Listening To News Reports.

After having spent the summer moaning about course book listening activities, it is time for me to take some action. If course book listening tasks really are so grim, then why do I hypocritically insist on using them, week in and week out? Well, perhaps it's because they are ready to go and require no more preparation than popping a disc in the player. I also know they are geared towards the level of my learners. If all else fails, and the whole activity goes horribly wrong, I can direct the class to the tape script at the back of the book.

So course books listening activities have their uses, perhaps. But (and this is on top of all my most recent gripes), can I really expect my learners to muster sufficient motivation to listen to:

• a terrible cover band singing a terrible Travis song?
• an interview with a fictional romantic novelist? 
• an interview with a bland (and  fictional) band? 

Surely, my Shetland based learners would find authentic listening texts far more inherently motivating and useful to their daily lives than this nonsense.

News Reports in the Listening Class

I am often surprised by the extent to which my learners are unaware of what is happening in the local and national news.  They are not disinterested in current events, yet rarely watch the news in English, as they find it too difficult to understand.  As a result, they miss out on news announcements which affect them (such as weather related school closures for instance).  

On the occasions we have used news reports in class my learners have been interested and motivated. I want to make listening to news reports a regular occurrence, and over the next few weeks I will be exploring how I can help learners with this crucial, every day listening activity.

The ideas below will be my starting points. In my next post, I will  provide an outline procedure for a news report listening lesson. 

Using Visual Images to Predict Content and Generate Vocabulary

Lessons which teach learners to use their top down processing skills in order to make predictions about what they hear will challenge notions learners have about “the point” of a listening lesson.

An example of this is an activity I used last year with an intermediate level class. I selected an extract of a news broadcast about the riots in London, and showed the class the footage with the sound muted.  The class then worked in pairs and discussed their predictions for the broadcast’s content. After a feedback session we watched the broadcast again (with sound this time) and the learners were able to compare their predictions with the language actually used.  

This activity works well as a way of allowing learners to see how successfully they can predict content from visual information in a news report, and also generates useful vocabulary.

Developing learner Autonomy
Mark Lloyd used a dictogloss style experiment in order to develop learner autonomy in listening.  In this experiment, learners listened to a news broadcast every day in class for a week and the learners had to write down all the words they heard.  By the end of the week, learners had become better at selecting the most important words in the text: thus training themselves in a vital listening sub-skill. [ (Lloyd: 1997). 

Activities such as these focus on strategy training and take a step away from the “product” approach to teaching listening.  

Listening for gist

Higher level learners benefit from “confidence building activities” which show them that they can arrive at an understanding of a text even if the language initially seems very advanced. (Bowens, 1994 ) One such activity is a jigsaw listening style in which learners work together to arrive at a shared understanding of a text.

In this activity half of the class are asked to leave the room and the teacher plays short television news broadcast while the remaining learners make notes. Next, the teacher swaps the people in the room with those outside and plays the recording again. Finally, the teacher asks the learners to work in pairs (one learner from each half) and asks them to try to compile as much information as they can.  Finally, the recording is played one final time to check any points of contention.

I have found this task to be effective, as it visibly reduces any anxiety the “risk avoiders” may feel by side stepping the usual scenario in which listening is “tested”.  Instead, learners work together to arrive at a shared understanding of what they have head, and the role of the teacher is far less” interventionist”.   (Field, 1998)

Pace of Delivery

One of the most effective ways of improving learners’ ability to identify individual words from a stream of speech is through teaching them about word stress.  Goodith White describes an activity designed to help learners recognise words which are stressed in sentences and to consider the reasons why they are stressed . (White, 1998) 

In this activity, learners read an excerpt from an audio book.  Each learner marks the words in the excerpt which they believe the reader on the audio CD will stress, reading the text aloud to themselves as they do so.  Learners compare their answers in pairs, and then whole class feedback is conducted by the teacher, who elicits the idea that it is generally the content words which receive the stress. The teacher then goes on to discuss with learners how they can recognise stressed syllables within a word.  Finally, the learners can listen and check their answers against the recording. 

I have applied this lesson to a “test teach test” format, and found that the learners’ progress in recognising stressed syllables was measurable within the lesson. 

Background Noise

This activity is also suggested by Goodith White (White, 1998) and is designed to help learners cope with background noise. In this activity the class divides into two groups.  Working in the same room they listen and answer questions to a course book listening activity they have done previously.  The noise generated by the other recording in the room will give the learners practice in picking out important information over the top of background noise.  

