DELTA 2010-2011
Receptive Skills Required by
Learners
Edith Flahive
Overview
 Language Systems vs Language Skills
 Receptive Skills
 Comprehensible Input
 Difficulties for Learners
 Strategies to Improve Learners’ Skills
 Authentic vs Non-Authentic Materials
 Lesson Planning Stages
 References
Language Systems
Lexis
Grammar
Discourse
Phonology
Language Skills
Speaking, Writing
Productive Skills
Reading, Listening
Receptive Skills
Systems or Skills?
 Teacher writes a grammar exercise on the board which students copy and then do.
 Students read a newspaper article and then discuss the story with each other.
 Students underline all past simple verb forms in a newspaper article.
 Students chat with their teacher about the weekend.
 Students listen to a recorded conversation and determine where it is taking place.
 Students write an imaginary postcard to a friend which the teacher then corrects.
 Students write a postcard to a friend which is posted uncorrected.
 Students identify the tenses used in a recorded conversation.
 Teacher uses pictures to teach ten words associated with the computer.
Receptive Skills
Listening and Reading involve the following sub-skills:

Listening for Gist or Extensive Listening
Reading for Gist or Skimming

Listening for Specific Information or Intensive Listening
Reading for Specific Information or Scanning

Intensive Reading

Extensive Reading

Prediction

Inference
Intensive Reading
Purpose:
 To arrive at an understanding not only of what the
text means, but of how the meaning is produced. It
involves focusing on new words, structures,
expressions, functions, pronunciation, etc.
Extensive Reading
Purpose:
 To read longer texts for pleasure.This is a fluency
activity mainly involving global understanding.
“We learn to read by reading” (Smith, 1985: 7).
Prediction
Purpose:
 To get students to predict what they are going to hear
or read – involves bottom-up and top-down processing.
These predictions will be the result of the expectations
they have about the text or their acquired schemata.
Inference
Purpose:
 To use syntactic, logical, and cultural clues to gain a deeper
understanding of a text.
“Students who can infer meaning from context have a powerful aid
to comprehension and will ultimately read more quickly”
(Nuttall 1996: 72).
Listening/Reading for Gist
Purpose:
 To get the general idea of a particular text, story or tape-script. Listening to
an entire tape-script with the intention of acquiring an overall understanding
of what it is about, may be referred to as extensive listening or
listening for gist.
When applied to reading, this strategy is called skimming. Skimming is in fact
the first stage of SQ3R (Robinson, 1970), where S stands for Survey, Q for
Question and the three Rs for Read, Recite and Revise.
Listening/Reading for Specific Information
Purpose:
 Listening for specific information or intensive listening is where
the students concentrate on a small part of the tape-script in order to
understand some subtle points of detail.With regard to reading this strategy
is referred to as scanning.
“Skimming and scanning are important techniques; they do not remove the need for careful
reading, but they enable the reader to select texts, or parts of texts, that are worth spending
time on” (Nuttall 1996: 49).
Comprehensible Input
We acquire language through comprehensible input -
listening and reading opportunities that are slightly
beyond what the learner can easily understand (i + 1)
(Krashen, 1982).
Difficulties for Learners
Listening
 The speaker – how many there are, how quickly they speak, accents.
 The listener – participant or eavesdropper, level of response required,
individual interest in the subject.
 The
content – grammar, vocabulary, information structure,
background knowledge assumed.
 Support – pictures, diagrams, or other visual aids to support the text.
Reading
 Intelligibility – the legibility of a text, badly copied, printed, small
type-face, etc.
 Unfamiliar words – complex vocabulary.
 Lack of background knowledge.
 Difficult concepts – abstract theories, etc.
 Complex syntax – long sentences containing subordinate or embedded
clauses, nominalisation, complex noun groups, etc.
 Cohesion – lack of organisation, faulty punctuation, poor cohesion.
Strategies to Improve Learners’ Skills
Listening
 Give a purpose for listening.

