Running

head: ACADEMIC LISTENING AND SPEAKING

Academic Listening and Speaking for American University-Bound Students:
A Unit Development


Tony Abiera
Wheaton College
INTR 619
12/17/15

ACADEMIC LISTENING AND SPEAKING

2
Teaching Context

For this unit development, my teaching context is at an Intensive English Program (IEP)
at the University of Illinois: Champaign-Urbana. This IEP is an extension to the university itself.
Like many IEPs across the nation, this IEP serves at a gateway into the American highereducation system. At this IEP, many students hope to improve their English, so that they can
enter into an American University for either a bachelors, masters or PhD program. Because of
these learner goals, courses at this IEP are geared towards improving English language skills and
strategies, improving TOEFL scores, and helping with the students adjustment to American
culture socially and academically. At this IEP, there is a range of classrooms from level 100
(beginners) to level 600 (advanced).
For this semester, I am developing a unit for my 400 level class. These learners can be
categorized as intermediate high in their proficiency level. The course I teach is called
Academic Listening and Speaking. This semester, I have 16 students enrolled in this specific
class. Since the University of Illinois attracts international students from all over the World, I
have a very diverse group of students from China, Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil. Some
of these students have been here for several years, while other students just arrived to America
and this one of their first classes at the IEP at the University of Illinois. This class meets twice a
week for two hours each day. In this unit development, I have created annotated lesson plans
for 4 classes during the semester, which totals to eight hours of classroom instruction.
In this class, the overarching goal is to enable to students to succeed in an American
University environment in the area of oral communication. The secondary goal is to improve my
students TOEFL (or IELTS) scores in the specific test sections of speaking and listening. Although

ACADEMIC LISTENING AND SPEAKING

this is not a specific TOEFL class, this secondary goal should come as a natural result to the
overarching goal because these standardized test assess whether language learners are ready
for an academic English learning environment.
Rationale and Philosophy of Teaching
With this specific teaching context in mind, I have come up with a rationale and
philosophy of teaching for this Academic Listening and Speaking course. These guiding
principles reflect my personal values in teaching listening and speaking to meet the specific
needs of my students in this course.
1. Provide an on-going and rigorous needs analysis for my courses.
This teaching principle assumes a learner-centered approach to teaching. In this
principle, the students needs in the English language determine the course content and
syllabus structure (Folse, 2006). Instead of coming into a teaching context with assumptions
and thoughts about what students should learn in a class, I believe in surveying students on the
first day of class to discover what would be the most beneficial content for students to learn
(Seaman, 2010). Beyond that, a robust needs analysis includes gathering data from domain
experts, other teachers, administrators, and applied linguists. Needs analyses should be done
before, during and after a course. Because the results of needs analysis are unknown, I must
have flexibly as the English language teacher to tailor the course to my students needs in
academic listening and speaking (Seaman, 2010). An excellent need analysis also leads to more
motivated students because they are learning what they really want to learn and also what they
really need to learn for an American higher-education target context.
2. Largely use authentic language materials within meaningful contexts

ACADEMIC LISTENING AND SPEAKING

Because this IEP is located on an American university campus, I will have access to very
authentic and real materials from my colleagues who teach literally across the street. With
this principle, I will not be removing all controlled listening samples. However, since these
students already have a good foundation in the English language, they need more help in the
area of functional and pragmatic English, rather than textbook English (Brown, 2007). With
the majority of practice coming from authentic and unsimplified materials, I believe my
students will be better prepared for their time in the academic world and beyond (INTR 619,
2015). In addition to authentic texts, I also plan to take advantage of the neighboring university
environment by visiting lectures, sitting in on presentations and interacting with students and
faculty at the University of Illinois. Lastly, in selecting authentic materials and other multimedia
samples, I will also make sure to choose comprehensible input (i+1) for my intermediate high
studentschallenging enough for them to be stretched, but not too challenging, which can
result in frustration and regression.
3. Tap into intrinsic motivation through the course content and objectives.
Motivation in the classroom is a very important piece to the teaching puzzle. In
addition, intrinsically motivated students tend to learn better than extrinsically motivated
students (Brown, 2007). With this guiding principle to teaching, I want to create a course that
appeals to my learners ultimate goals and aspirations (Richards and Burns, 2012). Since the
secondary goal of this course is to improve their TOEFL testing scores, I plan to track their
progress and development by giving a sample listen and speaking test at the beginning, middle,
and end of the class. In my all of the activities, lectures, homework assignments, and other
course content, I will give a compelling and clear explanation of the why to intrinsically

