Ah
Ah
Ah
Unit 3 1 Module 2
Introduction
There are courses in English for Specific Purposes, which need to be heavily
weighted in one or two of the skills, eg courses for telephone operators teach
more listening and speaking. However, even courses as specific as that need
a certain amount of the other skills - a telephonist may need to read a memo,
or leave a written message for someone, thus needing the skills of reading
and writing.
There are further sound reasons for including all the four skills in the syllabus
and often in a single lesson:
1. People get tired after a certain period of activity and they need a
change of activity - the saying 'a change is as good as a rest' certainly
applies to the language classroom.
Unit 3 2 Module 2
Skills and the Textbook
Some textbooks put emphasis on one or two skills and either omit or
downgrade the others. Books which lay great importance on grammar often
focus mainly on reading and writing, whereas audio-lingual course books
concentrate on listening and speaking (they are however course books which
have been written and need to be read). Before taking on a new class, look
carefully at the textbook to see if it provides sufficient practice in all of the four
skills. Plan ahead and be ready with supplementary material should the book
be lacking in practice in any particular skill. Writing is the most commonly
neglected! Authentic texts, readers, recordings of dialogues, extracts from
DVD and contemporary news downloads or articles from the internet will be
very useful for this purpose. Start making your collection now!
Although real life communication rarely consists of only one of the four skills,
it is important to look at the skill areas separately to begin with in order to
identify what learners need to be able to do, and how we, as teachers, can
best help them acquire that ability.
The 4 skills are traditionally divided into receptive and productive skills. As
the names suggest, the receptive skills are those which enable the learner to
understand language and to receive information via language. They are
listening and reading. The productive skills are those which enable the
learner to produce language. They are speaking and writing.
One misconception is that the receptive skills are passive and the productive
skills are active. Because any act of listening or reading is supposed to have
an aim – whether it be understanding the main idea of a text, identifying the
characters in a play or deciding on your attitude to the speaker's opinion – the
listener or reader is actively involved in the process.
In this module our focus will be on the two receptive skills: listening and
reading.
Unit 3 3 Module 2
LISTENING SKILLS
SELF-CHECK
?
SELF-CHECK 1
Listen to the sound file (Listening Task.mp3) and complete the table below:-
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Unit 3 4 Module 2
Different kinds of listening (listening sub-skills)
There are times when we listen to something in order to get a general idea of
the content, or 'the gist', rather than specific details. Sometimes we need to
recognise the function of the dialogue – for example, is the speaker making
arrangements, expressing an opinion, making an enquiry; are the speakers
discussing their opinions of a book they have both read or are they having a
row? At higher levels – intermediate and above – students need practice in
recognising attitude (by work on intonation patterns) and recognising changes
in direction or topic when listening to speeches, long texts, or taking notes in
university lectures.
A pre-listening gist question can prepare the students and encourage them
not to worry about details but to concentrate on understanding the general
idea. They will listen with the question in mind and then give their answer.
Post-listening questions such as 'How would you describe A's feelings?' allow
them to interpret what they have understood without worrying about specifics.
When we listen for detail, our attention is focused and we are searching for
specific information in the listening passage. For example, we could be
listening for details of the weather in our region, a train departure time or the
football results of our favourite team. As we listen carefully, we select the
information we require and ignore the rest. Because we know beforehand
what we want to hear, it becomes easier to concentrate and focus our
attention to listen selectively. There are several ways of training our students
to develop the sub-skill of listening for detail.
Unit 3 5 Module 2
a) Prediction
By asking students to predict what they are going to hear, based on a topic
word or sentence, you are preparing your learners for what to expect. Guided
questions help them decide what to listen for, and keep them focused on the
main points. This technique can be repeated towards the end of a listening
passage by asking students to predict the ending. This can be done in pairs
or groups and it keeps students actively involved in the listening process.
b) Comprehension questions
Different types of exercises will ensure that listening skills are being
developed. Exercises can be set midway as well as at the end of a listening
passage, and can be in the form of true/false questions, 'wh' questions (who,
what, where), sentence completion, gap-filling, error correction, table filling,
form-filling, etc.
