Integrating Reading and Writing for Effective Language Teaching

Integrating Reading and Writing for Effective Language Teaching

Ruwaida Abu Rass

Writing is a difficult skill for native speakers and nonnative speakers alike, because writers must balance multiple issues such as content, organization, purpose, audience, vocabulary, punctuation, spelling, and mechanics such as capitalization. Writing is especially difficult for nonnative speakers because they are expected to create written products that demonstrate mastery of all the above elements in a new language. In addition, writing has been taught for many years as a product rather than a process. Therefore, teachers emphasize grammar and punctuation rather than decisions about the content and the organization of ideas. My students tell me they have been exposed to the rules of writing and grammar from the outset without developing their ability to express their ideas.

Based on the positive findings of previous research with ESL students at the elementary level (Abu Rass 1997; Elley 1991; Ghawi 1996), I designed an integrated reading and writing course for first-year Arab EFL students at Beit Berl College, a four-year teacher training college in Israel.

Previous research

Elley (1991) writes about four studies comparing language development of children who learned a second language in traditional classrooms and those who participated in a book-based program in New Zealand. Results showed superior performance by participants in the book-based program in the three tests administered to examine its effectiveness. In comparisons, the participants in the book-based program outperformed their peers who learned in traditional classrooms.

Two other research projects were conducted at a university in Arizona to examine the usefulness of integrating language and content and exposing ESL students to a massive amount of reading (Abu Rass 1997; Ghawi 1996). In both case studies, participating students demonstrated significant gains in language proficiency. The students were also eager to read the assigned novels and enjoyed reading even though they encountered many unfamiliar words.

Integrated reading and writing course

Objective

The objective of the course at Beit Berl College was to help learners write more freely, naturally, and fluently while acquainting them with literature in the English language. Recognizing a well-written paragraph in English was the core of the course, as well as providing students with the techniques necessary to write paragraphs and five-paragraph essays in English.

Reading Requirements

To achieve the goals of the course, students were expected to read literature from anthologies, including Tales from Many Lands: An Anthology of Multicultural Folk Literature and Prize Stories 1994: The O. Henry Awards. The assigned list of reading also included some selected contemporary poetry in English. The aim was to expose Arab students to contemporary literature of the United States, as well as other parts of the world, in authentic English. Integrating literature helps second and foreign language learners improve their language proficiency and develop cultural awareness of the target language. Although they may face difficulty in reading novels and short stories, they can adjust themselves to the repeated vocabulary and the style of the writer (Coady 1979).

At the beginning of the first semester, the stories were simple ones and represented cultures from different parts of the world including Japan, Korea, and Europe. Texts that were easy to read were chosen to help students develop a habit of reading. Following Lazar (1993), literary criticism was not part of the instruction. The students were involved emotionally and linguistically through communicative activities. For example, they were expected to recall some events and predict others. Similarly, questions about the characters were asked.

Writing Requirements

Reading logs and worksheets were prepared and given to students to be completed. The reading logs included questions about difficult or challenging passages in the text, and the worksheets had questions about events, characters, and the students’ opinions and reactions to the text. The aim for preparing these reading logs and worksheets was to encourage students to think through the questions, clarify and compose their responses on paper, and write extensively. For grading the logs and worksheets, I looked mostly at the content.

For their weekly assignments, students first wrote different kinds of paragraphs, starting with narration, followed by definition, and ending with persuasion. Exercises were given to familiarize the students with topic sentences and supporting sentences. Students were trained to develop the paragraph into an essay. They were encouraged to use the idea map, which orders information visually without any rigid hierarchy. The second step was ordering the ideas to have an outline for the five-paragraph essay. Writing an introductory paragraph, with its components such as the opening sentence and the thesis, was introduced. Similarly, examples of concluding paragraphs were given to help the students not only to understand the components of a five-paragraph essay, but also to be able to write them. Training students to prepare footnotes and outlines was also part of the syllabus.

Multiple drafts were required to allow students to work on content and to help the students overcome writing problems in a less threatening manner than seeing their papers covered with red ink, which discourages them from improving their writing. While the focus of the first and second drafts was the content and organization of thoughts, the focus of the final draft was grammar and punctuation.

