placement test at the beginning of the school year. ? Learners' perception of their own confidence: Learners are highly motivated and willing to achieve best performance in class. ? Profession and/or other interests: Most students are interested in sports, music, TV, travel. Therefore, most course book topics are appealing to them. ? Books and materials currently and previously used: 'Think Teen' 1st Grade of Junior High School ????????????. The book is part of an ambitious project by the Ministry of Education, Lifelong Learning and Religious Affairs to introduce new teaching materials for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in state schools with the aim to: ' acquire basic knowledge, skills and communication strategies that will enable the learners to function efficiently in various linguistic and cultural environments, developing their personality through topics that emphasize social development and integrate with knowledge from other school subjects'. ( Karayianni, Koui and Nikolaki, 2009). ? Learners' target situation: Learners are taught English for No Obvious Reason (TENOR), only as part of the school curriculum. ? Other commitments during the course-View of the course: The learners are quite relaxed during classes, they are consistent with their homework and have a positive attitude towards English since it can be applied to real-life situations (understand song lyrics, access web pages in English, make a profile on Facebook), in contrast with other school subjects. Teaching example of listening activity: 'Think Teen' 1 st Grade of Junior High School' ???????????? p.51 The listening activity from Unit 4 of the course book does not stand alone but it is included in the general framework of the teaching purposes of the unit which are: 1) to be able to follow the course of a narrative and 2) to be able to use Past Simple and Past Progressive in order to describe the sequence of past events or events that happened simultaneously or were interrupted by other events in the past. The listening input is highly transactional, (i.e. information-transferring or message-oriented (Sifakis et al. 2004). Narrative genre (genres are different kinds of speech acts or events associated with particular communicative situations [Sifakis et al., 2004]) is primarily used to describe past events whereas descriptive genre is used to describe the location of flats. The input is non-authentic (it is created for pedagogical purposes but does not possess the characteristics of spontaneous language [Sifakis et al., prepared and written out in full by the course designer and then recited by trained actors [Sifakis et al., 2004]), showing no signs of genuineness altogether (there are no features of spoken language such as pauses, hesitations, false starts, ellipsis, variable speeds, variable accents as indicated by Rost, 1990). The input was read live to the learners by the teacher, so there was not any background noise that may have inhibited comprehension and the input was simplified in terms of restrictive simplification (simplification that the teacher brings about in the classroom setting 'following decisions that he/she makes regarding the learners' attention, comprehension and competence' according to Sifakis et al., 2004) mainly through phonological simplification (emphasising word boundaries by slowing down or exaggerating speech patterns [Sifakis et al., 2004]). Although it is supposed to be a formal report, the content is not inherently difficult in terms of cognitive processing (mental effort demanded by the activity) on behalf of the learners and it is in tune with the overall L2 competence as specified by the syllabus. The content of the input is also relevant to the learners' interests, since most students are interested in detective stories at this age. However, the tasks themselves are not realistic but mainly listening comprehension ones (multiple-matching and reciting information using specific grammatical patterns). On the whole, the listening input makes use of Kraschen's Input Hypothesis in which he maintains that development from the current stage of the learners' linguistic competence can be achieved only if the learner 'comprehends' language that contains linguistic items at a level slightly above the learner's current knowledge (as cited by Rost, 2002). Thus, by repeatedly identifying instances of Past Progressive used in the input ' they were driving to some friends at the time of the burglary' or 'Mr Smith was watching the football match on TV and his wife was talking on the phone' the learners are able to understand the use of the Past Progressive. This is in agreement with the L2 processing models (the Information Processing Models of Bialystock, Hulstijn and Mc Laughlin, the Input Processing model of Van Patten and his colleagues , the Competition Model of Bates and Mac Whinney and the Multidimensional Model of Meisel, Clahsen and Pienemann ( as cited by Rost, 2002). As far as the listening tasks are concerned, listening is not the main aim of the lesson but it is mainly intended to