Hedge: Are there any listening tasks with which you would not use a pre-listening stage?

I do not think so. In my view, the pre-listening stage is always necessary when we deal with listening tasks. We need to prepare our students in order to carry out the listening succesfully and this can only be achieved if we help them by using the pre-listening stage. No matter if the listening task is easy or difficult, the use of this stage will allow them to get prepared to what they are going to listen about, so they will not feel at a loss when they start carrying out the task. If we get rid of this stage we can generate an unnecessary feeling of frustration in our students if they cannot understand the listening task. I think that the pre-listening stage is a must and that it is our job to help students succeed in language learning.