The importance of listening in teaching a foreign language

Abstract

Listening is one of the most important skills in speaking and producing or understanding any piece of language from different people as Harmer (2007: 132) says “Most students want to be able to understand what people are saying to them in English, either face-to-face, on TV or on the radio, in theaters and cinemas, or on tape, CDs or other recorded media”. Students need to listen with comprehension to connected discourse which may rang from understanding of various utterances spoken by others who use the target language to be learnt. This may indicate that listening skill is essential and occurs before speaking. Teachers who teach a foreign or a second language should be aware of the sequence of learning skills and what should be given the priority in teaching. In this paper, it may be desirable to start by examining what is generally meant by listening skill in teaching and how it is related and integrated to speaking skill in order to produce meaningful of sounds of language.