An exercise may require that you listen and identify specific lexical or
grammatical items in a text, eg note all the past participle forms of verbs or all
the superlative adjectives.
Listening for gist and listening for detail should be carried out separately from
each other. It is difficult for students to do both at the same time. Check tasks
to make sure that you do not have them trying to do too many things at once.
When a new listening passage, a monologue or a dialogue, is introduced,
students will naturally want to know what it is generally about first and
discover details later. So it's logical to begin with gist exercises for the first
listening and give detailed exercises for the second listening.
Students often find listening exercises to be one of the most stressful parts of
any lesson. The most stress is aroused when students are asked to listen
‘cold’ (ie they are not prepared) and then perform an exercise. Therefore, it is
important to activate schemata before they listen. That means discuss the
general topic of the text and make students aware of what they already know
about it, so that the new information they hear will be laid on some sort of a
foundation. That, in turn, will improve understanding.
Unit 3 6 Module 2
SELF-CHECK
? SELF-CHECK 2
Unit 3 7 Module 2
READING SKILLS
It does not necessarily follow that because a student can read, he/she is an
efficient reader. Training in the skills involved in reading must be given as
reading is not an inbuilt skill. Reading is not a passive process, either. It is an
active process in which practice in all the sub-skills is vital as no improvement
can be effected without guided practice.
Scanning involves looking for specific information in the text. For example,
you want to find out the score of a game between Real Madrid and Barcelona
and you want to know whether Christiano Ronaldo has scored. You will then
read through the match report looking for numbers and identifying which of
them refer to the final score and you will also look for any mention of
Christiano's name in the text and, when you locate it, you'll read around that
to find out whether he scored a goal.
Scanning may also be in the form of looking for specific language items or
structures, eg “find all instances of the present perfect” or “find all descriptive
adjectives in the text”.
Unit 3 8 Module 2
In another classification there are four sub-skills of reading.
Before setting reading tasks for your students, you need to decide what your
aim is. For instance:
SELF-CHECK
? SELF-CHECK 3
Here are two texts and some examples of exercises which have been written
to improve students' reading skills. Study them carefully - which sub-skills are
being taught? Who are they suitable for?
Unit 3 9 Module 2
EXAMPLE TEXT 1
Exercise 1
A detached house stands on its own. A semi-detached house is joined to the house next
door along the central wall. The ‘semi’ is the most typical kind of English house. It has front
and back gardens and often a garage at the side.
The outline on the next page shows the ground floor of a typical ‘left-hand’ semi. It has a
lot of rooms, but if you look at the rooms you will see that they are all quite small. People
often ‘live’ in the dining room, keeping the lounge for visitors. This means that they spend
most of their time in a room only about 11' 6" x 10' 6". The dining room in this house is
connected to the lounge by a room divider, and the kitchen is connected to the dining room
by a hatch in the wall. Both the lounge and the dining room have open fireplaces. The
kitchen has a sink unit on the back wall of the house and the back door is on the left. The
front door opens into the hall. There is one other way in and out of the house and this is
through French windows which open onto the garden to the rear of the dining room. The
house from front to back measures 24' 6", the lounge being 13' in length.
Exercise 2
Now read the text more carefully and answer the following questions about the house.
Exercise 3
Unit 3 10 Module 2
4. The two figures 4 mark the position of the ..........
EXAMPLE TEXT 2
Pre-reading question
The following words will be used in the text. What do you think the text will be about? What
events will happen in the text? Make notes of your ideas.
careless
criticized
violation
freeway
damage
Exercise 1
Read the following text and answer the question after each paragraph. Then read on and
find out if your guesses are correct. [Note: the text is projected onto a screen. Students are
not shown the next part of the text until the teacher has elicited their answer to the
question on the previous part].
1 Colleen was in a hurry, which made her driving even more careless than usual.
Her boyfriend Simon had already criticized her many times for failing to stop
completely at stop signs. That's what they call a “California, or rolling, stop,” he
told her.
5 “If the cops catch you sliding through a stop like that,” he said, wagging a finger
at her, “they'll give you a ticket for running a stop sign. That's a moving violation.
