TECHNIQUES FOR TEACHING LISTENING AND SPEAKING SKILLS

TEACHING OF LISTENING

Types of Listening Activities

Reference: Penny Ur (1996: p112-114)

i. No overt response: Students do not need to do anything in response to the listening, however, facial expression and body language often show if they are following or not.- Stories- Songs- Entertainment: films, theatre, video

ii. Short responses

-Obeying instructions

-Ticking off items

-True/ False

-Detectiing mistakes

-Cloze

-Guessing information

-Skimming and scanning

iii. Longer responses

-Answering questions

-Note-taking

-Paraphrasing and translating

-Summarizing

iv. Extended responses

-Problem-solving

-Interpretation

Criteria for selection of activities

Nature of listening task requirement

- Response- no overt response, short, long or extended response

- Blank interval in the case of cloze

- Difficulty level of task

- Vocabulary level

Nature of the recorded material

- Students’ proficiency level

- Students’ interest

- Authentic/ non-authentic

- Number of speakers

- Speed of delivery

- Content of reference

- Complexity of thought and ideas

- Style of utterance- formal, colloquial

- Accent and degree of disturbance

- Complexity of communication situation

Selection of teaching techniques

The selection of teaching techniques and strategies in the classroom used for beginners, intermediate and advanced students will highly depend on the characteristics of the students. Teachers should be aware of the employment of different teaching strategies for students of different level, who differ in many aspects of learning. To enable teachers to make the right decision in choosing the most appropriate techniques in the teaching of listening and speaking skills, it is essential to do a need analysis of pupils.

Let us look at the characteristics of the pupils in your class! Are they beginners, intermediate or advance learners?

a. Beginners

Characteristics of pupils: They cannot distinguish English speech sounds from noises in the environment or sounds of other languages. Pupils have no idea of the rules of English pronunciation or grammar.

b. Intermediate

• Characteristics of pupils: They have fairly good grasp of the phonemic system but have difficulty with authentic texts. Pupils cannot handle

features eg hesitations,, false starts, noise etc. However, they can remember longer phrases & sentences.

c. Advanced

• Characteristics of pupils: They are very proficient in the language and can process language. Pupils can pay attention to language content. They have interpersonal relations with speakers and can engage in intellectual discussion. They are also capable of using compensatory strategies eg infer,predict etc.

Suggested teaching-learning strategies

Before you prepare either a listening lesson or a listening and speaking lesson, you will need to consider the four main aspects as follows:

• A. Length of input-( 1- 3 minutes maximum) for listening texts

• B. Type of input- (use educated/ acceptable Malaysian variety)

• C. Speed of delivery

• D. Outcome of listening / listening and speaking

What kinds of listening tasks are appropriate?

There are numerous activities to choose from for developing listening skills.

Lund (1990) has categorised them according to nine responses that can be

observed as comprehension checks:

Doing: the listener responds physically such as in Total

PhysicalResponse (TPR);

Choosing: the listener selects from alternatives such as pictures,

objects, texts, or actions;

Transferring: the listener transforms the message such as drawing a

route on map, or filling in a chart;

Answering: the listener answers questions about the text;

Condensing: the listener takes notes or makes an outline;

Extending: the listener goes beyond the text by continuing the story or

solving a problem;

Duplicating: the listener simply repeats or translates the message;

Modeling: the listener performs a similar task, e.g. gives instructions to

a coworker after listening to a model or;

Conversing: the listener is an active participant in a face-to-face

conversation.

