Teaching English 2015

What is the subject-matter of English? Four Language Skills: - Listening - Speaking - Reading - Writing Four Language Systems/Components - Vocabulary - Structure/Grammar - Pronunciation - Functions

A basic working procedure for lessons on reading & listening skills Lead-in Pre-task work (Optional) Set clear task Play tape or students read text Feedback on task (St to St) or St to T Could they do the task? Conclude No Yes NB They are not trying to understand everything. They only need enough to understand the task Pre-listening introduction to topic, discussion, looking at pictures, etc. e.g. Looking through worksheet, work on vocabulary, prediction, etc. NB Don ’ t ask unfair questions – you set a clear task – have they done it? Don ’ t throw a whole pile of questions now! Tie up loose ends, lead to follow-on activities, review what has been learned, etc. Three guidelines: grade the task rather than the material Task first – then text or tape Process rather than product

Teaching Listening Thinking of Listening  Why is Listening Important? - As a language teacher and as a learner of other languages, think of one or two reasons why listening is important.

Listening is also important because it:  occupies a big chunk of the time we spend communicating in the language. Think about the times you spend listening to others speak or listening to songs, news, lectures, etc. Recent advances in technology have served to raise the profile of the listening skill in language teaching.  provides input that can be very significant for foreign language learning in general and for the development of the speaking skill in particular.  promotes non-linear processing of language and encourages learners to develop "holistic" strategies to texts.

 As language teachers, we need to think of how we can incorporate listening into our teaching and provide opportunities both inside and outside the classroom for our students to be exposed to significant listening input.

Challenges in Teaching Listening  Despite its obvious importance to language learning, the listening skill was for a long time relegated to a marginal place in foreign language curricula.  With the advent of communicative language teaching and the focus on proficiency, the learning and teaching of listening started to receive more attention. However, listening is not yet fully integrated into the curriculum and needs to be given more "prime time" in class and homework.

Reflection Think of your own experience as a language learner. - To what extent were you engaged in listening activities inside class? In homework assignments? - To what extent were you asked to do extensive listening the same way you were asked to do extensive reading?

For learners, listening presents a challenge for a variety of reasons, among which are the following:  Listening involves multiple modes: Listening involves the interpersonal and interpretive modes of communication. It requires the listener to assume either a participative role in face-to-face conversations, or a non- participative role in listening to other people speak or present.  Listening involves all varieties of language: In addition to listening to lectures and presentations in academic and formal settings, learners have also to partake or listen to exchanges that involve various levels of colloquialism.  Listening involves "altered" and "reduced" language forms: In addition to dealing with the vocabulary and structures of the language, listeners have to learn to comprehend reduced forms of the language (e.g., I wanna go, Just a sec).

 Listening involves variable rates of delivery: Unlike a reading text that is at the learner's control, a listening text is constantly moving and at variable speeds that often cannot be controlled by the listener. Because of all these factors, listening activities often create high levels of anxiety and stress among learners that can interfere with comprehension. For teachers as well, addressing listening in the language classroom poses some challenges.

 As a language teacher, one of your tasks will be to develop a vision of where listening fits within your teaching. As you progress through your career, continue to think of how you might plan to approach listening activities and what goals and expectations to set for your students.

Guiding Principles  As you start thinking of listening and how to integrate it within your curriculum, consider some general questions related to the listening skill.  Question 1: Is listening a passive skill, as it is referred to sometimes? In speaking, we actively produce language; what do we do when we listen?

 Question 2 : To what extent is listening comprehension dependent on the listener's schema*, or sociocultural perspective and prior knowledge? How does our schema help us form expectations when listening to something and thereby support comprehension? *In psychology, a schema is a cognitive framework that helps organize and interpret information in the world around us.

 Question 3: What other type of processing do learners employ to comprehend a listening text?

 Question 4: What kind of listening input is needed to develop listening proficiency in students? How can this input be provided? How can we deal with students at the elementary or low intermediate levels?

