Planning a listening lesson - 15 tips

From the Author:

Dear All,

The blog has been permanently moved to teflreflections.wordpress.com You can find this post here: http://teflreflections.wordpress.com/2014/05/16/planning-a-listening-lesson-15-tips/

I'm not going to publish anything on the blogspot address any more, and I'll delete the blog within a week or two. So if you'd still like to follow my posts (I hope you do), please visit the wordpress version and click follow there: teflreflections.wordpress.com You can also find regular updates on the posts on the new blog's FB page by clicking here.
Thanks for reading and commenting on the posts here, and I hope to see you soon on wordpress.
Best,

Marek Kiczkowiak

Grit - motivating students

A couple of weeks ago I posted on "grit" as the key element to being successful not only in learning languages, but also in life in general. The basic idea was that there is no proven correlation between success and IQ or innate talent. The one thing that became clear from research was that the key to success was grit - "passion and perseverance for your long term goals" (Angela Lee Duckworth).

Since publishing the original post, I've been meaning to put the theory into practice. I finally managed to do so two days ago, and I wanted to share with you below the lesson procedure I used. I deliberately chose this 1-1 student as the first guinea pig, because she's repeatedly expressed her concern about her supposed lack of flare for languages. She's also started to doubt whether she can improve.

Overall, the student responded very positively, and was really keen to learn more about the subject. So, I'm planning to weave in some more on motivation and good learner traits (see my post on MORE learners) in the future classes. Of course, only time will show whether my student's newly-sparked "grit" will persevere.

If you end up using the lesson plan or something similar with your students, please do let me know about the reaction, feedback and effects. I'd be very curious to know whether we can actually teach our students to be grittier and more determined, and whether this in turn can improve their progress.

Lesson aims:

• learn how to listen better to TED talks through predicting the content and reading the speaker's bio note
• discuss the concept of grit and motivate the student to learn

Lesson procedure:

1.    Speaker Orientation: (NOTE: Set a strict time limit and if highlight the students should note down whole chunks of language rather than single words) You are going to listen to Angela Lee Duckworth’s TED talk. Before you do so, prepare for the listening by reading her short bio. Read the text quickly and write down 5 expressions (2 - 4 words) that will help you remember it. Retell the text to your partner/teacher.

“In her late 20s, Angela Lee Duckworth left a demanding job as a management consultant at

McKinsey to teach math in public schools in San Francisco, Philadelphia and New York.

After five years of teaching seventh graders, she went back to grad school to complete her Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is now an assistant professor in the psychology department. Her research subjects include students, West Point cadets, and corporate salespeople, all of whom she studies to determine how "grit" is a better indicator of success than factors such as IQ or family income”. (http://www.ted.com/speakers/angela_lee_duckworth.html)

2.    Listening for details 0 – 3mins: Listen to the first part of the video and tick the information from the bio you hear. Write down any additional information about Angela.

3.    Relistening: Which part of the video was particularly difficult/interesting? Choose min 1 you would like to listen again to?

4.    Reflection: (NOTE: If you have a large group, either get the students to use smartphones in pairs so that each pair chooses their own part of the video, or decide on 1 or 2 as a whole class) What did we do before we listened for the first time? Did reading the biography make it easier for you to understand the video? Why?

5.    Topic schema activation: What key concept(s) is Angela going to talk about? What do you think “grit” means? What makes people successful in your opinion? What is more important: talent or hard-work?

6.    Listening Gist 3:00 – 3.28: (NOTE: Don't let the students take any notes at this point) Listen to Angela. What is “grit”? Don’t worry about understanding every word. Focus on the general meaning.

7.    Listening for Detail and Lexis: Listen again and write down some key words that Angela uses to describe what “grit” is. Don’t worry about the correct spelling. Check any new words with your teacher. Discuss again what you think “grit” means. If possible use the words you noted down.

8.    Reflection:

·       What is the purpose of exercise 5? How does it help you understand the video?

·       How is task 6 different from task 7? Which is more difficult?

·       What tips for better listening have you learned today? How can you apply them at home?

9.    Listening for Detail and Lexis 2: Listen again and complete the quotations with appropriate words. Use one word per gap.

a)   “Grit is passion and _______________ for very long-term ________.”

b)   “Grit is having ___________. Grit is sticking with your future — day in, day ______, not just for the week, not just for the __________, but for years — and working really hard to make that future a __________.”

c)    “Grit is living life like it's a ___________, not a sprint.”

10.                      Discussion:

·       How do you understand the concept of “grit”?

·       How is it related to/different from motivation and determination?

·       Do you have “grit”? Do you know anybody who does?

11.                      Discussion 2: (NOTE: I used pictures of Bill Gates, Albert Einstein, Oprah Winfrey and Walt Disney, but you can use any others, as long as they show people who became successful despite having been turned down or failed miserably at the start) Your teacher will give you pictures of some famous people. Who are they? What is the connection between them?

12.                      Discussion 3:

·       What makes people successful?

·       Which is more important: talent or grit?

·       How can you cultivate grit?

·       What can you do personally to become more gritty?

NOTE: One possible follow up is to do 'going to' and write down a list of things students can do to be more gritty.

