Cultivating Listening Skills of Law Students in English Classes
Manzura Shamsitdinova
a
,
Department of Foreign Language, Tashkent State University of Law, Tashkent, Uzbekistan
Keywords: Cultivating Listening Skills, Law Students, English Classes, Giving Instructions, Longer Audio Segments,
Speech Communication, Understanding Spoken Speech.
Abstract: This article discusses the cultivating listening skills of law students in English classes. It is necessary to create
conditions for them to perform the exercise independently. First, prepare the students to listen by giving
instructions and imagining whatever you want to teach. It is up to each teacher to choose shorter or longer
audio segments and more difficult or easier material for these types of exercises. Listening training is very
relevant today because speech communication is impossible without listening. The concept of listening
includes the process of perceiving and understanding spoken speech. Listening is an important aspect in
learning English.
1 INTRODUCTION
It is known that learning any language is carried out by
means of 4 main actions of speech activity. These are the
processes of speaking, reading, writing and listening
comprehension, and in particular, it is important to teach
these types of speech activities when learning foreign
languages, because information is given and received
through them. If information acquisition is done by
listening and reading, information delivery is done by
speaking and writing. There are two forms of speech
activity, i.e. oral and written speech. Teaching speaking
includes teaching listening and speaking, and teaching
writing includes teaching reading and writing (
Nodira-
Akobirova et al 2021)
. Listening comprehension is a is
part of receptive language activity. Listening
comprehension is the process of hearing and understanding
a speaker’s speech from a radio, tape recorder, CD, or
during communication. In some literature, it is also referred
to as hearing.
2 THE MAIN FINDINGS AND
RESULTS
It is a complex linguistic activity because the listener must
quickly accept the form and commit it to memory,
otherwise there is no source, condition, or means by which
he or she can see, read, or understand it again. Research
shows that students’ listening comprehension is less
developed than their speaking comprehension. Students get
a
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4715-2058
six times more information by reading and seeing than by
listening and comprehending. The reason for this is that,
because of its complexity, it is tackled less frequently.
Listening comprehension is an integral part of speaking.
Listening comprehension and speaking constitute oral
speech.
The ability to listen to speech consists of the following
components:
• phonemic listening ability,
• phonetic listening ability,
• intonation listening ability.
Phonemic listening skills serve to distinguish the
phonological character of a phoneme, i.e., the meaning-
distinguishing character of a phoneme. Phonological
listening skills play a role in correctly hearing the
phonological character of speech sounds, i.e., those sounds
that do not distinguish meaning. Intonation listening skills
play a role in correctly understanding the tone of a sentence
or a passage. This type of ability is just as important as the
one described above. Methodist scientist T. Sattarov
studied the linguistic and psychological characteristics of
listening comprehension teaching in institutions of higher
education and attributed listening comprehension
difficulties to the following factors:
1. Individual age characteristics of the listener;
2. Speed of perception;
3. Conditions;
4. Speed;
5. Amount, size of information;
6. Perception supports;
7. Exhaustion
Language external difficulties include: - the mechanics
of the speech being listened to, i.e., broadcast using
mechanical devices; - the tone, speed, listening conditions,
652
Shamsitdinova, M.
Cultivating Listening Skills of Law Students in English Classes.
DOI: 10.5220/0012908800003882
Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
In Proceedings of the 2nd Pamir Transboundary Conference for Sustainable Societies (PAMIR-2 2023), pages 652-656
ISBN: 978-989-758-723-8
Proceedings Copyright © 2024 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda.

and context of the speech; - the student's attention span; -
how many times the speech is listened to; - the presence of
support tools, meaningful pictures, and other similar factors
in the listening comprehension process. Linguistic
problems are problems related to language. Rogova G.
explains that there are three types of such problems: -
phonetic difficulties, i.e., difficulties in hearing and
understanding sounds that are close to each other; - lexical
difficulties, i.e., difficulties in hearing and understanding
words that are close to each other in pronunciation; -
grammatical difficulties, i.e., difficulties related to
grammatical rules (due to the fact that English is an
analytical language).
Psychological difficulties are related to the individual
characteristics of the learner. From a psychological point of
view, students’ memory plays an important role in listening
comprehension. When listening to a speech, if the
information in it is stored in the memory, it is not necessary
to listen to it again, and it becomes a little easier to perform
tasks.
One of the practical goals of teaching English in higher
educational institutions is to teach oral speech. According
to the program requirements of these educational
institutions, students are required to acquire the skills of
giving oral information in English, being able to talk and
listening to and understanding English speech related to the
studied topic(Shamsitdinova 2023).