Monthly journals were also a requirement. Students were expected to write informal journals about personal experiences. For instance, they reported about incidents that bothered or satisfied them. Two main goals were achieved. First, students had the chance to write in another genre. Second, it was an effective way of familiarizing me as an instructor with the students and their way of thinking. By the end of the school year, we became closer to each other.

In-class activities

At the beginning of each session, the students were asked to write nonstop for five minutes to reflect on the assigned reading material or to make connections between what they had read and their daily lives. Since they shared their free writings with each other, these were used as a springboard for discussion as students read or paraphrased their writing aloud.

Discussing the stories didn’t take long, so it was always part of the lesson. Usually students were expected to evaluate the stories by mentioning what they liked and what they didn’t like in the story. Also, they discussed details about the characters and the events. Finally, they elaborated their answers on the worksheets.

Error analysis was the core of the writing class. It was done by typing the sentences or the mistakes on paper or transparencies, writing them on the blackboard, or preparing an inventory to be reviewed. The aim of typing the errors was to prevent students from recognizing other students’ handwriting and thereby to avoid embarrassment and show them respect.

Since my students tend to write long sentences with the excessive use of and, samples of their long sentences were typed and given to them to work in pairs to shorten these sentences. While sometimes the errors were typed on transparencies and enlarged, other times they were written on the blackboard to be discussed. By the end of the first semester, an inventory of the types of the errors was developed to help the students analyze their mistakes and correct them. It included sentence level errors such as subject-verb disagreement, incorrect articles, adjectives acting as nouns, and improper verb tenses.

To help the students overcome psychological barriers, peer review was encouraged as a collaborative strategy to help them learn from each other. The aim of employing such a strategy was to lessen the degree of the students’ apprehension because each was aware of the fact that his or her peer had difficulties in writing. The students were encouraged to raise questions and to help each other improve the content and the organization of the paragraphs rather than point out grammatical mistakes. To do so, they were advised to draw the attention of their partners indirectly by asking questions such as "What do you think about the tense?" In addition, a peer response worksheet was distributed to students, which included some questions about the content so the peer could discuss it with his or her partner. The questions were about the focus of the paragraph, logical arrangement of the ideas, and repetition of details.

Feedback by the instructor

To avoid discouragement, the feedback given by the instructor to the students was positive in general. The focus of the feedback was on strengths rather than weaknesses. Since multiple drafts were required, the comments of the first two were on content and organization. To clarify the content, specific questions were asked. For instance, "What do you mean?" or "Can you give an example?" were two common questions to help students not only to clarify their ideas but also to elaborate them.

An abbreviated worksheet of errors was given to students, which listed the different types of errors to help them understand my comments and to work independently correcting them. Abbreviations were used, for example, SVA meant subject-verb agreement and WC meant word choice.

To avoid inhibiting the students, grades were not given. The final draft was evaluated as "good+," "good," "fairly good," and so forth. In general, grading was cumulative. All of the student’s work was included in calculating the final grade. For example, 50 percent of the final grade had been assigned to the 10 written paragraphs and essays, the portfolio was assigned 20 percent, and 30 percent was assigned to the journals and filling the worksheets.

Conclusion

Students reported in the portfolio that they enjoyed taking the course. In fact, they were delighted to confirm that they felt that the course improved all language skills because they had the chance to listen, speak, read, and write. Although they complained about the amount of reading, they commented positively on the stories selected. They also mentioned that they had improved their writing. When they were asked to compare between their first and last written assignments in terms of content, organization, and mechanics, they reported that they could see their progress.

Three student portfolios were analyzed to examine the effectiveness of such a demanding course and to evaluate the students’ progress. The improvement in proficiency level was noticeable. By the end of the school year, the three students were able to write good five-paragraph essays differentiating between the different types of sentences such as the topic sentence, supporting sentences, and the thesis. In the same way, they were able to write proper introductory and concluding paragraphs as well as body of the text. Compared to their early written assignments, they succeeded in writing fewer fragments and run-on sentences. Also, the use of transitions and conjunctions improved.