That means at least a $100 ticket, plus eight hours of driving school for another
$30.”
What do you think Colleen said in reply?
9 “I know, I know,” she replied. “But I never do it when they're around, so how can
they catch me?” Simon was about to tell her that cops have a habit of suddenly
appearing out of nowhere, but Colleen told him to stop thinking so negatively.
“You are bad luck,” she said. “When you talk like that, you make bad things
happen.” He told her that life doesn't work that way.
Unit 3 11 Module 2
15 Colleen was in a hurry because she needed to drop off a package at the post
office. It had to get to New York by Wednesday. She exited the freeway and
pulled up at the stop sign. No cars were coming. It was safe to pull out. She hit
the gas pedal.
What do you think happened next?
19 Bang! The car in front of her was still sitting there. The driver was a young
woman, who got out of her car, walked back to look at the damage to her new
car, and started yelling at Colleen.
From http://www.eslfast.com/eslread/ss/s052.htm
Now read the notes you made before you read the text. Were any of your initial guesses
about the text correct?
Exercise 2
Exercise 3
Explain what is meant by the following words ie what the author is referring to.
1. that – line 3
2. it – line 9
3. they – line 9
4. it – line 16
5. there – line 19
Unit 3 12 Module 2
PLANNING A RECEPTIVE SKILLS LESSON
The main stages of a receptive skills lesson, ie a lesson in which
reading or listening skills are practised, are as follows:
This also needs to resemble real life reading. We ‘process’ the texts we read
in different ways depending on the type of text and the aims of reading. We
can read for the main idea, specific facts, for practical use of the information,
etc, ie use different strategies or sub-skills of reading.
Breaking these main stages down into smaller stages, your lesson plan
could be like this:
1) Arouse interest in the general topic. Find out what students already know
and what their experience of the topic/text type is.
Rationale: To activate the knowledge that will assist learners in
understanding the text. To provide motivation to read / listen.
2) Set the scene. Give any essential background information. This context will
vary according to the nature of the text, but may include such information as
who is writing/speaking, to whom, about what topic, why? where?
Unit 3 13 Module 2
predictions about the type and nature of the text they are about to read /
hear.
4) Set an achievable task for the first reading / listening. This will usually be a
gist comprehension task.
Rationale: To provide learners with a reason to read / listen.
To motivate students and develop confidence that the text is
manageable.
2) Set further tasks to guide more detailed comprehension of the text, and
give students time to do this. The nature of the task will depend on the text
and should be determined by how the text would be processed in real life.
Rationale: To help students to identify specific information, infer opinion
etc. depending on the nature of the text.
3) Get learners to check their answers in pairs.
Rationale: To focus students on problem areas and to provide support
for individuals.
4) Check the answers with the class and refer back to the text as necessary.
Rationale: To ensure that everyone understands the text and
understands how the answers have been arrived at.
Unit 3 14 Module 2
There is a range of options here and what you decide to do depends on the
text type and the aims of the lesson. Here are some possibilities:
1) Select some useful vocabulary of grammar items from the text and develop
understanding of these through formal exercises or oral use.
Rationale: To expand students’ vocabulary and grammar.
3) Set a writing task (eg write a letter to someone in the text, fill in a form or
write a for-and-against essay about the topic in the text).
Rationale: To develop writing skills and enable students to use the
language of the text in other contexts.
Pre-reading/Listening:
1) Predicting: Ask students to look at the title and / or pictures and try to
identify the topic.
2) Lead-in Questions: Ask students to ask each other questions about the
topic.
3) Brainstorm: Ask students to brainstorm and list everything they can think of
related to the topic within a set time-limit.
5) Speed Read: Ask students to read the first paragraph, the first sentence of
subsequent paragraphs, and the last paragraph. The students then make
predictions about the passage, or answer comprehension questions.
6) Word Clouds:
Version 1 (Brainstorming): Write the topic on the board and draw a cloud
shape beneath it. Elicit any words that students associate with the topic and
write them in the cloud. Assign pairs or small groups and ask students to
connect the words in sentences related to the topic. Follow up with a class
check.
