critique.docx

7/27/2019 Critique.docx

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A. CRITIQUEIntroducing

Teaching Listening and Speaking From Theory to Practice that the title of the article that I want

to give some critiques.It was wrote by Jack C.Richards.This article was written when this writer

had been analyze and do some research about teaching listening and speaking.The writer said

that course in listening and speaking skills have a prominent place in language programs around

the world today.Ever-growing needs for fluency in English around the world as a consequence of

the role of English as the worlds International Language have given priority to finding more

effective ways to teach English and its therefore timely to review what our current assumptions

and practices are concerning the teaching of these crucial language skills.From this article it will

explore what some of those changes are and what their implications are for classroom teaching

and materials design.

The teaching of listening has attracted a greater level of interest in recent years then it did in the

past.The writer said that the university entrance exams,school leaving and other examinations

now often include a listening component,acknowledging that listening skills are a core

component of second language proficiency and also reflecting the assumption that if listening

isnt tested, the teachers wont teach it.

For the teaching of speaking in EFL/ESL have been more strongly influenced by fads and

fashions than the teaching listening.The writer said that speaking in traditional methodhologies

usually meant repeating after the teacher,memorizing a dialogue or responding to drills.What the

most important is fluency became a goal for speaking courses and this could be developed

through the use of information-gap and others tasks tha required learners to attempt real

communications despite limited proficiency in English.

Approaches to the teaching of listening and speaking the writer had explored in this article in thelight of the kinds of issues discussed.The writer goal is to examine what applied linguistics

research and theory said about the nature of listening and speaking skills and then to explore

what the implications are for classroom teaching.So that the means the main purpose of this

article are to examine the nature of listening and speaking skills and the implications are for

classroom teaching.


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Content

The Teaching of Listening

The writer was consider listening from two different perspectives:

a.Listening as comprehension

b.Listening as acquisition

Listening as comprehension is the traditional way of thinking about the nature of listening.The

writer had been examine it from consider some of the characteristics of spoken discourse It is

usually unplanned and often reflects the processes of construction such as hesitations,reduced

forms,fillers and repeats.

From this article we could know that there are two different kinds of processes are involved in

understanding spoken discourse.It referred to as bottom-up and top-down processing.

Bottom-up processing refers to using the incoming input as the basis for understanding the

message.Comprehension was viewed as a process of decoding.he writer also said that the

listeners lexical and grammatical competence in a language provides the basis for bottom-up

processing. Clar and Clark (1977:49) summarize this view of listening in the following way:

1. They ( listeners ) take in raw speech and hold a phonological representation of it inworking memory.

To understand using bottom-up processing, we mentally break the utterance down into its

components.It is refer to chunking.It help us identify the underlying propositions the utterances

expresses.

In this article mainly state that the learners in teaching bottom-up processing need a large

vocabulary and a good working knowledge of sentence structure to be able to process texts

bottom-up.


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So the fact is many traditional classroom listening activities focus primary on bottom-up

processing, exercises such as dictation,cloze listening,the use of multiple choice questions after a

text and similar activities which require close and detailed recognition and processing of the

input.

Top-down processing,refers to the use of background knowledge in understanding the meaning

of a message.Bottom-up processing goes from language to meaning but top-down processing

goes from meaning to language.If the listener is unable to make use of top-down processing,an

utterance or discourse may be incomprehensible.Bottom-up processing alone often provides an

insufficient basis for comprehension.

From this article we know that in real world listening,both bottom-up and top-down processing

generally occur together.

Listening Strategies

Strategies can be thought of as the ways in which a learner approaches and manages a task and

listeners can be taught effective ways of approaching and managing their listening.

Buck(2001,104) identifies two kinds of strategies in listening:

a.Cognitive strategies

b.Metacognitive strategies

Teaching listening strategies can help make learners more effective listeners.The writer also

suggest that we can firstly distinguish between situations where comprehension only is an

appropriate instructional goal and those where comprehension plus acquisition is relevant focus.

