SHUMEN UNIVERSITY BISHOP KONSTANTIN PRESLAVSKI

FACULTY OF HUMANITIES

ENGLISH PHILOLOGY

Methodology of teaching English language

COURSE PROJECT

DEVELOPING LISTENING SKILLS

Student: Janita Nikolova No 1088

Lecturer : senc.Assistant d-r Irina Ivanova

The Teaching of Listening Listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying. This involves understanding a speaker's accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary, and grasping his meaning . An able listener is capable of doing these four things simultaneously. It is becoming more and more necessary to understand spoken English in many situations, e.g. face-to-face conversations, telephone calls, business meetings, lectures, speeches, television, etc According to Bulletin (1952), listening is one of the fundamental language skills. It's a medium through which children, young people and adults gain a large portion of their education--their information, their understanding of the world and of human affairs, their ideals, sense of values, and their appreciation. In this day of mass communication (much of it oral), it is of vital importance that our pupils be taught to listen effectively and critically, he says. Listening to and understanding speech involves a number of basic processes, some depending upon linguistic competence, some depending upon previous knowledge that is not necessarily of a purely linguistic nature, and some depending upon psychological variables that affect the mobilization of these competence and knowledge in the particular task situation. Listening is a receptive skill, and receptive skills give way to productive skills. If we have our students produce something, the teaching will be more communicative. WHAT MAKES LISTENING DIFFICULT? CLUSTERING. Learners try to retain a long sentence or several sentences at a time or try to understand every word in an utterance. REDUNDANCY. Learners have to understand that not every sentence contains new information, and they must be aware of the signals of redundancy. REDUCED FORMS. Spoken language contains a good deal of reduced forms that pose significant difficulties for the learner. PERFORMANCE VARIABLES. Hesitations, false starts, pauses and corrections can easily interfere with comprehension in second language learners Principles of teaching listening

Focus on process. Combine listening and speaking. Focus on comprehending meaning. Grade difficulty level appropriately.

The main stages in a listening skill lesson

We can divide the listening process into 3 stages; 1. Pre-listening (purpose must be given at this stage), 2. During (in-while) listening, 3. Post -listening (speaking). Pre-listening There are certain goals that should be achieved before students attempt to listen to any text. These are motivation, contextualisation, and preparation.

Motivation It is enormously important that before listening students are motivated to listen, so you should try to select a text that they will find interesting and then design tasks that will arouse your students' interest and curiosity. Contextualisation When we listen in our everyday lives we hear language within its natural environment, and that environment gives us a huge amount of information about the linguistic content we are likely to hear. Listening to a tape recording in a classroom is a very unnatural process. The text has been taken from its original environment and we need to design tasks that will help students to contextualise the listening and access their existing knowledge and expectations to help them understand the text. Preparation To do the task we set students while they listen there could be specific vocabulary or expressions that students will need. It's vital that we cover this before they start to listen as we want the challenge within the lesson to be an act of listening not of understanding what they have to do.

Before a listening activity it is useful to encourage the students to think about and discuss what they are going to hear. We can also create a need to know by telling them how the listening task fits in with a later activity they are going to do. During this stage it is proper to use prompts such as realia, visuals, references to our or the students experiences, a short discussion task to crop up the students interest, to activate any enlightenment they have about the
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topic and to guide them to predict what is going to happen next. And this step is called pre-listening.

Pre-Listening Activities

Predicting Setting the scene Listening for the gist Listening for specific information

Predicting Good listeners are good predictors.There are many different activities that can be used to encourage students to predict the content of what they are about to hear.Visual aids are immensely helpful in aiding students comprehension. They attract students attention and help and encourage them to focus on the subject in hand (Ur, 1984:30). Using pictures for prediction In the beginning the students may have difficulty in predicting. In this case the teacher can help them by asking leading questions.

e.g. 1

T: Where are they? What are they doing? What is the relationship between them?
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e.g. 2 T: What do you see in the picture? What is behind the trees? What is in the tree? What is in the river Another type of predicting task is to let students read the listening comprehension questions before they listen Setting the scene The teacher can help provide the background information to activate learners schema, so they will be better prepared to understand what they hear.

Listening for the gist Listening for the gist is similar to skimming a passage in reading. The key is to ask students one or two questions that focus on the main idea or the tone or mood of the whole passage. Students can answer the gist questions even though they do not understand every word or phrase in the passage. Listening for specific information There are situations in real life where we listen only for some specific details and ignore the rest of the entire message. e.g. weather forecast, announcements in train stations/airports .It is important to expose our students to a variety of types of listening texts for a variety of purposes so that they will develop a variety of listening strategies to use for different situations . Summary on pre-listening activities

We may use more than one kind of pre-listening activity; Pre-listening tasks should not take much time; The purpose of pre-listening activities is to activate the students schema, i.e. to provide context.

While-listening activities

The while-listening stage is the most difficult for the teacher to control, because this is where the students need to pay attention and process the information actively. Some tasks for while-listening activities:

No specific responses

For stories, or anything that is interesting, humourous, or dramatic, we just have the students listen and enjoy it.

