But wait a minute, who cares?
As I experience with my one on one students, at most of the private primary schools, the listening parts are not done in the classroom, because the teachers are in a rush of completing their weekly schedule.
Parents pay approximately 25 to 30 thousand liras to the private school and get no listening work done?
It is a pity that the teachers are pushed so much during the school year and so they have to skip some parts and they don't complete the work which should be done in the class.
Teachers mostly work on the grammar parts, they don't use extra visuals and audials.
So when the kids experience the Cambridge exams they are mostly unsuccessful at the listening part. Because they cannot have a chance of getting used to the native speakers that they hear in the exams.They find it funny when they hear a native British audial.
What must be done is a good question.The problem starts at the planning stage. In august teachers get together and have meetings about the yearly planning, The planning formats push teachers into a fast and general planning.
Unfortunately because of the idea of completing the coursebook, teachers fill in the classic planning formats and skip some parts, mostly they skip the listening parts and as a result kids learn(!) English unaware of the listening skills.
It is unfortunately one of the most important issues in most İstanbul schools.
As ESL instructors we must be careful about the planning progress at the beginning of the year. Yearly plans should be created in a detailed way so that you can follow a well planned path throughout the year...It mustn't be that hard, right?