While I have found this activity to be suitably challenging for high level learners it has been necessary to persuade learners of the usefulness of this exercise, and they can be ambivalent at the prospect of returning to work they have done before.  Although dealing with background noise is clearly an issue, it is difficult to find a way of helping learners deal with this that is not too contrived.

Bibliography

Field, J. 1998 The Changing Face of Listening ETP Vol 6 Jan 1998

Field, J. 2000 Finding Ones Way in the Fog MET Vol 9 Jan 2000

Lloyd, M. Dealing with Authentic Listening IHJ Issue 3 April 1997

Richards, J. 1990 The Language Teaching Matrix Cambridge University Press

Ridgway, T. 2000 Listening Strategies – I beg your pardon? ELT 54/2 April 2000

White, G. 1998 Listening Oxford University Press

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Day One: Breaking the Ice

The jitters I find myself experiencing on the first day of teaching a new class never fail to surprise me. I've been teaching for fourteen years now: what could possibly go wrong?  In any case, it could hardly be more of my disaster than my very first day on the job... (You can read about this teaching tragedy at: http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6006526).

I guess my nerves are rational enough. A lot is at stake here: this initial lesson sets the tone for the rest of the year, in terms of class dynamic and work ethic. I always aim to establish a positive group relationship in the first lesson while allowing myself the opportunity to gauge the needs and interests of individual learners within the class.

I thought I'd record the procedure I followed in last night's lesson and reflect a little on it here. Overall, I felt we had a good start back to the year, but I'm sure there's still room for improvement!

My New Class: A pre intermediate, mutli - lingual group of nine ESOL learners comprising Polish, Hungarian, Latvian, Thai, Moroccan and Spanish learners. Learners range in age from eighteen to around fifty.

Here is what we did:

Name Rattler
In my multi lingual class of pre-intermediate level learners, names were clearly going to be an issue. For me, establishing a solid group dynamic is absolutely crucial, and if it takes ten minutes of the first lesson for learners to get their tongues around each other's names then no matter: I feel it is time very well spent. Learners were clearly keen to get to grips with each other's names and I felt there was a positive atmosphere from the outset.

Name Rattler is as old as the hills. Introduce yourself, e.g.: My name is Genny.  The learner on your right then has to introduce himself and remember your name too: Her name is Genny and my name is Istvan. Rattle round the class until the last learner has to remember the entire class list of names. Then ask the last learner to give you another piece of information about herself, e.g.: I like banana sandwiches. The learner on her left then has to provide a similar bit of information along with the last learner's piece of information, e.g.: Loli likes banana sandwiches and I like beer. Rattle round the class the opposite way.

Name Rattler worked very well last night, and by the end of the activity the learners were visibly more relaxed. Most of them were making basic mistakes with the present simple tense: clearly we need to go back to the drawing board there!

Needs analysis

I sourced good needs analysis questions from Melissa Martin's first day back procedure on http://www.onestopenglish.com/support/methodology/teaching-approaches/approaching-a-first-class-with-a-new-group/155899.article. I gave learners time to answer the questions (some of them needed a bit of prompting)  and then we discussed the questions as a class. I did this because I wanted learners to be aware of the needs of the class as a whole. In particular we focused on the final question: "What can I do to improve my English outside the class?" as a surprisingly large amount of learners appear to labour under the misapprehension that they will learn the language by attending one English class a week and doing diddly squat else.

Rules and Regulations

I am not a fan of admin. Neither do I particularly like droning through pages of boring rules and regulations while my class gently slip into the land of Nod. We sped through the handbook, apart from one page which contained, to my mind, the most important rule of our institution: the rule which states that you must telephone or email your teacher if you cannot make it to class. Every September I remind learners of this rule, every year they nod earnestly, and every year most of them fail to notify me when they are going to be absent. I wondered if taking this rule from the handbook, typing it up, tacking it onto the wall in the corridor and turning it into a running dictation activity might help.

Well, it is too early in the year to say if this activity drove this particular rule home: I guess that time will tell. The activity did, however, give me a good insight into the writing and listening abilities of the learners in this class. It also generated movement and raised energy levels all round!


Holiday Lies

I wanted to see how my new class performed in a fluency activity, and so provided another tried and tested activity: the truth and lies game. Once I'd elicited the meaning of "truth" and "lie" I asked if there were any good liars in the class. A couple of folk said they were, and so I said I'd put them to the test.  I distributed post it notes marked with "Truth" and "Lie" and told the class that they had 3 minutes to mentally prepare a holiday anecdote which should be a truth or a lie, depending on the word they had received. I spun them a false holiday yarn of my own as an example. I then divided the class into two smaller groups, and asked them to listen to each others'  stories. This enabled me to see who worked well together, while noting significant errors (Most learners neglected to use the past tense in their anecdotes).

