On the surface of it, unscripted language is a total mess, and it's a wonder that anybody can understand any of it. It stops and starts, interrupts and stumbles, slows and accelerates, and generally breaks all the grammar rules you’ve ever learnt. So, how can we help learners to make sense of it?
It’s nearly time for the 38th TESOL-Spain National Convention, where this year, as well as catching up with friends, I’ll be presenting on Learning Listening: The challenge of unscripted language.
None of us throw our class into a listening unprepared, do we? It would be unfair - after all, in real life, we're normally listening with certain expectations. But often in ELT, our pre-listening activities are limited to a bit of discussion of the topic and maybe some pre-teaching of new vocabulary.
None of us throw our class into a listening unprepared, do we? It would be unfair - after all, in real life, we're normally listening with certain expectations. But often in ELT, our pre-listening activities are limited to a bit of discussion of the topic and maybe some pre-teaching of new vocabulary.
None of us throw our class into a listening unprepared, do we? It would be unfair - after all, in real life, we're normally listening with certain expectations. But often in ELT, our pre-listening activities are limited to a bit of discussion of the topic and maybe some pre-teaching of new vocabulary.
In this talk we'll take a look at a variety of activities which could be used with a 51 second text to help learners become better listeners. See powerpoint slides below.
It’s notoriously difficult to give meaningful feedback to learners after they have ‘done’ a speaking activity – but is this the end of the story? In this session, we’ll consider an approach which will help us generate appropriate feedback for a variety of classroom speaking tasks and for learners at different levels.
Learners of English living in an English speaking environment have rich exposure to the spoken language, yet, at the same time, they regularly experience frustration at not being able to understand what people say. In this workshop, we’ll look at and try out tasks which can be used with different texts to help boost confidence and develop a learner's listening skill.
It is often said that we test rather than teach listening. In this workshop, we consider the characteristics of classroom listening tasks and activities we can use with authentic audio materials. They have been designed to develop the listening skill, and simultaneously help non-native listeners become more effective, confident and autonomous.
What aspects of listening, learning and listener character traits come into play when we take authentic listening texts into our classrooms and how might they relate to tasks and activities we devise? In this workshop we’ll look at the challenges authentic listening texts present for non-expert listeners around B2 level.