ACADEMIC LISTENING AND SPEAKING

motivate my students. I believe it is important to not only tell students why I have chosen to do
an activity or task, but also show students how they are making quantifiable progress towards
their perceived goals as a language learner, specifically in the area of listening and speaking for
academic purposes. As a teacher, I must really know my student to be effective with this
principlemaking real connections that builds mutual trust.
4. Integrate both skills of listening and speaking in lesson plans.
In the real world, the four main skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) are not
used in an isolated way (Richards and Burns, 2012). Instead, these four skills naturally occur
together not only in everyday contexts, but also in academic contexts. In the same way reading
and writing go hand-in-hand, listening and speaking go hand-in-hand as oral language skills
(Brown, 2007). In my teaching, I integrate the language skills of listening and speaking by
creating lessons plans where listening leads to speaking and/or speaking leads to listening. With
this integrated approach to teaching, I hope to reinforce one skill with the other skill, so that my
students can be holistically better oral English practitioners (Brown, 2007).
5. Create lessons that converge to a specific task with a two-way exchange of information,
a planning stage, and a finite and closed answer.
This design of an effective task comes from Keith Folses book The Art of Teaching
Speaking (2006). In my unit development, I use a task-based language teaching approach. With
a task-based language approach to teaching, emphasis is given to the functional purposes of
the language, rather than the forms of the language (Brown, 2007). Since this is an academic
speaking and listening class, the lessons plans converge to a real world practical task like group
presentations, note-taking, debates, and classroom discussions. These task are well-designed to

ACADEMIC LISTENING AND SPEAKING

implement my students oral language skills, which have been modelled and taught prior to the
final task. Like Folse, I also believe that these tasks should maximize the speaking and listening
practice of the student by minimizing the amount of speaking the teacher does and by creating
two-way exchanges of information between students. Lastly, to effectively implement tasks in
the classroom, a preparation time is given to students before listening or speaking tasks (Folse,
2006). At the end, students use their oral language skills and strategies to complete a closedtask with a finite amount of answers.
6. Teach not only skills but also strategies for listening and speaking.
To be successful in the American university context, my students need to not only be
taught the skills for academic listening and speakingthey also must be taught the strategies
behind listening and speaking (Celce-Murcia et al., 2014). For example, academic listening skills
include listening for the gist and listening for details, while academic listening strategies include
note taking strategies and guessing the meaning of words (INTR 619, 2015). For academic
speaking, some skills include using academic language functions and knowing academic scripts,
while academic speaking strategies include circumlocution and approximation of unknown
words (INTR 619, 2015). By teaching strategies along with skills, I hope to make my students
better independent learners of English. The teaching of skills and strategies ultimately leads to
autonomy in my students, who are able to succeed in oral communication situations in
academic contexts.

ACADEMIC LISTENING AND SPEAKING

7
Lesson Plans

Day 1: Motivation
Objectives
Students will demonstrate the skill of listening for the main idea in the lecture.
Students will be able to use abbreviations and symbols to take notes effectively.
Students will be able to convert their notes into helpful summaries.
Students will be able to be more intrinsically motivated in their academic studies.
Listening Text
Lecture: The Puzzle of Motivation
Pink, Daniel. (2009). Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation
Warm-up (10 minutes)
Discussion Questions:
o How do you typically motivate yourself in your academic studies?
o What ways have been ineffective in motivating you?
Vocabularywrite on the board and ask students to define. Then add necessary
information that was missed in the definition. Keep definitions on the board during the
listening activity.
o Intrinsic motivation
o Extrinsic motivation
o Incentive
o Automate
o Mismatch
o Creativity
Pre-listening/Language (20 minutes)
Teach Note taking strategies
o Pass out effective note taking handout to students.
Handout includes good examples of notes from lectures
o You do not need to understand every word. In the same way, you do not need to
write down every word. Write down only the important points in the lecture.
o Use abbreviation and symbols to allow for quicker writing speeds.
In hand out, point out abbreviations and symbols that replace longer
words.
o Pay attention to the differences in intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
o Listen for the signaling clue of summing up to discover the main point.
Listening/Input (20 minutes)
Listen to the online video lecture and take notes
Give students 2 minutes to finalize their notes after listening to the lecture
Break (10 minutes)
Task (20 minutes)
Combine and refine notes on lecture
o Pair up students and have them compare lecture notes
o Use collective notes to identify key words, the speakers main points,

