RECEPTIVE SKILLS: Listening & Reading

Basic Principles

  1. CONTENT
A.Interest
B.Usefulness
II.PURPOSE & EXPECTATIONS
A.Purpose
B.Expectations
III.RECEPTIVE SKILLS
A.Predictive Skills
B.Extracting Specific Information
  • Redundancy
  • Scanning
C.Getting the General Picture
D.Extracting Detailed Information

E.Recognising Function & Discourse Patterns

F. Deducing Meaning From Context

The Listener/Reader as Active Model Builders

  1. Systemic knowledge is our linguistic knowledge (knowledge of phonological, syntactic & semantic components of the lang system).
  1. Schematic knowledge which is non-linguistic info. It’s a mental structure made up of our knowledge, memory & experience which allows us to put what we learn into what we know.

Background knowledge schematic
-factual knowledge
-sociocultural
Procedural knowledge
-how language is used in discourse
Knowledge of situation
-physical setting, participants, etc.
Knowledge of co-text context
-what has been/will be said (written)
Knowledge of the language system
-semantic
-syntactic systemic
-phonological knowledge

Figure: Information sources in comprehension

Anderson, A. & Lynch, T., 1988, Listening, Oxford, Oxford University Press, page 13.

A Basic Methodological Model for the Teaching of Receptive Skills

5 Basic Stages:

  1. Lead-in
  2. Teacher directs comprehension task
  3. Students listen/read for task
  4. Teacher directs feedback
  5. Teacher text-related task
    TEACHING LISTENING
  1. BACKGROUND PROBLEMS

What causes the comprehension problems FL have & native speakers don’t?

LANGUAGE

2 assumptions:

  1. what FL learners are doing is learning a language and no more
  2. native speakers don’t experience comprehension problems compared to FL learners.
  1. LEARNER PROBLEMS
  1. trouble w/sounds

2. trying to understand every word.

3. can’t understand fast, natural native speech.

4. find it difficult to keep up

5. Get tired

  1. METHODOLOGICAL MODEL FOR LISTENING

STEP 1: PRE-LISTENING ACTIVITIES

  1. Vocabulary
  1. Background Information
  1. Interest
  1. Motivation
  1. Interest
  2. Purpose
  3. Specific Task

STEP 2: WHILE-LISTENING ACTIVITIES

TYPES OF WHILE READING ACTIVITIES

  1. Short Responses
  1. Obeying instructions
  2. Ticking off items
  3. True/False
  4. Detecting mistakes
  5. Cloze
  6. Guessing definitions
  7. Skimming & scanning
  1. Longer Responses
  1. Answering questions
  2. Note-taking
  3. Paraphrasing
  4. Summarising
  5. Long gap-filling
  1. Extended Responses
  1. Problem-solving
  2. Interpretation

STEP 3: POST-LISTENING ACTIVITIES

  1. THE EQUIPMENT

V. LISTENING WITH VIDEO

  1. Types of Video

Authentic / Made for Language Teaching
Bought, or recorded from television.
  • Feature films (fiction)
  • Cartoons
  • Documentaries
  • News/ Weather
  • Interviews
  • Game shows (often based on words)
  • Ads/ Commercials
/ Specifically designed for learning the target language. Produced by all the major publishers.
  • General courses
  • Listening practice
  • How to (eg presentations)

Strong Points
  • realistic
  • interesting
  • up-to-date
  • original
  • inexpensive
/ Strong Points
  • adapted to level
  • practise specific structure/ vocabulary
  • come w/ workbooks
  • cued w/ minutes/ seconds

Weak Points
  • mainly for higher levels
  • no prepared workbook/ exercises
/ Weak Points
  • rather unrealistic
  • can be boring
  • expensive
  • date easily

  1. Video-Specific Techniques:
  1. Silent viewing
  2. Freeze frame
  3. Sound only
  1. Methods of Exploiting Language

Grammar

- tenses:What’s he doing/ going to do/ just done?

- retell the sequence

- prepositions:Where’s his hand?

Vocabulary

- description (scenes/ people/ objects)

Listening

- general comprehension

- specific information (names, dates, numbers)

Speaking

- discussion (before/ during/ after: opinion, body language, acting, filming, etc.)

- prediction (guess the end/ create interest)

Writing

- summary