When this course is taught again, I will make several improvements. Two hours a week was not sufficient time for such a demanding course. At least four hours should be assigned for teaching it effectively. More classroom practice is required for analyzing errors and helping the students organize their thoughts and structure their sentences. Also, guidelines for writing proper paragraphs and essays should be introduced early in the course. With these changes, this course will be even more effective in strengthening students’ reading and writing skills.

References

Abrahams, W., ed. 1994. Prize stories 1994: The O. Henry awards. New York: Anchor Books Doubleday.

Abu Rass, R. 1997. Integrating language and content in teaching English as a second language: A case study on a precourse. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Tucson: University of Arizona.

Coady, J. 1979. A psycholinguistic model of the ESL reader. In Reading in a second language, eds. R. Mackay, B. Barkman, and R. Jordan, pp. 179–186. Rowley, MA: Newbury House Publishers.

Elley, W. 1991. Acquiring literacy in a second language: The effect of book-based programs. Portsmouth, NH: Heineman.

Ghawi, M. 1996. The Adjunct model: A case study on a precourse. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Tucson: University of Arizona.

Lazar, G. 1993. Literature and language teaching: A guide for teachers and trainers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Stern, A. 1996. Tales from many lands: An anthology of multicultural folk literature. Lincolnwood, IL: National Textbook Company.

Teaching ELL: Speaking Strategies

Being able to speak English fluently is critical to our ELLs’ success both inside and outside the classroom. ELLs must pass a speaking portion of a language proficiency assessment to score out of ESOL services and be fully immersed in mainstream classes without support.

We always see a number of students, from every cultural background, who are too shy to speak up in the classroom or to answer a question, even when they have the answer. These strategies help all students improve their language development in a supportive, encouraging way. At the end of the list are some strategies specific to helping ELLs acquire and use oral language.

• Model language by saying aloud and writing the ideas and concepts you’re teaching.
• Model what a fluent reader sounds like through focused read-alouds.
• Be explicit. Give each activity you do a name, the simplest and most accurate name that you can, and then repeat the activity, so students can learn the verbal and written cues and procedures.
• Tell students what they are learning about each day and whether they will be reading, writing, listening, or speaking.
• Make expectations clear for behavior, written assignments, independent practice, and group work. Write key expectations on a chart and keep the chart posted for reference.Use a rubric whenever possible to help students evaluate their behavior and work.
• Have students retell stories aloud. Record their retellings in their own words to create a language experience chart that can be used for future reading and writing lessons with this group.
• Teach choral speaking and reading (poetry may be the most accessible format with which to begin).
• Sing or read songs. Children can bring in a favorite song to perform alone or as a group, but make sure you have heard the song first and can approve it.
• Have students read and perform Readers Theater scripts.
• Practice dictation, especially for learning spelling. Allow students to take turns dictating, too. Use full sentences for contextualizing the spelling words.
• Experiment with speaking and writing in different tenses and using different types of expressive language. For example, say the same word or phrase using a tone that is happy, sad, angry, and so forth. Use facial expressions—a smile, frown, or quizzical look—to embed more meaning in your speech. For beginners, hold up picture cards showing expressive faces and have them act out these expressions.
• Explain by showing, not just telling. Act it out if you have to or use visual tools such as sketches and diagrams or actual objects.
• Correct content, not grammar. To model proper grammar and syntax, restate or rephrase students’ questions or statements. You can do this in writing too.

Student: I put mines pencil on that desk.
Teacher: I put my pencil on that desk, too.
OR
Student: Who go to bring lunch count today?
Teacher: Hmmm, let’s see . . . Who is going to bring the lunch count to the office today?

