Spoken Communication Skills

Developing Listening and Speaking Skills

Communication

What should be the main goal of an English language cousre?

To focus on developing students mastery of the the language form OR To focus on developing students ability to effectively communicate for study, work or leisure

Features of using language for communication

We communicate because we want to or need to, NOT just to practice the language Focus is on what we are communicating NOT on how we are communicating (ideas vs. language) The language that is used is VARED in grammar and vocabulary, NOT made of a single structure or a few structures and NOT normally repeated over and over again

Communication in the Classroom

If you want to encourage real communication in the classroom you need to Establish English as the main classroom language Try to use interesting topics and stimulating activities, which take the learners minds off the language

Real life events ( weather, the students cloths, their health and mood and pictures) Events in the world outside ( new films, a circus in town, national sports victory, the students families, etc.)

Focus on fluency vs. accuracy

Support and encourage listeners in their efforts to communicate their ideas Dont try to control what they say Dont interrupt learners everytime they make a language mistake to correct them

Listening Skills

Listening is not a passive skill but a receptive skill. It requires as much attention and mental activity as speaking. That of the time an individual is engaged in communication, approximately 9 per cent is devoted to writing, 16 per cent to reading, 30 per cent to speaking, and 45 per cent to listening.

What do we know about the listening process?

There are two types of listening processes

Bottom-up process Top-down process We use our knowledge of language and our ability to process acoustic signals to make sense of the sounds that speech presents to us We infer meaning from contextual clues and from making links between the spoken message and various types of prior knowledge which we hold.

Bottom-up:

Top-down

What learners need to be able to do in order to listen effectively

Bottom-up processes

Recognize word divisions Recognize key words in utterances Recognize key transitions in a discourse Another interesting development was One of the problems was.. / In contrast Recognize grammatical relations between key elements in sentences Recognize the function of word stress in sentences

What learners need to be able to do in order to listen effectively

Top-down processes

Use key words to construct the schema of discourse Infer the role of the participants in a situation Infer the topic of a discourse Infer the outcome of an event Infer the cause and effect of an event Infer unstated details of a situation Infer the sequence of a series of events Infer comparisons Distinguish between facts and opinions

Types of Listening

Participatory Listening

Interactional (for the purpose of engaging in social rituals) Transactional (for the purpose exchanging information) dentification of specific details Listening to live conversations without taking part Listening to announcements to extract info. Listening to or watching films, plays, radio and songs where purpose is enjoyment Following instructions in orderto carry out a talk efficiently Attending a lecture or following a lesson Liistening a public address

Non-Participatory

What are the implications for the English Language Classroom?

Creating reasons for listening (motivate students)

Teachers need to ensure that learners experience a range of listening purposes, especially those that might be immediately relevant to their lives outside the classroom. What purpose might there be for listening to this particular text? Is that purpose similar to the purpose a listener might have in real life? Does the task given to the learner encourage that listening purpose?

Which is more authentic?

Asking learners to listen to a short airport announcement to obtain information about a particular flight, as a passenger ? OR Asking learners to listen for the details of four different flights ? Skills that are practised Listening for key words Picking out relevant information Retaining significant details

Designing listening activities for the classroom

The standard procedure used for listening activities are Pre-listening stage While-Listening stage Post-listening stage

Pre-Listening stage

The purpose of the pre-listening stage is to Prepare the learners for what they are going to hear by

activating existing prior knowledge introducing necessary schematic knowledge Introducing the language which students will encounter Contextualize the text Provide any information to help learners appreciate the setting and the role relationships between particiapnts

Objectives

Activity types for the pre-listening stage

Predicting content from the title of a talk Talking about a picture which relates to the text Discuss relevant experiences Discussing the topic Answering a set of questions about the topic Agreeing or disagreeing with opinions about the topic Associate vocabulary about the yopic Predict info. about the topic Write questions about the topic

While-Listening Stage

Purpose of While-listening stage is

TO HELP learners understand the text While learners listen they need to be involved in an authentic purpose for listening and encouraged to attend to the text more intensively

While-Listening activities

Ticking multiple-choice items Filling in a chart Complete a table, map or picture Matching pictures with the text Making notes Answer questions Complete sentences

Post-Listening Activities

The purpose of post-listening activities is to help learners connect what they have heard with their own ideas and experiences. Helps learners to move easily from listening to another skill.

Post-listening Activities

Give opinions Relate similar experiences Role-play a similar interaction Write a brief report Write a similar text Debate the topic