Today, the demand for learning a foreign language is
increasing. Foreign language learners develop the
following skills: speaking, writing, listening and reading.
During the formation of such language skills, the student
faces a number of difficulties. Taking listening
comprehension skills as an example, language learners'
problems in pronunciation, correct writing or
comprehension, and lack of vocabulary can cause them to
lose interest in learning a foreign language. It means that
the student’s inability to concentrate, not to be thorough,
and listening comprehension skills will remain at a lower
level. Evaluating the material you are listening to as
uninteresting, criticizing the speaker, listening only to facts,
and lack of attention are among these (
Rustambekovna et
al. 2021).
To solve a number of problems in listening
comprehension, watching movies, participating in group
presentations, answering open-ended questions, and
forming the event in our mind at the same time as
performing listening comprehension exercises, are among
the effective methods of developing listening skills. For this
purpose, we recommend an effective method that develops
listening comprehension skills on the example of English
language learners (
Mardievna et al 2020).
Among the four skills that are important in learning any
language, listening comprehension is the most important. In
language teaching and learning, speaking and writing a
language is usually considered as a factor of primary
language use. Listening and reading skills come second.
One of the reasons for this may be the difficulty of
mastering listening skills. But listening comprehension is
also IT after the spread of technology, the situation was
much easier to pass through different materials in language
classes (
Perdebaevna et al 2021).
In addition, it should be noted that most of the student’s
class time began to be devoted to listening. We began to be
convinced of the importance of listening often. In the
natural order of learning any language, listening began to
take the leading place. Everyone became convinced that
mastering only one skill alone would not produce anything.
Teachers began to pay great attention to teaching their
students not only to speak fluently but also to listen and
understand.
In order to master and use a new language perfectly, it
is necessary to form existing knowledge and learn all the
necessary information based on language-receptive skills,
especially listening and reading skills. In this regard, a
language learning program has been created for the
convenience of students. By the way, this program is
structured, it shouldn’t have any input tests, output, or
output.
Listening training is very relevant today because speech
communication is impossible without listening. The
concept of listening includes the process of perceiving and
understanding spoken speech. Listening is definitely an
important aspect of learning English.
Modern effective methods of teaching listening skills
include everything from interactive exercises to multimedia
resources. Listening is considered to be the most learned
skill. Because a little more focus on learning is enhanced
through simple and fun activities and ultimately leads to
better results. In this case, it doesn't matter whether you
work with small or large groups of students, as long as you
use one of the following methods to develop yourself.
Unique ways to teach students to listen well:
Interpersonal activity. Interpersonal activities are one of
the most effective ways to develop strong listening skills in
students. We can add the following to this method:
• Roleplaying
• Mock interviews
• Interpersonal dialogues
• Storytelling and more
In this, students are divided into small groups of
two or three, and they are asked questions according to their
style.
For example, you can tell a student to interview for a
job at a company or for an article in a newspaper. And
storytelling activities can greatly develop students by
giving them opportunities to ask questions.
Group activity. Large group activities also help students
develop listening comprehension in interaction.
A simple group activity is also a good example of a
useful way to teach students listening skills. For the first
activity, students will be divided into groups of five or more
and you should ask them to study one interest or at least two
other hobbies. It is necessary to ask clarifying questions to
the students. During the activity and you can let them take
notes because it is useful.
The second part of the activity is to allow students to sit
in large groups. For example, let them communicate about
the name of the group member they met and their hobbies.
Both of these activities lead to effective listening growth.
Cultivating Listening Skills of Law Students in English Classes
653

Audio segments. You can also teach students listening
skills through audio segments such as:
• radio programs
• educational lectures
• with online podcasts and other audio messages.
Interactive listening programs should be used with
students in and after the classroom.
It is necessary to create conditions for them to perform
the exercise independently. First, prepare the students to
listen by giving instructions and imagining whatever you
want to teach. It is up to each teacher to choose shorter or
longer audio segments and more difficult or easier material
for these types of exercises.
Teachers can use interesting messages to engage
students. You can get them from radio or TV. It is also
advisable to use a computer to deliver messages to them.
The reader does not need to understand all the words, but
they need to listen carefully to the messages and know what
the message is about.
Video segments. Another very useful resource for
teaching listening skills is video segments that:
• brief sketches
• documentaries
• dramatic or comedic material
• news programs
• There may be interview segments.
