Teaching Listening and Reading

What are receptive skills?

Listening and reading are called receptive skills because they involve understanding language. The British Council’s definition of receptive skills distinguishes them from speaking and writing, where learners produce language.

In our course, the teaching focus is what learners are trying to understand and how the material and task support that purpose. Recognising every individual word is not always necessary to understand the main message, while some tasks require close attention to particular information.

These differences matter when you plan. You need to decide what successful understanding would look like before selecting the questions or activity.

Learning to teach listening

Our listening material examines why everyday speech can be difficult for English learners. The challenges include speech speed, recognising familiar words, hearing where words begin and end, following details and understanding a speaker’s attitude.

Trainees consider the difference between the language they use to explain a task and the language learners meet in recordings or conversations. Instructions need to be accessible, while listening materials need to be selected with the learners’ abilities and the lesson aim in mind.

The course also connects listening with pronunciation. Familiar words can become harder to recognise when they are linked together or spoken with weaker forms. The separate pronunciation page covers this sound knowledge in greater detail.

The British Council’s teacher development material on listening also distinguishes classroom listening work from real communication needs. This is wider context for the planning decisions trainees study.

Listening for gist and detail

Listening for gist means focusing on the overall message. Listening for detail or specific information requires a different kind of attention. Trainees consider how the task makes that purpose clear to the learner.

You also study extensive and intensive listening. Our handout describes extensive listening as broader engagement with longer spoken texts, often for general understanding and enjoyment. Intensive listening involves closer work with shorter material and a particular language or comprehension focus.

A brief classroom task about the main idea is not the whole of extensive listening. The training considers both the immediate purpose of a task and how learners can develop through wider exposure to understandable spoken English.

The choices include material length, language demands and the amount of support learners need. These are considered alongside the lesson objective rather than treated as fixed rules for every recording.

Learning to teach reading

Our reading material considers development from recognising written words towards reading longer texts and understanding their meaning. Trainees examine how the reading task needs to fit what learners can currently do.

For early readers, this connects with the phonics and early literacy preparation provided on the course. For more confident readers, attention can extend to the main idea, supporting details, text organisation and the writer’s purpose.

Reading aloud and understanding a text are related but not identical. A learner’s pronunciation alone does not establish what they have understood. Our training asks you to consider the aim of the reading work and how the response you request relates to it.

Skimming, scanning and closer reading

Skimming involves reading for the main idea or overall sense of a text. Scanning involves locating particular information. Both appear explicitly in the TQUK receptive skills unit.

The course also considers intensive reading for close attention to a text and extensive reading for wider, sustained reading, often for interest or enjoyment. These purposes affect the text selected and the demands of the task.

You study how to match reading work to beginner, intermediate and advanced learners. The TQUK unit also includes discourse markers, which help readers follow how ideas are connected. These are part of understanding a text rather than reading it only as a list of separate sentences.

The detailed activities are taught during the course. The responsibility they support is choosing an appropriate reading purpose and giving learners a manageable way to work towards it.

Selecting texts and recordings

Our course asks trainees to evaluate teaching materials, including resources made for learners and authentic materials taken from everyday communication. You consider language difficulty, relevance, length and what learners need to know about the topic.

An interesting text may still be unsuitable for a particular group. Equally, material with some unfamiliar language may be useful when the task and support are appropriate. The teacher needs to judge what the learners are being asked to understand.

Vocabulary preparation is one part of this decision. You consider which words are essential to the task without allowing every unfamiliar item to replace the reading or listening aim. Our vocabulary training describes the related language preparation.

Supporting comprehension during a lesson

Trainees consider how to establish a clear purpose, make instructions understandable and respond to difficulties. This includes thinking about preparation, the work learners do with the material and what the teacher can learn from their responses.

The course handout asks teachers to monitor the whole class, not only the learners who respond quickly. For comprehension work, this matters because a correct answer from one person does not establish that everyone has understood.

You also consider what to do with the information you gather. A difficulty may call for more attention to vocabulary, spoken word recognition, the organisation of the text or the task instructions. Our assessment and feedback page covers how evidence of learning informs subsequent teaching.

Listening and reading in the Level 5 qualification

Teaching Receptive Skills: Listening and Reading is a dedicated unit within the TQUK Level 5 Certificate in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (RQF).

The unit includes extensive and intensive listening, skimming and scanning, reading development, the evaluation of reading activities and materials, discourse markers and matching reading work to different levels.

Essential TEFL’s supporting material adds classroom context through its listening, reading and authentic materials sections. The wider programme connects this study with lesson planning, demonstrations, classroom practice and reflection.

See the Level 5 curriculum for the complete programme. Qualification reference: 601/5234/5. Read TQUK’s official TEFL/TESOL information.

Planning and practical teaching

A listening or reading lesson needs a clear aim, appropriate material and time for learners to work. Our lesson planning training helps trainees consider these elements together instead of beginning with a worksheet and deciding its purpose afterwards.

Reflection and feedback then help you examine what happened when the plan met the class. You consider whether the instructions were clear, whether the task was appropriate and where learners needed additional support.

Listening and reading also connect with speaking and writing. Understanding information can support a later response, while communication can reveal what has been understood. The purpose is to make these connections useful rather than add extra work without a reason.

Questions about listening and reading training

Is teaching listening just playing a recording?

No. The training considers the listening purpose, material selection, learner difficulties, instructions and appropriate support. A recording is a resource; the teacher still needs to plan what learners will do with it.

Will I learn about skimming and scanning?

Yes. Both are included in the TQUK receptive skills unit. You study how their purposes differ and how to select reading work appropriate to learners at different levels.

Does this page cover phonics too?

It explains where early reading connects with the wider development of comprehension. Detailed phonics preparation has its own curriculum page, so this page concentrates on teaching listening and reading skills.