Developing & assessing listening skills in a competency-based curriculum

1. Developing & assessing listening skills in a competency-based curriculum

2. Language learning depends on listening. When our students listen to a conversation in English, they try to understand every word. WE all know that

3. How much do learners retain from the listening input?

4. Whyislisteninganimportantskilltodevelop in our students’language learning?

5. Because language learning needs : • To obtain information • To understand • For enjoyment • To learn • To communicate

6. Listening is the language modality^ that is used most frequently but… …why is listening in English so hard?

7. Because… • Students have to process the messages as they come, cope with the speaker’s choice of vocabulary, structure, and rate of delivery. • The complexity of the listening process is magnified in second language context where the listener also has an incomplete control of the language.

8. It is essential for language teachers to help their students become effective active listeners. ”Developing listening” How can we do so? • By modeling listening strategies. • By providing active listening practice.

9. What are listening strategies? • Are techniques or activities that contribute directly to the comprehension and recall of listening input. • Can be classified by how the listener processes the input. These are: Top down, Bottom up and Metacognitive

10. Top - Down Listening Strategies • Refers to the use of background knowledge in understanding the meaning of the message. • Background knowledge • Consists of context, the situation and topic, and co-text(whatcame before and after).

12. Top - Down Listening Strategies • are listener based; the listener taps into background knowledge of the topic, the situation or context, the type of text, and the language. This background knowledge activates a set of expectations that help the listener to interpret what is heard and anticipate what will come next. • Top-down strategies include: • listening for the main idea • Predicting • Drawing inferences • summarizing

13. Top - Down Listening Strategies Top down strategy focuses on content. Students can predict the content of listening activity beforehand and use various materials such as pictures and key words to understand the meaning. The materials that can be used in top-down are prevalent. Teachers can use authentic information. When students listen to real-life story, it can increase their interest and make them think about main idea more seriously.

14. Top-Down Listening Activities • Reading information about a topic then listening to find whether or not the same points are mentioned. • Listening to conversation and identify where they take place • putting a series of pictures or sequence of events in order. • Inferring the relationship between the people involved.

15. Bottom – up Listening Strategies • They are text based. The listener relies on the language in the message (sounds, words, and grammar that creates meaning) • Bottom-up strategies include: • listening for specific details • Recognizing cognates • Recognizing word-order patterns

16. Bottom up strategy is to know about details and segments. It concentrates on forms and structure.When we need deep concentration on details, we use this activity. Bottom – up Listening Strategies Dictation and listening tests are included in this. In class, ‘fill in the blank/s’ activity can increase students’ awareness of forms. Bottom-up strategy doesn’t mean that it excludes all authentic things. For example, weather forecast, phone number and advertisement having implied meaning need special focus on details to understand. Besides, tongue twists can be a good exercise for students to notice subtle difference in various English forms and pronunciation.

17. Tongue Twister How much dew does a dewdrop drop If dewdrops do drop dew? They do drop, they do As do dewdrops drop If dewdrops do drop dew. Can you imagine an imaginary menagerie managerimagining managing an imaginary menagerie?

18. Successful listening Successful listening depends on the ability to combine top-down and bottom-up processing. Activities which work separately should help students to combine top-down and bottom-up processes to become more effective listeners in real-life or longer classroom listening.

19. Tips for Helping our Students Become Active Listeners • Activate your students’ prior knowledge before any listening activity in order to predict or anticipate content. • Assess your students' background knowledge on the topic and linguistic content of the text.

20. Tips for Helping our Students Become Active Listeners • If students are to complete a written task during or immediately after listening, allow them to read through it before listening. • Use questions to focus students' attention on the elements of the text crucial to comprehension of the whole.

21. Use predicting to encourage students to monitor their comprehension as they listen • Remind students to review what they are hearing to see if it makes sense in the context of their prior knowledge and what they already know of the topic or events of the passage. • Use visual aids such as maps, diagrams, pictures, or the images on the video to help contextualize the input and provide clues to meaning.

22. Tips for Helping our Students Become Active Listeners: 1. Get to know students and let them get to know you. • learn their names, hobbies, and interests and let them know that I am a fallible person “ Real one”. 2. Talk less:  • Give the Ss the opportunity to talk and take part in discussion encouraging group as well as pair work.

23. 3. Hold them accountable for listening: • If you truly want your students to listen, you’ll have to give them good reasons to do so.  • ”listening based activity”

24. Listening assessment: Besides the listening based activities applied in all listening stages , Pre- listening: brainstorming, …… While listening: filling the gaps, answer some questions ,……. Post listening: summarize ,………. I have already gathered some other activities to assess Ss’ listening as a continuous process.