As with the audio segment, the teacher can choose the
part and length of the audio based on the level of their
students, which they can do the same for the video segment.
One of the main conditions of this method is to watch it
without any sound and discuss it together with the student.
It improves students' listening and thinking skills.
Movies and TV shows. Movies are one of the art forms.
Language learners are recommended to watch TV to
increase their vocabulary and deepen their knowledge.
Films are one of the most widely used teaching methods
because a wide range of vocabulary is discovered in films
(
Yokubov 2021).
In conclusion, it should be said that this article has
given several methods and instructions for developing
listening comprehension skills. No matter which method
you use to teach listening, there are a few basic guidelines
to keep in mind. First, do not expect great results from the
students at first, because even the most capable listener will
never remember the message completely and clearly from
the initial exercises. Secondly, it is very important to create
questions for students not only clearly, but at the level of
their abilities, so as not to make mistakes. Third, to help
students find their own direction and style.
If these rules are followed, students will definitely learn
listening comprehension better, because no matter what
method they use, they will definitely improve their listening
comprehension skills.
Pre-listening practice activities play a very important
role in helping you learn to listen to a foreign language.
They tell teachers how to inform students about what they
have learned about the subject and prepare for the word and
language structures in the text. In addition to pre-listening
exercises, it helps the listeners to clarify what to teach and
reduces the anxiety that comes from listening in a foreign
language (
Shaturaev, 2014).
In addition, pre-listening activities can offer
opportunities for class discussion and more interaction
between students. Here are some pre-listening activities that
can be easily adapted to different levels of English and EAP
listening courses.
Students can be shown pictures, maps, or diagrams to
help them identify the topic of the listening text. “Students
can write listening questions and exercises before listening,
and then listen to them answer the questions”. In
brainstorming and word networks, giving students a
listening topic and eliciting words from them, with the help
of students, focusing on the relationships between words,
topics, and sub-topics in the forum, and with the words on
the board involve semantic networks. In the teach-me
method: Give each student a few words or phrases, and ask
each other to explain the words and expressions in pairs,
they can refer to the dictionary if necessary
(
Shamsitdinova 2021).
Students can listen and mark what they can hear: put the
students in two lines, whisper the first word in the line,
whisper to the next, and so on, the next student hears the
word heard or writes the word or its expression on the
board. Share a song by entering a sentence or phrase related
to the listening topic. Teach listeners a short song, rhyme,
or jazz-related topic. Graphic Organizers: Give students a
blank graphic organizer that summarizes the information in
the text by line.
Students listen and fill in the keywords to be heard in
the correct places. Students listen to the text and see what
ideas are expressed. In addition, there can be a faster
“anonymous” survey, the results of which can be
determined at the end of the lesson. Read the reading
exercise first: give the students the first few lines of the
intended listening text. You can give them all the
transcription and some time to read (just to get the gist of
the text). Then work on listening to specific information
without a student reading the transcription. This is an
effective activity for complex texts with many details.
If the conversation of the audience is eavesdropping,
then it is possible to arouse the interest of the audience.
Who? If students want to listen to a conversation (or text)
with multiple characters (and, of course, character
identification is not one of the listeners' tasks), consider
who the listeners are. What should I do, teacher? Write the
instructions in bullet form to listen in the wrong order. Ask
students to order them. This activity helps listeners relax to
listen because they know exactly what is going to happen
next.
Note: Discuss the research with students and write
brainstorming lines below them to take notes. Then explain
the meaning of the transition words you may hear.
Depending on the type of text we want to listen to, we have
to focus on the sub-skills of listening, the level of our
students and their interests, we can choose a pre-listening
task that suits our needs. We will specifically listen to the
lecture and note taking in the next session. During reading,
students can check their understanding of what is expected
and expected and what they hear.
PAMIR-2 2023 - The Second Pamir Transboundary Conference for Sustainable Societies- | PAMIR
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Students can focus on the following topics: Content.
What are the topics and sub-topics? How do topics and
subtopics relate to each other, how do speakers use
language, and what words do speakers use to introduce new
ideas? How do they change this theme? How do they
express uncertainty? How does their intonation change
throughout the text? In the process of reading, listeners can
influence the thoughts of the listeners in the text of the
listeners; For example, students can ask themselves: “Do I
agree with what they are saying? Is there another side to
what they are saying?” Often, listening activities focus on
the following skills: listening to the audience; listening for
specific information; listening to the speaker’s point of
view or opinion.
