Listening is a complex process in which students interpret sound, words, grammar and structure, pronunciation, intonation, stressing etc. Moreover, there is no delay in listening. To cope those issues, students need to have over time and more practice

The above item is a sample video to teach listening skills in TOEFL PBT. In the video, we find the process how a teacher scaffold the students through listening steps before they get the real listening test at the end of the video. The steps include pre-listening, while-listening and post-listening.

Pre-listening is similar to listening for main ideas. In this stage, teachers must activate or provide background information about the listening materials. This stage is also called inferring process in which the students combine the clues in the text and their own knowledge to draw a conclusion.

The inferring process is identically similar to activating background information in reading. Students who has knowledge on the current topics will be much more easier to catch the sound and decode the information into their mind. To illustrate, when we listen to the story of Tangkuban Perahu in English, we can easily catch the story without any difficulties. On the contrary, it will be harder to listen to the story of Martin Lurther King Jr because students may not have any ideas about the listening topic. Thus, teachers need to guide student to have background information about the listening topics.

While-listening is a listening activity in which students practice eliciting messages from the spoken language. The activity can be in the form of taking notes, identifying numbers or letters, true-false multiple choice questions etc.

Post-listening is a comprehension activity. In this stage, students work independently, in pairs or in a group. They can have comprehension check, group discussion, summary writing etc.