Questions for the Listening Classroom  Consider some practical questions that pertain to conducting listening activities in the classroom. - Read each question and think of what your answer would be. - Question 1: Should we use simplified texts or authentic texts with simplified tasks for the lower levels of proficiency? What are the advantages and disadvantages of both?

- Question 2: To what extent do you think we can utilize group work in doing listening activities? How do you envision this? Isn't listening an individual activity?

- Question 3: How important is it to engage students in a discussion of the strategies they or their classmates utilize while listening? Why?

- Question 4: What can we do with students who still don't get anything from a listening passage after listening multiple times?

Reflect  In your experience as a language learner, to what extent were you exposed to authentic listening materials?  In what way have such materials affected the development of your own listening strategies?  In what way will your experience as a learner shape your own approach as a teacher to authentic listening materials?

Approaching a Listening Text Pre-Listening A well-designed listening activity should be broken down into carefully sequenced "phases" that build on each other. - The initial pre-listening phase should prepare students by helping them activate their background knowledge and clarify their expectations and assumptions about the text. - An ideal pre-listening task is one in which the teacher, through carefully constructed questions, helps the students to activate the background information and language components needed to comprehend the text without "giving" this information to the students.

Thinking Questions  Question 1: What do we mean by pre- listening? What are the goals of this phase of the listening activity?

 Question 2: How much information should the teacher provide during pre-listening?

Question 3: How important is it to provide students with a list of vocabulary included in the passage before listening or to provide them with a transcription of the text to which they've listened? As in reading and as in any sport, a successful listening activity will very much depend on the initial "warm up" and "stretching" which students do during pre-listening.

While Listening  Global comprehension" refers to understanding the very general idea(s) or gist of the listening text after the first or second listen.  While the students might pick up some details after the first listen, our aim should be to help them focus on the general meaning first, so that they can establish a preliminary framework that will enable them to get more details in the subsequent listens.

 "Holistic listening" means listening to the "whole" text while "segmental listening" involves listening to specific "segments" of the text.  Holistic listening should precede segmental listening, and its aim is to allow students to develop strategies and build stamina in processing listening texts.  Segmental listening is very beneficial while doing intensive listening.

Now that we're familiar with the terms,  How should the listening activity proceed?  How many times do we listen to the text?  How can we check for global comprehension?  Should we focus on segmental or holistic listening?  How can we help students create focal points for subsequent listens?

In doing while-listening activities, it is important to remember the following:  Allow students to listen to the text two or three times as a whole before going to intensive listening.  Encourage students to focus on global meaning first and don't pose questions that ask them for details after the first listen.  Encourage students to make assumptions after the first listen and verify them after the second listen.  Focus your questions and attention at this stage on the segments of the texts that are accessible to the students in terms of vocabulary and structures.  Always remember that students don't need to "get" everything in the text.

Intensive Listening  When designing listening activities, keep in mind that, in addition to global comprehension, we need to focus our attention on intensive listening.  This is crucial to help students develop effective listening strategies and build bottom-up listening skills, in addition to the top-down skills that are emphasized in global listening activities.

Intensive listening involves zeroing in on particular segments of the text, and this should come only after the students have developed global comprehension of the text. Intensive listening may target different goals such as:  getting more detailed understanding of some segments of the text,  transcribing certain segments in the text,  guessing the meaning of a word or phrase from context,  looking at certain grammatical structures in the text to see how they can aid comprehension, etc.

 Intensive listening activities can be done in class or in the lab or can be given as homework assignments.  At the lower levels of instruction, consider doing global comprehension activities in class to work on strategies and utilize group work, and assign the intensive listening part for homework.

Post-Listening  A post-listening activity represents a follow up to the listening activity and aims to utilize the knowledge gained from listening for the development of other skills such as speaking or writing.  If we have listened to a TV program presenting a certain point of view regarding health care, for example, we can ask the students to do some research and identify some opposing views to present them in class. Alternatively, we may want to engage the students in a discussion of the merits of the views that were expressed in the listening segment.  Like post-reading activities, post-listening activities allow for recycling and further activation of vocabulary and structures as long as they are interesting and engaging and are carefully thought out.  What kind of post-listening activities do you think would be most beneficial to your students?