teach certain grammatical structures (Past Simple and Past Progressive). There are no pre-, whileand post-listening stages. (According to Richards, [as cited by Sifakis et al, 2004] the pre-listening stage poses the 'problem' and helps learners tune into the listening input by providing them with a purpose to listen, whilelistening activities 'help learners find their way through the listening text and build upon their expectations raised by the pre-listening activities', as Underwood points out [cited by Sifakis et al., 2004] and in the postlistening phase the learners are given the opportunity to take the listening activity a step further performing other types of activity related to the listening they were exposed to (Sifakis et al., 2004 ). There is one single task that asks students to recognise grammatical word classes as well as major syntactic patterns and devices, reconstruct or infer situations and infer links and connections between events according to Richard's taxonomy of micro-skills (subskills required or performed by listeners [ as cited by Sifakis et al. 2004]. Integration of other skills is poor (speaking and writing are only used to account for each person's actions the previous night or to do multiple matching). Therefore, the task is not communicative but rather a merely listening comprehension one. Finally, learners use bottom-up processing (i.e. 'establishing the various cohesive links of a text and passing through a number of consecutive levels of interpretation until some overall meaning is induced' [Sifakis et al., 2004] ) and top-down processing ( that involves the interpretation of various messages in relation to the listener's world knowledge, knowledge of the topic and the context of communication by activating the relevant scripts and schemata in the listener's mind according to Sifakis et al., 2004) whereas feedback is mainly given by the teacher and, to a lesser degree, by learners themselves (peer feedback). As far as individual activities are concerned, rubrics are clear and unambiguous asking learners to employ bottom-up processing involving hard-focus (carefully concentrating on the listening input as defined by Sifakis et al., 2004) listening for detail in order to be able to describe what each person was doing the previous night and do the multiple-matching task as well as top-down processing (paying less attention to the listening input details [Sifakis et al., 2004]) making inferences from the whole input and relating the information to the existing schemata in the learners' minds in order to decide whether any of the persons is guilty (since only the persons who were somewhere else at the time of the burglary might be guilty).The overall aim and function of the activity is comprehensive or informational and through the processing of information learners should be able to identify and understand the function of Past Simple and Past Progressive. Finally, since this listening activity stands alone, the teacher decided to construct a pre-listening activity in order to help learners 'tune into' the listening input as well as a post-listening activity that enabled the learners follow up the discourse they have been exposed to with other types of discourse, therefore achieving a better skills integration where the receptive skill of listening is followed by the productive skill of , 2004). In the pre-listening activity, the learners are asked to listen to descriptions of criminals read by the teacher and match each description to the criminal shown in the sketches handed out to them. In this way, they activate relevant cognitive schemata, they are introduced to relevant vocabulary and their interest in the topic is raised. In the post-listening activity, learners are asked to perform a role-play in class (a robbery victim gives an account of what happened to the police). In this way, they use the knowledge they acquired during the listening activity and practice collaborative learning. Part Two: Teaching Listening through an Original Listening Input The listening input the teacher created was an authentic-in-nature (i.e. the spoken discourse that is produced for pedagogical purposes and 'exhibits features which have a high probability of occurrence in genuine acts of communication...while at the same time exhibiting features of language or content which are usable within a planned language syllabus' according to Geddes and White [as cited by Sifakis et al., 2004]) interview among her and non-native learners of the 1 st grade of Junior High School. The interview took place in the school's Science laboratory and was recorded for the purposes of the lesson. The learners were given prompts (semi-scripted input i.e. partially and not totally dependent on some form of notes as it is shown by Dirven and Oakeshott-Taylor and cited by Sifakis et al., 2004) to help them with the interview questions and asked the teacher to rehearse the whole interview before it being recorded since they were quite unsure about their performance. The outcome is an authentic-innature input that contains