• To express proper intonation and pitch, be aware that you modulate your voice, make adjustments in tone, and use a range of pitch with everything you say to your students. We do this naturally anyway; for example, our voices rise at the end of a question.
• When asking questions, give choices for the answer. This will also help you check for understanding especially in the earlier stages of language acquisition. For example, ask, “Would you like pizza or a bagel for lunch?” Or, after reading a story, ask, “Did the first pig build his house of bricks or straw?”
• Respond to the interests of the children. Provide reading, speaking, listening, and writing
  activities and opportunities in which students can share their hobbies and interests.
• Encourage students to describe, summarize, define, contrast, and compare by modeling. Be sure to show and not just tell when teaching a new concept, idea, or vocabulary.
• Be your own glossary. If you use an unfamiliar word, define it for the class as part of your lesson.
• Don’t assume that students truly understand the subject being discussed just because they are nodding and even answering your questions. Monitor what you say to make sure that they understand. When in doubt, ask the class to restate the directions you’ve given or the ideas you’ve presented.
• Ask students to give multiple meanings of a particular word or tell whether it can be labeled a verb or a noun. This will help students sharpen their grammar skills and place ideas in the context of your discussion.
• Develop vocabulary over time, in different learning contexts—use the target words in large and small groups and one-on-one formats. Post vocabulary words in the room on chart paper.

Teaching Speaking & Conversation

Teaching Speaking & Conversation

In what ways can conversation be regarded as a skill? How might this influence our approach to teaching it?

Both motor-perceptive skills and interaction adeptness are usually required in conversation. Many times this pairing calls upon effective understanding of the two in order to implement oral exercises in an effective manner. Motor skills involve perceiving, recalling, and articulating in the correct order sounds and structures of the language. Interaction skills involve making decisions about communication, such as what to say and how to say it. Keeping in mind the difference, the class level should play a large part in determining which of the two skills are predominately used during the course. Generally the situation or setting makes a difference in the way the speaker uses the language, for example, time limitations. Does the speaker have time to "process" his or her thoughts before speaking out loud? Other conditions can also affect the use of language. Does it make a difference whether the speaker is interacting with one person or with a group? Differing situations do have distinct aspects and thus can influence the way in which the speaker uses language.

But how do speakers facilitate oral production? Speakers can ease the oral production of speech in the following manner:
a) Simplifying structure: Simplifications can be found mainly in the tendency to tack new sentences on to previous ones by the use of coordinating conjunctions: like, and, or but.
b) The ellipsis technique: By using the ellipsis technique when conversing the speaker is able to omit parts of speech in order to speak economically. In order to understand the listener must have a good idea of the background knowledge assumed by the speaker.
c) Formulaic expressions: Formulaic expressions are found in speech patterns consisting of conventional colloquial or idiomatic expressions. Idiomatic expressions consist of all kinds of set phrases and although such sayings usually flow together in a set conversation pattern, they may lose their meaning when taken outside such context.
d) Fillers and hesitation devices: Fillers as well as hesitation devices such as, "you see", "kind of", "you know" can used in order to give the speakers more time to formulate and organize their ideas while speaking. In addition to using simple methods of speech, the speaker can avoid complex noun groups and as a result oral language tends to become less dense than the written language.

The following are examples of speech routinely used in conversation which an instructor should be aware of while teaching in the classroom:
(a) Interaction routines typically occur in any given situation and are likely to occur in a specific sequence. For example: casual encounter and conversations at parties all tend to be organized in characteristic ways.

(b) Descriptions of places and people: demonstration of facts, or comparisons all refer to "information routines." Such routines do not just concern speech, they also occur in written language.
(c) Negotiation of meaning refers to the skill of communicating ideas clearly and includes the way participants signal their understanding during an exchange. This aspect of spoken interaction contrasts most sharply with the written word.
(d) Feedback is the method of examining comprehension as the interaction unfolds. From the speaker's position, this may include some of the following: asking the other person's opinion, defining one's meaning or intent with a summarization. From the listener's point of view there is a comparable group of reactions which complement the speaker's opinion, such as: indicating understanding by gestures or facial expression as well as indicating uncertainty by interrupting the speaker where necessary to express one's reservation with the exchange in dialogue.
(e) Turn-taking is the knowledge which comes with negotiating the control of a conversation. A speaker has to be efficient at getting a turn and to be proficient at letting another speaker have a turn. Practical turn-taking requires five abilities:
1. Knowing how to signal that one wants to speak.
2. Recognizing the right moment to get a turn.
3. How to use this structure in order to get one's turn properly and not lose it. 4. The ability to recognize other people's signals or desire to speak.
5. The ability to acknowledge other people's signals and let them take a turn.
(f) Communication strategies are approaches designed to deal with conversation difficulties.

