1. Spoken Communication Skills
Developing Listening and Speaking Skills
Mr. R. K. Tambile

2. Communication
What should be the main goal of an English language cousre?
To focus on developing students’ mastery of the the language form OR
To focus on developing students’ ability to effectively communicate for study, work or leisure

3. Features of using language for communication
We communicate because we want to or need to, NOT just to practise the language
Focus is on what we are communicating NOT on how we are communicating (ideas vs. language)
The language that is used is VARİED in grammar and vocabulary, NOT made of a single structure or a few structures and NOT normally repeated over and over again

4. Communication in the Classroom
If you want to encourage real communication in the classroom you need to
Establish English as the main classroom language
Try to use interesting topics and stimulating activities, which take the learners’ minds off the language
Real life events ( weather, the students’ cloths, their health and mood, pictures and realia brought to class)
Events in the world outside ( new films, a circus in town, national sports victory, the students’ families, etc.)

5. Focus on fluency vs. accuracy
Support and encourage listeners in their efforts to communicate their ideas
Don’t try to control what they say
Don’t interrupt learners everytime they make a language mistake to correct them.

6. Listening Skills
Listening is not a ‘passive” skill but a “receptive” skill. It requires as much attention and mental activity as speaking.
That of the time an individual is engaged in communication, approximately 9 per cent is devoted to writing, 16 per cent to reading, 30 per cent to speaking, and 45 per cent to listening.

7. Debates concerning the development of listening skills
Debates focusing on the nature of listening input
Whether or not listening should be made comprehensible for learners through simplification?
Debates focusing on the role of listening in the early ELT curriculum
Whether teachers should stress the importance of learners haing a “silent period” in the early stages of learning and wait for “readiness” to produce the language

8. Debates concerning the development of listening skills
Debates on the role of listening for comprehension and development of oracy (the ability to understand and participate in spoken communication)
How can classroom practice rehearse the kinds of listening purposes and situations that learners will experience outside the classroom?
How can we help learners build confidence in dealing with authentic spoken English?
What kind of classroom procedures will develop listening ability?

9. What do we know about the listening process?
There are two types of listening processes
Bottom-up process
Top-down process
Bottom-up:
We use our knowledge of language and our ability to process acoustic signals to make sense of the sounds that speech presents to us
Top-down
We infer meaning from contextual clues and from making links between the spoken message and various types of prior knowledge which we hold.

10. What learners need to be able to do in order to listen effectively
Bottom-up processes
Retain input while it is being processed
Recognize word divisions
Recognize key words in utterances
Recognize key transitions in a discourse
Another interesting development was…
One of theproblems was.. / In contrast…
Recognize grammatical relations between key elements in sentences
Recognize the function of word stress in sentences
Recognize the function of intonation in sentences

11. What learners need to be able to do in order to listen effectively
Top-down processes
Use key words to construct the schema of discourse
Infer the role of the participants in a situation
Infer the topic of a discourse
Infer the outcome of an event
Infer the cause and effect of an event
Infer unstated details of a situation
Infer the sequence of a series of events
Infer comparisons
Distinguish between facts and opinions

12. Types of Listening Participatory Listening Non-Participatory
Interactional (for the purpose of engaging in social rituals)
Transactional (for the purpose exchanging information)
İdentification of specific details
Non-Participatory
Listening to live conversations without taking part
Listening to announcements to extract info.
Listening to or watching films, plays, radio and songs where purpose is enjoyment
Following instructions in orderto carry out a talk efficiently
Attending a lecture or following a lesson
Liistening someon egive a public address

13. What are the implications for the English Language Classroom?
Creating reasons for listening (motivate students)
Teachers need to ensure that learners experience a range of listening purposes, especially those that might be immediately relevant to their lives outside the classroom.
What purpose might there be for listening to this particular text?
Is thatpurpose similar to the purpose a listener might have in real life?
Does the task given to the learner encourage that listening purpose?

14. Skills that are practised
Which is more authentic?
Asking learners to listen to a short airport announcement to obtain information about a particular flight, as a passenger ? OR
Asking learners to listen for the details of four different flights ?
Skills that are practised
Listening for key words
Picking out relevant information
Retaining significant details

15. Designing listening activities for the classroom
The standard procedure used for listening activities are
Pre-listening stage
While-Listening stage
Post-listening stage

16. Pre-Listening stage The purpose of the pre-listening stage is to
Prepare the learners for what they are going to hear by
activating existing prior knowledge
introducing necessary schematic knowledge
Introducing the language which students will encounter
Objectives
Contextualize the text
Provide any information to help learners appreciate the setting and the role relationships between particiapnts

17. Activity types for the pre-listening stage
Predicting content from the title of a talk
Talking about a picture which relates to the text
Discuss relevant experiences
Discussing the topic
Answering a set of questions about the topic
Agreeing or disagreeing with opinions about the topic
Associate vocabulary about the yopic
Predict info. about the topic
Write questions about the topic

18. While-Listening Stage
Purpose of While-listening stage is
TO HELP learners understand the text
While learners listen they need to be involved in an authentic purpose for listening and encouraged to attend to the text more intensively

19. While-Listening activities
Ticking multiple-choice items
Filling in a chart
Complete a table, map or picture
Matching pictures with the text
Making notes
Answer questions
Complete sentences

20. Post-Listening Activities
The purpose of post-listening activities is to help learbners connect what they have heard with their own ideas and experienxe.
Helps learners to move easily from listening to another skill.

21. Post-listening Activities
Give opinions
Relate similar experiences
Role-play a similar interaction
Write a brief report
Write a similar text
Debate the topic