several genuineness features (repetition, fillers, false starts, [see lines 9,10,11,12,16,17,37,38,39,42,43,44,45,66,67,68,74,75 of the listening transcript]) mainly by the teacher, since students were so language conscious and aware of not making mistakes that their flow of discourse is rather monotonous and lacks features of genuineness most of times. However, the input preserves the features of natural flowing speech to a great extent and it is intended to be listened to by learners. Unfortunately, there is some background noise as well as fluctuation in the pitch of voices (the teacher's voice is high pitched whereas the learners' voices are sometimes barely audible due to the distance each one had from the tape recorder and the lack of sound mixing facilities). The content of the input is mainly transactional, aiming at conveying information, it is not inherently difficult for the learners' cognitive processing, while there is elaborative simplification on the teacher's part: phonological (using higher pitch to promote attention), syntactic ( providing rephrasing and repetition of difficult syntactic constructions to provide more time for processing of meaning) and discoursal (providing explicit frame shifts 'well', 'so', 'okay' to assist in identifying idea boundaries and relationships ( Rost, 2002).The genre mainly used is descriptive (describing the current situation in Greek EFL classrooms) and problem-solving (since certain solutions are recommended for problems). The input is of interest to the learners since it deals with everyday problems at school and recommends ways to improve the quality of education offered at schools nowadays, making specific references to English language teaching and its problems in Greek Secondary Education. The input is also commensurate with the learners' proficiency levels as specified by the Common European Framework (CEF) and the requirements of the syllabus as defined by the authors of the course book (cf. specifications made by Karayiannni, Koui and Nikolaki [2009] in the description of the teaching situation above). As far as the global role of listening tasks is concerned, listening was the main aim of the lesson. A whole teaching hour was devoted to it and its overall orientation was a 'learning to listen' one. More specifically, the following micro-skills were practiced throughout the listening lesson (Richards, 1983): ? Ability to retain chunks of language of different lengths for short periods. The sequencing process of the tasks is organised in three stages: There is a pre-listening stage b) While-listening activities 'help learners find their way through the listening text and build upon their expectations raised by pre-listening activities as Underwood points out (cited by Sifakis et al., 2004). The activities give learners the opportunity to practise both top-down and bottom-up processing. c) In the post-listening phase the learners are given the opportunity to follow-up the listening activity with other types of activity related to the discourse they were exposed to (prepare an oral announcement for the board of teachers based on information they consolidated in the previous stages). There is a smooth transition from listening to other types of discourse, such as speaking and writing. Therefore, the principles of skills integration in a model where practice of the receptive skills can lead into the practice of the productive skills according to Burgess (as cited by Sifakis et al., 2004) as well as the principle of content validity i.e. 'whether the activity adequately or actually makes use of skills and behaviour that are part of listening in the real world' and transferability i.e. whether 'the abilities which the exercise develops transfer to real life listening purposes' (Richards, 1983) are followed. Students are asked to perform tasks based upon situations they encounter in real school life, thus performing communicative tasks, although the listening comprehension nature of tasks could not be completely avoided (Task 4, Part A/Task 5, Part B/ Task 6, Part C). As far as time-on task ( time spent on individual tasks) and wait time (' the time allowed by the teacher for learners to formulate answers before repeating, rephrasing or redirecting the question to another learner' as defined by White and Lightbown (cited by Sifakis et al., 2004) are concerned, the teacher tried to balance these two features giving students the opportunity to cognitively process the listening activities as well as to prepare for the subsequent speaking activities without being pressed for time. However, the learners were extremely anxious with their being recorded that they needed constant clarification of tasks as well as constant feedback on behalf of the teacher. This had as a result to exceed the time allocated for the tasks and set the last task for homework. There were also interruptions as the teacher was setting the task for homework by other students who barged into the classroom, so she had to interrupt the lesson several times to be able to give adequate