Unit 9.Teaching Listening

这是一篇关于Unit 9.Teaching Listening的思维导图，Principle and models for teaching listening。

Teaching Listening

• 1.some problems when listening to an English text
• 2.why does listening seem so difficult for students
  • students point
    • Do not understand subsequent parts of input because of earlier problems
    • Neglect the next part when thinking about meaning
    • Understand the words but not the intended message
    • Do not recognise words they know.
    • Quickly forget what is heard
    • Unable to form a mental representation froim words heard.
  • subjects
    • 1. neglected in languag teaching due to lack of teaching materials,both with print materials and audio or vide tapes.
    • 2.lack of equipment (tape players,VCRs.VCDs,computers)in some schools:
    • 3.lack of real-life situations where language learners need to understand spoken English.
  • objects
    • 1.different speakers produce the same sounds in different ways,e.g.different dialects and accents,stresses.rhythms,intonations,mispronunciations.ete;
    • 2.the listener has little or no control over the speed of the input of spoken material:
    • 3.spoken material is often heard only once and in most cases,we cannot go back and listen again as we can when we read;
    • 4.the listener canno pause to work out the meaning of the heard material as can be done when reading
    • 5.speech is more likely to be distorted by the media which transmit sounds or background noise that can make it difficult to hear clearly:
    • 6.the listener sometimes has to deal simultaneously with another task while listening.
• 3. what dose we listen to daily life
  • 1.English not only to help them pass exams,but to prepare them to use English in real life
  • 2.,it is important to think about the situations they will listen to English in real life and then to think about the listening exercises we do in class
  • 3..We must control the input they receive to some extent,for example,controlling the vocabulary and the speed,but even at beginning stages,we need to be giving our students a variety of listening exercises to help prepare them for real life
    • radio news in English
    • lessons or lectures given in English
    • watching television in English
    • watching movies in English
    • Listening to English songs
    • watching television in English
    • watching movies in English
• 4. characteristics of the listening process
  • 1.Gencrally speaking.listening in real life has the following characteristics
  • 2.spontaneously ,most of the time during an average day we listen to people speaking spontaneously and informally without rehearsing what they are going to say ahead of time.
  • 3.context The context of listening is usually known to both the listener and the speaker in reallife. the relationship and the situation
  • 4.visual clues Most of the time we can see the person we are listening to.see their facial expressions,gestures and other body language as well as the surrounding.These visual clues help us understand and predict what we hear
  • 5.Listener's response Most of the listening in daily life allows the listener to respond to the speaker.such as in a conversation.This means we can interrupt the speakers and ask for repetition or clarification
  • 6.Speaker's response In most cases,the speaker is talking directly to the listener,so he or she can adjust the way of speaking according to the listener's reactions.
  • 7.It is important to understand the characteristicsor or processesbehind these listening situations, so that we as teachers can design appropriate activities
• 5. Principle and models for teaching listening
  • 1.There are two major purposes in listening.The first is for social reasons,The second is to obtain and exchange information.
  • 2.Focus on process People must do many things to process information that they are receiving. First they have to hear what is being said,then they have to pay attention,and construct a meaningful message in their mind by relating what they hear to what they already know. So it is very important to design tasks the performance of which show how well the students have comprehended the listening material
  • 3.Combine listening with other skills It is important to develop listening skills together with other skils, especially speaking because ordinarily, listening is not an isolated skill. Most of the time in real life listening occurs together with speaking and it also occurs with writing, e.g. taking notes while The important thing in designing listening activities is to give a clear purpose,a specific task and an appropriate context for doing them.
  • 4.Focus on comprehension of meaning Another problem with many listening exercises in traditional textbooks is that they test students'memory,not their listening comprehension It is important to design tasks that they wouldn't even remember in their native language they rememher the meaning
  • 5.Grade difficulty level appropriately When designing listening tasks,it is very important to grade the difficulty level of the tasks. There are a large number of factors that affect the difficulty level of listening tasks, three main categories:1)type of language used;2)task or purpose in listening:3)context in which the listening
• 6. Principles for select-ing and using listening activities Oxford 12 principles
  • ①　The activity must have a real, communicative purpose.
