The Listening Workshop

8/14/2019 The Listening Workshop

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LISTENING

WORKSHOP

APRIL 2009


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Living tape recorder

Draw some tape recorder controls on the board. Check with students that they

understand what these symbols represent (play, rewind, stop). Explain that you

will play (or dictate) a listening text. The students should write down the text.

While you are reading it students can shout 'stop' at any point. You will then 'stop'until you are told to continue ('play'). If a student wants you to repeat a particular

part, they should shout 'rewind to XXX'. You will then go back and continue from

that point until you are told to stop.*

This activity allows students to dictate the speed at which they listen to a

particular text. It allows them to focus on individual words when they need to and

gives them the condence needed to develop their listening skills. Of course, it is

important that you don't overuse the activity, or students may become lazy

listeners!

And the next word is

Choose a recording. Tell the students the topic of the recording. Play a short piece

and then press the pause/stop button. Ask the students to predict the next word

(they can do this by whispering their ideas to the student sitting next to them).

Press play and let the students hear the word. Don't make any comments at this

point. Play another piece and repeat the process. Do this with the whole of the

recording. At the end ask the students how successful they were in predicting the

next word. You will be able to tell from the students reactions how well they are

doing.

This activity is particularly effective to recycle language from a text, written orspoken, that you have already studied. With the class.

Predicting vocabulary based on the topic is a skill that we all employ in our rst

language before and while we are listening. It is also important NOT to check or

comment on the accuracy of their predictions while the activity is going on. The

aim is not to get it right, but rather to concentrate on the content and vocabulary in

order to make it possible to guess.

My students won't listen to each other! What can I do?

This is a complaint that is often heard, especially inmultilingual classes. However, even in monolingual

classes students often complain that they shouldn't be

listening to each other (I can speak better than X, I

don't want to hear their mistakes,I want to hear 'real'

English speakersetc.). But one of the best sources of

listening material is for students to listen to each

other. Teachers often say to students that most of the

people they will use English with are non-native

speakers and so it is good to hear each other. Teachers

also point out how good it is for students to speak as

much as possible (and most students accept this). But,if they are going to speak a lot, who is going to listen?

Other students, of course! It is therefore important to


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try and make listening as important as speaking when students are doing pair-

work.

If you have any students who insist that speaking to their classmates who are less

uent / accurate them, then direct them to Chapter 2 of Language Hungry which

accompanies this handout.

Different or the same?

Put students in pairs. Ask them to talk to each other about a topic e.g. last weekend.

Set a task, e.g. nd three similaritiesor nd three differences. This then focuses

their attention on what their partner is saying rather than it simply being a

monologue followed by a second monologue.

Alternatively, put the students in threes. Two of the students talk about the topic

and the third student just listens and makes a note of the similarities and

differences and then feeds back to the pair. Reverse roles.

Is it wrong for the teacher to talk a lot?

No. One of the problems here is that many training courses

and books on 'how to teach' talk about TTT (Teacher Talking

Time). They speak about how the more a teacher talks the

less opportunity there is for students to talk. However, this

makes the issue a very black and white one. It simplies what

is quite a complex situation into a simple quantity one. For

the time being let's not focus on aspects such as QTT (Quality

Teacher Talk) versus TTT, or whether the percentage

time students and teachers speak is necessarily

complementary (i.e. the less a teacher talks automaticallymeans students will speak more). Instead, let's look at a

different aspect of Teacher Talk, that is TT as a source of

listening.

Every time a teacher talks they are providing their students with a listening

opportunity. Therefore, if they give their students a reason to listen to them, then

this can only be a benet.

Anecdotes

Teachers telling personalized stories can often be an excellent source of listening

for the students. One idea is if you teach a class at the same time as a colleague

teaches a similar level / age group of students. Divide the two classes into half

(group A& B), you take all the group A students (half your class and half your

colleague's class) and they take all the group B students. Both of you tell a short

anecdote (two to ve minutes). Get students to make notes and compare in pairs or

groups. Repeat the anecdote if necessary. Then get all your students back with you

and send your colleague's students back to their class, so they have all their

students. Now pair them up so that in each pair one heard your story and the other

student listened to your colleague's. Get the students to retell the stories to each

other.