explanations on how to prepare the task. As for individual listening activities, students had to use both soft-focus, top-down cognitive processing in Part A Task 3 since they were listening for gist as well as hard focus, intensive listening in Task 4 of part A. They also had to use bottom-up cognitive processing since they were required to jot down specific 'jigsaw listening' in Part B, Task 5 since the learners were divided in two groups and were required to fill in each other's information gaps by employing hard focus, intensive listening and then exchange information. Part C involved selective, hard focus listening for specific information and bottom-up processing since they had to focus on specific key words. The task rubrics were quite clear and gave specific instructions for the tasks whereas the teacher had to explain words that learners might find difficult such as 'utterances' or repeat and simplify them in an elaborative way in order to minimise the learners' level of anxiety, since it was the first time their performance was recorded in class. On the whole, tasks could be described as 'heuristic' according to Richards (1983) and 'simulating real life' communication according to Allright (as cited by Sifakis et al., 2004). The teacher tried to construct real life tasks, that is, communicative instances that learners are likely to encounter in their real life school reality, such as defending a student who has been expelled from class or asking for improvements in their learning environment. She tried to achieve this through collaborative discourse in the form of role-play. However, learners 'had difficulty in attending to and producing accurate forms for collaborative discourse' and the teacher had to ' give focal attention to target forms that are necessary to arrive at meaning' according to Long and Robinson, Ellis, Loewen and Backsturkmen, (as cited by Rost 2002), mainly forms asking for permission 'Could we?' 'Can we?' as well as using past tenses they had already been taught to reconstruct past actions. Finally, the teacher used the method of 'paused tasks' in order to achieve ongoing listener response by designing the tasks using short inputs and repeating that input by playing the tape again. In this way, she tried to take advantage of optimal 'training windows' for new listening skills and strategies, minimising the limitations that exist in the learners' short term memory and inhibit mental processing as Bostrom and Waldhart, Cowan, Carpenter, Miyake and Just point out (cited by Rost, 2002). In conclusion, this paper proves that, on the one hand, coursebook listening materials for the 1 st class of Junior High Scholl in Greek Secondary Education are rather integrated in the teaching unit as supplementary tasks in order to enhance the teaching of grammar and vocabulary or function as mere listening comprehension tasks. Therefore, they lack the characteristics of listening as a separate skill that will improve the communicative competence of learners. On the other hand, an attempt made by the teacher to teach listening as a separate skill following the appropriate principles resulted in the learners' performing better where listening comprehension was involved and worse when they and, to a lesser degree, by learners themselves (peer feedback during jigsaw activities that contained information gaps that could only be provided by one group of learners to the other). tasks to perform communicative acts they encounter in their real life. References Références Referencias 5. Ls listen to the second part of the recording. They are divided in two groups. Group A jots down the reasons for not paying attention in class whereas Group B takes notes of some ideas expressed to make the lesson more interesting. 6. Role-play . Ls are supposed to use the information from the previous activity and defend a classmate who was sent to the headmaster's office as well as ask for permission to carry out some projects suggested in the recording. Ls listen for different sets of information (jigsaw listening).Also, they listen to different sets of information through note-taking framework in order to process the language used. Hard-focus listening for detail. Ls are supposed to use Past Simple and Past Progressive structures they have already been taught in order to give an account for what happened in the class as well as making suggestions using language from the input e.g. 