Listen and tick

Listen and sequence

Listen and act Total Physical Response: for beginners for intermediate learners Stand up, Point to the ; Pretend youre doing something

Listen and fill

It is important NOT to overdo this type of tasks, since it gives students the impression that they need to understand every word. We may ask the students to fill in the blanks with function words, say, prepositions.

Listen and guess For height, appearance, and personalities

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Four clues about an animal

Advantages of the above listening activities

They personalize the lesson and make the listening interesting. They integrate listening with the other skills, especially speaking.

Summary on while-listening activities Most of the time, it is helpful to provide a task for the students to do something while they are listening. By providing a variety of types of tasks, students learn to listen for a variety of purposes, which better prepares them for listening in the real world outside the classroom Post-listening activities The post-listening stage is where the teacher can determine how well the students have understood what they listened to. One important point to keep in mind is whether we are testing the students listening comprehension or their memory. It is more common for people to understand more than they can remember . Some types of post-listening activities Multiple choice questions Answering questions Note-taking and gap-filling Dictogloss

Multiple choice questions

Answering questions Open-ended questions and inference questions can be asked. Note-taking and gap-filling for a summary of the text Dictogloss Preparation: briefly talking about the topic and key words Dictation: for two times, first time focusing on the meaning, and second time taking extensive notes Reconstruction: working in pairs/groups, reconstructing the text Analysing and correction: comparing their own version with the original

Summary on post-listening activities There are two common forms that post-listening tasks can take. These are reactions to the content of the text, and analysis of the linguistic features used to express the content.

Reaction to the text Of these two I find that tasks that focus students reaction to the content are most important. Again this is something that we naturally do in our everyday lives. Because we listen for a reason, there is generally a following reaction. This could be discussion as a response to what we've heard - do they agree or disagree or even believe what they have heard? - or it could be some kind of reuse of the information they have heard. Analysis of language The second of these two post-listening task types involves focusing students on linguistic features of the text. This is important in terms of developing their knowledge of language, but less so in terms of developing students' listening skills. It could take the form of an analysis of verb forms from a script of the
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listening text or vocabulary or collocation work. This is a good time to do form focused work as the students have already developed an understanding of the text and so will find dealing with the forms that express those meanings much easier. Conclusion Definitely we have to admit that language learning depends on listening as we respond only after listening something. Listening provides the aural input that serves as the stimuli for language acquisition and make the learners interact in spoken communication. So, effective and ideal language instructors should help the learners to be introduced with native speaking, to be respondent to that both cognitively and orally. In order to do so, first, they should show the students how they can adjust their listening behavior to deal with variety of situations, types of input, and listening purposes. Students have to learn how to listen just as they have to learn how to speak, and therefore they should be exposed frequently, from the earliest stages of language learning, to listening comprehension activities. Rost (1994:142) claims that not only does listening create the right conditions for language development, but it can also provide enjoyment and stimulate cultural interests. Via movies, radio, TV, songs etc students may somehow participate in the target culture, appreciate the beauty of the language sayings, proverbs, colloquial expressions. However, teachers need to prepare learners psychologically for the listening activity, telling them that they will not be able to understand everything they hear, and that they should not panic because of this. Bruton (1997:14-15) argues that students need to listen to prepare themselves for their future listening. They need to listen in order to know how to produce. The better students understand what they hear, the better they will take part in spoken interactions. Listening exercises should be as natural as the situations from which they grow. In other words, an exercise in listening comprehension must be as close as possible to a "slice of life" -neither a contrived situation nor an artificially delivered discourse. By means of this, a teacher has a great work to do, and has to be a very creative person in order to teach listening communicatively.

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Bibliography 1 . Fox J. W. (1974). Teaching Listening Skills. English Teaching Forum. October -December, 12, pp. 42-45 2 . Joiner, E. (1977). Communicative Activities for Beginning Language Students. English Teaching Forum, April, 15, pp. 8-9.
4. Brown, G., & Yule, G. (1983). Teaching the spoken language. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press. 5. Jeramy Harmer The Practice of English Language Teachining 6. http://iteslj.org 7. http://teflbootcamp.com/teaching-skills/teaching-efl-listening/ 8. http://www.british-study.com/teacher-training 9. http://esl.about.com/od/englishlistening/English_Listening_Skills 10. http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/listening/liindex.htm 11. http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/teach/

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Lesson Plan Topic: Beauty Contest Duration: 20 minutes Level: Upper Intermediate Materials: Pictures, blackboard, tape, tape-recorder Goals: Students are asked to understand when they listen to a speech. This lesson will at least make the students take one step to get accustomed to hearing and understanding what they hear. Objectives: By the end of the lesson the students will understand the significance of listening. ACTIVITIES Pre-listening Activities: The teacher asks the students what they are going to listen to. A discussion atmosphere is tried to be created. At this stage pictures are used effectively. During Listening Activities: While students are listening to the tape the teacher asks them to take some notes. Post-listening Activities: The teacher writes some questions on the board and asks them to answer the questions. They are also stimulated to talk and participate in the activity dominantly.