(Carol Van Dozer, Center for Applied Linguistics)

Reflect and Review

Read the following activities and decide which of the following activities are most suitable for beginners, intermediate and advanced students?

a. Interactive Activities

• listening to a word and brainstorming related words, listening to a list and categorizing the words, following directions

b. Top-down Activities

• identifying emotions, understanding meaning of sentences, recognizing the topic

c. Bottom-up Activities

• discriminating between intonation contours, phonemes, or selective listening for different morphological endings, word or sentence recognition, listening for word order

Principles for Designing Listening techniques

• Use techniques that are intrinsically motivating

• Use authentic language and contexts

• Carefully consider the form of listeners’ responses

• Encourage the development of listening strategies

• Include bottom-up and top-down listening techniques

Successful Listening Activities

• Purpose for Listening

– A form of response (doing, choosing, answering, transferring, condensing, duplicating, extending, conversing)

• Repetition depends on objectives and students’ level

• A motivating listening text is authentic and relates to students’ interests and needs

• Have the skills integrated at the different stages of the lesson : Pre-task While-task, Post-task

Listening Strategies

• Teach student how to listen

– Looking for keywords

– Looking for nonverbal cues to meaning

– Predicting a speaker’s purpose by the context of the spoken discourse

– Associating information with one’s existing background knowledge (activating schema)

– Guessing meanings

– Seeking clarification

– Listening for the general gist

– For tests of listening comprehension, various test-taking strategies

a. Easy to plan Pre Listening Activity

• Brainstorming

• Think-Pair-Share

• Mind Mapping

• Team Interview

b. Easy to plan Listening Task

• Agree or disagree (with explanation)

• Create Venn diagrams

• List characteristics, qualities, or features

• Strip story (sequencing game)

• Match speech to visuals

• Compare and contrast to another speech or text

• Give advice

• Compare and contrast to your own experience

• Create your own version of the missing section

• Plan a solution to the problem

• Share reactions

• Create a visual

• Reenact your own version

c. Easy to plan Post Listening Activity

• Guess the meaning of unknown vocabulary

• Analyze the speaker’s intentions

• List the number of people involved and their function in the script

• Analyze the success of communication in the script

• Brainstorm alternative ways of expression

TEACHING OF SPEAKING

a. What make speaking difficult?

• Clustering

• Redundancy

• Reduced forms

• Performance variables

• Colloquial language

• Rate of delivery

• Stress, rhythm & intonation

• Interaction

b. Tips for Teaching Speaking

• Use a range of techniques

• Capitalize on intrinsic motivation

• Use authentic language in meaningful contexts

• Give feedback and be careful with corrections

• Teach it in conjunction with listening

• Allow students to initiate communication

• Encourage speaking strategies

c. Principles of Teaching Speaking to

- beginners :

• Provide something for the learners to talk about

• Create opportunities for students to interact by using groupwork or pairwork

• Manipulate physical arrangements to promote speaking practice

- intermediate / advanced:

• Plan speaking tasks that involve negotiation for meaning

• Design both transactional and interpersonal speaking activities

• Personalize the speaking activities whenever possible

d. Some examples of Tasks and Materials:

Conversations, guided conversations & interviews

Information gap & jigsaw activities

Scripted dialogues, drama, & role-play

Logic puzzles

Picture-based activities

Physical actions in speaking lessons

Extemporaneous speaking

e. Communicative Tasks

Motivation is to achieve some outcome using the language

Activity takes place in real time

Achieving the outcome requires participants to interact

No restriction on language used

Some examples of communicative tasks are :

• Information gaps

• Jigsaw activities

• Info gap race

• Surveys

• Guessing games

References

Brown, G., & Yule, G. (1983). Teaching the spoken language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Brown, H.D. (1994). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents.

Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching english as a second or foreign language (2nd ed.) (pp. 81-106). Boston: Heinle and Heinle.

Nunan, D., & Miller, L. (Eds.). (1995). New Ways in Teaching Listening. Alexandria, VA:

Penny Ur. (1996) Teaching Listening Comprehension. Cambridge University Press.

Further Readings

Websites

Click on the links below for more information:

Teaching of Speaking :

http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/speaking/developspeak.htm

Teaching of Listening: http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/listening/liindex.htm

Teaching of Listening and Speaking :

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk

http://skstt.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/02-year-1-guide-book.pdf