8/2/2019 Teaching Speaking and Listening PD 8

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by Paul Spitzer and Marcel Daniels 

 Latin American Association 

 March 25, 2012 - 9:30 a.m. 

Paul Spitzer said a very good quote to sum up his introduction about how to teachlistening: "I'll repeat it as much as you like, but I won't read it slowly!" The reason for this is

because non-native speakers need to hear speech as it is used; that is the natural language which

is different from language that is made slow enough to mimic more closely written language.Another GSU student proposed that sometimes it helps students to say things slowly so they

understand what is being said, and then to hear it said "native-like" so as to match the sounds

with the meanings. Paul Spitzer brought up Krashen's i + 1 theory, which states that languagelearners need to have input that is about one level above their current standing. This is how they

progress. 

The next memorable quote that Paul Spitzer said, which actually he gives credit to a GSU

professor for, is the following: "Don't edit the text, edit the task." And just as we advise studentsto re-read, we should also advise them to re-listen, or re-speak.

Paul Spitzer also suggested that we use NPR hourly news because each file is 4-5

minutes. Also, students can create a playlist and save it so that when the hourly news changes,

their files have not. 

Some listening comprehension sources and sites that Paul recommends and that I will

also be posting under my listening resources tab are the following:  

1. English Listening Skills and Activities (from About.com) 

2. English Listening Quizzes (some are British English) 

3. ABC News 

4. CNN News 5. NPR News 

6. TED 

Marcel elaborated on the types of speaking there are: 

1. Imitative: phonetic level of oral production, focusing on phonetics and possiblyprosody, and not concerned with test takers' ability to convey meaning - examples: minimal pair

repetition, word/phrase repetition, sentence repetition 

2. Intensive: production of short stretches of oral language, interaction limited, designedto demonstrate competence in a very narrow range - examples: short directed response, read

aloud, dialogue completion, directed response, brief translation 

3. Responsive: assessment tasks include interaction that is somewhat limited, short

conversation, simple requests, comments, stimulus usually a spoken prompt - examples: open-

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ended question and answer, short paraphrasing, and elicitation of directions, instructions,

questions and descriptions 

4. Interactive: longer and more involved interaction in comparison to responsive tasks,

may include multiple exchanges and/or participants, pragmatics may be complex in interpersonal

exchanges - examples: oral interviews, role plays, discussions/conversations, and games 

5. Extensive: lengthy oral production tasks, limited interaction from listeners - examples:

pral presentations, storytelling, speeches, translation of longer texts. 

How to elicit speech from students? Cocktail party discussion/Speed dating - have

students stand up and, with a prompt written on the board, ask students to talk to other studentsabout it while moving to other students to talk about the same subject; Speed quiz - put a photo

behind the wall and have one volunteer have their back to it while other students try to describe

what the picture is without saying the word to the volunteer student; Prompt cards - hand out

cards with serious or silly prompts to begin the class with speaking.  

This presentation gave me a few more ideas about how to teach speaking and from where

to get more listening sources.