how to teach listening _workshop

8/12/2019 How to Teach Listening _Workshop

1/20

1

WORKSHOP 3

HOW TO TEACH LISTENING

MEIRCA TEAM

REFLECTION1. If asked to rank the four language skills in order of their importance, where would you

place listening?2. How does listening proficiency develop? (optional)3. Do you think listening can be taught?

It has traditionally been assumed that listening is a skill that develops naturally as part of oral

communication and it has consequently been neglected in writings on second language pedagogy.And yet, in all language use, whether involving the mother tongue (L1) or the foreign language(FL), listening plays a major role. For example, Hedge (2000) cites the following percentages forthe amount of time an individual is involved in language-mediated communication: writing 9%;reading 16%, speaking 30%, listening 45%.

At the same time, listening, especially extended listening, is undeniably a more demanding skillthan reading, since:

it rarely occurs in a concrete setting; it places a far greater strain on memory; it involves parallel processing of sound units and meaning; it often requires spontaneous decision-making on the part of the learner; with audio tapes or CDs - still the staple listening diet of many FL c1assrooms -there is no

opportunity to exploit facial expressions and body language; there is usually no possibility of negotiating meaning by seeking repetition, recap or

reformulation.

Possibly the greatest challenge for FL listeners is coping with authentic speech, in the sense ofunrehearsed, naturalistic language use. This can feature incomplete utterances, false starts,repetitions, syncopated forms, colloquialisms, fillers and pauses. These are challenging enough, butthe problem is exacerbated by the unplanned nature of such language, with its lack of c1earstructure, unpredictable development and incomplete descriptions or arguments.

A related difficulty is inevitably the speed of authentic language. Brought up on a diet of plannedspeech, delivered at a slow or moderate rate, most students' reaction when they first encounternaturalistic speech is mild panic, especially if speed is compounded by regional accent or unusualintonation patterns.


2/20

2

1. READING AND LISTENING LESSONS

Although much of the methodology is common to both types of receptive skill lesson, listening andreading are different. When listening there is often a pressure to respond almost immediately, andalso a pressure brought about by having only 'one go' at understanding (unlike reading where you

can backtrack and read again). As well as these features, there is also the need to understandintonation patterns, features of fast connected speech and to deal with the possible distractions of

background noise.

DISCUSSION 1Here are some of the factors we considered important in a reading lesson. They have beenreworded to include both receptive skills. Are all the points relevant to listening lessons?

The level of the text is important. It should challenge learners without being too difficult. Teachers need to consider whether there is a need to pre-teach a few items of vocabulary.

Teachers need to set meaningful tasks before reading listening to help understanding andto mirror the 'real life' situation of reading listening for a purpose.

After reading listening learners should have the opportunity to compare answers with eachother before checking with the teacher.

Listening/reading skills can be subdivided to include such things as gist understanding(getting an overall idea) or a more detailed understanding.

Typically learners will read/listen to the same text more than once. Teachers should try to build some interest in the text before setting reading listening tasks.

KEY TO DISCUSSION 1All the points are relevant to both types of lesson.

McDonough s (1998:324 -325) outlines some of the key distinctions between the mediums of soundand print:

The medium itself is sound, not print, and it therefore has a transience that the writtenmedium does not. Moreover, the listener has little if any control over the speed of input.

Information presented in spoken form tends to be less dense and more redundant than inthe written form. It may be mor e repetitive too. There is also evidence to show that it sgrammatical and discourse structure tends to be less complex, for example, in its clausal

basis and types of cohesive devices. At least at the more informal end of the spectrum, speech is typically characterized by such

phenomena as hesitation, pauses, false starts, half-completed sentences and changes ofdirection and even topic. It is also frequently ungrammatical.

Speech is usually accompanied by a number of supra-segmental, non-linguistic and paralinguistic features such as intonation, tone of voice, gesture and the like which may act


3/20

3

as aids to comprehension and which are anyway integral to the formulation of speech acts.However, there may also be different kinds of extraneous noise that interfere with messageuptake.

