developing listening skills

Developing Listening Skills | Janine McNair | September 26th, 2000

Dear fellow participants,

I am currently working on a MET assignment on the subject of encouraging intermediate learners to develop their confidence when listening in English.

I have the hunch that when it comes to listening technique many teachers resort to the option that practice will make perfect. I have this hunch admittedly because it is more or less what I've done myself for years (and I hope I don't fail the course for being open about that), and because in the organizations I've worked for, there tends to have been a lack of any kind of training of listening techniques.

Furthermore, I have found that textbooks offer practice but not much on technique.

So I would welcome any responses on the following:

Do you believe that in listening comprehension practice will eventually lead to perfection?

Do you ever slap on a thirty-minute practice tape, get on with some corrections or other duty, and then use the answer book to correct? Is this justifiable or is it a cop-out?

Explain in two or three lines what listening technique means to you.

Do you feel that current textbooks are adequate in their treatment of listening?

Regards,

Janine McNair

Developing Listening Skills | Rob Salter | September 26th, 2000

Janine,

I did my MET assignment on discourse intonation in listening tasks. Although I have little to say about Michael Lewis (CaCiLT Willis and Willis), I still try to use an observe/hypothesize/experiment type approach to listening tasks in the classroom. I also try to elicit information that can help top/down and bottom/up approaches to the task. Even then though I find that so many listening tasks are of the "overhearer" type that I can only stand in amazement when students quickly transfer those skills practiced as an "overhearer" to their own conversations in which they have not only to listen but to take part. I guess what I am saying here is that for me listening skills mean not only being able to get the meaning of what is going on in discourse but also to be part of the talk being listened to if one so desires.

Rob Salter

Developing Listening Skills | Dominic Marini | September 27th, 2000

Janine,

I think you've got a good subject. I was just thinking about this problem today. Too often I'll just put on a tape (though not 30 minutes) but wish there was more I could do with it. Actually, there is, but that requires a lot more preparation because the text, even if good, doesn't give any support regarding listening. The reality of work (and study!) may mean that that time is not available.

Dominic Marini

Developing Listening Skills | Janine McNair | September 27th, 2000

Robert,

Thanks for responding so quickly.

You mentioned using "top-down" and "bottom-up" strategies in listening comprehension. I tend to agree with people such as Rost, Nunan and Field, who seem to associate "bottom-up" with a building block style of listening instruction, i.e. first the listener should be able to recognize vowel sounds etc ...incompatible with the idea of text as chunks of meaning. This is not to say that other types of strategies are not necessary, they can clearly help the L2 listener, and writers such as Ur and Willis recommend tasks designed to train listeners in key strategies such as recognizing stressed words, recognizing redundancies or prediction.

I agree with you that ideally an L2 listener should be able to move on from being an overhearer, to actually taking part in the conversation being listened to. More often than not however this situation simply does not arise in the classroom, as we are dealing with taped texts, not real conversation.

Perhaps some of the recent CD Rom English courses will go some way to cover this need, I've seen one here in Spain where the student has a microphone and has to provide his/her side of the conversation.

Regards,

Janine

Developing Listening Skills | Stephan Hegglin | September 27th, 2000

Janine,

Although I haven't got beyond FND I would like to make a few comments on your interesting question. I love working with BBC programmes, some of them are as long as 15 minutes. However, I was often frustrated to realize how little the students understood and how tiresome it was to work with different warm-ups, preparation exercises and so on.

Then, one day I came in touch with the Birkenbihl method, developed by a German psychologist, Vera F. Birkenbihl. Unfortunately, it is only working when your students have the same L1.

If this is the case, it is a wonderful method (I do not say the best after having read Prabhu article).

I start with the transcribed text in the students' native language and ask them to visualize the text before listening to the tape. The students make use of mind maps and other techniques to digest the text in their native language. This allows you to work with a text that is above the level of the students' L2, without intimidating them.

Example: (taken from a BBC programme by Simon Boys, transcript by Stephan Hegglin-Besmer).

American Icons: Coca Cola.

1. Visualize the following text:

Diese Woche erforscht Simon Boys das weltweite Reich von Coca Cola. - (Lied: Reklame) - In der Nachkriegsgeschichte Amerikas ist 1985 ein Schlusseldatum, denn es war in jenem Jahr, dass eine amerikanische Ikone aufhorte zu existieren. Beim Versuch, die rucksichtslose Expansion des Erzrivalen Pepsi zu bremsen, entschied das Coca Cola Unternehmen, den Geschmack von Coca Cola zu andern. Das beruhmteste Sprudelwasser der Welt verwandelte sich in das neue Coke.

Then the students will listen to the tape and read at the same time, concentrating on L1 or L2 according to the students needs. This is repeated several times until they feel secure enough to proceed to step three. L2 is a word-to-word translation underpinning the structure of L2. It is not a pleasure to read the word-to-word translation again and again, thus encouraging students to turn their attention to L2 and only occasionally referring to L1.

2. Listen to the tape and read:

This week Simon Boys explores the global empire of Coca Cola. - (Song: Diese Woche Simon Boys erforscht das weltweite Reich von Coca Cola. (Lied: advertisement) - In the post war history of America, 1985 figures as a key date, for it (Reklame) In der Nachkriegsgeschichte von Amerika, 1985 erscheint als ein Schlusseldatum, denn es was in that year that an American icon ceased to exist. In an effort to stem the war in jenem Jahr, dass ein amerikanisches Symbol aufhorte zu existieren. In einer Anstrengung zu bremsen die remorseless expansion of its arch rival Pepsi, the Coca Cola company decided to rucksichtslose Expansion von seinem Erzrivalen Pepsi, die Coca Cola Firma entschied zu change the taste of Coca Cola. The most famous soft drink in the world metamorphosed into wechseln den Geschmack von Coca Cola. Das beruhmteste Sprudelwasser auf der Welt verwandelte (sich) ins new Coke. It was sweeter, less fizzy, more like Pepsi in fact. And the original Coke was no neue Coke. Es war susser, weniger sprudelnd, mehr wie Pepsi eigentlich. Und das ursprungliche Coke existierte nicht.