The writer propose a two-part cycle of teaching actities as as the basis for the listening as

acquisition phase of a lesson:

a.noticing activitiesinvolve returning to the listening texts that served as the basis for

comprehension activities and using them as as the basis for language awareness.

b.restructuring activities-oral or written tasks that involve productive use of selected items from

the listening text.


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The writer hence advocating that in contexts where comprehension and acquisition are the goals

of a listening course namely litening as comprehension and listening as acquisition.

2.The teaching of Speaking

The mastery of speaking skills in English is a priority for many second or foreign language

learners.Learners consequently often evaluate their success in language learning as well as the

effectiveness of their English course on the basis of how well they feel they have improved in

their spoken language proficiency.

An important dimension of conversation is using a style of speaking that is appropriate to the

particular circumstances.Different styles of speaking reflect the roles,age,sex,and status of

participants in interactions and reflect the expression of politeness.Lexical,phonological and

grammatical changes may be involved in producing a suitable style of speaking as the following

alternative illustrated.Different speech styles reflect perceptions of the social roles of the

participants in a speech event.If the speaker and hearer are judged to of more less qual status,a

casual speech style is appropriate that stresses affillilation and solidarity.

Functions of speaking

The writer use an expanded three part version of Brown and Yules framework(after Jones 1996

and Bums 1998) : talk as interaction, talk as transaction,talk as performance.

Talk as interaction refers to what normally mean by conversation and describes interaction

which serves a primarily social function.

Talk as transaction refers to situations where the focus is on what is said or done.The message is

the central focus here and making oneself understood clearly and accurately,rather than the

participants and how they interact socially with each other.

Talk as performance is the third type of talk which can usefully be distinguished has been called

talk as performance .It refers to public talk.Talk as performance tends to be in the form of

monolog rather than dialog often follows a recognizable format and closer to written language

than conversational language.

Implications For Teaching


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Three core issues need to be addressed in planning speaking activities for an oral English course.

a.Teaching talk as interaction

Talk as interaction is perhaps the most difficult skill since interactional talk is a very complex as

well as subtle phenomena that takes place under the controlof unspokenrules.

The writer had tried two simple activities tom practice topic management are in the hot seat

and question time.

b.Teaching talks As transaction

Talk as transaction is more easily planned since current communicative materials are a rich

resource of group activities, informationgap activities and role plays that can provide a source

for practicing how to use talk for sharing and obtaining information as well as for carrying out

real-world transactions.These activities include ranking activities, values clarification

activities,brainstorming and simulations.

c.Teaching talk as performance

It is requires a different teaching strategy.This involves providing examples or models of

speeches, oral presentations,stories (through video,audio recordings or written examples)

Evaluating performance on speaking activities

The third issue was state in this article is in planning speaking activities is determining the

expected level of performance on a speaking task and the criteria that will be used to assess

student performance.For any activity we use in class,whether it be one that seeks to develop

proficiency in using talk as interaction,transaction or performance , we need to consider what

successful completion of the activity involves.

Different speaking activities such as conversations,group discussions, and speeches make

different types of demands on learners .


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Conclusions

In the real world both the teaching of listening and speaking have changed considerably in recent

years as insights from research and theory have prompted a rethinking of the process involved in

second language listening, the nature of oral interaction in a second or foreign language and a

reconsideration of what it means to teach these important components of second language

proficiency. Effective approaches to teaching listening need to make a clear distinction between

teaching and testing, and provide learners with guided practice in using relevant listening skills

for specific listening purposes depending on their needs and their proficiency level.

Approaches to the teaching of speaking have also been able to draw on to be a better

understanding of the nature of spoken language and the characteristic of different types of

spoken discourse. So from this article straightly state that the challenge for teachers and

materials developers is to find strategies that help learners develop fluency, accuracy as well

appropriateness of language use.