Conventional speech is cooperative; it is also constructed jointly between speaker andlistener as roles shift and meaning develops interactively.

2. VARIETIES OF LISTENING INPUTLook at the list of activities which involve listening. Tick the ones that you have done in the last 48hours.

made or received a telephone call listened to a radio news bulletin watched a television news bulletin had a conversation with a friend listened to a lecture had a conversation with a group of friends watched a movie either in the cinema or on

television watched at least 10 minutes of daytime television listened to a music CD or audio cassette taken part in a small discussion group

Notice again that just as we saw when looking at reading lessons, native speakers always have areason for listening to something. If we listen to a news bulletin we want to know what is happeningin the world. It is likely that we want information from a lecture, and when we speak to friends wewant to maintain and build those relationships. This reason for listening needs to be replicated in theclassroom. Notice too that some tasks combine the skill of listening with that of speaking. One

useful way in which teachers can help learners to listen more effectively is to teach them the skillsthey need to manage a conversation. Teachers can help learners to develop 'strategies' for copingwhen they find understanding difficult, by teaching them such things as ways of asking forclarification or indicating that they haven't understood. We will look at examples of this later in themodule.

TASK 1Imagine doing the above things in a foreign language. Answer the questions that follow.

1. Which would be harder, listening to the news on the radio or watching it on television? Why?

2. Which would be harder, talking to a friend on the telephone or face to face? Why?3. Which would be harder, talking to a friend or to a group of friends? Why?4. How is watching a movie different from watching 10 minutes of daytime television?5. How is listening to a lecture different from listening to music on a CD?6. How is listening to a lecture different from taking part in a small discussion group?


4/20

4

KEY TO TASK 11. Which would be harder, listening to the news on the radio or watching it on television?

Why?Typically people tend to find that listening to the radio is more difficult than watchingtelevision. This is because television can support the message visually. In the case of the news,

there may be maps, captions at the top or bottom of the screen, tables of figures and so on.2. Which would be harder, talking to o friend on the telephone or face to face? Why?

Typically the telephone conversation is judged to be harder (although the topic of theconversation may affect this). The reasons are similar to those above - the degree of visualsupport. In the case of face-to-face interaction, this is usually in the form of body language ofsome kind.

3. Which would be harder, talking to a friend or to a group of friends? Why?People generally judge that it is harder to talk to a group of friends than an individual in aforeign language. This may be because an individual is more likely to make concessions andadapt their speech to be understood. It is also because the turn-taking (when you should speak)

is easier to manage in a one-to-one conversation.4. How is watching a movie different from watching 10 minutes of daytime television?

A movie demands much greater attention and for a longer period of time. Also it is usuallyimportant to follow the story from start to finish whereas daytime television tends to changetopic quite regularly, giving the listener a fresh start and a new chance to understand.

5. How is listening to a lecture different from listening to music on a CD?A lecture may not be for pleasure - there may also be the added burden of taking notes whilelistening.

6. H ow is li steni ng to a lecture diff erent f rom taki ng part in a small discussion gr oup?Lectures rarely demand interaction whereas the listener will also be expected to take turns as a

speaker in the discussion group.

We can see that native speakers listen in flexible ways according to the contexts in which they arelistening. This flexibility and range of skill is something that learners need help developing.

1. BOTTOM-UP AND TOP-DOWN PROCESSING

There are two basic models of listening (and of reading). In bottom-up processing, listeningconstitutes a linear activity of sound decoding, in which listeners use their capacity for processingsound, their knowledge of language in general and of the FL in particular to access the meaning of

what is being said. They break the flow of speech down into individual sounds or groups of soundsand seek to make sense of these by structuring them into words, phrases and sentences. They furtherimpose meaning on the stream of sound by using their awareness of pauses as breaks betweenmeaningful lexical groups, of stress, of typical sentence structure and of collocations (or how wordstypically link up in the FL).


