1.

What did you learn about staging a listening task and the practical side of
setting up and running it?

I learnt how important is to set the pre-listening activities, the listening task itself, post-
listening. It has a process, the teacher must introduce passage, first the gist activity
and then the detail activity. It involves students to understand the mains idea
recording, here we can use exercises like strips, pictures in sequence. On the other
hand, teacher encourage learners to pay attention for details, learners answer true or
false questions, teacher ask them for support their answers, they could listen twice or
more if they want, they can take notes while theyre listening. There many other
activities to improve listening skills: open-ended questions, multiple choice, summarize
the passage, etc.

2. What similarities do you see between the listening process and reading
process?

In the reading activities, we work with three stages: Pre, while and post activities. We
read for gist, we focus on details, then we have some questions. The exercises in
listening activities are similar, students answer questions or make predictions, then
they listen once to define the general idea, opposites exercises look for details. These
two are similar even in techniques and strategies, I remember in our reading
discussion there was an activity in which students put in order the sequence of a story,
in the video students work with strips to put the main events in order. In the papers, I
read Listening is used more times than other skills, and depends on the listener
(Interest in a topic), the speaker (too fast, too slow), the content (if words are familiar),
the visual support (body language). The paper set an example, the girl who has studied
Russian for 3 years, cannot understand nothing in a real context. I consider teaching
listening needs more attention.
I appreciate your recognition of the importance of creating well-crafted listening
lessons. The research supports this emphasis on the need for active listening
instruction. Here are some key points and ideas I gleaned from your discussion.

Similarities between Listening and Reading

Stages and presentation of listening and reading activities must be thoughtful and
intentional.
Staging a listening task and staging a reading task follow a similar structure. Both
are receptive skills that require students to take in and organize information. The
teacher will prepare the students with a pre-reading activity, or by providing context
for the listening. Skimming and listening for gist can help students learn that they
can understand the main ideas of a passage without clinging on to every word. Once
they have an outline or sketch of the passage in their mind, they can fill it in by
listening for details or reading intensively, and then demonstrate comprehension with
a post-reading or post-listening activity. In both cases, authentic materials are ideal,
and balanced instruction will include both top-down and bottom-up approaches.

Both reading and listening lessons involve pre, during and post activities.

Selection of materials is important authentic, appropriate (level and topic), and

high interest.

This post highlights the importance of authenticity, I need to be especially intentional

about including authentic aspects in the writing and speaking activities I assign, so
that students still feel that what they are learning is relevant and practical for their
everyday lives.

Need to select tasks to play listening activity multiple times and this strategy is
similar to effective reading lessons.

Checking for understanding is essential for reading and listening tasks.

There was an interesting discussion about the T/F activity. I found the T/F activity
interesting after reading Dulzers article for this weeks Module. Dulzer recommends
that activities should teach, not test. She states simply having the learners listen to
a passage followed by true/false questions might indicate how much the learners
remembered rather than helping them to develop the skill of determining main idea
and details. However, I think because the teacher first has the students complete
the sequence strips activity first for the gist and follows it with T/F questions, she is
not testing on memory only. She first guides learners in figuring out what the main
points are with the sentence strips and then focuses on details with the T/F
questions.

Successful listening and reading activities use both top-down and bottom-up
listening strategies. Thank you Zach for posting This article helped me identify the
order of listening activities: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/listening-top-
down-bottomI have posted the article in Module 3 Additional Resources.
 Listening (and this is true in reading lessons too) should be designed so learners
are not expected to understand each word but to understand the information that the
listener wants or needs. This post suggests multiple listening activities. From these
readings I learned there are several ways to stage a listening activity in addition to
focused listening, dictation and talks and lectures. These additional activities
include: show and tell, total physical response, dictocomp, dictation for reduced
forms, stories and problem solving situations.

A Few Questions and Sylvias Additional Comments and Resources

1. How do we keep our lessons authentic and high interest?

There were interesting suggestions about keeping listening lessons authentic. One
suggestion was This storytelling activity reminds me of an earlier video we watched
in which the teacher and her students had taken a trip to the hardware store. She
had the students come up with a story about their trip together. I wonder if you could
use that kind of basis to transition into a listening task - for example, by having the
instructor (or another native speaker) record the story and then having students
listen. What I'm thinking about is making the story students hear as relevant as
possible to their lives. I often ask my students what they listen to and try to
incorporate their answers into my listening selections. Also, I try to reflect on my
students goals for learning English and use their goals to search for listening tasks.

2. What is the role of natural speech and accents?

We are trained to speak so students can understand us our teaching
voice. However, students have to be able to interact in the real world full of non-
teachers. I believe that the closer to authentic speech possible, taking consideration
of the students level, the better. Students are often very nervous when they listen for
the first time. If students know they will be able to listen multiple times, they may
relax and accents will be less of an issue. My students worry about their accents
and being understood. I reply that Everyone has an accent. I try to expose them to
as many authentic accents as possible Remember that multiple listening tasks for
gist and key details provide support to mitigate audio speed.

Sylvias additional thoughts

1. Time to spend on pre-listening. This is also a question that is asked about some
reading lessons. A goal for both reading and listening lessons is to activate pre-
reading/listening schema without revealing the entire text or listening passage. I
have observed lessons where the pre-activities lasted longer than the actual
lesson. An additional reason to limit pre-listening or reading is students may never
really have to listen or read to participate in the actual listening/reading tasks.

2. Listening Lesson objective I believe that it is very important to consistently

communicate the lesson objective. It is an invaluable way to engage your students
and make sure your instruction is relevant to their lives. Include them in your
beginning or end of task / class reflections. Let students know why you selected the
learning objectives and strategies and invite them to think about how these
objectives relate to their current or future goals. (Its the same with reading,
speaking and writing objectives. That is why we emphasize lesson objectives so
much in this online course. J) Many of you noticed that the listening objective was
not clear in the video.

Check out these links for listening resources

Teachers YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/teachers (and many related
channels)
Top 10 TED Talks for Teachers: http://www.simplek12.com/personal-
enrichment/top-10-education-tedtalks/
The 100 Best Video Sites for Educators: http://www.edudemic.com/best-video-
sites-for-teachers/
* The Best Listening Sites for English Language Learners
http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2008/05/28/the-best-listening-sites-for-english-
language-learners/
(This was published in 2008, but there are some real oldies but goodies here and
all are still free.)

Andrew also recommended, VOA English Services. Here is one link for these
services http://learningenglish.voanews.com

And a final practical suggestion

Have a back-up plan for listening in case of technical difficulties (no Internet,
equipment doesnt work, etc.). I always have a script available in case my audio isnt
working for whatever reason. Then they I read, but I try not to use my teacher
voice but my more natural way I would read aloud. Several times in this course we
provide the script of audio (such as the Zimmerman interview) in this course for the
same reason. Some students have had difficulty downloading the audio.