Two such approaches to conversational difficulties are the achievement and the reduction strategies. Both are aimed to compensate for the problem of expression. If the learner uses an achievement strategy, he or she will attempt to compensate for language disparity by improvising a substitute through guess-work or intuition. In using achievement strategies, speakers do not lose or alter any of their message. On the other hand, when using the reduction approach, the learners may reduce their message in order to bring it within the scope of their knowledge or else to abandon their central idea and attempt something more manageable.

In addition to being aware of the differing kinds of speech it might also be advantageous to develop a list of some of the important speaking skills you think need to be taught to both elementary and intermediate learners: For elementary students we might consider the following speaking skills of importance:
a) The ability to reproduce sounds.
b) The knowledge and use of a practical vocabulary.
c) The use of idioms (for example: Hi, instead of Hello).
d) The ability to respond in sentences.
e) The ability to condense verbs (for example: replacing did not with didn't).
f) A vocabulary which enables the student to play games.
g) Knowing and using familiar "native speaker" greetings.
h) The ability to carry on a limited conversation.
When teaching an intermediate level the following speaking skills might be seen as significant:
a) The ability to agree or disagree.
b) The ability to identify people and places.
c) The capability to express preferences.
d) The skill to expresses opinions.
e) The ability to ask for and give suggestions.
f) The ability to report on what people are asking and saying.
g) The ability to summarize a conversation.

Also of importance are interaction activities which can be used in a speaking class. For example, the processing of information by engaging in problem solving tasks. Such an activity may include placing items in a hierarchy of importance, deciding itineraries, deciding a price range to spend on gifts, developing a story from random picture cues. Problems may arise from the restricted cooperation because of the students' limited vocabulary. However, as students move towards a monologue (or one person speaking, as learners they may begin by not speaking smoothly. The teacher must focus on having students use language in order to complete a task rather than practicing language for its own sake.

Another example of an interaction activity may be the development and usage of role playing. Learners first take part in a preliminary activity which introduces the topic and the situation as well as some background information. Such activities may include brainstorming or ranking exercises. An example might be a role play where the students prepare to rent an apartment. Students first interview one another about the available accommodations and their desired living arrangements.

Yet, problems can arise when using interaction activities in the classroom, such as a student's inexperience in focusing on a particular topic or a limited vocabulary for developing the necessary explanation. Different cultural backgrounds at times may also interfere with the uniform picture of the situation. For example, apartment searching in Japan varies considerably from that same activity in the U.S. Teachers must carefully monitor its effectiveness when promoting conversational fluency.

What is the role of accuracy in a speaking class? How can accuracy be included as a component of a speaking class? Accuracy in a speaking class includes the control of grammar and pronunciation as a part of learning language fluency. For speech to be free of errors the speaker must process and produce comprehensible information. This requires the speaker to generate speech that is acceptable in both content and form. The role of accuracy in a speaking class is created by the teacher's providing opportunities for learners to engage in natural interaction in conversation through the use of communicative tasks and activities. Teachers should generally sit back and let learners engage in the natural interaction process whenever possible.

An instructor’s ability to recognize cues in speech patterns and conversation goes a long way in developing one’s classroom skills. Conversation is regarded as a skill requiring the speaker to generate speech that is acceptable in both content and form. Speakers learn to facilitate ease in the oral production of speech in many ways and the instructor must plan communication strategies to deal with conversation difficulties.

Teaching Listening to Advanced Learners: Problems and Solutions by Scott Shelton

Teaching Listening to Advanced Learners: Problems and Solutions
by Scott Shelton

Teaching advanced learners and preparing them for the Cambridge Certificate of Advanced English examination, I often encounter a majority of students who find the listening section of the test particularly challenging and difficult. In this paper I will attempt to outline a framework of what listening entails, identify some of the more salient difficulties that students typically have at advanced levels, look at possible reasons for this, and propose some activities and approaches in teaching that could enable students to improve in this area.