5/20

5

A major aspect of bottom-up processing is basic familiarity with FL sounds and possible soundcombinations. This develops implicitly whenever students are exposed to the target language and sothe best way to help students develop bottom- up skills is 'simply' to get them to listen to the FL asmuch and as often as they can, even if they do not always understand a lot of what they are hearing.

In contrast to bottom-up processing, what matters in top-down processing is the knowledge we bring to the text. Here the speaker's meaning is reconstructed by the listener, who employs priorknowledge of context, speaker and situation to make sense of the sounds he or she hears. Thisknowledge is likely to vary from listener to listener as everyone's prior experience of life isdifferent. Anderson and Lynch record an anecdote which illustrates the importance of backgroundknowledge. An old woman, passing one of the authors in the street, said "That's the university. It'sgoing to rain tomorrow". Initially, the listener was unable to interpret the utterance. It is only after thespeaker repeated herself, and drew the listener's attention to a bell ringing in the distance, that he wasable to get to the meaning behind the words. In doing so, he needed to draw on the followinginformation:

general factual information : 1. sound is more audible downwind that upwind2. wind direction may affect weather conditions

local factual knowledge : 3. the University of Glasgow has a tower with a bell

socio-cultural knowledge : 4. strangers in Britain occasionally refer to the weather to "oil the wheels" of social life.5. a polite comment from a stranger usually requires a response

knowledge of context :

6. the conversation took place about half-a-mile from the University Glasgow7. the clock tower bell was just striking the hour

(Anderson and Lynch 1988: 12-13)

By drawing on these various sources of knowledge, the listener was able to conclude that the oldwoman was drawing his attention to the fact that the wind was blowing from a direction which broughtwith it the threat of rain. The change in the wind direction was signalled by the fact, making a sociallyacceptable comment to a stranger, i.e. talking about the weather, although she chose a ratheridiosyncratic way of doing it

Then, besides being familiar with the topic we are listening to, we also derive key contextual cluesfrom:

familiarity with the speaker(s); familiarity with the situation or setting; awareness of the communicative purpose of the text; awareness of what has already happened or been said.


6/20

6

In view of the speed of most spoken texts and the need to process sound sequentially in real time, itis inevitable that we use top-down strategies more frequently in listening than in reading. The

burden on memory alone means that we cannot possibly attend to individual words or structures inthe way we can when processing written text. In planning listening activities, therefore, tutors

should start with tasks that promote top-down processing so that students have a framework forsubsequent more detailed listening.

Work on top-down processing is especially important with near beginners, since most students atthis level tend to be over-reliant on literal processing. At higher levels, by contrast, there may be aneed to remind students of the need to focus more closely on the text.

4. LISTENING PROBLEMS

1. Trouble with sounds

Since most listeners rely mostly on context for comprehension, they are often themselves unaware ofinaccurate sound perception.

2. Have to understand every wordThis is a very common problem, often unconsciously fostered by teachers and/or listeningcomprehension materials which encourage the learner to believe that everything that is said bears(equally) important information. The effort to understand everything often results in ineffectivecomprehension, as well as, feelings of fatigue and failure. We may need to give learners practice inselective ignoring of heard information something they do naturally in their mother tongue. Weshould explain this point to the learners, and set them occasional tasks that ask them to scan arelatively long text for one or two limited items of information.

3. Can't understand fast, natural native speechLearners will often ask you to slow down and speak clearly by which they mean pronounce eachword the way it would sound in isolation; and the temptation is to do as they ask. But if you do, youare not helping them to learn to cope with everyday informal speech. They should be exposed to asmuch spontaneous informal talk as they can successfully understand as soon as possible; and it isworth taking the time to explain to them why. One of the advantages of teacher-produced talk is thatyou can provide them with this sort of discourse at the right level for them, getting faster and morefluent as their listening skills develop.