Another logical follow up would be to ask the students to watch a TED talk and use the listening techniques practised in class to help them understand it better. Next class they report both on the content of the video and on their experience using the techniques.

The real deal

If you're like me, you try to use authentic materials in your classes as much as possible. The most common arguments in favour of authentic listening or reading texts (in comparison to course book materials) is that they:

•  are more engaging
• provide a "real" model of language
• give practice with texts students will encounter outside the class
• are topical and up-to-date
• provide a greater sense of achievement when tackled successfully
• can be carefully picked to match student's interests OR the student can choose the text themselves

Of course, there are many other advantages, as well as clear disadvantages (e.g. too difficult, too long), which are listed in detail, for example here. However, in this post I would like to focus on something different.

The question I want to pose has been hinted at in passing in one of my previous posts. Remember the A from the TAPEs? AUTHENTIC with a capital "A". But what I'd like to advocate are authentic TASKS rather than authentic materials, or preferably combining the two.

My premise here is that as teachers we should focus more on designing authentic tasks, rather than looking for an authentic text to use in the class just for the sake of using it. We have to remember that "different texts call for different treatments" (Nuttall, Ch. 1996: 153), and try to design the tasks accordingly.

So what do I mean by authentic tasks? Consider this piece of course book material from NEF Up-Int p.30. The text itself is perfectly authentic, however, what about the task itself?

All 3 questions are typical comprehension tests (1. Gist; 2. Lexis; 3. Implied meaning). Not that they are wrong, but the problem is they

• do not really teach the learner how to approach this genre (a short story) in the future
• are not an authentic response to this genre

So how can we make the task more natural? "A good rule of thumb, [...], is to first consider the sort of things a target reader is likely to do with [the text]" (Nuttal, Ch. 1996: 153). In other words, ask yourself: how would I read/listen to this text in real world? How would I respond to it?

Coming back to our example, one of the most natural reactions to a story/anecdote is that you retell it to your friends later on (possibly altering it, either consciously or unconsciously). The simplest authentic task would be then (presumably after a gist listening, but not necessarily, all depending on the level of your sts) to ask students to retell the story in groups. Then they could check it with other groups, and listen again to the original to see if their versions differed. Can you think of any other tasks that would be more authentic responses to the text than the original course book exercise?

As Wilson (2006: 39) rightly puts it, "listeners cope with different types of listening by preparing themselves according to the conventions and expectations of the genre". Students then must be made aware of those conventions and taught how to react naturally to certain texts. After all, nobody answers true or false questions when listening to a friend telling a funny story over a pint of beer down the pub, do they?

Below then are some typical text types and suggestions for an authentic task to do with your students. Not a definitive list, of course. And not to say that the classical T/F questions should be abandoned completely. There is always some room for them. However, when designing listening or reading tasks, we should ask ourselves more often: how would I react/respond naturally to this text in the real world? WHY would I listen or read it? And how can I design the tasks to reflect this?

Some of the most obvious advantages of authentic tasks are:

• they resemble tasks learners will have to perform in English outside the class
• they are more meaningful
• often there is no right or wrong answer, which avoids the disappointment and frustration of getting the answers wrong
• they provide learners with skills they can use outside the class
• they prepare them to attack similar texts more effectively in the future

So when you read it through the list, think why these tasks are presumably more authentic than a typical T/F or multiple choice question. And try to think of other authentic tasks either for these genres, or for other ones. I'd be more than happy to include your suggestions in the post :)

1. Story:

• retell your partner
• T or student pauses the recording, the student reacts (e.g. That's incredible/sad/unbelievable. etc.)
• T pauses the recording at different points and asks students a question which will involve them in the process of telling the story: e.g. What do you think X looked like?

     2. News article:

•  read the title and decide if it's worth reading and why
• skim through the paragraphs and find one which you'd like to read in more detail
• skim through, and retell the news to your partner
• compare the presentation of news in two different newspapers

     3. Interview:

• respond yourselves to the questions
• find one surprising/interesting piece of information and read more about it on the internet

     4. Dialogue:

• ask for clarification when you don't understand
• try to interrupt politely
• T stops the dialogue, the students respond appropriately (i.e. to practise functional language or adjacency pairs)

     5. Lecture:

• use the information from the ppt to identify the main points of the lecture
• pause after signposting language and predict what information comes next
• take notes
• summarise the content using the notes or convert them into an essay

Read up on reading and listening task design:

• Nuttal, Ch. 1996. "Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language". Heineman
• Willson, J.J. 2008. "How to teach listening". Person

To be, or not to be

I've always liked and tried to weave in some elements of English and American culture and literature into my classes, as I believe that they are inextricably connected to the language. And recently I've been thrown into the deep end, as one of my advanced students told me that she would like to focus on literature in our classes.

I'd never taught a similar course, but I sprang at the idea with enthusiasm, since English and American literature is something I studied in university. On top of that, I've always been a voracious reader myself, and the perspective of finally teaching something completely different was also very appealing (not that I complain, teaching EFL in all its varieties is also great fun, but you know what I mean).