25. Stop game Students are taught explicitly some vocabulary, then they listen to a short text including the target vocabulary, and they have to shout out 'STOP' every time they hear the target words or sounds.

26. The telephone game participants should stand in a circle. One person begins the game by whispering a sentence to the person after them. This sentence should be prepared beforehand, by someone moderating the game, but it should only be known to the person starting the game. The person who received the messages should then whisper it to the person after them, and so on. By the time it gets to the final person in the group, they should say the message aloud. The first person will read the sentence they were given, and participants can note how much the two have changed. It’s very unlikely, especially in large groups, that the message has not been altered at least a little bit.

27. Selective Listening one moderator should compose a list of objects all similar in theme. For example: turkey, lettuce, tomato, mustard, cheese, etc. These are all sandwich components, and most people will recognize this. The list should be relatively long, maybe 15 to 20 words, and have some repeated words. For example: turkey, lettuce, tomato, mustard, cheese, ham, lettuce, pickles, onion, olives, lettuce… The moderator should read this list to the group, and then allot them 30 seconds to write down as many words as they can remember.

28. Answering machine 1- Get Ss to listen to some answering machine recordings 2. Have students listen as many times as necessary without writing anything. 3. Ask students to think of an appropriate response to the recorded message. 4. Have students write the responses on their worksheet. 5. Play the message again and ask students to respond appropriately out loud, either individually or in groups. 6. Play the message again and ask students to respond appropriately without looking at the worksheet. 7. Ask students to write and record their own answer: lg machine messages. (Talk about what basic information is expected and what is culturally appropriate.)

29. What’s your guess?  Show eye-catching images, maps, or diagrams to help students guess the theme(s) of the listening text. Students can write pre-listening comprehension questions, then listen to see if their questions are answered.

30. Brainstorming & Word webs:  Give students the topic of the listening and elicit words from them. With students’ help draw semantic webs on the board with the words, focusing on the relationships between the words, the topic, and sub-topics that might come up in the listening.

31. Graphic organizers:  Give students a blank graphic organizer which summarizes the information in the text under headings. Students listen and fill-in key words that they hear in the correct places.

32. Picture dictation Provide each student with a blank sheet of unlined paper and instruct the class to listen carefully.  Read out a short description of a visual example to follow.” We can make our own utilizing vocabulary from our most recent lessons”.  The students may make notes as you read.  Then instruct them to draw a picture depicting the scene you’ve just described.  When they are finished, have some students explain what they have drawn to the class.

33. 3. Follow the directions Provide students with a street map, either a real one or something tailored to the activity and their level. You can even go crazy and create a big one for the classroom floor! Split the students into teams, and have one person go at a time. Read instructions for the student to follow, such as “go straight two blocks.” To win a point, the student must successfully navigate the map until they find the right store, the lost friend or the buried treasure.

34. Class memory quiz Ask one student at a time to go to the front of the class. Ask the rest of the class to ask them any questions they like What is your favorite color/food/band? What did you have for lunch? Which country would you most like to visit? Try to make a note of some of the answers. When all of the students (or half of the students, if you have a large group) have been interviewed, explain that you are going to hold a quiz about the class. Get the students into small teams and ask them to put their hand up if they know the answer to a question, e.g.Which student likes Oasis? What is Marie's favorite food? Which two students would like to be famous actors?

35. Did you read what I read ? Put your Ss in a group of two and give each person a list of complex sentences that includes grammar and vocabulary you are currently studying as well as some minimal pairs . You should have two different versions of the same sentences .Each version with different words replaced by blanks. Each person in the pair gets one gets one of the two sheets .and Ss must read their sentences to each other. Ss will then have to listen closely to determine which word complete the blanks on their page and correctly complete their sentences.

36. Unmusical Chairs Arrange chairs as if to play musical chairs .Asking Ss a question.eg “ where did babies use to sleep in the past? Ss walk around I play the audio and the student/s who hear the answer to the question sit/s down. Pause the audio. Those who are seated answer the question, and if it’s correct they will remain seated. If several students sit down at the same time, that’s fine, but ask them to whisper the answer in your ear to make sure they all heard the answer from the audio.

37. Unmusical Chairs Ask another question (whose answer will come up next in the audio). The students who were left standing now walk around the chairs till they hear the answer. Go on asking questions and giving students the opportunity to secure a seat. The last student left standing, like the usual game of musical chairs is left out of the next round. A chair is removed from the circle and so it continues until you have one chair and two students competing to answer the final question.

38. Here are some beneficial links for listening games . http://www.agendaweb.org/listening/english_audio_activities-3.html

39. THANK YOU