4. Need to hear things more than onceAs noted in Unit Two above there may be very good pedagogical reasons for exposing learners totexts more than once. But the fact remains that in real life they are often going to have to cope withone-off' listening; and we can certainly make a useful contribution to their learning if we canimprove their ability to do so. We can for example, try to use texts that include redundant

passages and within which the essential information is presented more than once and not too


7/20

7

intensively; and give learners the opportunity to request clarification or repetition during thelistening.

5. Find it difficult to keep upAgain, the learner feels overloaded with incoming information. The solution is not (so much) to

slow down the discourse but rather to encourage them to relax, stop trying to understand everything,learn to pick out what is essential and allow themselves to ignore the rest.

6. Get tiredThis is one reason for not making listening comprehension passages too long overall, and for

breaking them up into short chunks through pause, listener response or change of speaker.

DISCUSSION 2Read through the list of difficulties that learners have with listening to a foreign language. Add more ifyou wish .Which of the problems mentioned above do you think is the most difficult to overcome foryour students

1. I have trouble catching the actual sounds of the foreign language.2. I have to understand every word; if I miss something, I feel I am failing and get worried and

stressed.3. I can understand people if they talk slowly and clearly. I can't understand fast, natural native-

sounding speech.4. I need to hear things more than once in order to understand.5. I find it difficult to 'keep up' with all the information I am getting, and cannot think ahead or

predict.6. If the listening goes on a long time I get tired, and find it more and more difficult concentrate

TASK 2Here are some comments made by learners of English on why they find listening difficult. In eachcase try to think of a way the teacher could help the situation.

1. I worry more about listening than reading because you can't go back to check. Cinzia , Italy2. English people speak too fast and sometimes the words sound different to the way I learned

them. Alejandro, Chile (studying in the UK)3. My school is near the airport. Sometimes the noise of the planes stops me understanding.

Nena, Athens4. I can understand my teacher but other people with different accents are really hard for me to

understand. Li No, China 5. English people 'eat their words'. Marta, Madrid 6. I can understand videos very well but audio tapes are quite difficult for me. Steion, Germany 7. I can understand English people when they speak only to me but I find it hard to join in their

conversation. Anja, Switzerland8. I can listen OK for a short time but then I get tired and miss things. Milena, Brazil


8/20

8

9. I worry when there is a word I don't understand. Jacques, France 10. I remember I was very confused when I started learning English because I didn't know what

'urn' and 'er' meant! Emiliano, Italy

5. HELPING LEARNERS TO OVERCOME PROBLEMS

DISCUSSION 3

Look at the list below of some of the things that a teacher can do to help students with listening.Which learner(s) (from the previous section) would each activity help? Some activities may helpmore than one learner and some learners may be helped in more than one way.

1. Skills to negotiate meaning

Teach learners ways of asking for repetition ('Sorry, could you repeat that, please?') and also ofchecking that they are following the speaker ('So, she forgot to pay for the dress?')

2. Variety of accents

Provide students with examples of different speakers so that they listen to varieties of English otherthan their teacher. Remember, many people use English to speak to other non-native speakers andso not all the accents need necessarily be from the UK or other English-speaking environments.

3. Word counting exercises

Read a sentence to the class at normal speed using usual contractions, stress and intonation. Thestudents must count how many words are in the sentence (contractions count as two).

4. Play the tape more than once

Where tapes are used, it can be a good idea to reassure learners that they will hear the tape again

before you first play it. This can help to reduce the stress of listening and this in itself may lead to better performance.

5. Hesitations and false starts

Occasionally draw students' attention to how native speakers use hesitation devices to createthinking time. Help students to 'filter out' the unneeded parts of spoken English so that they canfocus better on the really meaningful parts.

6. Set achievable/meaningful tasks

Well-set tasks can help learners to focus on the important parts of a text. It can also help them torealise that they can understand the message of the speaker without having to understand everyword.

7. Show learners pictures

This is useful when using audio tapes or other situations when the nature of the input does not provide any visual stimulus.


