Presenter: Elizabeth Perry, M Ed. TESL-NS Fall 2014 Conference Dalhousie University

Inspiration Needs assessment Teachers in training Students Intention Empowerment

Agenda Pedagogical Rationale Preparatory Listening Debrief and Discussion of the experience Test Listening Debrief and Discussion of the experience Time to share your tools

Pedagogical Rationale Simultaneous Processing Phases Decoding: parts of words, whole words, phrases, partial meaning – heavily influenced by speed Comprehension: recognizing important elements, associating with relevant schema, making inferences, revising what believe heard. Interpretation: often requires cultural knowledge and perspective Within the context of using prescribed materials, the more we can equip our learners to be successful, the better. Richard-Amato, P. A. (2010). Making it happen from interactive to participatory language teaching: Evolving theory and practice (4 th ed.). White Plains, New York: Pearson Education Inc.

Practice Listening Pre-read the instructions, questions, possible answers. Identify the answers to the questions Who What Where When Why How What do we know about the listening before we listen?

Benefits of Pre-Reading Who? – number of speakers – male, female; types of information expected from different roles What? – Predetermine topic and focus of exploration. Where? – cultural and situational context When? – Cultural, generational Why? - People talk about things that are new or unusual. How? – what genre of listening? – activate schema for specific genres – increase ability to predict format

How’d we do? Debrief the answers What were some of your challenges with the listening? What would the additional challenges be for our students? How can we better prepare them to overcome these challenges?

Test Listening Pre-read the instructions, questions, possible answers. Identify the answers to the questions Who What Where When Why How What prior knowledge can we bring to this exercise?

Test Listening Procedures Play the integrated skills listening first. Benefits? Play the introduction to the test listening. Instructions? Play the complete test listening. How many times?

Benefits Challenges Use all skills, prior knowledge, activated schema Able to relate empathetically, personally Focus then on language only Validate existing abilities Empower learners to achieve language goals more easily Inherent limitations in mass produced course materials Irrelevant and uninteresting topics Overly complex language and cultural references Poor editing Teaching to the test limits value of learning effort

Summary Pedagogical Rationale – increase comprehension and interpretation capabilities Practice Listening – Experience & Debrief Test Listening – Experience, Debrief Benefits & Challenges NOW: Time to share your tools

Building the Listening Skills Toolbox for Teachers to share with Students Thank you for your participation. Please complete the feedback form so we can better serve you in the future.