Simple listening tasks … can cater to the ‘silent period,’ (Krashen, 1981) which characterizes the early stages of acquisition for some learners.
Validated by Ellis (2004), this manner of vocabulary introduction provides a non-threatening way of engaging beginning learners in a meaning-centered activity and, thereby, of developing proficiency that later on, can be used in production tasks.
In English Now! A/B, the production tasks follow the listening task when the students have sufficiently comprehended the target vocabulary. Thus, by the “Evaluation” step of the lesson, they will have “outputted the input” through speaking and writing.
Users of English Now! A/B have found that the immediate inclusion of writing and reading in a primarily listening and speaking task does not slow down the acquisition of vocabulary. On the contrary, vocabulary built up in this manner provides the “frontloading” necessary to comprehend the challenging reading text that is to come in just a few lessons.
Los Gatos, CA: Sky Oaks.
Ellis, R. (2004). Task-based language learning and teaching. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Krashen, S. (1981). Second language acquisition and second language learning. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
