about their experiences, opinions and attitudes to teaching/learning listening comprehension at A1-B1  levels  (CEFR),  with  a  focus  on  the  pre-listening  stage.  The  research  dealt  with  the  specific teaching/learning context of the Czech Republic, where English is taught as a foreign language. In 2012, an online questionnaire survey was carried out  by the online survey mode of data collection (thanks  to  a  large  number  of  collected  accessible  email  addresses)  where  was  asked  1016 students at the Department of Foreign Languages AS CR.  The population‟s characteristics were identified,  e.g.  dispersion  of  CEFR levels,  age,  self-evaluation  of  the  participants,  their  needs analysis,  and  difficulties  concerning  listening  in  and  out  of  the  classroom.  A  statistical  analysis helped us reveal any correlations between the variables, e.g. age/level differences.  An optimal prelistening technique from the students perspective was identified according to the proficiency level.