Teaching Listening and Reading

Listening

CollaborativeNon-collaborative

AuralAural + VisualAural + CollaborativeAural + Visual + Collaborative

Social actInformational act

Receive + Process

Concrete Organized Contextualized=better comprehensionAbstract Obscure Unfamiliar=difficult for comprehension

Input intensive

Classroom a poor stage for developing listeningClassroom good for beginning collaborative interaction, but structured—students do not negotiate meaning in the classroomExtensive exposure to listening outside the classroom

Teachers (or textbooks) prepare materials:Appropriate linguistic complexity (of the task!)Appropriate amount of informationQuality of sound (and image)

Approach: PreparationPerformanceFollow-up

GOAL: Get students to perform tasks that resemble real-life behavior

• Distinguish between homonyms• Distinguish between phonemic

differences• Listen for keywords pointed out in

advance• Check off items in a list related to

content• Check off items related to grammar• Circling an answer or image• Write an answer• Fill in or labeling a picture• Complete fill-in exercises• Sequence items or pictures• Sequence text• Follow oral directions• Fill in gaps in a dialogue• Identify main idea• Give summary• Develop questions for peers to answer

Examples

Video

• Watch silent clip and make inferences based on visual information

• Watch silent clip and predict dialogue• Predict next segment in a story line

Prepare the listener/viewer

• Ask personalized questions• Use visuals (pictures graphics photos)• Brainstorm

• State the topic• Use content-related pictures: have students

label, describe, sequence• Review list of key words, grammatical

structures• Brainstorm to expand the schemata• Read a content-related text• Review content questions• Predict and speculate• Preview the recording

Dresden VideoPreparation: 1. Grammar exercises using lines from the video.2. List of key words, especially place names that would

be odd.3. Note the general topic: attractions, and brainstorm

predictions.4. Still frames from the video: students describe

images in TL.5. View video once through, then use an associogram

to collaborate and find out what students heard.6. View video once through, English version.

Homework: Video with sub-titles in the TL: content questions, sequencing text

Follow up: Students assigned similar videos with assignment

Describing thenSequencing Images: Listening

1. Before viewing: Do preliminary investigations. What do you predict is in the video in general? Then go to the Internet and inform yourself about what could possibly appear in the video.

2. Watch the video once through without stopping. Note down what came up in the video that you predicted and found out from your preliminary investigation.

3. Watch the video a second time and note down at least two items of particular interest to you.

4. Go back to those two items of interest in the video. Write down as much as you can in German about those two items as they appear in the video. Be able to relate some information to the class.

5. Prepare a 100-word written description of information in the video. Be able to present the information orally.

6. Prepare lines to talk about “sites and attractions”: you are talking with a friend and very excited about the things you saw and did in your assigned city. Anticipate and write down notes to prepare for your conversation.

Arocdnicg to rsceearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pcale. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit pobelrm. Tihs is buseace the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Reading

Similarities and Differences with Listening:

Listening: immediacyReading: recursiveListening to recordings: also recursive

Reading uses multiple sources of knowledge: schemataReading almost always receptive, not collaborative

Also needs preparation:Purpose: lexical, grammatical, culturalSelection: appropriateness, qualityPreparation: pre-reading, appropriate tasks, post-reading

Text: register(from Omaggio)

1. Literary2. Technical3. Correspondence4. Journalism5. Informational6. Realia

A heavy, wet coastal snowstorm is set to reach Greater New York on Wednesday evening, with up to a foot of new snow expected in the Bronx, northern suburbs and Connecticut. Manhattan will see totals around eight inches. Some locations on the south shore of Long Island may see only three to five inches, as the snow mixes with rain closer to the relatively warmer ocean.

The National Weather Service currently has the entire region under a winter storm watch.

The storm could prove especially problematic for parts of Connecticut, where two to three feet of snow remains on rooftops from previous storms. With the addition of another foot of wet snow, some roofs (especially flat roofs of shopping malls and big-box retailers) may be at risk of failure. As we saw at the Metrodome in Minneapolis last month, a roof collapse is a scary situation.

The storm covers skies in darkness,Spinning snowy whirlwinds tight,Now it wails like a beast wildest,Now it cries like a weak child,Now suddenly it rustlesThe old roof’s dry thatching mass, Now, a traveller, late and gusty,It knocks at our window’s glass.