1. An Important Part of your “Oral English” (and other) Classes in China
Listening
An Important Part of your
“Oral English” (and other) Classes in China

2. The importance of listening
Fundamental conversational skill.
Otherwise, one-sided conversations
Listening is crucial to success in academic situations.
What college students do most (in classes)
A crucial yet “invisible” skill in oral communication.
Something ALL of you will teach (even if “listening” is not part of your class title).
Something most of us have never studied explicitly

3. What is listening? How do you teach it?
Not the same as hearing
Difficulties are language-related, not volume-related
Not perception, but interpretation of sounds.
Not passive (not just a sponge)
The brain is very active while listening.
Two important aspects of this process:
Hearing word boundaries
Making and confirming predictions

4. Hearing word boundaries in the stream of speech
Actually, inserting/creating them (There’s really nothing there to hear)
Japanese: Zannennakotodesune! (how many words?)
X: Zannen nakoto desu ne!
A: Zannenna (regrettable) koto (matter) desu ne!
Samoan: Samoamuamualeatua. (how many words?)
A: Samoa muamua (first) le atua (god)
Hawaiian: Uamaukeeaokaainaikapono.
A: Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono. (ten words)
Humuhumunukunukuapuaa
A: Humuhumunukunukuapuaa (one word)
Bus in Latin America: Lamolinatodojavierpradosubesube.
A: La Molina todo Javier Prado sube sube.

5. Hearing word boundaries in the stream of speech
Actually, inserting/creating them (There’s really nothing there to hear)
English:
“Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy. A kid’ll eat ivy too, wouldn’t you?””
“Ray’s dad’s Cadillac” vs. “Raise dad’s Cadillac”
“Glad Lee, the cross-eyed bear” vs. “Gladly the cross I’d bear”
Mother: “Your brother is going to the MTC.” Little child” Mother, the sea’s not empty; there are lots of fish in it.”

6. Making predictions based on grammar, content, culture, etc.
“Psycholinguistic guessing game” in oral mode
“I’m thinking of a word. What is it?”
• The ship came into the harbor and dropped its…
Note grammatical, contextual, experiential “clues” that allowed you to come up with the right word in a fraction of a second.
Contrast with…
• Following the doctor’s orders, the man turned around and dropped his…

7. The difficulty/challenge of listening in a foreign language
Speech: utterances can be prepared in advance, restricted to known vocabulary and structures
Listening: Speed, complexity controlled by speaker, not the listener. May be too fast, too difficult, etc. to understand.
Triangular conversations in Japan with Teri and Japanese people on the street. “Kinkakuji wa doko desyoo ka?”
On bullet train: “Kono shinkansen wa Hiroshima ni ikimasu ka?”

8. Potential difficulties
That ESL/EFL learners will experience when listening. Packet pages 5.A.1-2
Distinguishing individual sounds
Understanding intonation and stress
Understanding reduced speech and juncture. Also hesitation words
Recognizing redundancy
Coping with noise
Deducing the meaning of unfamiliar words/phrase from context
Making predictions about what is going to be said next

9. “Real-life” listening
Characteristics
Purpose and expectations
Short chunks with immediate response
Visual contact between speaker and listener (except telephone)
Visual/environmental clues to help with meaning
Informal discourse more common than formal.
To learn to listen successfully in real life, students need listening practice that has these features!

10. Possible Approaches Comprehension approach
Avoidance of speaking (teacher does all the talking; students only listen)
Total Physical Response (later today)
More natural, conversational approach
What you will probably do most of the time
Focused listening
Video demonstration (now)

11. ESL class in Chinatown district in San Francisco, California
Focused Listening
ESL class in Chinatown district in San Francisco, California

12. Focused Listening video
Things to note:
Students’ speaking skills
Task orientation and natural task
Special difficulties in phone conversations
Benefits of using audio recordings
Natural English, frequent interruptions/pauses
Difficulty of listening to directions; small things make a big difference!
Connection and transition to speaking
How writing disambiguates many of the difficult listening points