  • ②　The activity must use authentic language
  • ③　Pre-liatening tasks（E.g:discussing the topic,brainstorming,presenting vocabularies）
  • ④　The listening text must offer content that is interesting and motivating to learners.
  • ⑤　To allow listeners to infer meaning from body language and related context clues,the speaker must be visible whenever possible.
  • ⑥　The activity must offer many enviromental clues to meaning.
  • ⑦　The whole listening text should be given,and then divided into parts that can be repeated.
  • ⑧　At the end,the whole text should be given again.
  • ⑨　The activity requires listeners to respond in some meaningful fashion,individually or in pairs/groups.
  • ⑩　The activity must be fashioned so that students with normal background knowledge are able to understand the topic.
  • 11　The activity must be typical for its own speech type.
  • 12　The classroom climate must be non-threatening and positive.
• 7. Models of listening process
  • ①　Bottom-up model
    • Commonly,two approaches are frequently used to describe different processes of listening. Bottom-up model sound and meaning recognitions. Listeners construct meaning of what they hear based on the sound they hear./a very effective short-term memory/make sense of every sound/ words, phrases, and structures.
  • ②　Top-down model
    • In the top-down model, listening for gist and making use of the contextual clues and background knowledge In such a case, listeners can understand better if they know something about the speaker, the setting, the topic and the purpose of the talk. as prior knowledge or schematic knowledge
  • 3.both Bottom-up model and Top-down model are mutually dependent
  • 4.Language teachers should develop an awareness of each of these processes and their relative contribution to listening comprehension so that they can better design their listening activities to integrate both listening processes so as to belp students develop both bottom-up and top-down listening strategies.
• 8. Three Teaching stages:pre-listening,while-listening,Post-listening.
  • 1.Pre-listening activities
    • Pre-listening, during which teachers help the students prepare to listen
      • Affectively, to motivate ss Thematically, to activate ss' prior knowledge Linguistically, to teach key words or key structures to the ss
    • activities
      • Predicting
        • pictures
        • read the listening comprehension questions
      • Setting the scene
  • 2.While-listening activities
    • While-listening, during which the focus of students' attention is led to the listening text and the teacher can guide the students and help them understand it
      • To match what ss expect to hear with what they actually hear To train ss' listening skills
    • activities
      • a. Listen for the gist of the passage. b. Listen for specific information c. No specific responses c. Listen and tick TPR refers to Total Physical Respc d. Listen and sequence concentrates on learning languag e. Listen and act responding physically to commat f. Listen and draw
        • TPR
          • TPR refers to Total Physical Response, which concentrates on learning language by listening and responding physically to commands or directions. in other words, it is a kind of language teaching method that combine language with action to learn a language through the body movement
  • 3.post-listening activities
    • Post-listening, during which students are offered with opportunities to integrate what they learned from the text into their existing knowledge and To communicae with others using information in listening text
      • To use the info in the listening text To check ss' answers To communicae with others using information in listening text To consolidate learning
    • a. Multiple choice questions b. Answering questions c. Note-taking and gap-filling d.dictogloss
      • Dictogloss is a type of activity in which the teacher reads out a passage in normal speed for two or three times and ss are to note down the words they could catch as they listen as much as possible. Then they discuss their understanding of the overall meaning with their classmates. They then work together to reconstruct the passage together after which they are given the original text for a comparison
      • The aim is 1.to stress the use of various listening strategies for overall understanding 2.and to guide ss towards noting the differences between their reconstructed text and the original 3. and then discover the reasons for their listening difficulties
      • four stages
        • preparation
          • The teacher prepares students by briefly introducing the topic and key words or asking general questions
        • dictation
          • The teacher dictates the text three times. For the first time, students just listen without taking notes. They should try to focus on meaning. For the second and third time, students take extensive notes. The teacher should make sure that the dictation speed is close to normal speech.
        • reconstruction
          • Based on their notes, students work in pairs or groups and reconstruct the text they have heard.
        • analysis and correction
          • Students compare their versions of the text with the original and try to identify mistakes. Then they discuss together to find out the causes of mistakes. Finally, the text is read again for enhanced comprehension.