Learning listening in LSP: Multimodal approaches for engineering students

Listening is a core communication skill that supports accurate understanding, collaborative problem‑solving and productive teamwork. Listening is an integrated ability drawing on coordinated neurological, phonological, semantic, and pragmatic processing, which can be especially challenging for L2 learners (Rost, 2024). At the same time, research shows that L2 listening is still comparatively underexplored (Zhang & Shen, 2023) and remains underrepresented in LSP teaching materials (Goh & Lee, 2025). For language instructors, the question becomes: How can listening be trained effectively and systematically? Broader L2 listening studies emphasize the value of well‑structured pre‑, while‑, and post‑listening sequences (e.g. Qasserras, 2025), with metacognitive awareness of listening strategies (Xu and Huang, 2018) and active participation in interactive classroom settings (Koenig and Guertler, 2021) contributing to learners’ listening skill development.

Listening ability is particularly critical in technical environments, where functionality, diagnostics, regulatory compliance and public safety depend on communicative precision. This session begins with an overview of current insights into listening in LSP, focusing on the demands students face when processing connected speech, interpreting specialized discourse and workplace communication. The second part offers a practitioner‑oriented “good practice” example from an established intensive listening course for engineering students. We explore how instructors can design effective task sequences, integrate peer interaction and incorporate metacognitive training to support learner confidence. We also consider how to integrate technology and multimodal materials such as video-based tasks, podcasts, and digital tools as practical techniques that enrich listening practice. Practical guidance and adaptable task ideas will be shared for instructors seeking to strengthen the role of listening in their LSP courses. In the third and final segment, participants will have the opportunity to reflect on their own teaching practice and collaboratively develop a teaching unit focusing on multimodal listening skills.