9/20

9

KEY TO DISCUSSION 3Helping learners to overcome problems

Skil ls to negotiate meani ng

Generally useful and will probably benefit everyone. This is a way of giving students some

control over the listening process and can therefore make listening less stressfulVar iety of accents

Again, this is generally useful and would certainly benefit Li Na.Wor d counti ng exercises

This can be a useful way of helping learners to perceive and understand unstressed words and theway in which words join together. It would particularly help Maria, as it is the way in which welink words in rapid speech that leads to the impression that we 'eat our words. This may explain

part of Alejandra's problem that the words sound different to how she learned them. Sometimes innatural (fairly quick speech) sounds can be dropped from words, extra sounds added as we linkwords, or

sounds may change slightly. One way to help learners with these phenomena is to ensure that theyget plenty of practice in listening to natural language.Play the tape more than once

This would help Cinzia and perhaps Milena.H esi tations and fal se star ts

This would have helped Emiliano.Set achi evable/meanin gfu l tasks

Again, this is generally useful and would certainly help Jacques.Show learners pictu res

This would help Stefan.

6. LISTENING ACTIVITIES TYPES AND LISTENING ACTIVITIES STAGES

Listening can be either reciprocal/participatory or non-reciprocal/non-participatory. The formerdenotes interactive situations in which speakers exchange information for social or maybe

professional purposes, as well as transactional situations in which information is exchanged in pursuit of a specific goal (e.g. registering at a hotel, seeking directions). Non-reciprocal/non- participatory listening, on the other hand, involves listening to monologues, such as answeringmachine messages, public announcements, TV news broadcasts or lectures.

While the classroom may attempt to replicate reciprocal listening through communicative tasks, thereality is that most listening on FL courses is non- reciprocal. It can be categorised as one of threemain types:


10/20

10

a. intensive: listening to specific sounds, words or phrases; b. global: listening to the gist or general message of a text;c. selective: listening to key aspects of a text or listening for specific information.

It is important in our classes that we include experience across all three types of listening in order to

develop flexibility in students. In considering specific exercise types, we should bear thesedistinctions in mind.

A well-established approach to conducting a listening session is that of pre- listening, while-listening and post-listening (e.g. Underwood 1989).

PRE-LISTENINGThis is when the context of the listening text is established, background information on the topic is

provided, the structure of the text is explained and the task is made clear. Activities here should beconducted just prior to the actual listening, to ensure they both support comprehension and motivate

students to listen. Students might: listen to a tutor's informal introduction in which he/she provides background information;

this must not anticipate too much but should ensure there is a reason for listening to thetext;

listen to a tutor's explanation of cultural context; read a text on the same topic as the listening passage as a way of previewing the subject

matter; read a list of items or ideas that will appear in the text, ideally in the order in which they

will actually be heard (also a possible while-listening task - see below); prior to listening to a news bulletin, put a series of headlines in the anticipated order and

then listen to check against the actual running order; read a list of key vocabulary as a way of previewing the language of the text; draw up a list of items/ideas likely to appear in the text (the advantage of this is that

students will know the words, in contrast to a tutor's list); look at a series of pictures, predict what the text is likely to be about, what the people

shown are likely to say and what language they are likely to use; read comprehension questions in advance of listening; complete a chart, e.g. put a series of events into chronological order; complete a diagram or flowchart showing some process relating to the topic; label an object - Underwood (1989: 40) suggests the parts of a car; discussion in pairs or

groups on such a task can facilitate previewing of vocabulary; react to provocative statements (e.g. on changing the voting age: '16-year-olds are not

responsible enough').


11/20

11

LISTENING ACTIVITY 1: GENERAL KNOWLEDGE QUIZ

Pre-listeningWork in groups and answer the quizWhile listeningListen and check your answer. Listen carefully to the intonation of the questionsPost-listeningIn groups write some general knowledge questions. Ask the class.

LISTENING ACTIVITY 2: MATTIES LIFE

Pre-listening1. Read the following text in which Mattie speaks about her past life

I worked all day, from morning until night, Twelve hours in the cotton fields, and only earned $4 aday. I sure hated that job- but I loved the poems in my head. I really wanted to learn to read andwrite.

