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Some Aspects of Teaching Listening and Speaking Workshop Presentation for the Hsinchu County Education Development and Information Institute March 14, 2012 Johanna Katchen ( ) Department of Foreign Languages and Literature National Tsing Hua University http://mx.nthu.edu.tw/~katchen/ katchen@mx.nthu.edu.tw

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Why Do People Listen? List some purposes for listening or listening situations.

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Listening Situations and Purposes to engage in social rituals to exchange information to exert control to share feelings to enjoy yourself

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Where can we find materials? Other CDs for EFL listening Audio podcasts/radio programs from the internet, e.g., National Public Radio www.npr.org from the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/archive www.npr.org http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/archive DVD clips Videos form YouTube and other sources

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Classroom Equipment CD player DVD player (?) Computer and projector

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Criteria for the Selection of Recorded Material From Underwood, Chapter 8

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Language Not too easy Comprehensible input Give them a little challenge

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Length Early stagestwo minutes maximum Easier to pay attention longer if it is interesting or there is a specific task Short passages (under 30 seconds) may be difficult to tune in to (more pre- listening or played more times) If it feels long, segment it

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Content Keep it simple in organization Should be appropriate for age level Need a wide range of material

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The Use of Visual Support Material Can help in understanding a topic not related to everyday lives Can focus attention on the topic One large picture or one copy for each student?

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The Style of Delivery At early stages, nothing too unusual One person, natural speed slow and deliberate, pleasant tone, varied pitch If using two voices, should be easy to distinguish Not very strong regional accents

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The Speed of Delivery Normal speed, not slowed down Slowed speech loses natural rhythm and intonation Can lengthen the pauses between groups of words but keep them natural!

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Spontaneity Will include false starts, hesitations, etc. students need to get used to dealing with these Will have redundant partsnecessary even in L1

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The Quality of Production Commercial products usually okay Can students in all parts of the room hear well? Is the CD player working well? Is there too much outside noise?

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Appropriate background noises on the recording are okay as long as they are not confusing or distracting and may make the situation more realistic Shouldnt have clicks and different volumes of a poorly-produced CD A selection with a bit of music, good sound effect, or a friendly presenter can make listening more pleasant

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Potential Problems in Listening Lack of control over the speed at which speakers speak Not being able to get things repeated The listeners limited vocabulary The listeners lack of familiarity with the characteristics of spoken language-- reduced forms, etc.

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Failure to recognize the signals (of change of topic, giving an example--may be paralinguistic or nonverbal Problems of interpretation: understand the words but not the intended meaning Inability to concentrate: may try to hear and understand every word, may have outside interference Established learning habits: inability to accept ambiguity

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How can we help our students become better listeners?

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What Pre-listening Activities Do Help focus the students minds on the topic Narrow down things that students may expect to hear Activate relevant prior knowledge Activate already known language (words and structures) which they are likely to hear

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Activities should be as realistic as possible Should be the kinds of things listeners do in real situations Although it is still a classroom (not real- life), we can give information about when, where, by whom and to whom the words were spoken

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Ideas for Pre-listening Activities DO NOT go through the tapescript bit by bit explaining the difficult words to the students. You can do that AFTER listening. Avoid long lists of vocabulary words. Looking at pictures before listeningits a way to remind students of words and structures previously studied but perhaps forgotten

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Reading a text before listening Can help with listening Those who learn primarily from reading may still have trouble with the listening task because they cannot connect the sounds they hear with the words they have seen printed on the page. This is especially true for our students here in Taiwan.

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Other Pre-listening Activities Reading through questions to be answered while listening Labelling a picture Completing part of a chart Predicting/speculatinguseful with advanced students and adults

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Previewing key language (dont kill them with too much) Informal teacher talk and class discussion dont give away too much, dont go off too much on a side issue. Motivate the students to feel that what they will listen to is really interesting, exciting, or amazing.

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Ideas for While-listening Activities Marking/checking items in pictures Which picture matches what I heard? Storyline picture sets (early stages, may stop listening once they decide) Putting pictures in order (better if not predictable before listeningin pre- listening can speculate different stories, then listen to find out which

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Completing pictures Picture drawing Carrying out actions Making models/arranging items in patterns Following a route Completing grids Completing forms and charts Labelling

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Using lists True-false Multiple choice Text completion (gap filling) Spotting mistakes Predicting Seeking specific items of information

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Feedback Immediate feedback is best Students want to know whether they have succeeded and why or why not Value of looking at causes of errors or confusion is most relevant immediately Can check with pair or group work, which can lead into a post listening activity

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How does speaking differ from writing?