Listening and Writing

In the needs analyses many of the learners said that they needed to work on their listening. skills. This was the perfect opportunity for me to introduce my new favourite website: http://www.dictationsonline.com/
We used an elementary text, which worked well. I referred learners back to the final question in the needs analyses questionnaire and asked them to work on these online dictations for homework.  


And Finally:.

I couldn't resist trying out this little gem of an idea in the last few minutes of the lesson. I thought that it would really get learners talking and it did. The activity is by Camilla Mayhew and is called "Caravan or Cruiseliner" and with five minutes preparation you can adapt it to suit your own context and learners. It is a game I have often played with friends: you ask "The Beatles or the Rolling Stones?" or "Peanut Butter or Marmite?" or "Trotsky or Lenin"? You nominate your preferred choice and give reasons why. I used a good few of Camilla's suggestions but also added in a couple of examples with local significance. The learners quickly cottoned on and enjoyed discussing their choices: this provided a nice, upbeat close to the lesson.

You can find "Caravan or Cruiseliner" at:
http://www.onestopenglish.com/community/lesson-share/pdf-content/speaking/speaking-caravan-or-cruise-liner-lesson-plan/156839.article


Conclusion

Despite my worries, this first lesson went well. The class seemed to gel nicely, and I am delighted by the rich mix of nationalities. My initial diagnostic assessment shows that we have a lot of work to do - but with this group I think it will be a pleasure. Better get planning the next class!

Love Spider

A love spider.

I'm not sure how many of you will be winding up classes at summer school at the moment: if you are, let me share my all time favourite last lesson activity with you. If you are just embarking on a new term/session then this is well worth putting up your sleeve and keeping for the end of your course.

 I have road tested this lesson with EFL and ESL learners: with  levels ranging from pre-intermediate through to  upper-intermediate: it never fails to engage and delight. It's also a great way of revising grammar and lexis: particularly character adjectives. 


Resources:

• One A4 sheet of paper for everyone in the class (and yourself too)
• Pens/pencils for all
• Kind learners (or at least, no bad eggs...)
• Seats arranged  in a circle/horseshoe formation 
• Board and monopoly money (for the grammar auction stage)

 Procedure:

• Write your name in the middle of a blank A4 sheet of paper, and draw a circle around it. Draw eyes on top of the circle if you wish.  Encourage your learners to do the same. Tell your class they are going to make a spider. Not just any old spider though: we are talking about a lurve spider.
• Then pass your piece of paper to the person on your right, and ask class to do the same
• Draw a "leg" from the name in the middle of your piece if paper and tell learners that this is a spider's leg. At the end of the leg they are going to write something nice about the person whose name is in the middle of the piece of paper (Encourage them to make their language as interesting as possible!) This can be a compliment about the person's appearance, character, mention of a special talent this person has, an interesting fact you remember about this person or a positive prediction about their future.
• The learners keep passing their bits of paper round until it has come full circle. It is very important to allow the learners time to read the existing comments on the love spider they receive, as there should not be repetitive comments on any spider. 
• When everyone has written about everyone in the class, collect all the papers in.
• Hold a quick grammar auction. To do this, write a selection of 8 sentences from different love spiders on the board. Choose a mixture of grammatically correct and incorrect examples. Divide class into groups of four and distribute equal amounts of Monopoly money. Groups have to bid for correct sentences: the winning group is the one which has bought the highest number of correct sentences.
• Give the love spiders back to their owners and enjoy watching a roomful of faces beam with delight as they read the kind things their classmates have written about them.

New Year, Fresh Start...

The only thing I really like about January is sitting down and plotting a list of new year's resolutions (although I usually make far too many in the flush of excitement of a new year and fail to keep a good quarter of them.)

There are many more things to like about August: sunshine, festivals, and balmy light evenings... What's more, I always feel that this time of year offers us the possibility of starting afresh: as a teacher I have a whole new academic year stretching out ahead of me and my learners. I do believe it is time to look ahead and make some more new resolutions. Hopefully, declaring them publicly will be an added incentive to keep to them!

