For many learners, listening is the most challenging of the four skills, yet it is often the least prioritised and the least understood by teachers (Newton & Nation, 2021). The most sustained criticism concerns the treatment of listening as a passive activity, in which learners are positioned as mere receivers of audio texts. For instance, in the most commonly used approach, a standard routine is followed of establishing context, previewing vocabulary and comprehension questions, then listening to the input and checking answers (Field, 2009). Arguably, there is little actual teaching in this routine and learners can only superficially engage with . . .
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