3. Listen to the tape passively:

I usually copy the tape so many times that every student can work with his or her Walkman, usually several times, without concentrating on the content (subconscious acquisition).

4. Work with the following text in different ways.

By now the students are so familiar with the text and have internalised it that dictation, discussions, summary writing etc can follow the previous steps. L1 no longer functions as a crutch for the student.

This week Simon Boys explores the global empire of Coca Cola. - (Song: advertisement) - In the post war history of America, 1985 figures as a key date, for it was in that year that an American icon ceased to exist. In an effort to stem the remorseless expansion of its archrival Pepsi, the Coca Cola company decided to change the taste of Coca Cola. The most famous soft drink in the world metamorphosed into new Coke.

For the next excerpt we could repeat the same procedure over and over again. However, this becomes very boring for the students. So I try to challenge them more by:

•  Letting them write the word to word translation

•  Guessing what will come next

•  Letting invent them different activities

•  Talking about the topic in different context

•  Letting them work at individual speed.

After working on a more challenging level the students are happy to follow the original procedure again.

Advantages of this method:

•  Students begin to trust their listening comprehension skills.

•  We can plough through all kinds of interesting subjects without overtaxing weaker students.

•  I don't have to motivate from one 'interesting' activity to the next.

•  Exam preparation (FCE) does not seem that difficult after regular practice of this kind (I have to admit that my experience in this field is still limited).

I know I should be working on my assignments, but your question was too tempting.

Best wishes

Stephan Hegglin

Developing Listening Skills | Francesca | September 27th, 2000

I agree with you that a lot of what we call listening practice is more testing than teaching. No wonder students often don't enjoy listening to tapes as we are asking them to do something which is harder than the majority of outside listening situations, where one can at least see the speaker and interact with him (as Robert has already pointed out).

Dominic said 'Too often I'll just put on the tape ...but wish there was more I could do with it. Actually, there is but that requires a lot of preparation'. There are a few techniques that I use routinely when working with listenings which don't require any preparation and may lead to boosting confidence (Janine's area of interest). Top-down techniques, such as discussing the topic beforehand to see what students know, act as a kind of prediction. Listening and noting down stressed words only (recently I've started putting students into two teams who write key words on the board in the form of a crossword as they listen). Stopping the tape intermittently for students to check / summarize what they've heard so far in pairs and predict what'll happen / be said next. Asking students to sit around the cassette recorder and control it (turning it on and off and rewinding it) until, as a group, they have all the answers to the task. (This gives the students control and decreases tension, encourages good group dynamics and listening for detail and makes the listening interactive in a different way).

Also, as an alternative to tapes, Micheal Lewis suggests (and I've tried successfully) teacher-centred listening where the teacher tells a story in a very controlled way, grading language ( L + 1 ) and using synonyms and repetition to aid comprehension, students are encouraged to interact.

Also, videos and songs are normally highly motivating (if you want to work with confidence boosting, give your intermediate students something authentic but with an achievable task), and, if possible having live guest speakers come and visit the class to be interviewed.

Personally, I blame the Cert courses for the way teachers handle listening. It took me several years to realize that a listening lesson could be more than: set questions; play tape twice and check answers.

Tell as how your research goes, Janine.

By the way, thanks to the three participants who sent me the web site for info on the TESOL journal on CD Rom.

Francesca

Developing Listening Skills | Jonathan Clifton | September 28th, 2000

Just a couple of points on the "listening" discussion:

I was interested to read Stephan's stuff on Birkenbil. I have studied, though I don't often use, suggestopedic techniques. Lozanovo, the creator of suggestopedia and also a psychologist rather than a linguist, also suggests use of the learners L1. He puts the L1 version of a text and the L2 version side by side and he splits the text up in to small chunks. So, as the learner listens to the L2 he/she is secure because they see the L1 peripherally and so understand the L2. Later the language is activated by games and so on.

I have also seen a similar thing where a story is presented to the students and the story is represented pictorially. Again the student feels secure because they understand the meaning of the text.

Task based learning:

I am working on MAP at the moment and what I hope to be able to do is work on some of the TBL ideas, notably to get the students to do a task and then listen to native speakers doing the same or similar task. In this way the students, having done the task will have the schema in mind and so should be able to use top down processing techniques to understand the listening. The listening will then be followed up with consciousness raising activities that could concentrate on how to listen more effectively by looking at how the dialogue is structured. Here I am thinking of highlighting the routine nature of many service encounters.

I am also thinking that on a very practical note this framework could be a way of extending and deepening all the activities that we see in books like "Discussions that work", "keep talking" or all the role play and pair work books that abound.

One last technique:

If I use a typical TEFL cert approach to listening (i.e. pre-teach vocab, gist listening and detail listening.), at the pre teaching phase I teach the new lexis in its phonetic context and so draw the students attention to phonetic features such as linking of words, weak forms, contractions etc.. Because I find that it is often not the lexis that cause the problem but the ability to recognize weak forms, linking etc... Discussing the phonetics of it sometimes makes the students more aware of the features of rapid speech.

Best wishes to all

Jonathan Clifton

 

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