Unit 9 Teaching Listening

1. 龙岩学院外国语学院 省级精品课程－《英语教学法》 English Language Teaching Unit 9 Teaching Listening

2. 龙岩学院外国语学院 省级精品课程－《英语教学法》 Aims of the unit 1. Why is listening so difficult for students? 2. What do we listen to in everyday life? 3. What are the characteristics of the listening process? 4. What are the principles of teaching listening? 5. What are the common activities in teaching listening?

3. 龙岩学院外国语学院 省级精品课程－《英语教学法》 I The importance of teaching listening 1. Listening is one of the four basic skills of alanguage. In Foreign language learning, both listening and reading are receptive skills, but listening can be more difficult than reading.

4. 龙岩学院外国语学院 省级精品课程－《英语教学法》 I The importance of teaching listening • 2.Listening is becoming more and more necessary to understand spoken English in many situations: • face-to-face conversations • telephone calls • business meetings • Lectures • Speeches • television

5. 龙岩学院外国语学院 省级精品课程－《英语教学法》 I The importance of teaching listening 3. Why does listening seem so difficult for Chinese students? • Different speakers produce the same sounds in different ways. ( dialects and accents, stresses, rhythms, intonations, mispronunciations) • The speed of the input of spoken material can not be controlled; • Spoken material is often heard only once. And the listener cannot pause the speaker to work out the meaning. • Background noise • Memory and recurrence

6. 龙岩学院外国语学院 省级精品课程－《英语教学法》 II. The problems in listening of the Chinese students 1. Listening is often neglected in language teaching. 1) Lack of teaching materials; equipment; training in how to use the equipment; real-life situations where language learners need to understand spoken English; 2) Listening is not included on many important tests; 3) Lessons tend to test rather than to train students’ listening skills.

7. 龙岩学院外国语学院 省级精品课程－《英语教学法》 II. The problems in listening of the Chinese students 2.Linguistic problems 1) Phonetics problems 2) Lexical problems 3) Grammar problems

8. 龙岩学院外国语学院 省级精品课程－《英语教学法》 II. The problems in listening of the Chinese students 3. Cultural problems 1) Frank---mild and runabout/tactful 2) Thinking style 3) Local conditions and customs 4. Psychological problems 1) Fear of difficulties 2) Lack of confidence 3) Care about faces 4) No need of listening skills

9. Ⅲ. Characteristics of the listening process 1. What do we listen to in everyday life? Task 2:How many situations can you think of where you listen to other people in our native language? loudspeaker announcements, telephone conversations, radio news, interview, lesson, lecture, story-telling, shopping conversation, gossip, instructions, meetings, watching television, negotiations, watching movies, theatre show…

10. 龙岩学院外国语学院 省级精品课程－《英语教学法》 Ⅲ. Characteristics of the listening process 1. What do we listen to in everyday life? Task 3: Situations where Chinese people may need to listen to English : (P138)

11. 龙岩学院外国语学院 省级精品课程－《英语教学法》 Ⅲ. Characteristics of the listening process The criteria of listening situations • Formal or informal? • Rehearsed or non-rehearsed? • Can the listener interact with the speaker or not?

12. 3. In real life listening has the following characteristics ( Ur, 1996): 龙岩学院外国语学院 省级精品课程－《英语教学法》 Ⅲ. Characteristics of the listening process 1) Spontaneity We often listen to people speaking spontaneously and informally without rehearsing what they are going to say ahead of time. 2) Context The context of listening is usually known in real life. The situation usually helps us predict what we are going to hear.

13. 3) Visual Clue While listening, the speakers’ facial expressions, gestures and other body language will provide us visual clues which can help us understand and predict what we hear. 龙岩学院外国语学院 省级精品课程－《英语教学法》 Ⅲ. Characteristics of the listening process 4) Listener’s response Most of the listening allows the listener to responds the speaker, whether they understand or not. 5) Speaker’sadjustment The speaker can adjust the way of speaking according to the listener’s reactions.

14. 龙岩学院外国语学院 省级精品课程－《英语教学法》 Ⅳ. Principles for teaching listening 1. Two major purposes in listening: for social reasons to exchange information 2. Principles for teaching listening: 1) Focus on process 2) Combine listening with other skills 3) Focus on comprehending meaning 4) Grade difficult level appropriately

15. Ⅳ. Principles for teaching listening Task 5: For low intermediate class, what texts would you choose? In what order? • A videotape of a talk by a native speaker about the school life of middle school students in the United States. • A live talk by a competent English-speaking Chinese psychologist about effective study habits. • An audiotape of an interview with a native English speaker talking about her experiences living in china. • An audiotape of the news from CRI (China Radio International) 2.1.3.4

16. 龙岩学院外国语学院 省级精品课程－《英语教学法》 Ⅳ. Principles for teaching listening Principles for selecting and using listening activities: • Oxford summarizes 12 principles for selecting and using L2 listening activities.( P141) • Note: Doing listening tests instead of teaching some listening skill has two problems: • Students don’t have opportunities to develop listening skills with other skills. • Listening comprehension questions only test the students comprehension but not train them how to listen.

17. 龙岩学院外国语学院 省级精品课程－《英语教学法》 Ⅴ. Common activities in teaching listening 1. Teaching models Bottom-up model: In the bottom-up model, listening comprehension is believed to start with sound and meaning recognitions. In other words, “we use information in the speech itself to try to comprehend the meaning”.

18. 龙岩学院外国语学院 省级精品课程－《英语教学法》 Ⅴ. Common activities in teaching listening 1. Teaching models Top-down model: In this model, listening for gist and making use of the contextual clues and background knowledge to construct meaning are emphasized. In other words, listening comprehension involves knowledge that a listener brings to a text, sometimes called “inside the head” information.

19. 龙岩学院外国语学院 省级精品课程－《英语教学法》 Ⅴ. Common activities in teaching listening • 2. Three teaching stages • Pre-listening: • Help students prepare to listen; • While-listening: • Guide and help students to comprehend the text. • Post-listening • help them to integrate what they learned from the text into existing knowledge

20. 龙岩学院外国语学院 省级精品课程－《英语教学法》 Ⅴ. Common activities in teaching listening • Pre-listening: • Look at some pictures before listening to the passage. • Read the listening comprehension questions before listening. • Set the scene for the students before listening. • Listen for the gist of the passage. • Listen for specific information.

21. 龙岩学院外国语学院 省级精品课程－《英语教学法》 Ⅴ. Common activities in teaching listening • While-listening: • Listen and tick: List some objects. Then ask students to listen and tick. • Listen and sequence: Listen and number; listen and match • Listen and act: “Simon says…”, listen and point. • Listen and draw: listen and color. • Listen and fill • Listen and find out • Listen and guess

22. 龙岩学院外国语学院 省级精品课程－《英语教学法》 Ⅴ. Common activities in teaching listening • Post-listening • True of false • Multiple choice questions • Answering questions • Note-taking and gap-filling • Complete the dialogue • …

23. 龙岩学院外国语学院 省级精品课程－《英语教学法》 Ⅵ. Notes in teaching listening • Let students listen to authentic English: songs, rhymes, dialogues, short passages with normal speed and natural pronunciation and intonation • Let students be active in listening. • Always give students a purpose for listening

24. 龙岩学院外国语学院 省级精品课程－《英语教学法》 Conclusion We have discussed the followings: 1. The importance of listening; 2. The nature of listening, both in real language use and in language classroom; 3. The difficulties that students experience in developing listening skills. 4. A variety of activities in teaching listening.

25. The end of Unit 9 Thank you ! Good bye !