When I was 16 I married Hubert, and soon there were 6 children: 5 sons, then a daughter, Lily.Hubert died just before she was born. That was 65 years ago. So I looked after my family alone.

There was no time for learning, but my children, they all learned to read and write. That wasimportant to me. And when did I learn to read and write? I didnt learn until I was 86, and now Ihave 3 books of poems.

2. Which are the questions which correspond to these answers?


12/20

12

When she was eight year old ______________________________________In the cotton fields

______________________________________Her mother and sisters

______________________________________Twelve hours a day

______________________________________Four dollars a day

______________________________________Hubert

______________________________________Sixty five year ago

______________________________________She didnt learn until she was 86

______________________________________While-listeningListen and check. Were you correct?

Post-listeningPractice the questions and answers with a partner

WHILE-LISTENINGHere students listen to the text, possibly a bit at a time, and perform a number of tasks. This mayinclude phases in which they work in pairs to discuss interim responses and possibly receivesupport from the tutor, prior to a second or third listening and further discussion.

An important general point is that tasks should not be too difficult; the idea is not to test but tosupport learning and to motivate students to go on listening. Similarly, we should remember howdifficult it is to listen and write at the same time, so listening to real-time spoken language should

be accompanied by minimal writing (see below).

Activities here can usefully be split into three categories:

Short responses/simple tasksThe important feature of these tasks is that they do not demand too much of students' available

processing capacity; they also mostly avoid the issue of whether or not to use the target language,which can be a needless burden for students at lower levels of proficiency. Activities may includethe following sub-skills:


13/20

13

respond yes/no or true/false; tick one from a range of possible answers; tick off items on a list or on a picture/chart/diagram; identify people, objects, events, actions or places from a spoken definition; fill grids with single words or symbols; draw a picture, shape, diagram or flowchart; label an object; follow directions on a map; fill in gaps on an answer sheet requiring a single word; spot errors in a picture; correct basic factual information, usually simple details such as names, prices or times

More demanding/involved tasksThese might feature greater use of the target language, both in the written stimulus/questions and instudents' answers.

skim a piece of speech for either general or specific information and note it down; fill grids with short phrases (e.g. with a news bulletin, use a standard grid with who?,

what?, where?, when?, why? across the top and the titles of news items down the side); short written comprehension questions provided in advance of listening (either English to

be answered in English, or FL to be answered in the FL); match sections of written text in response to what has been heard (e.g. match descriptions

of couples in a jumbled list, link parts of events); fill in the missing words or phrases in a gapped transcript; spot minor errors of fact in a text;

correct an inaccurate transcription; do a short dictation; do a jigsaw dictation (each of a pair of students has part of a text and has to read it out to

the other so they can reconstitute the text together); do a 'dictogloss' exercise (Wajnryb 1990): after a first listening, students establish the gist

of the text and then, after two further listenings, work in pairs or groups to reconstruct thewhole text;

provide a brief general written summary in English of what has been heard.

Advanced/most demanding tasks

do a speed dictation (i.e. the tutor reads a text at natural speed, students can ask for any partto be repeated but the tutor only ever repeats it at normal speed);

correct extensive factual errors or inconsistencies; provide a detailed summary of the text in written form in English (a form of summary

translation); answer involved, demanding questions given in advance of listening, possibly requiring


14/20

14

inference of relationships or attitudes); transcribe a longish section of the text; make notes in the FL on what has been heard under key word headings; take notes freely in the FL, e.g. on a talk or short lecture.

LISTENING ACTIVITY 3: WHATS IN A NAME ?

Pre-listening What do you think are the most common names for boys and girls in your country? Does anyone inthe class have these names?

While listeningListen to four people talking about their first names, Write brief notes in the chart.

Post listeningAsk your partner the questions

Speaker 1 2 3 4

Name?

Spell?

Why?

Happy?