So from this article we hope that the suggestions outlined in the article and the further references

will provide some of the answers to these important questions.So that means from this article

thoroughly show to us that teaching listening and speaking is not just a theory anymore but it

show that it must be practice to be a good listeners and better speak either in classroom or

outside classroom


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B.REACTION PAPER

Introduction

Courses in listening and speaking skills have a prominent place in language programs around the

world today. Ever-growing needs for fluency in English around the world because of the role of

English as the worlds international language have given priority to finding more effective ways

to teach English. It is therefore timely to review what our current assumptions and practices are

concerning the teaching of these crucial language skills. Our understanding of the nature of

listening and speaking has undergone considerable changes in recent years, and in this booklet I

want to explore some of those changes and their implications for classroom teaching and

materials design.In recent years, listening has also been examined in relation not only to

comprehension but also to language learning. Since listening can provide much of the input and

data that learners receive in language learning, an important question is: How can attention to the

language the listener hears facilitate second language learning? This raises the issue of the role

noticing and consicious awareness of language form play, and how noticing can be part of the

process by which learners can incorporate new word forms and structures into their developing

communicative competence.

Approaches to the teaching of speaking in ELT have been more strongly influenced by fads and

fashions than the teaching of listening. Speaking in traditional methodologies usually meant

repeating after the teacher, memorizing a dialog, or responding to drills, all of which reflect the

sentence-based view of proficiency prevailing in the audiolingual and other drill-based or

repetition-based methodologies of the 1970s. The emergence of communicative language

teaching in the 1980s led to changed views of syllabuses and methodology, which are continuing

to shape approaches to teaching speaking skills today. Grammar-based syllabuses were replaced

by communicative ones built around notions, functions, skills, tasks, and other non-grammatical

units of organization. Fluency became a goal for speaking courses and this could be developed

through the use of information-gap and other tasks that required learners to attempt real


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communication, despite limited proficiency in English. In so doing, learners would develop

communication strategies and engage in negotiation of meaning, both of which were considered

essential to the development of oral skills.

Content

In the world of teaching listening and speaking I had identifying three best teaching practices

from the teacher that I host the teachers uses.The strategies are:

a.Talking With puppets

b. Magic Pen

c.Describing Pictures

These three activities are the best for me because it really attract the pupils to take part in the

activities.These three activities really combine the listening and speaking skills.They are really

enjoyable and fun activities.

Talking With Puppets

For this activity, one child (the "describer") is given a piece of paper with a picture on. These

pictures are not of any particular object, but should be strange, involving lots of shapes, letters

and numbers, and they should be hidden from all children apart from the describer. This child

then has to describe the picture to the rest of the class, who have to draw that picture by

following the instructions given. When the description is finished, the child who most accurately

reproduced the picture takes a turn at describing.

The activity encourages the describer to look carefully at every detail of the picture, forcing them

to explain clearly what they can see, and taking into account the needs of the audience. It also

encourages the rest of the class to listen carefully to the instructions being given, so that they can

reproduce the picture on the paper as accurately as possible.

Some examples of pictures which might be used for this activity are shown below. Pictures of

this type will encourage the children to think about the different shapes, letters and numbers

used, and explain where they are in relation to each other (above, below, to the right / left of etc.)

and how big they are in relation to each other.


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Magic Pen

This activity involves the whole class creating a story together. The story is not written down,

and is made up spontaneously by individuals in the class.

1) Find a suitable pen (or other object) which can be passed around the classroom easily.

2) Tell the children that the pen / object which you are holding up is M A G I C because people

who hold it can tell wonderful stories.

3) Explain that no-one is allowed to talk unless they are holding the pen (that includes the

teacher!).

4) Start off a story, making up one yourself.

5) When you have finished the introduction, give the pen to another child (preferably a more

confident one if this is the first time you have tried this activity with the class) and ask them to

continue the story for a few sentences.

6) When they have finished their part of the story, ask them to pass the pen on to someone else

who will continue.