13. Ideas for your classes in China
PHLT chapt. 19 (pp. 244-ff) has many ideas, guidelines, and activities for teaching/practicing listening
• Games “Simon Says” “Telephone numbers” “Clock faces” “Bingo and prices”
• Passage length and listening activities (p. 247)
• External aids (p. 250) (e.g., visitors (guest speakers), VOA tapes)
MTNS, ch. 7 (pp )
p.107 Listening tasks in class
p TPR, Dictation, Dictocomp, stories, p. 110 Focused listening (video in just a minute)
p. 111 Lectures and note taking, reduced forms, tapes.
PELT chapter (book) on listening

14. Demonstrations “I’m thinking of a card” (Lucille Hansen, USTC)
Thought or quote for the day (Brecken Schwartz, CFAU)
Total Physical Response

15. TPR Total Physical Response Demonstration in Spanish
Phase One (listening to a lecture)

16. Completo Envolvimiento Físico
Tres puntos importantes
1. La habilidad de entender se desarrolla más rápidamente que la habilidad de hablar. • Deducción: La comprensión aural del idioma debe de desarrollarse antes del habla.

17. Completo Envolvimiento Físico
Tres puntos importantes
2. Las personas mayores, al enseñar el idioma nativo controlan las acciones físicas de los niños por media de mandatos. El niño empieza a hablar después de muchos meses de envolvimiento físico siguiendo las direcciones de los adultos que lo rodean. • Deducción: La comprensión se desarrolla por medio de las acciones físicas.

18. Completo Envolvimiento Físico
Tres puntos importantes
3. El habla surge de una manera natural en el primer idioma. Nunca se le obliga al niño a hablar. • Deducción: No trate de obligar a los estudiantes que hablen. Cuando ellos estén listos, el habla surgirá de una manera natural.

19. Conditions for Second Language Acquisition
Asher’s Total Physical Response and Krashen’s “Natural Approach”
Comprehensible Input. People acquire language when it is understandable. They need to understand the intent of the message, but not every word..
Low Affective Filter. People acquire language when their anxiety level is low and they are engaged in activities in a safe, comfortable, supportive environment where they feel free to take risks in using the language.
Meaningful Communication. People acquire language when they use it for real purposes. Language use must be relevant, meaningful, and authentic. Function (getting things done) takes precedence over form (grammatical correctness)

20. Speech Emerges in Natural Stages
1. Preproduction. Learners can comprehend second language commands but cannot speak the language yet. (use TPR here) 2. Early production. Learners comprehend more complicated language and can make simple (one or two word) responses like “yes/no” or names. 3. Speech emergence. Comprehension has increased to a higher level and learners can speak in phrases and sentences. 4. Intermediate fluency. Learners combine phrases and sentences and express themselves both orally and in writing.

21. TPR: Basic Principles
Language acquisition can be accelerated through the use of kinesthetic behavior.
Comprehension precedes production. Listening skill is far in advance of speaking skill. (Video example: Easter eggs)
Body movements and other actions provide evidence of comprehension.
Adults manipulate children’s physical behavior by a massive number of commands. (Video example: Easter eggs)
 Speech emerges naturally; it should not be forced. Delaying speech production facilitates learning by reducing anxiety. (Video example: Table game)
When speech emerges it will be imperfect, with many distortions and errors. The teacher must be patient, tolerate these errors, and focus on communication without raising the anxiety level.

22. TPR: Basic Procedure
1. Teacher says words/phrases and models the meaning. Students respond by doing the same action.
 2. Teacher commands and models with…
a. A large group (the whole class)
b. A small group
c. An individual volunteer
3. Teacher commands without modeling. Students respond by performing the action as…
 4. Teacher recombines old and new commands, in random order, with and without modeling. Students respond by performing the action as… (see a., b., c. above)

23. TPR Examples in China Warm up (Schwartz in Beijing high school)
Wake up (Beers at Jinan Communications)
Listen and Draw (McEntires, page 5.C.1)

24. Listen and Draw

25. TPR Examples in China Chinese numbers and exercises
Chinese taxi directions

26. Listening and English tests in China
Importance of College English Test (and Test for English Majors)
Both have listening sections
Experience recent CET-4 listening activities
Short passage
Long passage
Cloze listening
Listening test preparation and practice in class
Terakawa in Hefei video. Simple but successful!

27. Summary Listening is an important language skill
Listening is a complex language skill
Learning to listen in a foreign language is not easy
Teaching listening involves various types of practice
Teaching listening can be fun and rewarding