Defining 'listening'

Listening effectively is a demanding and involved process. One must be able to deal with different accents or pronunciation, unfamiliar lexical items and syntactic structures, competing background noise, and also make a conscious effort to not 'switch off' or become distracted while listening. All of this must be achieved and dealt with more or less simultaneously in order to identify and understand the meaning in any given message.

There is often a difference between what we experience in 'real life' in terms of listening and what students are asked to deal with in the classroom. In 'real life' we are required to listen in many different situations and for different reasons. Penny Ur (1984:2) offers a list of listening sources such as:

• The news on the television or radio
• Friends while having an informal chat
• Others talking on their mobile phones or in a public place
• Songs and films
• Small talk at a party
• Discussing problems at work or at home
• On the phone
• Attending a class or a seminar

The list can go on and on. The point is though, that while we are required to listen to many different 'texts' in real life and for different reasons, these situations are not always present in textbooks and are not always possible to recreate authentically in the classroom. This puts the learner at a disadvantage because ample exposure to a variety of situations where relevant and purposeful listening takes place is an extremely important element in improving aural comprehension and recognition skills. Therefore, the kind of listening we do and the types of tasks we set for learners in class are important. They need to be of a kind that somehow relate to learners' needs outside the classroom socially and academically, as in the case of exam preparation. They should also develop the skills necessary to understand different types of discourse which will in turn help equip them to be more effective listeners in 'authentic' native speaker environments.

How we listen

Richards (1990:50) breaks down the process used in listening comprehension into two distinct types, referring to them as 'bottom-up' and 'top-down' processing. The former is described in Cook's Discourse (1989) as:

'Interpreting the lowest-level units first, then proceeding to an interpretation of the rank above, and so on upwards.'

In other words, we sometimes need to rely on our knowledge of grammar, syntax, and lexis, and apply that knowledge when confronted with an incoming message in order to achieve comprehension. On the other hand, we might apply a top-down approach to aid comprehension. This is defined as:

'Interpreting discourse by hypothesizing about the most general units first, then moving downwards through the ranks below.'

This means applying our background knowledge to aid in understanding the meaning of a message. Richards (1990:51) explains that:

" This may be previous knowledge about the topic of discourse, it may be situational or contextual knowledge, or it may be knowledge stored in long-term memory in the form of 'schemata' and 'scripts' - plans about the overall structure of events and the relationships between them."

Anderson and Lynch (1988:22) argue that research has shown that the assumptions in the 'bottom-up' model are incorrect. They state that:

"Listeners would not be able to perceive speech as successfully as they do if they were in fact engaged in a process of building up the recognition of words solely by attempting to identify their constituent phonemes."

They instead, argue for an interactive process to explain how we listen. Amos Paran (1997) explains in an article contrasting the two models:

'Recent views see comprehension as drawing upon both types of processing, in what is know as interactive processing (Carrell, Devine and Eskey). Some psychologists claim that when the quality of the stimulus is good, bottom-up processing is preferred, and it is only when stimulus quality deteriorates that top-down processing takes over to compensate ( Eysenck and Keane).'

In teaching listening skills, we need to be aware of how these processes work and guide our students, through the use of different tasks, towards using a balanced approach if we are to aid them in improving their listening comprehension. I believe we can help advanced learners by drawing attention to these strategies and overtly practicing these listening skills in the classroom.

Why we listen

Because we listen for many different purposes in and out of the classroom, this has an effect on the way we listen. Yule and Brown (1983) make a useful distinction between interactional and transactional communication. McCarthy, (1991) in Discourse, defines transactional talk (and listening) as communication for getting business done. Interactional communication, on the other hand, has to do with lubricating the social wheels. In Listening (1988) Anderson and Lynch describe them as (transactional) listening when the main purpose is to achieve a successful transfer of information, while interactional listening is defined as listening for social reasons, and to establish or maintain friendly relations between interlocutors.