Change

LISTENING ACTIVITY 4: MY FAVOURITE SEASON

Pre-listening


15/20

15

2. What season is it now?3. What month is it now?4. When are the different seasons in your country

While-listening

Listen to three people talking about the weather in their countries and answer the followingquestions. First read them carefully.

Al Wheeler, from Canada

1. What does Al do in the summer?2. Why does Al like the fall?3. What is his favourite season Why?

Marisol Gonzlez from Florida1. What does Marisol do in winter?2. What does Marisol do in summer?

Toshi Suzuki from Japan

1. What s Toshi s job? 2. What does Toshi like doing in spring?3. What does Thoshi sometimes do after

work?

Post-listening

In the following texts there are six mistakes about Al, Marisol and Toshi, correct them

Al comes from Canada. Inwinter he plays ice hockeyand goes sailing. He has avacation home near the ocean.

Marisol comes from Cuba.She likes sunbathing andsailing in summer.

Toshi comes from Japan. Hehas a lot of free time. He likestaking photographs andsinging songs in clubs.

POST -LISTENING


16/20

16

This stage involves discussion of students' answers and a review of problems encountered orsections not understood. It might usefully also include a further full replaying or repetition of thetext. This could be followed by a post-listening activity featuring a speaking or written task basedon the listening text, in which students respond to what they have heard. For example:

Speaking perform a role play based on the text; give a personal oral response to what has been heard; provide an oral summary using notes; prepare a short talk developing the ideas of the text; re-narrate a text or recreate a dialogue in pairs; prepare a news bulletin based on the items featured in the stimulus text; produce a video (an advert in response to an advert used as stimulus text); perform a parody or pastiche.

Writing develop brief notes made at the while-listening stage into a longer piece of writing; write a counter-argument to what has been heard; write a continuation of the text (dialogue or monologue); produce a written summary; write an essay on the topic (will need thorough preparation in class).

One of the things not to do at the post-listening stage is to go through a full transcript of the textword by word. Apart from being dull and possibly demotivating, this removes from the listeningexercise one of its key aims: to encourage students to cope with ambiguity, i.e. to accept the factthat a few aspects of a spoken text are always likely to remain only vaguely understood. Of coursethere may be good reasons to work on part of a transcript (e.g. to do work on key grammar orvocabulary featured in the passage).

LISTENING ACTIVITY 5: TELLING A STORY

Pre-listeningComplete these sentences in a suitable way.1. It started to rain. Fortunately ...

2. Peter invited me to his party. Unfortunately...3. I was fast asleep when suddenly...4. I saw a man with a gun outside the bank. Immediately ...While-listeningLook at the picture and listen to your teacher describing what happened to him in themiddle of the night. Number the adverbs in the order you hear them.


17/20

17

Post-listeningWork with a partner and tell the story again. Use the order of the adverbs to help you

7. CONDUCTING THE LESSON

Part of the teacher s role is to ensure that the lesson proceeds in an orderly and productiveway so that the students feel secure and relaxed and unthreatened by the listening tasks.Following much the same sequence in each listening session helps students to know what isexpected of them and thus reduces anxiety.

A good pattern for a listening session should include:

1. the pre-listening stage, when the context of the listening text is established, the task(s)explained and assistance given/ offered as necessary;

2. the while-listening stage, when the students listen to the passage (in some instances onesection at a time) and attempt the while-listening activities;

3. a period when students discuss their responses, in pairs/ groups, and help each otherwith the task;

4. if necessary, a repeat listening, for students to continue/complete the activity or tocheck/ clarify information they may have missed or think they may have got wrong;

5. perhaps some further discussion between students, or some assistance from the teacher,leading if necessary to listening again to all or part(s) of the text;

6. post- listening production of the acceptable answers, either by the teacher or the classin general;


18/20

18

7. consideration of the areas where students failed to understand or missed something anddiscussion of why this happened, playing through the text again, in whole or in part, ifnecessary;;

8. a post-listening extension (optional).