Depending on the listening text we want to use, we have
to focus on the sub-skills of listening, we can choose the
task that suits our needs, the level of our students, and their
interests. When you plan your listening tasks, remember
that complete recall of all the information in the work text
is usually difficult and not expected, even for native
speakers. Listening exercises designed for teaching should
be successful and build listeners’ confidence in their
listening skills. Structuring a listening activity around a
contextual task. Contextualized listening activities simulate
realistic tasks and explain to listeners the type of
information expected and what to do before the actual
listening.
An entry-level task should be to identify locations on a
map (one-way) or exchange name and address information
(two-way). Intermediate students can follow instructions to
set up one object (one-way) or work in pairs to create a story
to tell another part of the lesson (two-way). Determine the
educational purpose of the activity and the type of response.
Each activity should have the goal of improving one or
more specific listening skills. Listening exercises can have
several goals or outcomes, but care must be taken not to
distract from the beginning or intermediate listening
exercises.
Recognizing the listening comprehension goals in each
listening situation can help students choose appropriate
listening strategies. Identification: Recognizing or
distinguishing specific aspects of a message, such as
sounds, categories of words, and morphological
differences. Reference: Identify important messages such
as subject, text type, and setting. Understanding Main Idea:
Identifying higher-level ideas. Understanding details is
identifying supporting details. Replication: Repeating a
message orally or in writing. Check the difficulty level of
the listening text.
The following factors can help determine the relative
ease or difficulty of a listening text for a particular purpose
and for a particular group of learners. How is the
information organized? Does a different narrative or
instruction of the story fit the familiar requirements? Texts
that present events in natural chronological order have
informative titles, and present information following a clear
organization (main ideas first, details, and examples
second) are easier. How familiar are the students with the
topic? Be aware that misapplication of knowledge due to
cultural differences can create great difficulty in
understanding. Should the text be redundant? Listeners at
lower levels of ability can easily process short and simple
messages, but students with higher proficiency will benefit
from the natural reserve of the language.
Does the text cover more than one person and object?
Are they distinctly different? It is easier to understand the
text of a conversation between a doctor and a patient than a
conversation between two doctors, even if they are of the
opposite gender. In other words, the more differences there
are, the easier it is to understand. The text provides support
to help the audience interpret what they have heard. Aids
such as maps, diagrams, pictures, or images in the videos
are useful to make the listening process meaningful and to
show the meanings. Use pre-listening activities to prepare
students for what they will hear or see.
Pre-listening activities can be made ready for listening
in several ways. During the initial listening session, the
teacher can explore the topic and assess the linguistic
content of the text to find out whether the audience can
activate the background knowledge or the students’ existing
knowledge needed to understand the listening text.
Providing opportunities for group or collaborative work,
background teaching, or class discussion activities is
essential to help students understand the type of text they
are listening to, what role they are playing, and the
purpose(s) of what they are listening to.
Sample listening activities: looking at pictures, maps,
diagrams, or graphs, looking at words or grammatical
structures, reading what is needed, making semantic
networks (graphically arranging concepts or words that
show their connection) including creating, learning
listening text, activity directions or guidelines, conducting
guided practice, educational listening activities, listening
goals, and student proficiency levels.
The listening activity exercises are directly related to
the text and students will be listening to it while listening.
When planning the listening exercises, keep these points in
mind: if students have to complete a written task before or
immediately after listening, read it before listening.
3 CONCLUSIONS
Students should focus on the listening task. Make sure they
understand the instructions for the written task before
listening, so they don't just get distracted by what they need
to do. At least keep writing while listening. Remember, the
main goal is understanding, not production. Having to write
in an audition can distract students from this main goal. If a
written response is required after the hearing, this task may
be more demanding. Organize activities to guide the
audience through the text. Combine global activities with
listening activities and select the main idea, theme, and
setting. Questions should be used to focus students'
attention on elements of the text that are crucial to overall
understanding. Before the audition process begins, students
must provide an oral or written response after the audition.
Listening to the answers helps students understand the
important parts of the message. Use advance to encourage
Cultivating Listening Skills of Law Students in English Classes
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listeners to check their listening comprehension. Do a pre-
listening activity and remind the listeners to check whether
the passage makes sense in terms of their prior knowledge
and what they know about the topics or events. Promptly
report where possible. Encourage students to check their
answers to see if they are correct or incorrect. Types of
sample-listening activities: Listening with information;
filling in graphs and tables; following the route on the map;
checking items on the list; listening to the speech; searching
for specific meanings; performing complementary
exercises; distinguishing between official and unofficial
lists.
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