Authentic listening: stepping from bottom-up decoding to understanding

Providing the students with visual support1. Mark features of connected speech in the following expressions. You could:

cross out letters (example: went); write phonemic transcription of a diphthong and cross out the missing sound (example: I /aɪ/) ; link words (example: went_on).

Also, cross sounds out that tend to disappear on the phonemic chart

1 went_on_and_on_and_on 2 about how3 I couldn't believe4 I had /aɪ/5 at the time6 I don’t do it7 most8 a lot of 9 you're going to 10 you can11 do what?12 don’t just13 I was like14 who he was

2. Organise boardwork. Group words/expressions exhibiting similar features of connected speech together:

Boardwork-t/-d/-k missingwent_on_and_on_and_on

h- missingI had

vowel missingabout howI /aɪ/

chunk at_the time

O l y a S e r g e e v a o l y a e l t @ g m a i l . c o m @ o l y a e l t e l t g e e k . w o r d p r e s s . c o m

Procedure outline

Stage & aim Further helpBefore the lesson

choose a video / interview on Youtube that has built-in subtitles; alternatively, use Aegisub (http://www.aegisub.org/ ) to work with a video file with subtitles that you have on your computer; choose two interesting extracts in the video (one to practice on, the second one to evaluate progress); print out a transcript of the first extract.

Useful links: https://eltgeek.wordpress.com/2014/10/26/youtube_videos_with_subtitles/

Warm-up Activities: predict content (e.g. based on a word cloud), discuss questions related to the topic.Teacher support: optionally, pre-teach key problematic vocabulary, proper names (cities, brands, etc).

Diagnose and get insight

Activities: transcribing. Teacher support: board all students’ answers & give them the correct answers; once the s/s know the answer, get them to listen again to analyze how tricky words are pronounced (identifying missing / changed sounds); provide visual support (build up a set of examples on the board, grouping them according to features; cross out sounds/link words; cross out sounds on the phonemic chart)

Common decoding difficulties: -t/d/k missing (like, and, but); vowels in functional words (can, was, should, there’s, just); vowels in diphthongs (about=>abut, I’m=>um); high frequency chunks (kind of, sort of, I was like); adverbs (probably=> probly; actually=> ashly)h missing (does he=> doesy; who he was =>who ee)

TrainingHelp s/s to get used to how individual words / chunks are pronounced

Activities: listening to decontextualized sentences containing difficult expressions identified during the previous stageTeacher support: encourage s/s to adjust their expectations;

Use browser search (CTR + f in most browsers) and the interactive transcript feature on Youtube to locate and play examples; alternatively, use Aegisub.

Consolidation Activities: predicting pronunciation (see task 6 in the worksheet); listening to short extracts (1-2 sentences) focusing on the meaning; shadowing (pronouncing silently) after the speaker;

O l y a S e r g e e v a o l y a e l t @ g m a i l . c o m @ o l y a e l t e l t g e e k . w o r d p r e s s . c o m

visualizing what you’ve heard and sharing the mental image of the sentence with a partner.

Metacognitive stage

Activities: ss reflect on what they did and found out in the lesson and how they can continue working at home.Teacher support: allow ss a few minutes of silent time / encourage them to make notes before they share in pairs

Homework Activities: ss work on the same interview/video at home, doing all activity types that they tried out in class;Teacher support: get students to keep a diary of their homework using google documents; let the students share their feeling about their individual work at the beginning of the next lesson.

O l y a S e r g e e v a o l y a e l t @ g m a i l . c o m @ o l y a e l t e l t g e e k . w o r d p r e s s . c o m