From the list mentioned above in 'defining listening', an example of 'transactional listening' would be taking notes on key information in a class or a seminar, whereas an example of 'interactional listening' would be making small talk or perhaps discussing problems at home or work.

Recognizing the different purposes that listeners have and how these differences affect the way we go about listening has important implications for the language classroom. These implications deal directly with the way we design listening tasks, ask our learners to respond to listening material and how we prepare them to listen. While practice in the areas mentioned above and pointing out how they can overlap is essential, advanced classes preparing for high level exams are required to deal with tasks largely transactional in nature. We therefore need to make them aware of appropriate techniques in order to increase their chances for success with these types of exercises such as listening for key words, or using their background knowledge to aid their understanding.

Potential Problem areas

The majority of advanced learners, in my experience, have many of the same problems that beginners and intermediate learners have. They may understand more as a general rule, but still have gaps in their understanding and experience difficulties in comprehension in less than optimum listening situations. Penny Ur (1984) points out several potential problem areas in her book Teaching Listening Comprehension: See appendix one for examples.

• Hearing the sounds
• Understanding intonation and stress
• Coping with redundancy and 'noise'
• Predicting
• Understanding (colloquial) vocabulary
• Understanding different accents
• (Not) using visual or environmental clues
• Fatigue

Listening to our students

In researching information for this paper, I naturally consulted my current advanced classes. I believe that by listening carefully to our students and involving them at a personal level, we can develop the insight necessary to help them improve their listening skills. By building on what foundation they already have, and raising their awareness of possible pitfalls that could impede their listening comprehension, we can help the advanced learner enormously.

The majority of the comments made by my students were related to the stream of speech (connected speech) and how 'fast' native speakers speak, difficulties in understanding different accents, and not knowing (or recognizing) the vocabulary used by the speaker. It was also mentioned that listening to tapes was difficult due to the lack of a clear context as well as the lack of paralinguistic features such as facial expressions and gestures. Some found it challenging to concentrate on understanding every word while at the same time attempting to understand the whole message. Becoming used to 'teacher-talk', or English spoken too clearly in class, and becoming overly accustomed to the teacher's accent were both mentioned as potentially problematic when later confronted with trying to understand other native speakers and accents.

Looking at problems

One problem that students have is distinguishing individual sounds and word boundaries in the stream of speech. As mentioned, some of my current advanced learners profess problems in this area. Linguistic features such as elision, (a feature of connected speech by which a consonant sound is left out in order to facilitate articulation e.g. the disappearance of 't' in 'last chance'), assimilation (what happens when nearby sounds influence each other causing them to sound more similar e.g. the 'd' to 'b' assimilation in 'good morning')1 and the overall phenomenon of weak forms in spoken English can cause a great deal of comprehension problems, even for advanced learners, if they are not exposed to them regularly through awareness raising, receptive and productive activities.

Because I am a speaker of North American English, and most of what they hear on classroom cassettes is a British accent, my students get pretty consistent exposure to both of the major accents in spoken English today. Penny Ur (1984) points out that:

"We must remember that the English many of our students will need to understand may very well not be spoken in a native accent at all…what we can do is try to give them a reasonable familiarity with the two most useful accents (American and British) and give them some practice in coping with both of them."

I might also add that we should give them exposure to other varieties of English in accordance with their immediate and specific needs as well.

Another problem for learners, whose exposure to spoken English is limited to the classroom, is becoming over accustomed to one type of discourse, whether it be natural conversation or spoken prose. Lacking exposure to different text types, learners may find it more difficult to understand one or the other. I always try to ensure that my classes get both informal conversations between teacher and student and between the students themselves whereas formal spoken prose can be delivered either by myself, or through the use of tape and video. Lacking in cultural knowledge of the target language also presents problems for the non-native listener, as shared knowledge is important in order to be able to carry out effective predictions and utilize a top-down process to aid understanding. McCarthy (1991) states:

"Active listeners, like active readers, are constantly predicting what the message will be, based on the evidence of their real world knowledge and the type of discourse they are engaged in."