ACADEMIC LISTENING AND SPEAKING

o Exchange personal abbreviation techniques used during lessons.

o Fill in what the other person might have missed
o Have each group finish by writing a final draft of notes
Presentation (20 minutes)
Have pairs present to the class the main points from the lectures and also the
abbreviation strategies they used
Post-listening (10 minutes)
Summarize lecture to assess comprehension
o After the presentation, have the students write a one-page summary of what
they learned from the lecture. Have the students turn this summary along with
group notes in at the end of class to assess their effectiveness of the note taking
strategies and overall comprehension.
Notes
This lesson is based on the topic of intrinsic motivation, which is one of my guiding principles in
my rationale. I want my students to be motivated intrinsically, so that they can feel more
comfortable in an American academic context. This plan also focuses on the strategies for notetaking, which are very important strategies to have for academic lectures in English where the
content is very dense and the rate of speaking is very fast. This plan integrates both listening
and speaking and converges on the task of refining and summarizing notes from the lecture.
Lastly, TED talks are very engaging and well done, which results in very authentic and relatable
materials for my students.

Day 2: Renting vs. Owning (in the computer lab)
Objectives:
Students will be able to learn key idioms and vocabulary phrases related to
renting/owning a home or apartment in a university setting.
Students will be able to listen for details.
Students will be able to improve their critical thinking skills through comparing and
contrasting
Students will be able to learn important business principles for living in the US.
Listening Text
Audio clips: Mixer #93--Rent
Elllo Productions. Retrieved from http://www.elllo.org/english/Mixer076/T093-Rent.htm
Warm-up (10 minutes)
Partner discussion: Discuss the living situation in your home country. Where did you
live? Did you rent or did you own a house or apartment?
o Have each student jot down notes about their partners answers for the group
discussion following. (scaffold note-taking)
Group Discussion: Call on students to report on their partners home living situation.
Pre-listening/Language (20 minutes)
Explanation and modelling of idioms
o Teach the new vocabulary and idioms. Write these phrases on the board and
first ask students what they think the definition is based on the context of

ACADEMIC LISTENING AND SPEAKING

renting and owning. This will help with critical thinking skills. Finally, give
complete definition with other examples for usage. Play audio examples from
vocabulary tab on elllo.org the website.
Settling down
Pay up front
Goes nowhere
Throwing money away
Tied to one place
Listening/Input (10 minutes)
Split up the class into groups of three. With the 6 total interview, have each student
listen to two audio clips each (and different from their partners clips).
o Hand-out: graphic organizer for students to fill out during the listening time. This
hand-out is a chart of renting vs. owning for each individual.
o This graphic organizer will only be partially filled out with 2 of 6 interviews.
Post-listening/Content (10 minutes)
Information gap (two-way task)
o Have group members share information with each other about their interview to
complete the graphic organizer.
o Complete graphic organizer with all the data from the 6 interviews.
Break (10 minutes)
Post-listening (5 minutes)
Individual Comprehension test
o Answer the following questions about the interview.
Lindsay ____ her own home
wants to own
can not imagine owning
used to own
Chris thinks it is best to ____ a home.
rent
own
sell
Now, Maiko _______ her home.
owns
rents
is building
Amir thinks owning is _____ better.
usually
never
always
Lori thinks you should ______ .
tie up your money
throw your money away
not become house poor