Activate existing knowledge of the topic – make predictions, ask questions, pre-teach key
words, etc.
 Make students aware of verbal and non-verbal cues – body language, facial expression, etc.
 Vary speed, pace of activities.
 Ensure that students can hear what is being said – no distractions.
 Engaging tasks; interactional/transactional.
 Comprehensible input.
 Visual aids.
Reading
 Know your purpose for reading.
 Choose the appropriate reading speed – skimming, scanning.
 Get background information – from the text, encyclopedia, internet, etc.
 Use all the information in the book – title, sub-titles, introductions, summaries, conclusions.
 Increase your vocabulary.
 Use your dictionary.
 Learn the important words that organise the text – cohesive markers.
 Choose the right place to read – quiet, comfortable, good light.
 Choose the right time to read.
 Choose something that interests you.
Authentic vs Non-Authentic Materials
Authentic texts are those designed for native speakers, that is, texts not designed for language
students, but for speakers of the language in question. A non-authentic text is one that has been
written especially for language students.Whether these texts are always authentic, is not such an
important issue.What is important is that a range of listening/reading experiences should be
introduced based on speech which is as near to authentic as possible.
“Although the use of authentic text has the advantage of being language put to a real communicative purpose, and
prepares learners for life beyond the classroom, it does not automatically guarantee success. In the final analysis
what is done with the text and the way it is handled in the classroom is more important than whether the text is
authentic or not” (Williams, 1984:34).
Lesson Planning Stages
We can identify three stages in the development of a
listening or reading lesson:
 Pre- or before listening/reading
 While or during listening/reading
 Post or consolidating listening/reading
Pre-Listening/Reading
Aim:
 To prepare students for what they are going to hear/
see, activate previous knowledge, focus their attention
and lead them to an understanding of lexis and syntax
necessary for comprehending the text.
Activity Types
 Lead in to topic: Ss look at pictures, T gives background
information, Ss read something relevant.
 Predicting – speculating about content of listening/reading
passages.
 Discussion of topic, situation.
 Written exercise related to the text to come.
 Pre-teaching essential linguistic items.
While Listening/Reading
Aim:
 To help students develop the listening/reading sub-skills
necessary to extract messages from spoken/written language.
These activities should not test listening/reading
comprehension, or memory, but help students to develop
the skills applied in real listening/reading situations. Activities
must be chosen appropriately.
Activity Types
 Marking/checking/arranging items in pictures.
 Putting pictures (or other things, e.g., paragraphs, words, events, etc.) in order.
 Completing/drawing pictures.
 Completing texts (gap-filling).
 Following a route on a map.
 Completing charts, grids – transfer information from text.
 True/false statements.
 Answering multiple choice questions or Wh questions.
 Spotting differences, mistakes.
 Seeking specific items of information.
Post Listening/Reading
At this stage, students are challenged with activities that go beyond the texts
that they have listened to or read. Accuracy is relevant but is not the priority.
Aims:
 To make students aware of the way language works.
 To reinforce and extend their vocabulary.
 To encourage them to reflect and share opinions about the text with other
students.
 To prompt students to create new oral and written texts.
Activity Types
 Checking comprehension of listening/reading texts in a variety of
ways: talking about them, discussing students’ reactions, etc.
 Language work: tasks related to lexis, syntax, pronunciation,
stylistic elements, etc. found in texts that students have listened to
or read.
 Skills work: mainly speaking and writing related to the
listening/reading topic, but can also be further receptive skills
exercises, listening or reading, related topically.
References
Anderson, A., & Lynch,T. (1988). Listening. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brown, G; & Yule, G. (1983a). Discourse Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brown, G; & Yule, G. (1983b). Teaching the Spoken Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Grellet, F. (1981). Developing Reading Skills. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon.
Nunan, D. (1991). Language Teaching Methodology. Hertfordshire: Prentice- Hall.
Richards, J. C. (1990). The Language Teaching Matrix. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Robinson, F. P. (1970). Effective Study. New York: Harper & Row.
Rost, M. (1990). Listening in Language Learning. Essex: Longman.
Rost, M. (1991). Listening in Action. Hertfordshire: Prentice-Hall.
Underwood, M. (1989). Teaching Listening. Essex: Longman.
Ur, P. (1984). Teaching Listening Comprehension. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nuttall, C. (1996). Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language. Oxford: Heinemann.
Smith, F. (1985). Reading. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Williams, E. (1984). Reading In The Language Classroom. London: Macmillan.