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What did you hear?

Play a recording and ask students to note down who

was speaking, what they were speaking about and any

other things they think they heard. Emphasize that

there are no correct answers and that you want them

to write down what they think and/or hear. Putstudents in pairs or small groups and ask them to

discuss their ideas. Play the recording again, if

necessary. Discuss the ideas as a class, asking people to

explain why, but trying not to make judgements as to

whether their ideas (answers) are right or not.

Rationale:It is extremely interesting to nd out what

students hear rather than focusing attention on what

they should hear according to a set of predetermined

questions. The activity probably needs to be used two

or three times with different recordings before students start to feel comfortableand realize that they are not being tested (i.e. you really arent looking for correct

answers).

Add a third

Choose a coursebook dialogue (between two people). Play it and get the students to

think about who the people are and what they are talking about. Then ask the

students to think about the dialogue and imagine what it would be like if there was a

third person involved/speaking. Get the students to turn to the transcript and

rewrite the dialogue adding the third person (this can be done working in groups of

three). Finally, ask a few groups to read out their new dia(tria)logue.

Rationale:Coursebook dialogues are often neat in a way in which real-life

conversations arent. Getting students to add a third person also demonstrates a

deeper understanding of the material than standard comprehension questions ever

could.

We often interrupt

Choose a dialogue from a coursebook, e.g. A phone conversation. Read the rst line

of the dialogue. Ask the students to take on the other role (but without referring to

the transcript). Once they have heard your line they should respond. Continue theprocess (either by using the next line of the coursebook dialogue this then forces

the students to readjust their thoughts, or simply by responding to what the

students have said). Finally, if you want, you can get everyone to look at the original

transcript.

Rationale:Most coursebook listening activities put the students in the position of

eavesdroppers. This is actually a very unnatural state of affairs in most real-life

listening. One aim of this activity is to make the listening activity much more

realistic by making the listener take on an active role.

Listening Bingo

Ask the students to draw a grid or table with six boxes (you can use more for higher

levels e.g. nine boxes at upper-intermediate). Tell them you will play a recording


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and tell them the topic of the recording (if you want you can give a bit more

information e.g. You will hear two people talking about their plans for the

weekend.). Ask the students to write a word or phrase in each box. These should be

things they think they will hear during the recording. Monitor and check they have

completed their grids. Play the recording. Every time a student hears a word or

phrase in their grid they should cross it out. If they cross out all 6 they should put

their hand up in the air (or shout Bingo).

Predicting vocabulary based on the topic is a skill that we all employ in our L1

before and while we are listening. The task starts off with a top-down activity,

predicting based on what we already know about the topic, but during the actual

listening phase the focus is far more on a bottom-up process.

Dictogloss

Tell the students they are going to hear a short text (a few sentences or a short

paragraph). Ask the students to put their pens down and just listen. Play the

listening or read it out once and then ask the students to note down all the wordsthey can remember this should be done focusing on key words and NOT trying to

remember everything verbatim. Play or read the text again and then ask the

students to work in pairs and reconstruct as much of the text as they can. Repeat

the process one more time and then pair the pairs and get them to compare their

texts. Finally, compare their texts to the original and discuss.

Initially this activity is bottom-up. However, as parts of the text are constructed

students will use the co-text (working out content and languages based on what has

already been said or surrounds a particular utterance) to help build the rest of the

text. This then moves from bottom-up to top-down strategies and often employs

both simultaneously.

I have used this very successfully for grammar work, in particular contrasting two

tenses. For example, active vs. passive: present perfect simple and continuous: used

to and would ('d very hard for the students to hear).

An absolute life-saver activity for those days when the photocopier breaks down or

paper rationing is introduced. Listening, speaking, writing, grammar, vocabulary

and punctuation practice all rolled-up in one with minimal work on your behalf

just the way it should be!

