ELT365 · Day 177 — Checking Comprehension Without ‘Did You Understand?’

Idea — Asking ‘Did you understand?’ after a listening is useless: learners who didn’t understand don’t know they didn’t understand, and those who did understand have nothing useful to say.

Example — Instead, ask a specific content question: ‘What three things did the speaker say about the project timeline?’ The answer tells you what learners understood, not what they think they understood.

Try — Write two specific comprehension questions for your next listening — neither of which can be answered with ‘yes’ or ‘no’. These replace ‘Did you understand?’

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