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What are some characteristics of written language? More formal Purposes more specific More strongly rule-governed More precise vocabulary and language Complete sentences Should be cohesion among parts More complex syntax

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More densely packed with information Reader can go back and check the information Specific styles and genres More permanent (recorded in writing) Doesnt change rapidly

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We learn to write well by exposure to good models Must be specifically taught; its hard to acquire writing in L1; easier in L2 Improves by more reading (and more practice)

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What are some characteristics of spoken language? Less formal Purposes often mixed Often violates learned grammar rules Much vague language Incomplete sentences Cohesion moves with the speakers and their assumptions about what the other already knows Simple syntactic structures

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Listener may miss a lot or forget Lots of repetition, short bits of information at a time Many varieties Seldom recorded, incompletely remembered Changes day to day

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Learn a lot by listening first in L1; L2? Acquired, not so explicitly learned Improves with practice (also with more listening)

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What is written language used for? Primarily transmission of information transactional Some social functionswedding invitations, thank you letters, etc. Some persuasive purposeseditorials, job applications, etc. Pleasurereading a novel Ritual functions may overlap with some other functions

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What is spoken language used for? Primarily socialgreetings, small talk interactional Sometimes transactionalgetting information Sometimes persuasive Ritualsweddings, department meetings, etc. Pleasurea comedy show, a play

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Transactional language is message oriented. Interactional language is listener oriented. In spoken language, the gist is often more important than the detail.

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Characteristics of the spoken language

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Speaking and writing are considered to be active skills Listening and reading are considered to be passive skills What do we do when we read? What do we do when we listen? Therefore, listening and reading are not really so passive

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What types of spoken communication are there? Two or more people engaged in face-to- face, free conversation Same as above but structured, such as an interview Speaker(s) and audienceformal speech, classroom, etc. Television, films (speaker(s) and audience in different location)

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What are the elements of communicative events? Participants Channels Codes Settings Forms of messages, genres Attitudes and contents Events

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How many participants are there? Senders (Speakers) Receivers (Listeners) Addressors (the person expressing the ideas, not necessarily the speaker) Addressees (the intended recipient of the message, not necessarily the listener) Interpreters, Spokespersons, etc.

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What kinds of channels are there? Speaking Singing Chanting Drumming, playing instruments Face and body motion as visually perceived, e.g., dance All of these can be done alone or with others

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What kinds of codes might be shared by the participants? Linguistic Paralinguistic Kinesic Musical Interpretative Interactional Other

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What are some settings? Where certain kinds of communication may be encouraged or discouraged, such as a classroom, riding on a bus, in a temple, at a wedding ceremony, etc.

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Some different forms of messages and genres Sales pitches Love poems Political speeches Lying Persuading Telling a joke Etc.

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Attitudes and contents Sarcastic, ironic, serious, funny, etc. Contents can vary greatly

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What are some characteristics of an individuals speech? Pronunciation/accent Stress and intonation Paralinguistic elements of pitch, volume, tone of voice Nonverbal behaviour such as gestures, facial expression, eye movements, posture, etc.

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What are some characteristics of conversation? Turn-taking, with overlapping, interruption, latching Giving feedback Hesitations (um) and pause fillers (you know) False starts and self-corrections

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Incomplete and run-on sentences, speaking rather in clauses Getting off the topic Speakers do not have equal lengths of turns Especially when there are more than two participants, people may not speak directly to each other or answer each others questions

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Are conversations interesting? To whom? From p. 33 of Brown and Yule: most naturally occurring conversations are extremely boring unless you happen to be an active engaged participant in one. It is quite rare that it is actually interesting to overhear a conversation unless it is about oneself or gossip.

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Conversations are for the people who are participating in them to achieve their purposes inbeing friendly, hospitable, comforting, or whatever. They usually concern local, transitory matters and deal with purely personal concerns.

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Competence vs. Performance How do we judge performance given the limitations of any performance situation? E.g. time constraints, situation, speaking while processing at the same time

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How can we teach speaking skills?

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How do we usually teach speaking skills? Choral repetition Repetition in a language lab Conversation in a CALL lab Pair work and group work Individual conversations with the teacher Out-of class assignments (ESL)

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What should we teach? What can we (realistically) teach? For interactional speech? For transactional speech? What sorts of situations will our students find themselves in in future? Which sort of speech will they need?

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Can teach elements of a notional syllabus Phrases for apologizing, thanking, etc. seem not to build on one another; one just learns useful phrases Can learn some listener skills, like Thats great, Really? Uh-hm Can learn processing time fillers, like Well, I think, um BUT still need content for longer turns

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What linguistic support can we give to beginners? Basic content words (p. 30): do, be, get, come, go, can, know; person, thing, place; good, bad, easy, hard, big, small; basic numbers; pronouns; prepositions Diectics: this, that, here, there, the red one, the one in the front How many students stop speaking if they cant access the exact word?

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Criteria for Evaluating Dialogues The language should be relevant The language should be appropriate and typical of spoken language. This includes level of formality, including appropriate vocabulary and degree of reduced forms for register.

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The situations should be realistic and relevant, involving real people in a real world using language for a purpose. Children/adolescents may prefer adventure, whereas adults may prefer survival situations (travel, shopping, etc.). Fantasy can be appropriatechildren have talking animals and invent monsters; adults think of what if situations.

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The structural or functional items should be limited (one to two items, with repetition, but not unnaturally repeated) The lexical items should be limited (not too many new terms) The dialogue should not be too long (8 10 exchanges is typical) The dialogue should be interesting, some excitement or human interest that can be dramatised

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From Brown and Yule (p. 39) One of the communicative skills which is a necessary component of normal social life is the ability to extract the relevant salient facts from a mass of detail, and to communicate an event in terms of the structure imposed on it by the speaker. This is more a cognitive task than a linguistic task. Not everyone can do this even in L1.