In the past, listening was assumed to be a passive skill and considered the lowliest in terms of its impact on the learners. This was due to the dominant influences of audiolinguism wherein its primary concern was on teaching learners to speak the second language. With this, the belief seemed to be, that if one learned to speak the language, listening comprehension would occur simultaneously.

 Aside from that, listening was merely used as a tool to teach speaking and was

not an instructional goal in itself. If ever there was an instructional procedure to teach listening, it

was done directly. The end-product was a skill building in speaking more so in reading and

writing, but not the development of listening comprehension skills.

Today, listening is known an as active process. To become better listeners, they must employ active thinking as they listen, active attitude about understanding, and active strategies for making sense of what they hear (Rost, 1995). The role of listening as a tool in the learning of a language has now taken place within language teaching to develop systematically alongside the other three skills (speaking, reading and writing). Listening to understand meaning is clearly recognized to be primary importance in the learning of a second language.

Listening is not only important in teaching language subjects but also “hands on “ subjects like Technology and Livelihood Education.

To maximize the importance of listening in the teaching and learning process in Technology and Livelihood Education, the following should be considered most of the times:

• After having found that the students exhibited satisfactory performance in inferential and
• Teachers should not have the students listen for facts all the time.
• Teachers should provide pre-listening activities do that the students are prepared for what
• Teachers should give the students a purpose or reason for listening and ask them to listen

critical dimensions, students should be provided questions that elicit their inferential and

critical answers

they will hear and can predict.

for something specific.

By: Mrs. Ria A. Cortez | Teacher II | Limay National High School | Limay, Bataan