USING NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN THE IMPROVEMENT OF ACTIVE SKILLS. THE CASE OF LISTENING COMPREHENSION IN B1 LEARNERS IN THE VALENCIAN COMMUNITY

One of the problems affecting most learners of English is that of actively understanding native speakers. However, if we take into account that English as a lingua franca is spoken by more than double people than native speakers, the approach to the language should be at least revised. Certain textbooks are already offering a considerable amount of spoken production by speakers other than native. In this sense, the huge amount of resources we can find on the Internet is a great help. However, it is our belief and experience that the group of learners where resources are less abundant is B1 learners. When the time comes to actually prepare material for B1 learners we find that in most cases the language used is either too easy or too difficult. This is the reason why this article will try and find a humble contribution to the lack of resources for this particular group, which is, as a matter of fact, probably the largest. Therefore, our intention is to provide a number of suggestions to take into account when preparing material for B1 learners. As a matter of fact, we are going to make a short revision of the trends in teaching listening comprehension in the last 30 years in order to offer an understanding of the process we are in today. An analysis of listening for competence achievement among others will be discussed, always in practical terms, and how to apply these achievements to everyday's classrooms.