7) Carry on passing the pen around until someone decides to finish the story (or if you are in a

hurry to finish, indicate that you want them to finish off the story in some way - discuss such

signals with the class before you begin).

Describing Picture

For this activity, one child (the "describer") is given a piece of paper with a picture on. These

pictures are not of any particular object, but should be strange, involving lots of shapes, letters

and numbers, and they should be hidden from all children apart from the describer. This child

then has to describe the picture to the rest of the class, who have to draw that picture by

following the instructions given. When the description is finished, the child who most accurately

reproduced the picture takes a turn at describing.


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The activity encourages the describer to look carefully at every detail of the picture, forcing them

to explain clearly what they can see, and taking into account the needs of the audience. It also

encourages the rest of the class to listen carefully to the instructions being given, so that they can

reproduce the picture on the paper as accurately as possible.

Some examples of pictures which might be used for this activity are shown below. Pictures of

this type will encourage the children to think about the different shapes, letters and numbers

used, and explain where they are in relation to each other (above, below, to the right / left of etc.)

and how big they are in relation to each other.

These three activities are truly the best activities when we want to use listening and speaking

skills in our lesson but I also identifying two areas of concern but not major concern.

a.Some of the students not involved in these activities

This matter always make us feel that our activities are not reach the objective.It is because some

of the student are very shy to take part in what activities we give to them.They will sit and quite

and dont want to say anything.


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For me to solve this problem I will put them in the group .So the others will help them to take

part as a group activities.So it will be a motivation for them to be an active person in that group.

b,Weak Class

Some of school had streaming the pupils follow by their result academic so that means there will

be a weak calss and the good class.The good class there is no problem for us to do these

activities but we have problem when we enter the weak class and ask them tro these activities.

For me to solve this problem I will give them an easy activities.These three activities we can use

them but make it more easier for them.For example Talking With Puppets we can use the basic

conversation for example What is your name?, Where do you live? and we asked them to role

play the puppets.But for this activities all of them need more guides from us to make the

activities fun and enjoyable either they are from the weak class.

Conclusion

From the search that I have made from looking to what my English teachers friend of me

teaching and what I have done in my class too that really show that listening and speaking is

the basic skills for whom to learn an English subject.If you want to imp[rove in English you must

also expert in listening and speakingskills.For us as an English Teacher we must know better in

teaching listening and speaking skills in our classroom.If we need our student concuir the

English subject,they must be better first in listening and speaking skills.Teaching listening and

speaking skills in classroom needs us to be a creative teacher to use a variety of teaching and

listening strategies and skills.


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REFERENCES

1.www.teachingideas.co.uk/.../contents_speakinglistening.htm

2. . www.professorjackrichards.com/wp-content/uploads/. ..

3. teachinglisteningandspeaking.blogspot.com

4. lesly-teachinglisteningandspeaking.blogspot.com

5. www.professorjackrichards.com/wp-content/uploads/. .
http://www.professorjackrichards.com/wp-content/uploads/http://www.professorjackrichards.com/wp-content/uploads/http://www.professorjackrichards.com/wp-content/uploads/http://www.professorjackrichards.com/wp-content/uploads/


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NO CONTENT PAGES NOTE

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A.CRITIQUE

INTRODUCING

CONTENT

1.THE TEACHING OF LISTENING

2.THE TEACHING OF SPEAKING

CONCLUSIONS

B.REACTION PAPER

INTRODUCTION

CONTENT

CONCLUSIONS

REFERENCES

1

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89

1011

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EDUCATION AND LANGUAGE FACULTY

MAY 2013

HBEL 2103

TEACHING OF LISTENING AND SPEAKING

MATRICULATION NO : 700601125827002

IDENTITY CARD NO. : 700601-12-5827

TELEPHONE NO. : 014-8749024

E-MAIL : [email protected]

LEARNING CENTRE : OUM TAWAU


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