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Chapter 2

Chapter 2 . Listening for beginning level learners Helgesen , M. & Brown, S. (2007). Listening [w/CD ] . McGraw-Hill: New York. ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines. Summaries of all ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines

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Chapter 2

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  1. Chapter 2 Listening for beginning level learners Helgesen, M. & Brown, S. (2007). Listening [w/CD]. McGraw-Hill: New York.

  2. ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines • Summaries of all ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines • This book discusses listening for novice, intermediate, and advanced proficiency language learners. • This chapter focuses on novice (beginner) learners.

  3. ACTFL Beginner Guidelines • Novice-Low   Understanding is limited to occasional isolated words, such as cognates, borrowed words, and high-frequency social conventions. Essentially no ability to comprehend even short utterances. • Novice-Mid   Able to understand some short, learned utterances, particularly where context strongly supports understanding and speech is clearly audible. Comprehends some words and phrases from simple questions, statements, high-frequency commands and courtesy formulae about topics that refer to basic personal information or the immediate physical setting. The listener requires long pauses for assimilation and periodically requests repetition and/or a slower rate of speech. • Novice-High   Able to understand short, learned utterances and some sentence-length utterances, particularly where context strongly supports understanding and speech is clearly audible. Comprehends words and phrases from simple questions, statements, high-frequency commands, and courtesy formulae. May require repetition, rephrasing, and/or a slowed rate of speech for comprehension.

  4. Some Factors • Receptive vs. Productive skills • Focus of listening is on receptive skills • Topic and Schema • Knowledge of topic and context can make for better performance. • True vs. False Beginners • True Beginner: little exposure to/knowledge of the language • False Beginner: exposure to and knowledge of the language, but unable to utilize that knowledge. • Give the EFL context as an example. Lots of learning of vocabulary and grammar, but little ability to use that.

  5. Teaching, Not Testing • Comprehension approach is not good at assessing ability. (see p.28 “Action”) • Listening and answering questions doesn’t provide the variety of production that is needed to better assess performance. • Tasks are better at assessing ability. • “an activity which learners carry out using their available language resources and leading to a real outcome.” • Have learners produce something that cannot be done without using the language. • Listening tasks list on pages 158-161.

  6. Levels of Processing • Literal (lowest) • Students identify information directly stated. • This is what is required in the comprehension approach. • Reorganization • Students organize or order the information a different way than it was presented. • Inference • Students respond to information that is implied but not directly stated. • Evaluation • Students make judgments in light of the material. • Appreciation (highest) • Students give an emotional or image-based response. - Barrett’s taxonomy of levels of comprehension (1965)

  7. Principles for teaching listening to beginning learners • Be aware of the goal of your task • Prepare learners before the task; give preparation time; build schema • Increase fluency and accuracy • Use a variety of tasks • Variety is better for motivation, attention, and performance. • Learners need exposure to different types of tasks as they have to do in authentic experiences. • Variety of tasks on pages 158-161) • Be aware of the difference between spoken and written language • Idea units: short phrases that serve a communicative function. • Build on success

  8. Principles for teaching listening to beginning learners (2) • Be aware of the difference between spoken and written language • Idea units: short phrases that serve a communicative function. • Spoken language is • redundant, • not always fluent (many false starts), • more informal language/slang, • more personal, • more external references, • prosody (sound characteristics: stress, intonation, loudness, pitch, and duration of syllables)

  9. Principles for teaching listening to beginning learners (3) • Build on success • Provide the opportunity for students to succeed in small ways. • Provide multiple opportunities • Adjust the difficulty level of tasks • Design assessments that focus more on what students can do than what they can’t

  10. Scaffolding • Instructional scaffolding is the provision of sufficient support to promote learning when concepts and skills are being first introduced to students. (Wikipedia) • These supports may include the following: • Resources • A compelling task • Templates and guides • Guidance on the development of cognitive and social skills

  11. Helping with Difficult Tasks • Build schema through pre-listening activities to activate vocabulary, content, and context knowledge. • Micro-tasks: Brainstorming; Discussion on the topic; Readings • Use group work (pairs, groups, whole class) • Provide the script before the listening • Provide multiple opportunities for review/correction/feedback

  12. Useful Categories for Beginners • Pre-listening warm-up activities • Listening for specific information/literal comprehension • Listening for gist/reorganization • Inferencing • Listening and making evaluations • Appreciation

  13. Pre-listening Warm-up Activities • Activate schema and orientate the students for a learning activity • Provide balance. • Beginners require more pre-listening than more advanced learners. • Check examples (pp. 38-40) • Personalize it – use/design activities that provide multiple pathways for engagement.

  14. Listening for Specific Information/ Literal Comprehension • Lowest level of processing, but still important to work on. • With a single listening text, have students listen for different things in multiple plays. • Can have a focus on decoding as well as meaning-building.

  15. Listening for Gist/Reorganization • Listening for general meaning. • Approaches • Summarize • Synthesize • Organize • Reorganize

  16. Inferencing • Make a guess using available understandings and experiences. • Higher-order process • Important for beginning level learners to do this. • Have students think about language that gives them clues. • Can be used for extending activities that don’t already include inferencing

  17. Listening and Making Evaluations • Students evaluate what they hear • Apply what they hear to their personal understandings of the world • Is the story true/false, right/wrong, appropriate/inappropriate?

  18. Appreciation • Simply, “Did you like it”? • Requires understanding • This is often destroyed when asking students to do lower-process activities.

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