Chapter IV The receptive macro skills - listening

Learning Outcomes

At the end of the weeks, the pre-service teachers (PST) should be able to:
a. select differentiated learning tasks in teaching listening to suit
learners` gender, needs, strengths, interests, and experiences;
b. explain how to provide timely, accurate, and constructive feedback to
improve learner performance in different tasks in listening through
simulations; and
c. craft learning plan according to the English curricula that is developed
from research-based knowledge and principles of listening and the
theoretical bases, principles, methods, and strategies in teaching these
components.

Nature of listening
Listening is the cognitive process whereby we attach meanings to aural
signals. It is the active intellectual process of decoding, interpreting,
understanding and evaluating messages. It is a mode of communication just
as important as the other modes like speaking, reading, and writing. It is sad
to note, however, that this mode has been observed to be the most neglected
area in teaching English towards communicative competence. This is
lamentable considering that we spend most of our waking hours
communicating, the greatest portion of which is spent in listening. In today’s
world, which is fast turning into a global village and where communication is
highly developed, the demand to sharpen our listening power is high.
Purposes of listening
Interactional purposes Transactional purposes
1. The focus is on harmonious 1. The focus is on conveying and
communication in social contexts. language use is message oriented.
2. Interactional uses of language 2. Transactional uses of language
typically include greetings and small include listening to lectures, taking
talk that center on noncontroversial notes, and practicing dictations and
topics that elicit agreement among cloze exercises that require
the participants. understanding of details.
3. Interactional uses of language 3. Transactional language
do not require careful attention to is explicit, clear, and coherent in
details and facts. order for the listener to comprehend
the meaning of the message.
Listening comprehension and sub-skills in listening
Skills Description
Listening for details Listening for specific information (key words and
numbers)
Listening for gist Listening for main ideas or for the big picture; called
global listening as the listener listens to get a
general idea; most frequently employed skill
Drawing inferences Ability to fill in gaps in the input; listening between
the lines
Listening selectively To listen only to specific parts of the input which
depends on the purpose of listening; helps listeners
to listen in a more relaxed manner; may lead to
ineffective understanding if the listener`s purpose is
colored with prejudice and bias
Making prediction The ability to anticipate before and during listening
what one is going to hear; clues for making
predictions include context, co-texts and visual
input; listeners tend to listen more purposefully and
attentively when they make predictions because
they want to find out if they have predicted correctly

Listening techniques and strategies

Cognitive strategies: Mental activities related to comprehending and storing
input in working memory or long-term memory for later retrieval
1. Inferencing (filling in missing information)
 use contextual clues
 use information from familiar content words
 draw on knowledge of the world
 apply knowledge about the target language
 use visual clues
2. Elaboration (embellishing an initial interpretation)
 draw on knowledge of the world
 draw on knowledge about the target language
3. Prediction (anticipating the contents of a text)
 anticipate global contents (global)
 anticipate details while listening (local)
4. Contextualization (relating new information to a wider context)
 place input in a meaningful context (social, linguistic)
 find related information on hearing a key word
 relate one part of a text to another
5. Visualization (forming a mental picture of what is heard)
 imagine scenes, events, objects, etc. (being described)
 mentally display the shape (spelling) of words
6. Reconstruction (using words heard to create meaning)
 reconstruct meaning from words heard
 reconstruct meaning from notes taken
Metacognitive strategies: Those conscious or unconscious mental activities
that perform an executive function in the management of cognitive strategies
1. Pre-listening preparation (preparing mentally for a listening task)
 preview contents
 rehearse sounds of potential content words
2. Selective attention (noticing specific aspects of input)
 listen to words in groups
 listen for gist
 listen for familiar content words
 notice how information is structured (e.g. discourse markers)
 pay attention to repetition
 notice intonation features (fall and rise tones)
 listen to specific parts of the input
 pay attention to visuals and body language
3. Directed attention (avoiding distractions)
 concentrate hard
 continue to listen in spite of difficulty
4. Comprehension monitoring (checking/confirming understanding while
listening)
 confirm that comprehension has taken place
 identify words or ideas that are not understood
 check current interpretation with context of the message
 check current interpretation with prior knowledge
5. Real-time assessment of input (determining the value of specific parts of
the input)
 assess the importance of problematic parts that are heard
 determine the potential value of subsequent parts
6. Comprehension evaluation (checking interpretation for accuracy,
completeness, and acceptability after listening)
 check interpretation against some external sources
 check interpretation by drawing prior knowledge
 match interpretation with the context of the message
Social affective strategies: “activities consciously chosen by learners for the
purpose of regulating their own language learning (Griffiths, 2010)
1. Cooperation (asking the speaker for help)
 ask for repetition
 ask for explanation/clarification
 use paraphrase to verify interpretation
2. Confidence building (encouraging oneself)
 tell oneself to relax
 use positive self-talk
Approaches in teaching listening

Top-down process Bottom-up process

Meaning It refers to the It refers to a process by which sounds
applicationof background are used to build up increasingly larger
knowledge to facilitate units of information, such as words,
comprehension. phrases, clauses and sentences before
the aural input is understood.
Skills Listening for the main Listening for specific details;
idea; predicting; drawing recognizing cognates and word-or der
interferences; patterns
summarizing