'We could...' Act out a realistic dialogue dealing with an issue that often happens at school. Hard focus listening for detail. Ls activate previous knowledge and cognitive schemata from the unit as a whole since there has already been a discussion about school clubs and they have already made a 'cookery club' themselves. # min ? Post listening 8. Ls are divided in two groups each one processing different kind of information. They have to prepare an announcement for the board of teachers making suggestions to improve the teaching conditions in the EFL classroom. Ls have to use their overall knowledge from the listening input as a whole and help the president of the class prepare an announcement for the board of teachers using structures form the input to make suggestions. Ls use their knowledge in a realistic environment and practice collaborative learning. Group A Group B # Reasons for not paying attention Ideas to make the lesson more interesting b) Role-play. You are now in the headmaster's office. The spokesperson of the first group explains why the students made noise in class while the spokesperson of the second group gives ideas on how to make the lesson more interesting. In the end, ask for permission to make some of these ideas come true (i.e. ask for help to publish a school newspaper or organise an exchange program during Christmas or Easter holidays) Part C 6) Now listen to the last part of the interview and tick which of the following activities are mentioned by the third student in order to make English language classes more interesting. Activities to make language classes more interesting Drama club School library Cookery club Arts and Crafts ![Skill in Greek Secondary Education a)](image-2.png "") ![Skill in Greek Secondary Education information. Another technique that students used was should use the information provided by the listening Feedback was primarily given by the teacher (she was constantly simplifying instructions given by the rubrics or corroborating/ disputing what was said by learners)](image-3.png "") ![task sheets to all Ls 1.Ls read the utterances ad match them to the high-school pictures 2. Ls do the mini-quiz deciding to what degree the characteristics described in it apply listen to the first part of the recording and identify the purpose of it by choosing one of the options available 4. Ls listen to the recording again and write the equipment that is needed for a modern](image-4.png "") ![listen to the third part of the recording and tick which of the activities listed in order to improve English language classes are mentioned in the recording.](image-5.png "") Teaching the Listening Skill in Greek Secondary Education Teaching the Listening Skill in Greek Secondary Education44. make english lessons less boring+or more appendix iii interesting+what+what other things (Learners' Interview Prompts) 45. could be used in order to++eh+participate more in16. that making a lot of noise and disturbing the 72. already exist+at school+or students+don't need class++ok+so+you++forget your any more+so that+we can 17. bags+your pencils+your books +and you have to 73. borrow books+and improve their english++ok+ehStudent A the lesson or make it morego back+eh+to the other +there are a lot ofProblem area: Classrooms Problem: Ss move from class to class for English lessons since they are divided into 'elementary' and 'advanced' Solution: Separate language lab with its own equipment (tape recorder, video projector, TV set, DVD player) 46. interesting and not be bored+ok+because it's three hours a week+so+it's 47. +quite a lot of time+eh+what do you think you need+in your class+well++we 48. would like to watch English movies in class+to listen to songs in 49. English+watch youtube videos+use grammar and18. class++and+eh+bring them+and+disturb the other class+and+you disturb 19. your lesson as well++ok++eh+your teacher+is everything ok with her++does 20. she have a problem too++yes+she has to carry the tape recorder from class to 21. class as well+ +ok+so+ she carries her bags+ 74. books+ok+in the school library+yeah+we don't need any more+so you could 75. take them all together+and make a small+school library+you can borrow 76. books from+and read+ok+very good idea+any-thing else++to finish+anyYear 2016 8 Volume XVI Issue VIII Version IStudent B Problem area: Teaching materials Problem: Books are boring, students have already been vocabulary exercises from 50. internet resources++so as not to be bored+so+ these are+these are+things you 51. already do+ok+you listen to+to music and songs taught the material, lack of other resources Solution: Use of authentic materials such as You-tube in English+you watch 52. youtube videos++you watch tv+eh+all these videos, songs, movies Student C Problem area: appendix iv 1. Transcript of original listening input-'An ideal school' 2. ok+good morning kids+good morning++we're materials could be used in 53. class+ok+so as not to be+bored+eh+and not have +your 54. +teacher+write+words+on the ++board+or use+the tape recorder++and be 55. bored++ok++all right++and last but not least++sophia+ok+what do you 56. think+eh+is the main problem in english classes+eh+in your 57. opinion+eh+well++eh++we don't use the 58. everyday lives so+we think that++it is just another boring lesson+that has to English+eh+we learn in ourher books+the tape recorder+she 22. drops books+her bag+eh+ok+that's a problem+ that's a big 23. problem++eh++what do you think+should 77. other+yes+we could also take part in+school +exchange+programmes+with 78. english speaking students+from+other countries+ that would be be+that+you should do++that the 24. school should do++in order to+solve this 79. great+yeah+student exchange programes already