ACADEMIC LISTENING AND SPEAKING

Eoin would rather ______ currently.

own a home
lease a home
rent a home

10

Task (45 minutes)

Roommate decision presentation. Give groups this scenario:
o You and your partners will be living together next year in Champaign-Urbana.
Prepare a presentation with your reasons for renting or buying. In addition,
research and decide on a specific house or apartment. Use the vocabulary and
idioms we just learned.
Suggested websites: Zillow.com and apartmentfinder.com
o 25 minutes for preparation and 20 minutes for classroom presentation.
Notes
This lesson is meant to be a fun and very engaging lesson. Since this class is set in the computer
lab, students are able to access authentic materials for meaningful contexts. I even hope this
task helps better inform their housing search for next year. Not only are students learning about
everyday English usage through the task, the language instruction and listening skills integrated
in this lesson will help with academic listening through critical thinking with comparing and
contrasting different point of views.

Day 3: Technology in Society
Objectives:
Students will be able to learn the discourse structure of academic lectures.
Students will be able to distinguish facts from opinions
Students will be able to practice producing a well-developed argument through a
classroom debate
Listening Text
Lecture: Connected, but Alone?
Turkel, Sherry. (2012). Retrieved from
https://www.ted.com/talks/sherry_turkle_alone_together/transcript?language=en
Warm-up (10 minutes)
Show these two sets of images on the screen:

ACADEMIC LISTENING AND SPEAKING

11

o Advantages?

o Disadvantages? (http://antoinegeiger.com/filter/photo/SUR-FAKE)
What point do you think the artist and photographer is trying to make in these pictures?
What affect does technology have on your life? Do you think that is a good thing or not?
Pre-listening/Language (20 minutes)
Hand out a portion of the transcript of the TED talk. (4:04-7:32)
On an overhead, point out discourse features of academic lectures.
o Discourse structuring phaseIndicates the direction the speaker will take the
lecture
o ComparisonsSpeaker makes a point clearer and relatable.
o Conclusionspeaker summarizes points made throughout the lecture
o ExamplesSpeaker illustrated theoretical concepts through concrete and reallife examples.
Teach the difference between a fact and an opinion.
o First, as the teacher point out one example of each from the transcript.
o Second, divide the class in half and have each half find 2 examples of facts or
opinions.
o Lastly, have the students share the facts or opinions they gathered from the
transcript.
Listening/Input (20 minutes)
While the students listen to the lecture, remind them to listen for the structuring phase,
comparison, examples, and a conclusion at the end.
Pass out graphic organizer for student to fill out while listening

ACADEMIC LISTENING AND SPEAKING

12

o In one column, have the students record facts. In the other column, have the
students record the opinions.
Break (10 minutes)
Post-listening/Content (10 minutes)
From the graphic organizer, have the students summarize the opinions that Turkel
presents in her lecture. During this group discussion, write these opinions on the board
and make sure students understand her main points and main opinions (assessment).
Language (10 minutes)
To prepare for the debate task, teach language for the task
o Opinion indicator: I think/I believe
o Reasons indicator: because/since
o Qualities of a strong argument:
It supports the opinion in a logical way
It is specific and states the ideas clearly
It is presented in a convincing manner to most people.
Task (30 minutes)
Debate this topic: Do you think technology brings people closer together or makes
people more distant from each other? Why?
Divide the class into two teams. One team argues for one side and the other team
argues for the other (the teacher is the judge of the persuasiveness of the argument)
Give 15 minutes for brainstorming as a team to come up with the top three arguments
for their side.
o Make sure students us the language for debates and follow the criteria for strong
arguments.
Give 15 minutes for each side to present their arguments using the debate language.
Notes
This lesson helps teach the students the discourse structure of academic lectures. By
understanding the discourse structure, the students are able to better predict and follow the
lecturer, which ultimately helps in comprehension. Through the debate task, students learn how
to critically think through personal opinions on a subject and then appropriately express those
opinions according to academic setting rules. The opinions in this TED talk can be polarizing,
which helps create a stimulating debate. Many of these students could be unaware of
technologies affect on their own lives, while others could be in full agreement of being warier
with technology.

