 |
Extensive and intensive listening.
|
|
|
|
Teaching listening
Teaching speaking
Teaching reading
Teaching writing
Teaching listening
The previous chapters dealt with the teaching of various aspects of the language, namely, pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. The knowledge of each of the aspects is of great importance to learners. However, when we say a person knows the language we first of all mean he understands the language spoken and can speak it himself. When we speak about teaching a FL we first of all have in mind teaching it as a means of communication.
Listening Dialogue
Oral language < <
Speaking Monologue
The syllabus requirements for oral language are as follows:
- To understand the language spoken
- To carry on a conversation and to speak a FL within the topics and linguistic material the syllabus sets.
This is the practical aim of teaching oral language. But oral language is not only an aim in itself; it is also a mighty means of FL instruction.
Difficulties in listening
When auding a FL pupils should be very attentive and think hard. They should strain their memory and will power to keep the sequence of sounds they hear and to decode it. Not all the pupils can cope with the difficulties entailed. The teacher should help them by making this work easier and more interesting. This is possible on condition that he will take into consideration the following three main factors which can ensure success in developing listening skills.
1. Linguistic material
2. The content of the material suggested for listening
3. Conditions in which the material is presented.
Listening comprehension can be ensured when the teacher uses the material which has already been assimilated by pupils. However this does not completely eliminate the difficulties in auding. Three kinds of difficulties should be overcome: phonetic, lexical, and grammatical: the horse is slipping (sleeping); they worked (walked) till night; phrasal verbs put on, put off, put down; grammatical homonyms Past Indefinite, Past Participle.
The content of the material also influences comprehension. The topic of communication should be within the ability of the pupils to understand. Difficulties should be explained (proper names, geographical names, terminology etc.)
Description is more difficult than narration. The pupils’ readiness to listen and comprehend is very important. The title of the story may be helpful in comprehending the main idea of the text. Monologic speech is easier.
Conditions of the presenting are of great importance: the speed of the speech, the number of times of presenting the material. Pupils should be taught to listen to the text once. However they sometimes can grasp only 50% of the information and even less, so a second presentation may be helpful. The presence or the absence of the speaker is also an important factor.
Techniques the teacher uses to develop listening skills.
1. Conducting a lesson in a FL gives the teacher an opportunity to develop pupils’ abilities in listening, to demonstrate the language as a means of communication, to provide favorable conditions for the assimilation of the language.
|
|
|
2 The teacher uses drill and speech exercises to develop listening comprehension.
3 The teacher organizes activities in listening to texts
Guidelines for organizing listening activities
1. Listening texts
Informal talk. Most listening texts should be based on discourse that is either genuine improvised, spontaneous speech, or at least a fair imitation of it. A typical written text that is read aloud as a basis for classroom listening activity is unlikely to incorporate the characteristics of informal speech and will thus provide the learners with no practice in understanding the most common form of spoken discourse.
Speaker visibility; direct speaker-listener interaction. The fact that in most listening situations the speaker is visible and directly interacting with the listener should make us think twice about the conventional use of audio recordings for listening comprehension exercises. It is useful to the learners if you improvise at least some of the listening texts yourself in their presence (or, if feasible, get another competent speaker of the language to do so). Video also makes a positive contribution to the effectiveness of listening practice, in that it supplies the aspect of speaker visibility and the general visual environment of the text.
Single exposure. If real-life discourse is rarely 'replayed' then learners should be encouraged to develop the ability to extract the information they need from a single hearing. The discourse, therefore, must be redundant enough to provide this information more than once within the original text; and where possible hearers should be able to stop the speaker to request a repeat or explanation.
2. Listening tasks
Expectations. Learners should have in advance some idea about the kind of text they are going to hear. Thus the mere instruction 'Listen to the passage...' is less useful than something like: 'You are going to hear a husband and wife discussing their plans for the summer...'. The latter instruction activates learners' relevant schemata (their own previous knowledge and concepts of facts, scenes, events, etc.) and enables them to use this previous knowledge to build anticipatory 'scaffolding' that will help them understand.
Purpose. Similarly, a listening purpose should be provided by the definition of a pre-set task, which should involve some kind of clear visible or audible response. Thus, rather than say simply: 'Listen and understand...' we should give a specific instruction such as: 'Listen and find out where the family are going for their summer holidays. Mark the places on your map.' The definition of a purpose enables the listener to listen selectively for significant information - easier, as well as more natural, than trying to understand everything.
Ongoing listener response. Finally, the task should usually involve intermittent responses during the listening; learners should be encouraged to respond to the information they are looking for as they hear it, not to wait to the end.
Listening to texts
Before pupils are invited to listen to the text the teacher should ensure that all the words and grammar are familiar to the pupils. If there are some important words the teacher introduces them beforehand (the words on the board in the sequence they appear in the text). Then the teacher should direct his pupils’ attention to what they are going to listen to. This stimulates their thinking and facilitates their comprehension of the text.
|
|
|
Pre-listening tasks stimulate the pupil’s attention:
· Try to grasp the main idea
· Make a plan of the story
· Try to finish the story
Pictures can facilitate comprehension. After they have listened, the teacher may ask questions; make statements on the text for pupils to agree or reject them.
Extensive and intensive listening.
Listening of both kinds is especially important since it provides the perfect opportunity to hear voices other than the teacher’s, enables students to acquire good speaking habits as a result of the spoken language they absorb and helps to improve their own pronunciation.
Extensive listening (the teacher encourages students to choose for themselves what they listen to and to do so for pleasure and general language improvement).
Extensive listening will usually take place outside the classroom, material for extensive listening can be found from a number of sources (tapes that accompany different books, songs, video-films).
Intensive listening are taped materials and material on disk. Most coursebooks include tapes and many teachers rely on tapes to provide significant source of language input. The teacher uses taped material at various stages in a sequence of lessons.
|
|
|