I. PRE-LISTENIG ACTIVITIES
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The teacher hangs the pictures on the board and tries to make the students talk about the subjects. T: Do you think that they are beautiful? S:. . . T: Can you guess the name of the first competitor? S:. . . T: Can you guess the height of the second competitor? S:. . . T: What nationality does the third girl belong to? What is your opinion? S:. . .

II. DURING LISTENING ACTIVITIES The teacher asks the students to listen to the tape very carefully. And he gives information lists to the students. While they are listening to the tape they try to fill the blanks with appropriate information. If no information appears for any blank on the list, students are asked to put a cross on the blank provided for the required information. III. POST-LISTENING ACTIVITY The teacher writes on the board some questions. Students answer these questions to test whether they understood what they have listened or not. 1. Whose name is the best? Why do you think so? 2. Who is the tallest one of all? 3. Who is the oldest one of all? 4. Who is the heaviest one of all? 5. What nationality does the first one belong to? 6. What nationality does the second one belong to? 7. What nationality does the third one belong to? 8. Who can speak two languages? 9. What are those languages? 10. Whose favorite film star is Leonardo Di Caprio? 11. What does Suzanne Kerrigan mean by saying" I hope the political situation of my country will not effect this kind of a contest?"

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IV. ASSIGNMENT At home listen to the information about the people whose names are in the chart below and copmlete the missing information. Elizabeth Mccornick Nationality: Canadian Weight: 53 Age: 21 Languages: Hobbies: Profession: Height:: Alexandra Bellomonti Nationality: Italian Weight: 51 Age: 20 years old Languages: Hobbies: Profession: Height: Suzanne Kerrigan Nationality: Weight: 56 Age: 22 Languages: Hobbies: Profession: Height:1. 73 Her mother's name: TRANSCRIPT

I'm Elizabeth Mccornick. I'm participating from Canada. I'm 21 years old and I weigh 53 kilos. I am a girl of 90-60-90. I am a bilingual person; that means I can speak two languages fluently and accurately: English and French. I prefer going to movies than enjoying theatrical acts. My favorite film star is Leonardo Di Caprio. My friends say that I am a good cook as well. I admit I like cooking traditional dishes in my spare time. I wish my best wishes to the other contestants. Thanks. Good evening! I would like to greet all the people watching and participating this contest. My name is Alexandra Bellomonti and I'm from Italy. I am 20 years old and 51 kilos I weigh. I like going out with my friends at the weekends. I can also say that I'm studying really hard and I am expecting to be accepted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I really have a great desire for being a genetic engineer in the future. Thank you! Hello everybody! I am Suzanne Kerrigan from the USA. I was born in 1976, in LA, California. I confess I weigh 56 kilos but I'm 1. 73 cm tall and that subdues my weight I think. I like skating on ice and I'm an amateur figure skater. I also like foreign and strange meals if they prove to be delicious, of course. Finally, I hope the political situation of my country will not effect this kind of a contest

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Games for Listening Skills X Diane Todd Former Video Producer/Media Writer By Diane Todd, eHow Contributor

There is more to listening than just hearing. Flag this photo Developing good listening skills is important for effective communication in both personal relationships and business interactions. Being a good listener is not as simple as keeping silent when someone is talking. Strategies in demonstrating non-verbal signals, proper body positioning and offering relevant feedback all make a person a more skilled listener. There are several games you can use to brush up on positive listening skills.
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Listening Cues Game o For the first game, split up into two-person teams. Person 1 reads a news article to Person 2, while Person 2 displays poor listening behavior -- such as fidgeting, looking around, interrupting to ask questions and making inappropriate facial expressions. When they are through, Person 2 then explains the article that was just read to him, back to Person 1. This time, Person 1 should display positive listening skills, such as making eye contact, sitting still, making appropriate facial cues and taking notes and waiting until the end to ask questions. Have each group review the article together, and identify things that Person 2 missed because he wasn't listening closely. This exercise demonstrates how important it is to use proper listening behaviors to understand the message being relayed. Listening With Distractions Game o The second game is played with a large group. It's best executed without informing the group what the objective is. Simply explain that you will read a story (any story will do.) Give people on the left side of the room a task. For example, ask some of them to count now many times you say the word "and," and ask others to count the number of times you smile.Give people on the right side of the room no task at all, except to listen. Next, read the story. When you have finished, ask each group member to write down answers to three questions about your story. You will find that the people who were distracted by a task may not answer the questions as easily as those who were listening without tasks. Discuss how difficult it was for people to pay attention when they were not focused on the message itself. Feedback Game o This game will take some preparation beforehand. Ask people to each prepare a small presentation on a debatable issue using three to five focus points. Now have the group members partner up. Ask Person 1 to make her presentation to her partner. When she is through, the partner must give feedback, either positive or negative. Person 1 has the opportunity to change her message based on the feedback. Next, have everyone switch partners, and Person 1 delivers her presentation again to a new partner. Discuss with the group how feedback changed their messages and made them either more efficient or more garbled.

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