Focus on Pronunciation and Listening

As I said in my last post, I  spent much of the summer exploring the link between listening and pronunciation, and bemoaning the approach that so many course books take to teaching the listening skill. This year I wish to focus on listening and pronunciation in my classes. I will look at ways of incorporating some of the listening material on websites mentioned in my last post, and explore ways of exploiting this material to its best advantage. I will also keep a diary of listening activities we do in class, experiment with different approaches and look at ways of measuring learners' success (in a supportive, non-testing way.)

Persevere with my own language learning

For the past couple of years I have dabbled in learning a few different languages, only to bale out when the going got tough. I wish to emulate the dedication and perseverance of my learners and so have decided to choose a language and stick with it!  I have chosen Italian, and am learning it at home with Michel Thomas. His method fascinates me, and I am interested to see how far I can get with it. Perhaps I will reward myself with a jaunt to Italy in the summer - better get saving.

Spend Less Time Reading About ELT

Yes, I am an ELT junkie. I admit that I can spend hours leafing through books on methodology, lexis and grammar. On discovering Twitter earlier this year my level of addiction reached an all time high as I basked in the rush of seemingly unlimited links to further reading and ELT related chat. However, this summer I've had a break from it all, and this has made me feel rejuvenated and freshly creative. Reading outwith ELT has furnished me with fresh ideas for discussions and activities that I can take with me into the classroom with me. Roll on  September!

Five Things I Learned at Summer School This Year

Lucky for some...(photo courtesy of Photo Pin)

 Summer school is over, and I am back in Shetland.  Before all my experiences get lost in the rush of getting ready for a new term, here are some important lessons I have learned these past few weeks.

1. The horse shoe isn’t always best

I have always loved the horse shoe. After all, what’s not to love? It is open and friendly. I can see all my learners’ lovely faces and they can see mine without cricking their necks.  It makes whole class discussion easy, yet with a bit of chair shifting learners can work in groups too. So, on arriving in my new classroom on the first day of teaching you can imagine how I felt when I found my classroom organised into cliquey groups of four. Oh, horror! I set about rearranging desks in a mad frenzy, so that the good old horseshoe would be in place to welcome my new arrivals. 

Yet, when my course director popped into my class on the second day, she asked me, afterwards, if I had considered rearranging the seating. I assured her that I already had, a little defensive at any implied criticism of my dear old horse shoe. 

However, later on in the week I arrived in class with minutes to spare and an activity still to set up and realised too late, that some rotter had yet again, broken up my horseshoe into small islands. With no time to rearrange things I decided to let it stand…for one lesson. But, do you know what?  I didn’t ever change them back. My Japanese learners (who made up around forty per cent of the class) were visibly more vocal in group discussions. They clearly felt a lot more comfortable a little removed from the spotlight of the horseshoe and a lot less “put on the spot”. I just hope their necks didn’t get cricked.

So will I be rearranging the tables and chairs in Shetland? Probably not. My (predominantly European) learners are confident and sufficiently vocal for me to leave things as they are. But I am now convinced of the value of a flexible approach to seating in different teaching contexts.

2. Listening and Pronunciation are inextricably linked…

Yes, I  know you may well have heard this before. However,  it was a fact that I had never before been so aware of in practice. My multilingual class were studying at upper intermediate level, yet appeared to struggle a great deal with listening comprehension. And their pronunciation needed a lot of work. It was clear that they had difficulty understanding each other and native speaker English, even when lexis and sentence structures were familiar to them. However…

3. Learners don’t always see the value of pronunciation focus

In initial needs analysis, not one of the learners mentioned pronunciation as an area on which they wanted to focus. Not one. The trick then, was a wholly integrated approach.

4. Many course book listening activities are not actually very good at all…

I do believe I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again now, as my teaching experiences over the summer rammed the point home once and for all. The course book listening activities  focused almost exclusively on comprehension. They tested listening, rather than teaching it.  Unfortunately, it was a test that only two out of my twelve learners ever passed. And unfortunately, the school  required us to stick to the course book. My only option then was to stick with the course book texts and change the approach. I typed out the listening transcripts and made them into gap fills, focusing on weak forms, word and sentence stress and connected speech. And seethed inwardly. 

5. There are some amazing websites out there!  Here are a few I enjoyed using...

Grammar
 http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/verbtenseintro.html
 http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/verbs29practicetest.htm

Listening
http://www.dictationsonline.com/
http://www.shortstoryradio.com/ 

http://www.shiporsheep.com

http://eolf.univ-fcomte.fr/index.php?page=tv-commercials-listening-exercises