Anderson and Lynch have this to add:

"Gaps in our knowledge of the L2 culture, of the associations and references available to native users, can present obstacles to comprehension."

I have noticed that this lack of 'shared cultural knowledge' is often a source of difficulty for my advanced students especially because the listening texts provided for class work and exam practice are often extremely culturally biased. It is for this reason that they often cannot make appropriate guesses based on key words and contextual situations, such as the weather or gardening, where the lack of shared cultural knowledge sometimes creates a crucial gap between listening and comprehension.

Providing help

In class there are several ways in which we can help advanced learners improve listening comprehension.

Materials can be graded in order to facilitate understanding and pitched at the correct level of difficulty to stretch and challenge comprehension.

Task-oriented exercises should be used to ensure that the learners' listening skills are developed and not simply tested which is what often happens when a procedure is not fully employed. Effective tasks help to engage learners' interest, provide a purpose for listening, and can be supported by visual as well as environmental clues. Ur (1984:25) suggests:

"Listening exercises are most effective if they are constructed around a task. That is to say, the students are required to do something in response to what they hear that will demonstrate their understanding"

Wood (2002) describes a basic task-oriented procedure as follows:

1. Provide a lead-in to the task. (Pre-listening introduction to topic, discussion, using visual stimuli).

2. Pre-task work. (Looking through the worksheet, work on key lexical items, developing prediction, and so on.)

3. Set a clear, achievable task. (Check that students understand the task either by demonstrating or concept checking.)

4. Play the tape or offer the material 'live'. (Ensure that the students are aware that they should not be trying to understand everything they hear, only enough to be able to do the specific task.)

5. Task feedback. (Check if the students have been able to do the task and give an immediate response to performance. Do not ask additional, unfair questions at this point.)

6. Could they do the task? If yes, then conclude, lead on to follow up activities, and review what has been done. If not, repeat step four or even go back to step two and listen again. Assess the difficulty of the task for future reference. An example of follow up activities might be a personalized response to the text, relating the theme to 'real world' issues, or using the theme as the basis for a class questionnaire.

Students should be given exposure to a variety of aural input such as everyday conversation, announcements, storytelling, interviews, TV and radio news, English language songs, and so on. I also like to give my classes 'live' listening, which comes in the form of anecdotal asides or prepared monologues with which they are encouraged to interact with through the teller (either another student or myself).

Training students to predict something of the content of the text that they are going to hear is also important. The Cambridge CAE handbook (2000) mentions this and other ideas for preparing exam students. It mentions the need to help them learn to focus on key words and use that information in completing gap-fill questions. It goes on to suggest going through the transcript after listening where a variety of activities can be employed. I like to use transcripts for noticing important language features such as linking devices and discourse markers, linguistic features of connected speech and vocabulary for follow-up work such as differentiating between formal and informal registers, or working on text cohesion by looking at forward and backward references. Jigsaw listening tasks can provide a communicative purpose for listening, give rise to turn taking, and promote negotiation of meaning. Dictation is a favorite as well, providing useful practice in listening for detail as well as features of connected speech. In Grammar Dictation (1990) activities are presented which practice listening for key information words later used as a base for speaking and collective grammar practice while students discuss their notes and attempt to reconstruct the text, maintaining meaning and coherence. I have found this to be an excellent integrated activity that benefits advanced learners in not only listening but in grammar, speaking and writing as well.

It is also important to give extensive listening practice. Making students aware that they do not have to understand every word in order to identify specific information, gist and attitudes between speakers, can build confidence and provide meaningful practice for both exam and 'real life' situations

Conclusion

Listening to and understanding what others are saying, then, is not a passive act as it was long considered to be. It is a vigorous, demanding process, which involves, not only understanding different accents, pronunciation and intonation as well as semantic implications (lexical and grammatical), but also engaging in activating background knowledge and making educated assumptions. In this light, we need to ensure a balance of mediums and task types are used in the classroom. We also need to create and maintain motivation making certain that students have every chance at success with whatever approach or medium is being used.