exist++but+eh+you have problem++a good idea+that+should 25. be+a separate language lab+for all classes+with all the necessary 26. equipment+in it+as a tape recorder+a dvd player+a video projector+and a tv 27. set+ok+so+ you could use+eh+a classroom+ that+eh+is not needed+for other 28. +lessons such as+this eh+lab+and+make +turn it+into a language lab+do you 29. think it would be++ good+eh+what do you think+the rest of 30. you++yes+yes+you could have your posters + on the 80. to+carry them out+find students that might be interested to +in visiting 81. greece+visit+england+would you like to do that+yes+eh++ok+all right+is that 82. all++eh+do you want to++do you want to add anything++eh+no+no+if all 83. these things come true+i think english will turn into a fantastic experience for 84. you+ok+thank you very much+eh+ok+see you in class+ok+thank you( G)here to discuss+eh+problems 3. that you may have in your English language 59. be done+ok+so+English++is +just like maths+ eh+physics+yes+french31. walls+eh+everything+ok+now+alexia+any other problems you have+in your-Global Journal of Human Social Scienceclasses+ok++because you asked 4. me to do that+we'll see what we could do in order to solve these 5. problems+ok+are you ready to start++yes+ok+ marilena++eh+what do you 6. think is the most important problem in your English language 7. class+well++one most important problems+is that we move+from class to 8. class for english and french lessons+during the break+because+we are 9. divided+into levels+elementary+and advanced+ and+we+have+to 10. change+classes+so+you move from class to class+eh+eh++you're divided as 11. you said+into elementary and advanced++after the lesson starts+eh+and you 12. change classes every day to have english lessons++eh++and what is the main 60. language++just another++boring lesson+eh+we could carry out projects in 61. class++to practise english+such as++cookery club+drama club+all 62. right++eh+ok+what else+you could+you could do+eh+in order to make 63. English more interesting+eh+yes+well++eh++ yes++eh+eh+we could 64. publish+aschool+newspaper+inEnglish+eh+with articles from students+with 65. subject+that interest them+such 66. as+sports+cinema+books+eh+videogames+ok +that's a good 67. idea+so+eh+you+have+ things you're interested in+such 68. as+sports+books+eh+movies+you could write down some 69. articles+and+eh+publishthem++publish them+in a school newspaper+in32. english classes+well+books are boring or too easy++we+eh+we have already 33. been taught vocabulary and grammar in frontistirio++eh++so+we don't pay 34. attention most of times+we make noise+and+ quite often+we are sent to the 35. headmaster office++ok+that's a big problem+ because+eh+you have to calm 36. down before the lesson starts+++during the lesson+you have only the book in 37. front of you+you think you know++everything++ you don't know everything 38. but you think so+eh+you make noise+the teacher quarrels with the 39. students+eh+she sends them to the head's office+and+or+a lot of trouble is 40. caused +ok+do you have only the book to be taught from+or do you have any13. problem that++eh++is+eh+caused by this++eh 70. English+ok+all right++eh+ok+eh+any other sug41. other material+in your class+as well++so as not++let me think++we have to gestions+sophia+any otherto be bored++eh+we have14. carry our bags++and move ++from class to class 71. ideas+yes+eh+we could make a school library++42. only the book to be taught from+and the tapeas well++and sometimes+we with readers+or books+thatrecorder for listening++only15. forgot things+and+we have to go back and get43. those things++ok+so it's boring+what do youthem+during the lesson++andthink+eh+you need+in order to Equipment for languageNot enoughEnough but faulty orSufficientteaching (media lab,old-fashionedvideo projector, taperecorder,internetaccess)Are foreign languageMost of timesSometimesExcellent books!booksboringorcomplicated?Would you like to takeNo, I think it's tooYes, but only if I hadYes, I'd love topartinclassroomdifficulthelp from my teacherprojects in English suchas drama club, cookeryclub, school newspaper,music bandWould you like to have aYes, definitely!separatelanguageclassroom for Englishinstead of moving fromclass to class?Would you like to takepartinaschoolexchange program andtravel to an English-speaking country? © 2016 Global Journals Inc. (US) s © 2016 Global Journals Inc. (US) ## School newspaper in English Sports club Student exchange programs Post-listening 7) The students' council has decided to make some suggestions to the board of teachers in order to improve English language lessons at school. Form two groups. The first group prepares a list with the equipment that the school has to buy for English language classes whereas the second group makes a list with the activities you can carry out until the end of the year to show your progress. The president of your class will make the announcement to the board of teachers. Help him/her prepare the announcement and read it in class. Do you agree with it? Would you like to change or add anything?