At the time my student was reading Hamlet anyway, so it was natural we started with Shakespeare (as if we needed an excuse for that). In an introductory class we read a brief biography (I will post the lesson here soon). Then it was time to tackle bits from Hamlet.

Obviously, watching the whole play was out of question. Discussing the whole play, with its myriad of motifs, characters, problems, etc. was also not on the cards. So I decided to focus on the "To be" soliloquy, which arguably is the best know part of the play, and which summarises and touches upon many things that happen before and after it, as well as providing a great springboard for discussion.

As a basis for the lesson  procedure, I took an old handout I'd been given by another teacher some years before.After publishing the post, it was pointed out to me that originally the handout was published on BC's website by Paul Kaye from BC Syria in 2005. What I did was to expand and change his lesson by e.g. moving the focus to listening, and I hope this lesson is not seen as a copy of Paul's, but rather as an extension and elaboration of his ideas with my own take on the theme.

As an aside, I think this lesson will also be suitable for general English classes (from strong Intermediate onwards), as I've done similar things on literature with individuals and groups many times with usually a very positive response from the students.

Primary lesson aims:

• to understand Hamlet's situation and his moral dilemma
• to practice listening for gist

Secondary lesson aims:

• to facilitate future reading of Shakespeare through showing how to understand the meaning of a text without understanding all the words

Lesson Plan

1.    Lead–in:

Read the quotations below. How do you understand them? What do they tell you about Hamlet’s mood?

·       “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

·       “To be, or not to be: that is the question”

·       “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

·       “Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.”

·       “One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.”

·       “When sorrows come, they come not single spies. But in battalions!”

·       “To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.”

2. Schema activation:

Many bad things have happened to Hamlet.

a) Read the statements below and decide which of them are true, and which are false:

·       Hamlet’s father has been murdered.

·       As a result, Hamlet’s mother wanted to commit a suicide.

·       The girl Hamlet was going to marry has eloped with another man.

·       The ghost of Hamlet’s father visits him every night.

·       Hamlet wants to take revenge, but cannot find the strength to do it.

b) Discuss these questions:

·       Knowing more about Hamlet’s situation, how do you understand the quotes from exercise 1? Who or what might they refer to?

·       How would you feel in Hamlet’s position? List some adjectives:

·       What would you do? Why?

·       Have you ever experienced a big failure in your life? If not, do you know anybody who has? What happened?

3. Gist listening:

You are going to listen to and watch Hamlet’s famous soliloquy: “To be, or not to be”. Knowing what you do about the position Hamlet’s in, what do you think he’s going to talk about? List one or two main ideas. Listen and check whether your prediction was correct.

(NOTE: I chose Jacobi's version available on youtube here, but that's just my personal preference - a follow up idea would be to compare the 3 or 4 best versions of the speech, e.g. Olivier, Jacobi and Branagh) 

4. Gist listening 2:

Look at the ideas Hamlet expresses put into modern English. Can you arrange them in order? Listen again and check.

a) It’s difficult to bear problems here on Earth, but the thought of the unknown life after death is quite scary. Maybe more problems lie there? That’s why most of us choose to just get on with their earthly problems.

b) Is it better to suffer silently in your mind, or step up and fight against the problems, and try to overcome them?

c) Who can bear so many problems at once? Wouldn’t it be easier just to kill yourself and so put an end to all the troubles?

d) The more you think, the more time you lose, the less decided and less likely you are to act.

e) If die, we sleep. And if we sleep we might dream. And here’s the problem: what dreams might we have in that deadly sleep?

f) Death and sleep are a great way to end the problems.

5. Listening for details:

Now your teacher will give you the jumbled text of the soliloquy. Match it to the ideas from exercise 5. Then listen and read the text to put it in order.

(NOTE:you can either find it on google and cut it up to 6 chunks corresponding to the ideas a to f in the next exercise or email me, and I'll send it to you - I have no idea how to attach documents here, unfortunately)

6. Text analysis:

Hamlet mentions many problems, and the language might be difficult to understand. Look at the below quotations. How do you understand them? Can you put them into modern English? Use the context and the full text to help yourself.

 (NOTE: stress that students shouldn't translate word for word, but rather use the larger context of the soliloquy, as well as the ideas discussed previously)

a) The pangs of despised love

b) The law’s delay.

c) The whips and scorn of time

d) The insolence of office

e) The proud man’s contumely

f) The spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes

7. Discussion:

Now try to give a modern example of the problems that Hamlet has. Below are some suggestions:

·       Your employer is horribly rude to you.

·       Legal cases take forever.

·       You feel old.

·       The girl you like never answers your calls.

·       Somebody treats you horribly, even though you’re always nice to them.

·       Your arrogant friend always disrespects you.

9. Discussion 2:

·       Have you ever been in a situation when you needed to act but couldn’t? What happened?

·       Why does Hamlet hesitate? Why is he unable to act?

·       What moral dilemmas does he face? Are they still relevant to us? Why (not)? Give examples.

·       What advice could you give to Hamlet?

10. Writing:

At home write a response to Hamlet’s dilemma, giving examples from present times. Among other things think:

·        whether some problems are insoluble

·        if it is better to suffer silently or to take revenge

·        why some people commit suicide