Good morning dear teachers:
Today we are going to focus on one of our biggest weaknesses in the English languge learning: listening. Do you agree with me?
Let's do the workshop step by step
Listening workshop and strategies
A. Listening strategies reflection: Think about these questions and share your answers with the partner next to you. (10 minutes)
1. Do you practice English on your own?
2. How do you do it?
3. When do you do it? Do you have a set up time?
4. What materials and resources do you use for that?
5. Do you monitor and evaluate your progress and difficulties?
6. Do you have some strategies to practice listening? If you do so, type them. If not, what ideas come to your mind to practice listening? write a list on comments.
B. Pre-listening activity: before doing the activity, try to answer these questions. You don’t need to write your answers. You can check the answers with the classmate next to you, on the websites suggested or in any other of your preference. (15-20 minutes)
1. Name a country that begins with U.
2. Do you know what the coalition of the willing is? If not, check the answer in either of these links:
3. What’s the religion of Israel? You can look for some information at:
4. What religions are Buddhist monks?
6. Who is Fidel Castro?
7. How many sides does a triangle have?
8. What is the currency used in the UK?
9. What happens in Korea?
10. Who is Kofi Anan?
11. Who is Tony Blair?
12. Who was the first man in the moon?
13. What is a mosque?
14. How many kidneys does a person have?
16. How many World Wars have there been?
17. Which state does KFC come from?
18. Is Star wars a true story?
19. What happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
20. How many Eiffel towers are there in France?
21. What is Al Quada?
22. Where is the Berlin wall?
23. What language is spoken in Latin America?
C. Listening: once you have answered or tried to answer the questions above, watch the video and listen to it:
The first time try to watch the video without stopping it. Try to get the main idea. If you want to listen to the video for a second time, you can stop it whenever you want. This time you can focus on some details such as: pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, intonation. You can watch the video as many times as you prefer. (5-10 minutes)
D. Post-listening activity: write your answers to these questions. (5-10 minutes)
1. From 1 to 10, how difficult was the video for you? 10 is very difficult. Explain your answer.
2. Do pre-listening activities and previous knowledge about the topic of the listening help you to have a better understanding of the text?
3. What was this exercise useful for? What did you learn or practice?
4. What strategies did you use?
E. Extra point: Take a look at the following listening strategies taken from: Rubin & Thompson (1994). How to be a more successful language learner. Boston: Heinle & Heinle. (15-20 minutes)
1. Listen regularly. In addition to language CD's, make a regular effort to listen to the foreign language outside the classroom. Listen to the radio, attend lectures, and watch TV and films.
2. Choose appropriate materials. Find materials specially prepared for teaching listening comprehension such as textbooks and videos. Then try finding authentic material such as radio and TV programs, lectures, films and plays.
3. Find the right level of difficulty. If you are a beginning or intermediate learner, start with video rather than audio materials. Start with short TV segments on familiar topics. Advanced learners can listen to more complex materials.
4. Choose material that you will enjoy. If you are interested in sports, watch sports on TV or listen to sports reports. If you enjoy comedies, watch them in the foreign language.
If you like movies, try these strategies to improve your listening skill
Before Listening ...
- Decide what aspect of your listening you want to improve. If it is Vocabulary, it's useful to decide whether you want to focus on conversational phrases, slang, vocabulary related to a particular topic etc. If you want to improve your ability to understand quickly spoken English speech then you probably want to focus on features of English Pronunciation.
- Set yourself a goal. Think of one or two aspects of your listening you want to improve on and set a goal related to that (e.g. "I want to be able to hear contractions like I'll and She's.") That way, you are more likely to be successful!
- Choose a film that you will enjoy! To find out about the actors in the film, what the film's about, what awards it's won etc.
- Try to find films which match your goals and level. Is the film likely to contain the Vocabulary or Pronunciation features you want to practice? (You can check by looking at the transcript if there is one.) What type of English does it contain: American/British/Australian etc? Does the film contain a lot of talking (e.g. Romantic Comedy vs. Action Adventure)? Is the language in the film reasonably easy to understand (e.g. Forrest Gump) or do the actors use slang or speak with a strong accent? (Listen to the first few minutes of the film to check.)
- Look for films with English captions (subtitles). Captions are very useful if you find it difficult to listen to fast informal conversation. They enable you to jot down words you don't know and identify stretches of speech that you can't hear.
- If you find out about the historical or cultural background of a film before you watch, this will help you understand the film much better. You will find useful information in Encarta at http://encarta.msn.com/reference/ and in the Oxford Guide to British and American Culture and the Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture (Reading & Writing Area).
- Read a novel or filmscript of the film if there is one available. This will prepare you for the theme, plot and key vocabulary of the film.
While listening ...