Day 4: Persuasive Speeches
Objectives
Students will be able to predict words and content for listening texts.
Students will be able to listen for main points in lectures.
Students will be able to listen strategically for numbers in lectures
Students will learn the discourse features necessary in giving persuasive speeches.
Students will be able to refine their own persuasive speaking skills.
Listening text

ACADEMIC LISTENING AND SPEAKING

13

YouTube Video Speech

Cortes, John. (2013). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc3ovSFpyEk
Warm-up (10 minutes)
Write the words I have a dream on the board and display this picture

Discussion questions: who is this person? What did this person passionately stand for?
Activate background knowledge by asking of other examples of famous persuasive
speeches in their culture or around the world.
Pre-listening/language (15 minutes)

Display this picture on the screen

Previewing discussion question: what do you think advertisement/warning is about?
Practice word prediction: Ask students to brainstorm 10 words they think will be in this
lecture. Write these words on the board and make sure everyone knows what they
mean.
Add these important key words to the list and give definitions:
o Fatalities
o Epidemic
o Preventable
o Citation
Listening/Input (10 minutes)
While students watch the YouTube video, have them practice taking notes during this
lecture (scaffolding)

ACADEMIC LISTENING AND SPEAKING

14

Take notes on the main reason as to why not to text and drive. Again, encourage them
not to listen for every word, but for the important pieces of information and the main
idea.
Tell them to listen and take notes specifically on numbers and statistics.

Post-listening/content (15 minutes)
Discussion questions to assess comprehension and note-taking skills:
o What opening story does the speaker give?
o Why should we not text and drive? (3 main reasons)
o What are other causes of driving accidents?
o How many lives were lost last year from cell-phone related accidents?
o What is the main take away from this lecture?
Break (10 minutes)
Language (15 minutes)
Teach the discourse features of persuasive speeches by using the past YouTube video
o Opening story Imagine a car accident
o Repeating a point for emphasis Let me say that again.
o Personalizing examples/stories Maybe youve been personally affected
o Statistics and numbers Its estimated that 5,800 lives were lost just last year.
Task (15 minutes)
Have students prepare a persuasive speech based on this prompt:
o Why should we visit your hometown/country for vacation?
Give handout with persuasive speech discourse features. Have students fill out handout
fully to prepare for speech. Make sure their speech includes every feature taught
earlier.
Each presentation should be under 2 minutes long.
Presentation (20 minutes)
Have each student give their 2 minute presentations.
At the end, pass out a survey to the class with two questions to assess comprehension:
o Which city/country you would like to visit the most?
o Why do you want to visit that city/country specifically?
Tally up the votes and announce which city/country got the most votes. (Joke about
packing our bags and leaving for that city/country at the end of class.)
Notes
This lesson integrates both listening and speaking. In academic contexts, these students
will need to know how to effectively give persuasive speeches. The topic of this
persuasive speech is very meaningful to each studentit helps them remember their
home and brag about their culture in a healthy way, which also activates intrinsic
motivation. This YouTube video models the discourse features of persuasive speeches
very well. It is also very straight to the point and an effective use of classroom time. In
addition, this YouTube video is very informative about an important topic (increase
awareness). This ending task fits the description of an effective task according to my
teaching rationale.

ACADEMIC LISTENING AND SPEAKING

15
Bibliography

Brown, H. D. (2007). Teaching by principles: an interactive approach to language pedagogy (3rd

ed). White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.
Celce-Murcia, M. (Ed.). (2014). Teaching English as a second or foreign language (4. ed). Boston,
Mass.: National Geographic Learning [u.a.].
Folse, K. S. (2006). The art of teaching speaking: research and pedagogy for the ESL/EFL
classroom. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Richards, J. C., & Burns, A. (2012). Tips for teaching listening: a practical approach. White Plains,
NY: Pearson Education.
Seaman, Alan. (2010). Responding to the challenge of large mixed-ability classes in China. In
Multilevel and Diverse Classrooms, (pp. 9-21) Baurain, B. and Ha, P., eds., Alexandria,
VA: TESOL.