Unit 3 15 Module 2
Version 2 (Predicting): Select several words from the reading or listening,
directly related to the topic. Try to make the connections a little obscure.
Draw a cloud shape and write in the words one at a time. Students should
try to guess the topic as you write up the words. Then in pairs or groups
students should try to make predictions about the text based on the words,
and try to guess in what ways the words are related to the topic. Elicit the
predictions from the students without giving away the correct answers. With
reading texts you could follow up with a scan reading where the students
check their predictions.
7) Mind Maps (Nuclear notes - see the Study Skills unit for an example): This
allows students, in pairs or small groups, to brainstorm the topic by starting
with one word and linking it to new words to create word fields.
8) Mix and Match: Make up and write a headline for every paragraph in the
article. Make enough copies for each pair/small group. Cut and separate each
headline and mix them up. Students then have to place the headlines in the
correct order and try to speculate about the text in detail.
While Reading/Listening:
1) Comprehension Race: This can be carried out individually or in teams.
With the reading texts closed, the teacher asks the first comprehension
question and the students open their books and try to find the answers as
quickly as possible. The first person or team gets a point for each correct
answer.
Unit 3 16 Module 2
5)Read and Listen: Elicit / teach vocabulary. In pairs, student A reads the first
paragraph while student B listens and takes notes. After student A has
finished reading they should ask student B a few general comprehension
questions. Change roles after each paragraph. Model with the first paragraph.
7) Cloze Reading: Make two copies of a reading text with different words
blanked out for A and B students. Assign pairs. Each student then asks their
partner questions to elicit the missing words, eg if a student has the sentence
‘I had a ………….day’, student A must ask student B, ’What kind of a day did
you have?’ Student B would then answer according to their text, ’You had a
terrible day.’
8) Find the mistakes: Choose a student to read the first paragraph of a text.
Then model summarising the text. However, you must change some of the
details, and the students should try to identify your ‘mistakes’. Avoid changing
words by using synonyms; you want students to think about meaning, not just
words. Students can then practise this format in pairs with the remaining
paragraphs.
9) Pair Conference: Assign pairs. Student A reads the first paragraph aloud.
Together students A and B check vocabulary and their understanding of the
paragraph. Student B reads the next paragraph and they confer again. Pairs
alternate reading. Class check. Elicit remaining problems, allowing the class
to answer if possible. Clarify final vocabulary and comprehension questions.
Unit 3 17 Module 2
Give students short lists of vocabulary. Ask them to work together in
small groups to look up or describe to each other the meaning of the
words.
Give students lists of mixed up words and definitions. They can work
individually or in pairs to try to match the words to the correct
definitions.
Give students a list of words with example sentences of the words used
in context. In pairs or individually ask the students to guess the meaning
of the words and formulate their own example sentences using those
words.
Avoid translating the words for students; instead define, give example
sentences, use gestures and modelling or pictures, or encourage students to
look up the words in their dictionaries.
When carrying out reading and listening tasks, always remind students that
they do not need to know every word; encourage them to initially ignore the
unknown words and focus on understanding the overall topic. Still ignoring
the unknown words, move on to identifying specific details. Continue
analysing the texts, showing students how far they are able to understand a
text even when they do not know all the words. Once the text has been
analysed as far as possible, then you can follow up with vocabulary work.
You can prepare quick controlled practice exercises, such as matching, gap-
fill or multiple choice. After that, students should be encouraged to use the
words from the text in context, such as talking about themselves, acting out a
role-play or discussing their opinions.
Unit 3 18 Module 2
task
TASK
4. Q) How can you ensure that you are considering the needs of every
learner?
A)
Unit 3 19 Module 2
10. Q) "Reading is an inbuilt skill." Is this statement true or false?
A)
15. Q) Why do you need to know whether your learners are eg university
students, business English students etc?
A)
16. Q) In Example Text 1 are your students required to get to know every
word before completing the exercises?
A)
Unit 3 20 Module 2
20. Q) For which stage of a receptive skills lesson would you plan
exercises on grammar structures used in the text, a role-play based
on the text or an essay on the topic of the text.
A)
Unit 3 21 Module 2