1. Teaching Listening
Based on
Active Learning

2. Expected Outcomes
At the end of these training sessions, participants should be able to:
Recognise the process of teaching listening.
Discover some useful strategies and techniques when teaching listening.
Present a listening lesson based on the active learning stages.
15 November 2018
Day 1

3. Approaches to Listening
Task1:
What do you think may hinder students’ understanding when listening to native speakers?
People speak too fast to follow;
They can't tell where words start and stop;
People pronounce words they just don't recognize;
They can't work out details of what is being said;
They can't get even a general sense of the message;
They don't know what attitudes people are expressing;
They can't pick out those parts that are most important for them to understand.
Task2:
So, how can you help your students to become more skillful at listening?
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4. A) Tasks related to the approaches:
Task 3:What are the merits and the demerits of the following two listening approaches?
I – Listening without a readable text:
Here is the opening of a lesson procedure:
Say to students: Listen to this.
Play recording once.
Ask comprehension questions.
Look coldly at students who get the answers wrong and tell them that they should have listened harder.
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5. I – Commentary 15 November 201815 November 201815 November 2018
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6. A) Tasks related to the approaches:
II – Listening with a readable text:
Here is a second version of the same lesson:
Hand out a copy of the text of the conversation to all students.
Play recording.
When finished, ask individual students some questions:
Task 4:
There still seems to be another problem with this. What is it?
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7. I – Commentary 15 November 201815 November 201815 November 2018
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8. If I sum up my feelings about the two approaches, I get a checklist like this:
The activity must really demand listening.
It mustn't be simply a memory test.
Tasks should be realistic or useful in some way.
The activity must actively help them improve their listening.
It shouldn't be threatening.
It should help students work around difficulties to achieve specific results.
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9. How can teachers make classroom listening interesting and useful?
Task 5:
How can teachers make classroom listening interesting and useful?
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10. By giving the learners a clear purpose in listening,
By giving students the questions before the recording is played (rather than after).
By giving the learners a clear purpose in listening,
you run the exercise from a memory test into a listening task.
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11. Task 7: How can we attract learners to listening tasks?
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12. At Beginner level, I could ask them to catch the names of every famous person they heard. It would be challenging and stimulating for a beginner to feel he has got something out of an authentic news recording!
At a much higher level, I could expect them to be able to understand most of the recording and do a sophisticated task. In both cases, it is not the recording that sets the level of the lesson; it is the task.
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13. Task 6: How can we design a listening plan procedures?
A simple plan would be as follows:
Lead-in:
Pre-listening introduction to topic, discussion, looking at pictures, etc ...
Pre-task work:
Looking through worksheet, working on voc., etc …
Set clear task
Getting a general overview of the main story or message of a conversation/ Catching specific details such as names, numbers, addresses, etc.
Play the recording again as often as necessary.
Feed back on task
Could they do the task?
If Yes: Learners have to conclude.
If No: Learners need to listen again.
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14. Task 8: Ordering stages in a listening lesson
Here is a lesson to exemplify the techniques described above. The recording is a conversation between two people in a bus station. At one point, we hear the announcer list the buses about to depart. The lesson plan is out of order; put the items back into their original order.
A- Play recording; students then compare answers in pairs; tell me their answer. If correct, continue; if not, play recording again, etc.
B- Play recording; students then compare answers in pairs and give their answer. If correct, continue; if not, play recording again, etc.
C- Lead into a communicative activity based around the topic of travel problems.
D- Set task: 'How many people are speaking?' 'Where are they?'
E- Introduce topic: long-distance buses; discuss a little: 'Anyone’s been on one in England or the United States?'
F- Set task: 'Here is your bus ticket' (different destinations for different students).
G- 'Which bus number must you catch?'
H- Set task: 'Why is the old lady worried?' 'What suggestion would you make?' (The task requires listening to and interpreting a longish section of the recording.)
I- Show picture of bus station. 'Where do you think this is?' 'What's happening?' etc.
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15. Answer
The original order is: (I), (F), (E), (A), (G), (B), (H), (C), (D). The stages (A), (B) and (I) are, of course, interchangeable..
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16. Listening Strategies
When working on listening in the classroom there are two alternative starting points:
* Working on the 'small pieces' (sounds. words and details).
*Working on the 'big pieces, (filling missing gaps, overall structure and organisation). The former is known as top-down whilst the latter is known as bottom-up.
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17. Task 9:Listening Strategies
Do the following represent use of top-down or bottom-up strategies?
Before we start listening, we can already predict some possible words and phrases that might be used because of our knowledge of lexical sets associated with the topic.
We listen carefully to a recording a number of times so that we can find a word we can't catch clearly.
When we don't clearly catch some of what people say, we hypothesise what we have missed and reinstate what we think was there, based on our knowledge of similar conversations.
We know the typical pattern some interactions follow (e.g. the typical sequence of exchanges when ordering a taxi on the phone), and this helps us to understand these when they are spoken.
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18. Answer
Strategy 2 is bottom-up. Strategies l, 3 and 4 are examples of top-down strategies.
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19. Suggested strategy of teaching listening The task-feedback circle:
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20. The task-feedback circle can help you plan useful listening lessons if you simply follow it round. Go round the circle three or four times - or as many times as your students need. It's important to note that it involves not only setting a sequence of tasks and checking whether they can do it, but also replaying the recording again and again (and again).
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21. TASK10 Have a look at the listening specific competences and the descriptors to prepare a listening period (SB) p. 45 Unit 5 Grade 6 based on the stages of active learning.
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22. Thank you& see you tomorrow
That’s all for today.
Thank you& see you tomorrow
Writing
15 November 2018