Differentiation in Listening Tasks

1. Differentiation in Listening Tasks June 2013

2. The problem with listening…. • It is a skill which needs practice, not just testing • Many pupils will be de-motivated by their lack of success • Many will have learnt nothing to help them improve their performance next time • Pupils find the lack of context difficult, and the lack of visual clues. • What difficulties do YOUR classes have?

3. Questions to ask when we plan for listening in class: • What is the aim of the task? • To test pupils? • To develop pupils’ confidence in listening? • To get pupils to apply recently learned language in a new context? • To use a listening as a source of language for manipulation? • To develop other language skills such as inference?

4. How can we differentiate? • By task • By outcome • By response • How do YOU differentiate? • Sometimes we DO need to test pupils, but the work we do with them in class will better prepare them for summative assessments.

5. How can we build pupils’ confidence with listening? • Little and Often • Variety of responses • Prepare pupils for listening activities • Varied listening resources • Focus on the key features of your language

6. VARIETY OF RESPONSES – to build pupils’ confidence in listening • Predict answers. • Put your hand up when you hear… • True/false • Multiple choice • Underline correct answer • Pre – key language • Put the pictures in order

7. Listening – whole class activities to build pupils’ confidence • In pairs • Answers first • Ordering card • ‘Running listening comprehension’ • Visual listening (YouTube, BBC online clips, adverts)Songs • Listening  speakingProduce own listening assessment • All speaking (when spontaneous) is listening • Pre-teach key language • Repeat listening tasks

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10. Using real adverts • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZKZSeWx-EY • Le petit garçon : • C’est Maurice qui a _______ la mousse. • Répète Coco ! C’est Maurice qui a ______ la mousse ! • C’est _________ Coco ! Répète ! C’est Maurice qui a _______ la mousse. • La voix  de femme: • Si la mousse au ________ de Nestlé est si ________, c’est parce qu’elle est préparée avec ___ chocolat Nestlé. • Le petit garçon : • Vas y! Répète ! • Coco : • Vas y! Répèèèèèète !! • Le petit garçon : • Je te remercie Coco… • La voix de femme : • La mousse __ Nestlé… la _____ mousse au chocolat Nestlé !

11. C’est Maurice qui a mangé la mousse • Questions sur la publicité. • Qui a mangé toutes les mousses au chocolat ? • Comment est la mousse au chocolat ? • Coco est quelle sorte d’animal ? • Maurice est un a) un poisson rouge b) un chat c)un lapin ? • Vrai ou faux ? Le petit garçon veut que sa mère pense que Maurice avait mangé toutes les mousses ? • Discussion • Aimes-tu les mousses au chocolat ? • Quels autres parfums de mousse aimes-tu ? • Les mousses sont bonnes pour la santé ? • Quand manges-tu les mousses ? • Les mousses sont croquantes ?

12. VARIETY OF RESPONSES – to build pupils’ confidence in listening • Active learning – when you hear the word, do an action • Tasks which involve listening with a purpose e.g. Give a focus for the task- e.g. listen out for certain information (who, what, when, where, why). • Visuals are really helpful to support listening work - filling in blanks on a plan, a map, following directions, matching pictures with a statement. • Listening for real information - treasure hunt - hide an object • Use the transcript before listening to concentrate on matching the sounds pupils hear with what they can actually see • Use the transcript after a listening comprehension exercise. • Give pupils recordings via Fronter to practise at home - eliminate the element ofstress.  • Isolate irrelevant elements - e.g. give the name of peoplespeaking – it is not essentially part of the learning-process,unless you are teaching the alphabet and spelling.

13. VARIED LISTENING RESOURCES • Misheard lyrics – pupils rewrite the original lyric • Take your teeth out tickle my toes • Last night I dreamt of some bagels • Don’t cry for me I’m the cleaner • Conversations with the class, drama • Music videos and adverts • Clips of UK/US shows in the TL. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXg93bGW0PY - 16 et enceinte • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbDI6uAEeNg - Ugly Betty in Italiano

14. THE PURPOSE OF LISTENING ACTIVITIES • Make up your own exercises to practise the skills required – for Higher pupils the ability to draw conclusions from indicators such as conjunctions (mais, avant, après), use of tenses, expressions of agreement or disagreement • Don’t rely on the recordings provided by the course-book, which are often there to test the content. Think about how you can use them in different ways.

15. Differentiated responses to one listening activity • Some possible tasks in order of difficulty: • Listen to the recording. • a. Where do you think it takes place? • b. What could you say about the people speaking?
 • Look at the list of words below. Listen carefully to the recording and put a tick next to a word every time you think you hear it. • Look at the list of statements below, then listen to the recording and tick the ones that are true. • Listen to the recording and answer the questions below: • Here is a transcript of a recording you are about to hear, with words omitted. Fill in the gaps. (In preparation, you could either omit from the transcript the word you want the learners to recognise, or miss out every 5th/15th/19th word according to levels. You could give them the first couple of letters of the word, or list the words underneath the passage out of order and put in some words which do not occur at all.) • Listen to the recording and write a summary (in the taught language).

16. Differentiating listening activities

17. How do you assess listening? • Targets for improvement • Which techniques help them • They keep a log of their results • Key words which they are going to revise for the next time. • Using words from the listening in their writing • Using transcript from listening for another activity in class e.g. speaking • Pupils make a vocab list for revision from the listening activity •  Pupils keep a log of completion of different kinds of listening activities, in preparation for listening assessments • Listening for gist • Listening for detail • Word families in advance • Negatives