TEACHING LISTENING

TEACHING LISTENING PRESENTED BY QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. What kinds of listening should be used in class? 2. Point out some listening problems faced by your students. Suggest possible solutions to these problems. 3. Discuss the bottom-up and top-down processing in teaching listening. 4. Follow-up activity KINDS OF LISTENING According to Harmer (1998:98), there are two kinds of listening material:  Authentic listening material is unscripted material or pre-recorded announcements, telephone messages, lectures, plays, news broadcasts, interviews, other radio program stories read aloud, etc.  Realistic listening material is scripted material. KINDS OF LISTENING (continued) NOTE Authentic listening material may cause problems to students, especially to beginners because they won’t understand a word; however it can give students a feel for the sound of the language and becomes accustomed to the authentic language that will facilitate their communication in real life later on. KINDS OF LISTENING (continued) Doff (1995:199) notes that in real life there are two kinds of listening:  Casual listening: People listen with no particular purpose in mind , and often without much concentration (i.e. they do not listen very closely, and may not remember much of what they heard) e.g. Listening to the radio while doing some housework; chatting to a friend. KINDS OF LISTENING (continued)  Focused listening: People listen for a particular purpose to find out information they need to know (i.e. they listen much more closely for the most important points or for particular information) e.g. Listening to a piece of important news on the radio. Listening to someone explaining how to operate a machine. NOTE: According to him, the kind of listening used in class should be focused listening. Teachers expect students to listen closely and remember afterwards what they heard. SOME LISTENING PROBLEMS FACED BY THE STUDENTS  Students have to go with the speed of the voice (s) when listening. If they fail to recognize a word or phrase they have not understood and stop to think about it, they often miss the next part of the tape and are falling behind in terms of comprehension. SOME LISTENING PROBLEMS FACED BY THE STUDENTS (continued)  Students might meet problems caused by informal spoken language which has a number of unique features including the use of - Incomplete of utterances (e.g. Dinner? Instead of “Is dinner ready?”) - Repetitions (e.g. I’m absolutely sure, absolutely sure you know that she’s right) - Hesitations (e.g. yes, well, umm, yes, possibly, but, er…) - Tone of the voice (high pitch or low pitch) - The intonation used by the speakers - Accent - Background noise TOP-DOWN AND BOTTOM-UP PROCESSING  In top-down processing, the listener gets a general view or idea of the listening text by absorbing the overall picture/ reviewing what he knows about the topic to interpret the message he has heard.  In bottom-up processing, the listener focuses on individual words, phrases or cohesive devices and achieves understanding by stringing these detailed elements together to build up a whole. SIX PRINCIPLES BEHIND TEACHING LISTENING  Principle 1: The tape recorder is just as important as tape.  Principle 2: Preparation is vital.  Principle 3: Once will not be enough.  Principle 4: Students should be encouraged to respond to the content of a listening, not just to the language.  Principle 5: Different listening stages demand different listening tasks.  Principle 6: Good teachers exploit listening texts to the full. [...]... different tasks/ activities/ questions While -listening skills Skills/ Strategies Listening for gist (central idea) Listening for specific Information (for detail ) GUIDELINES FOR TEACHING LISTENING IN CLASS (continued) Post -listening (production stage) - Teachers show some connection between the new information and students’ lives - Teachers help students improve listening and speaking skills or writing... Discussion Predicting GUIDELINES FOR TEACHING LISTENING IN CLASS (continued) While -listening (practice stage) Teachers use questions and tasks to practice appropriate listening skills Teachers  allow students to listen to the text (s) twice/ several times and do the tasks or answer questions;  allow them to co-operate and help each other after listening;  check their listening comprehension by using... them a context by pre -teaching some of the most difficult language (new words/difficult grammar points/ structures);  encourage them to make predictions about the content of the text;  give students a clear and authentic purpose for listening;  ask them one/ two guiding questions or engage them in listening activities GUIDELINES FOR TEACHING LISTENING IN CLASS (continued)  Pre -listening Activities... and spoken features or give them script dictations/ cloze listening to provoke their awareness of certain language items GUIDELINES FOR TEACHING LISTENING IN CLASS (continued) Pre -listening (Presentation stage) Teachers work on the general topic in order to get students to think about what they already know and in order to establish a reason for listening Teachers might  stimulate students’ interest... skills based on the information and the new language materials learnt by using a variety of speaking -listening tasks and activities GUIDELINES FOR TEACHING LISTENING IN CLASS (continued) Post- listening activities Activities/ Tasks Role plays Discussions Story-telling FOLLOW-UP ACTIVITY  In groups,choose a listening task in TA nang cao 12 and make a lesson plan Then demonstrate your lesson plan ... students’needs - INTENSIVE LISTENING: THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER Feedback organiser - Teacher should lead a feedback session to check that students have completed the listening task successfully - Teacher allows them to co-operate and help each other after listening by having them compare their answers in pairs Then he asks for answers from the class in general or from pairs in particular  INTENSIVE LISTENING: THE...INTENSIVE LISTENING: THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER  Organiser - Teacher gives students a clear and authentic purpose for listening and clear instructions about how to achieve their listening purpose INTENSIVE LISTENING: THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER  Machine operator - Teacher should use the tape player as efficiently . top-down processing in teaching listening. 4. Follow-up activity KINDS OF LISTENING According to Harmer (1998:98), there are two kinds of listening material:  Authentic listening material is. Predicting  Pre -listening GUIDELINES FOR TEACHING LISTENING IN CLASS (continued) While -listening (practice stage) Teachers use questions and tasks to practice appropriate listening skills. Teachers. after listening;  check their listening comprehension by using different tasks/ activities/ questions. While -listening skills Skills/ Strategies Listening for gist (central idea) Listening