Exercises *Use key words to *Identify which modal verbs occurred

construct schema of a in a spoken text
discourse *Recognize the order of words that
*Infer the setting for a text occurred in an utterance
*Infer causes or effects *Distinguish the positive and the
*Anticipate questions negative statements
related to the topic or *Recognize the time reference of an
situation utterance

Tasks *Students read news

headlines, guessed what
happened, then listen to
the news items and
compare.
*Student listen to a part
of a story, complete the *Students listen to positive and
rest of it, then listen and negative statements and choose an
compare endings. appropriate form of agreement
*Students generate a set
of questions they expect
to hear about a topic and
listen to see if they are
answered.

Lesson design in teaching writing

A Semi-detailed Lesson Plan in English (Listening)

I. Objectives
By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:
a. comprehend the main idea and specific information of the listening
passage,
b. present ten new words/phrases in context, and
c. familiarize themselves of the social activity of dating in America.

II. Subject Matter

Topic: A pleasant evening

III. Materials
Handouts, images

IV. Procedure
A. Pre-listening
The teacher passes around the following handouts and reads from each
one in turn. The teacher may also project (or write) the content of each
page on a screen or the board.

1. Vocabulary—ten new words

2. Word Matching—contractions
3. Teaching/building Schemata
 Then the teacher asks the students to look at the page of
images and describe what they see. What time period are
they from? Are some contemporary, while others represent a
time in the past?
 The teacher reads aloud the definition of “dating.”
4. Focus Questions (nine). The teacher reads the focus questions
aloud and instructs the students to listen for the answers while
he/she reads the passage. (The teacher can also project or write the
Focus Questions on the screen or board.)

B. Listening proper
The teacher reads the passage aloud at normal speed, twice.

C. Post-listening
a. Comprehension Questions (Check Understanding). The teacher asks
the class for their answers to the nine focus questions and writes
them on the board.
b. Discussion Questions. (Consolidation) The teacher breaks the class
up into groups of three or four and asks each group to discuss of the
following questions (8 to 10 minutes on each, or selected, question,
depending on time constraint):
1. Traditionally in America it has been the man who asks the
woman out on a date and who pays for any expenses, such as movie
tickets or dinner. Do you think that this has changed or is changing?
Who do you think should pay the costs when going out on a date?
2. In the story, the male character is a lawyer and the female
character is a secretary. Would you like to have either of these jobs?
Have traditional women’s roles and career choices in America
changed over the years? Do some women have higher paying jobs
than men?
V. Assignment
Ask the class to rewrite the dialog with the female character being the lawyer this
time and the male character as the office worker. What changes in the story would
they make? Ask them to try and complete the whole dialog modeled after the version
that they have heard, but they are free to make their own choices as to how the story
plays out.

Materials and resources in teaching listening

Public Announcements
One way to bring authentic listening activities into your classroom is to record
a listening text in a public place. This type of listening text will have audible
distractions and interference while still presenting identifiable information to
your students. Try recording an announcement on a bus, subway or plane.
Then prepare your students before listening by telling them the context and
ask them what they expect to hear. Play the recording for your students
multiple times, and then ask them to answer questions about what they
heard.
Weather Forecasts
Allow students to listen to a radio weather forecast. This will challenge them
to understand content without visual clues. Apply this information by
planning activities for the day or choosing what clothing to wear.
Songs
Present students with an incomplete set of lyrics to a popular song. Play the
song for the students challenging them to fill in the blanks of the missing
lyrics. You can play the song multiple times. This challenges students to
guess at missing information in what they hear. Of course, once their lyrics
are complete play the song again and give them the opportunity to sing along.
Radio Commercials
Radio Commercials can be used for a variety of activities. They are especially
useful if they are by local and nonprofessional radio personalities. These texts
will give students exposure to realistic pronunciation, intonation and speed.
You can play a selection of commercials for them and ask them to write down
particular information, or you can ask them to match various commercials
with pictures of the people who recorded them.
Conversations
Take your students into situations where many groups of people are talking at
the same time, a party or cafeteria for example. Ask your students to
“eavesdrop” on four conversations just enough to note the topic of
conversation. Ask students to comment on if they would like to join in each of
the conversations. What would they say? This will expose students to varieties
in style and also challenge them to guess at missing information in the
conversations

Sources

Kagaoan, M. A. C. (2017, November 4). Nature and Process of Listening.ppt -

Nature and Process of Listening Prepared by Ms Ma Anna Corina G
Kagaoan Instructor College of Arts and Sciences: Course Hero. Nature and
Process of Listening.ppt - Nature and Process of Listening .
https://www.coursehero.com/file/26310994/Nature-and-Process-of-Li
steningppt/.

Verner, S. (2011, June 18). Authentic Listening: What ESL Materials Lack and
How to Get It.
https://busyteacher.org/4945-authentic-listening-what-esl-materials-l
ack-and.html.