Pronunciation for Listeners Webinar

Think you heard it all? Think again! Expert listeners don't hear it all. They hear what's needed and disregard the 'noise'. But L2 listeners have to learn what counts as 'noise' in the target language. It’s not the ‘difficult’ words that present the biggest problem; it’s the ‘easy’ ones that are pronounced in unexpected ways. For example, a very fast ‘You know what I mean?’ can be very hard to decipher, and while the listener is struggling with it, they miss the more important words which immediately follow. This is a pity, because throwaway interjections like 'You know what I mean' aren't essential to the meaning. In this webinar, we will look at some aspects of pronunciation which, like this, can really hinder comprehension, and we will look at a few ideas and materials we can use to raise learners’ awareness of these aspects and help learners ‘hear beyond’ them. In this way, we can begin to actually teach listening, rather than just test it through comprehension questions.

For a book of material related to this talk, see Authentic Listening Resource Pack. See a sample lesson on Pronunciation for Listeners. For a talk on another aspect of listening, see Annie McDonald's Priming for Listening.

You'll find the slides and the audio from the webinar below.