Gap-ll

Take a listening text and remove some of the words. Students predict the missing

words. Play the text and ask students to ll in the blanks and/or check their

answers.Although this is a standard bottom-up approach it is amazing to see how

much can be predicted and therefore how even the most bottom-up activities

employ a degree of top-down processing.

Dictation

Prepare or adapt a list of phrases / sentences and dictate them to the class. Try

your hardest and read them as naturally as possible. Students compare with apartner what they have written. Elicit back from the class and discuss any

differences. Highly recommended for work on features of connected speech such as


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strong / weak forms, elision, intrusive sounds. And of course the schwa sound.

Note-taking

Get the students to divide the page into three columns. In the rst column write 'Im

sure I heard'. In the second 'I think I heard'. And nally, in the third 'No idea'. In the

last column they write what they hear, but they have absolutely no idea what it is.Get them to write it as they hear it. Students listen to the text and write

information / words, utterances into the three categories according to how sure

they are. You will need to play the recording a few times. It's the third column that

is the most interesting and the one that should be encouraged as a tool to help them

out of class. If they decide to do this, they can bring their scribbled language notes

to class and ask you about it. Cue natural conversation between teacher and

student (Where did you hear this? What were you doing there? I never knew you

were into women's shot-putting etc.). This activity can be done with or without a

lead-in or gist questions. Obviously without makes it a little more realistic and

better prepares them for out-of-class.

My way to work

Explain to the class that you are going to describe what you did from the momentyou woke up until the moment you arrived at work. However, their job is to stop you

completing the story. Set a time limit of two or three

minutes depending on the level and the number of times

you have subjected them to this type of activity. Then,

simply, begin to tell your story. They ask you questions, you

answer them and then carry on with the story. You can

adapt this to many of the texts found in course books andsupplementary books (spoken and written). It works best

with monologues dialogues would be too confusing. If you

do do it with a dialogue invite one of the students to read

the other part and sit opposite each other. Make sure to

give a few examples rst, and expect it to be a bit slow to

start. They'll soon get the hang of it, and especially if they

discover that the 'Why' question can be used to devastating

effect - rather like my daughter. Once students have got the

idea, they can do it together in pairs. Works nicely with any

stories the students are telling (think Anecdote sections of Inside Out series)

What are you on about

Divide the class into groups of three or four. Send one student from each group out

of the class. Instruct the remaining students to have a conversation on a topic of

their choice (for more reticent groups, supply a topic). Let them get on with it and

after a minute or two bring the other students back into the class. They sit down

with their group and quietly listen to them speaking, when they understand what's

going on, they should join in.


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Sound Effects

Prepare about 10 sound effects (see John, Alisdair, Mark or Dan). Students listen

and write down what they think they hear. Tell them that there is no right or wrong

answer. Therefore, there's nothing wrong with a little bit of ambiguity here. Elicit

from the class what they heard (you can tell them what the effects were supposed

to be) and then from the vocabulary you have built up on the board, the studentswrite a story in pairs, groups or individually.

Note it helps to have a common 'theme' to the effects.

Questions

Rather than writing the questions yourself and spending all that time to read and

listen to the text when you could be doing so many better things, get the students to

write the questions. More work for them and less for you! Be careful that they don't

see through it though. We wouldn't want to be rumbled! Best to sell it to them with

the line about the photocopier breaking down when you were doing the questions

and that you had noticed that some of the students needed more practice with

question formation so you thought you could kill two birds with one stone, speaking

of which.....

The Last Thing

Ask the students to write down the last thing that you said.

Hearing vs. ListeningAn example to outline the difference between hearing and listening

What a woman says:

C'MON...This place is a mess! You and I need to clean. Your pants are on the

oor and you'll have no clothes if we don't do the laundry now!

What a man hears:

C'MON....blah, blah, blah YOU AND I blah, blah, blah, blah, blah ON THEFLOOR blah, blah, blah, NO CLOTHES blah, blah, blah, blah, NOW!

Documents

The Listening Workshop