- Focus on a part of the movie only - this is especially useful if you are trying to hear Pronunciation features, or want to replay the movie many times in order to remember the vocabulary that you've identified. In these cases, you probably won't have time to watch the whole film several times, so it makes sense to focus on a small part and watch it repeatedly. You can choose a part that's very interesting, or that contains many Pronunciation features or new words/phrases.
- Stop the film and rewind if there are bits you can't hear or understand. This is useful if you want to focus on how words are pronounced in connected speech.
- Try to transcribe (write down) a short section of a movie (e.g. 1 minute long or less) word for word. You can then compare your version with the real script. This is a useful technique for testing your listening ability or finding out what pronunciation features you have difficulty with.
- Watch the film with a friend, so that you can talk about themes that have come up in the film or help each other as soon as any one has difficulty in understanding what the actors are saying or loses track of the plot.
After Listening ...
- Watch another film on the same theme or of the same type. This will give you more chance to: focus on the language (because you understand the background); meet the same words/phrases again (which will help you remember them); and hear different ways of expressing the same meaning and of communicating in similar situations.
- Watch a part of the movie many times. Can you understand it better now?
- Write about any aspect of the film - plot, characters, ending, themes - that interests you.
- Try to learn and remember the vocabulary that you have noted down.
- Talk about the film with a partner or a group of friends.
- Do some follow-up reading. For example, you can read the novel on which the film is based, or read about the period of history in which the film is set.
Evaluating your progress
Most people find it very useful to evaluate their learning progress. Assessing your progress can not only give you a feeling of success, but also identify areas that you need to work on in the future. Here are some ways of evaluating the progress you have made in your listening to movies:
- Think about your progress - how do you feel about your performance?
- Compare your listening comprehension / vocabulary knowledge / knowledge of Pronunciation features at the beginning of a period of learning and at the end, e.g. several months later - have you improved? (You could watch the same movie or scene in order to compare your listening.)
- Summarise a movie or part of a movie and compare it with a published summary - did you get the key points?
- Transcribe part of a movie and compare it with the movie transcript or captions. How accurate is your transcript? What do your mistakes tell you about the aspects you need to work on most?
Some web sites where you might practice and improve your listening skill by using the previous listening tips:
http://moviesegmentstoassessgrammargoals.blogspot.com/http://lc.ust.hk/~sac/advice/english/listening/L7.htm
I practice little the English, because I not dedicate time. But when I do, I read articles in the computer and I see videos with audio. I not have specific time for doing. The more usually for practice the English is the computer, videos, reads and listen.
ReplyDeleteWhen I see videos or moves in English and I do not understand, I am furious and I give up.
I know my progress but I have a rigorous evaluation. But my difficulties are listening, vocabulary (because my memory is bad) and speak. I can practice listening but not the speaking, because I have not who corrected me the pronunciation.
1. Do you practice English on your own?
ReplyDeleteYes, I practice English on my own, I listen to songs mainly.
2. How do you do it?
Listening to songs in English, watch videos in YouTube and films.
3. When do you do it? Do you have a set up time?
I don’t set up time, but I’ll do it.
4. What materials and resources do you use for that?
TV, computer, CDS
5. Do you monitor and evaluate your progress and difficulties?
No, I don’t.
6. Do you have some strategies to practice listening? If you do so, type them. If not, what ideas come to your mind to practice listening? Write a list on comments.
Yes, I practice listening by listening to songs, short stories and news in English.
Answers
ReplyDeleteYes, I practice English on my own
I write English, I listen to the course “Puma Rosa” and the google translator to listen and short videos
Usually I practice the Sunday and the Monday in the morning
Usually I use the computer
No I don’t monitor my progress and difficulties
Sometimes I chat with a Canadian friend, this is a good strategy
Ask the questions
ReplyDelete1. Yes. I practice English every day .I practice the writing and Reading because I teach English but I practice listening little because I don´t have much time.
2. In my free time I listen English songs so I search the letter and translation, I watch t.v. programs in English although I understand a few but I continue listening.
3. I don´t have a time to practice English. I do in my free time, at night and the weekend.
4. I use to learn English songs, t.v. programs , article, news, the radio, books and the homework of my university.
5. My big difficulties is the listening but I don´t have somebody with me that can to correct my activities.
6. There are many strategies like:
To listen song, websites where you can talk with other people, to watch t.v. programs, English Cds and other strategics.
1. Yes, I practice a little in week and weekend practice about 3 hours
ReplyDelete2. I practice in the web pages
3. I Like to practice on Saturday in the afternoon
4. For that I use the computer
5. No, but I’ll do it
6. My strategies are: to have the exercises in the pages, again, again and again
I practice the English for myself because is very interesting and important for my own learning. I study in home the weekend for any hours in the morning,Saturday and Monday.
ReplyDeleteI use videos, books,magazines,and documentals.Morover,use the materials of level 3 convenio. Sometimes evaluat ed my own progress and my difficulties.
A strategy to practice the listening is to listen the people pronunciation, the teacher´´pronuncation, any songs.