Teaching Listening & Speaking

1. Teaching Listening & Speaking Latricia Trites, Ph.D. Academic Advisor Fulbright Yilan Project 2008-2009

2. Key Questions about Listening • What are listeners doing when they listen? • What factors affect good listening? • What are characteristics of “real life” listening? • What are the many things listeners listen for? • What are some principles for designing listening techniques? • How can listening techniques be interactive? • What are some common techniques for teaching listening?

3. What makes listening difficult? • Clustering • Redundancy • Reduced forms • Performance variables • Colloquial language • Rate of delivery • Stress, rhythm, and intonation • Interaction

4. What types of listening skills are developed? • Microskills • Macroskills (see handout)

5. What kinds of listening skills are taught? • Reactive (listen and repeat) • Intensive (listen on a focused sound) • Responsive (listen and respond – briefly) • Selective (listen for particular items in a longer passage) • Extensive (listen for interactive/responsive purposes) • Interactive (listen to discuss, respond, debate)

6. Principles for teaching listening • Integrate listening into the course • Appeal to students’ personal goals • Use authentic language and contexts • Consider how students will respond • Teach listening strategies • Include both bottom-up AND top-down listening

7. Common listening strategies • Looking for key words • Looking for nonverbal cues to meaning • Predicting a speaker’s purpose by the context • Activating background knowledge • Guessing at meanings • Seeking clarification • Listening for the gist • Developing test-taking strategies for listening

8. Break-out Activity • With a partner/group, look at the strategies given on the handout to you. Briefly plan how you might teach these strategies to students. • Report back to the whole group on at least two of the activities.

9. Current issues in teaching oral skills • Conversational discourse • Teaching pronunciation • Accuracy and fluency • Affective factors • Interaction effect • Questions about intelligibility • Questions about what is “correct” speech

10. What makes speaking difficult? The same things that make listening difficult: • Clustering • Redundancy • Reduced forms • Performance variables • Colloquial language • Rate of delivery • Stress, rhythm, and intonation • Interaction

11. Types of classroom performance • Imitative (this should be limited) – repetition drill • Intensive – practice a grammatical/phonological feature • Responsive – to respond to a question • Transactional (dialogue) – to convey information • Interpersonal (dialogue) – to interact socially • Extensive – monologue (intermediate/advanced)

12. Do drills have a place? • Yes, BUT….

13. Guidelines for Drills • Keep them short • Keep them simple • Keep them snappy • Ensure that students know WHY they are doing the drill • Limit the drill to phonological/grammatical points • Ensure that they lead to a communicative goal • DON’T OVERUSE THEM

14. Principles for Teaching Speaking • Focus on fluency and accuracy (depending on objective) • Use intrinsically motivating techniques • Use authentic language in meaningful contexts • Provide appropriate feedback and correction • Optimize the natural link between listening and speaking (and other skills) • Give students the opportunity to initiate oral communication. • Develop speaking strategies.

15. Sample activities for teaching conversation • See handouts • Interviews • Guessing games • Jigsaw tasks • Ranking exercises • Discussions • Values clarification • Problem-solving activities • Role plays • Simulations

16. Should we teach pronunciation? • According to Wong (1987), “sounds are less crucial for understanding than the way they are organized” (as cited in Brown, 2008, p. 339). • Native speakers rely more on stress and intonation than accurate articulation of a particular sound.

17. Factors that affect pronunciation • Native language • Age • Exposure • Innate phonetic ability • Identity and language ego • Motivation/concern for good pronunciation

18. When and how should I correct errors? • Global and local errors • Performance slip or competence error

19. Common speaking strategies • Asking for clarification (what?) • Asking someone to repeat something • Using fillers • Using conversation maintenance cues (uh-huh, right, yeah, okay, hm) • Getting someone’s attention • Using paraphrases for structures one can’t produce • Appealing for assistance from the interlocutor • Using formulaic expressions • Using mime and nonverbal expressions

20. Break-out Activity

21. References • Brown, H.D. (2007). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy (3rd ed). White Plains, NY: Pearson Education. • Richard-Amato, P.A. (2003). Making it happen: From interactive to participatory language teaching theory and practice (3rd ed.). White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.