REFLECTIONCompare the way you currently run listening sessions with the suggested sequence in 7. Isthere anything in that section which you might incorporate into your approach?

8. SOME PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS

TASK 3The participants on a teacher training course were asked to teach a lesson which was not observed

by their tutor. After the lesson they wrote a commentary on what happened. Read the extracts fromthe commentaries and answer the questions.

Ion:1 tried to play the tape a second time for the students but I couldn't find the right place on the tape- I think I rewound it too far - so 1 read it to them instead.

1. How could Jon have ensured he found the right place?2. Do you think that reading the text was a good idea in the circumstances?

Judith: I played the tape and then asked the learners a few questions. Most of the students did OK.

3. What advice would you give Judith?

Laura:1 told the students they would hear the tape twice, but they found it quite difficult and hadn't reallyunderstood, so ended up playing it three times

4. Was Laura right to tell her students how many times they were going to listen?5. Was she right to change her plan?

Andy:While the learners were listening to the tape 1 wrote the vocabulary they needed for the nextactivity on the board to save time.

6. Do you think this was a good idea?


19/20

19

Kirsty: Before 1 asked the students for their answers 1 got them to check in pairs. 1 could see they all haddifferent answers so 1 played the tape again and stopped it in two or three places.

7. Do you think Kirsty was right to play the tape again?8. Was she right to stop the tape?

Rachel:We've listened to a lot of tapes recently so I wanted to do something a bit different. I wrote a storyabout something that really happened to me and read it to the class.

9. Do you like Rachel's idea for a listening lesson?10. Can you think of any ways of adapting it?

Mike: As the learners watched a television documentary about becoming an astronaut, they made notes.

11. What assumptions would you make about the level of Mike's c1ass?

Tracy:We watched a video of a news summary. Before listening I asked students what was in the news atthe moment. The first task was to put stories in order as they listened - foreign news, sports news,weather, politics and so on.

12. What type of listening skill was the first task practising - intensive listening or gistlistening?

KEY TO TASKS 3 Some practical considerations1. Assuming the tape recorder had a counter, Jon should have used it.2. In the circumstances he had little alternative. Some texts can be read aloud without too much

trouble (particularly when only one voice is needed) but dialogues, for example, are muchharder. Remember also that learners need to hear variety of accents and not just the teacher's.

3. Set the task before listening so that you know that you can focus learners on key parts of thetext. Setting questions after listening can become a test of memory.

4. Generally it is a good idea to tell students how many times they will hear the tape.5. Sometimes it is necessary to change your plan and it is good to be responsive to the needs of the people you are teaching.

6. This is not a good idea because it can be very distracting. Learners need to focus fully on whatthey are listening to.

7. One of the advantages of allowing students to check in pairs is that you can gather this type of


20/20

20

information and Kirsty did well to respond to it.8. Having realised that the students found the listening task quite difficult, this was a sensible

strategy to make the task more achievable.9. This is potentially a nice activity.10. Spoken English is different in many ways to written English -here is repetition, false starts,

hesitations and so on. It may have been a good idea just to tell the story rather than read it - perhaps using a few notes. Rachel could ask a colleague to tell a story so that learners hear avariety of accents.

11. Combining listening and writing is very difficult so we could conclude that Mike's class isquite a high level At lower levels learners need to be set tasks that allow them to concentratesolely on listening (ticking boxes, etc.) and which do not demand other language skills.

12. Gist listening because the learners only need to work out the topic, not the detail of the story. Notice that Tracy sets the activity up and builds some interest before playing the tape.

LISTENING ACTIVITY 6 ABBAS SONG THE WINNER TAKES IT ALL

Pre-listeningYou are going to hear a song by Abba. Before you listen, make eight phrases by matching a verban a word/phraseWhile-listeningListen to the song. Complete the gaps with the phrase from a. Change the form of the verb ifnecessary.Listen again and checkPost-listening

Read the song with the glossary. What is the song about? Who is the winner and who is the looser?

how to teach listening _workshop

Documents