Chapter 1
What is listening?
Helgesen, M. & Brown, S. (2007). Listening [w/CD]. McGraw-Hill:
New York.
Daily Listening
• What have you listened to today?
– Alarm
– Radio/TV/MP3 player
– Bus/Subway announcements
– Overheard other’s conversation
– Participated in a conversation with peers,
superiors, parents, brothers/sisters, workers…
– Other?
Definitions
• Which definition do you prefer (p.3) and why?
• Which characteristics are most important?
• Write your own definition of what listening is,
but don’t copy any of the existing ones.
– Continue to refine this throughout the semester.
– It might be a question on the final.
Listening vs. Hearing
• What is the difference between listening and
hearing? Is there one?
• Do the action activity on p. 4
• The position of the authors is that listening is
an active (rather than passive) skill.
– It is still considered a receptive skill (like reading).
• The reaction to and use of listening require
active skills (writing or speaking)
Reciprocal Listening
• Talking at you or with you?
• Non-reciprocal listening is done when you (as
the listener) are not responding to the input.
– Radio, TV, language cassettes, podcasts, lectures
(in many cases)
• Reciprocal listening is interactive.
– You listen and respond, which alters the next
stage. You shape the interaction and, thus, the
listening required.
Processing
• Two general ways to consider the listening process: bottomup and top-down.
• Bottom-up processing builds comprehension by processing
the pieces of language: sounds, syllables, words, phrases,
sentences, grammar, stress, and so forth.
• Top-down processing builds comprehension by comparing
incoming signals to schema
– Content schema: Your general knowledge of the world.
– Textual schema: knowledge of language use and requirements in
particular situations.
• A mix is always used by listeners, though the nature of the mix
differs significantly based on proficiency.
Teaching Listening
• A typical lesson has three parts: pre-listening,
listening, and post-listening
• Pre-Listening
– Motivation
– Schema activation
– Topics, vocabulary, structures, etc…
– Readings, pictures, discussions, performances….
• What kind of pre-listening ideas can you think
of for the following listening text?
Listening Task
• Listening Task
– Problems with the listen and report approach.
• Little resemblance to “real” listening tasks.
• The comprehension activities don’t inform the teacher or learner
as to where success and failures are caused.
• Is the problem with listening comprehension or the inability to
formulate a response?
– Tasks are listening for a purpose.
• Global Listening: listening for gist, for the overall main idea(s)
• Listening for specific information
• Making inferences
• What listening tasks can you think of for this listening?
Post-Listening
• Post-Listening
– Checking of answers
– Comparing answers with peers
– Further discussion of the topic of the listening
– Use the language involved
– Motivation
• What post-listening tasks can you think of for
this listening?
Assessing Listening
• Assessment
– Action and feedback on that action
• Types: self, peer, teacher, automated
• Formal assessment (testing)
– These are assessments that are planned and attempt to
measure classroom learning
• Four key concepts
–
–
–
–
Validity
Reliability
Practicality
Washback
Validity
• The test measures what it intends to measure.
– This concept has many components, including:
face and content validity (as well as predictive, concurrent,
convergent, and discriminant validity)
– The important thing to remember for your class is
that your test should measure classroom learning,
not writing, presentation skills, conversational
skills, and so forth.
Reliability
• The test outcomes should be consistent
– Similar scores for similar performances.
• Example of scores from the first performances should be
similarly scored as those from the last performances.
• What is important for your class is that you
should design assessments that can be
consistently scored.
– Some ways to help this are:
• Rubrics
• Benchmarks
• Training (practice doing it before you do it for the real class)
Practicality
• Another term for practical is realistic.
• The assessment should be something that can
be done in your situation.
– Ex, It may not be realistic to assess each of your
students’ communication skills by hiring a native
speaking interviewer.
• You likely have too many students and too little funding
and time to do this.
Washback
• What appears on the test is likely to appear in
instruction.
• This is particularly important in the Korean
context.
– If it’s not part of the college entrance exam, it is
de-valued.
• Think about these issues when answering the
Reflection questions on page 19
Testing Techniques
• Discrete-item Tests
– Multiple choice
• Integrative Tests
– Summarizing, fill-in-the-blank, dictation
• Communicative Tests
– Completion of a communicative task: writing, spoken, peformance
• Interview Tests
• Self-Assessment
– Scoring based on criteria or holistic score of performance
• Portfolio Assessment
– Ongoing assessment (including any of the above) that focuses on the
entirety of the learning experience and the display of growth based on
artifacts.
Assessment Wrap Up
• What kinds of assessment would you use to
test student comprehension of this listening?