View Content #18794

< Go Back
TitleSample Activity for Listening: Top-Down
SourceCASLS Activity of the Week
Body

by Larry Vandergrift

This week's InterCom features two Activities of the Week focusing on listening.

In both activities, students are led through the process of listening: predicting, monitoring, problem solving and evaluating. They are developing their metacognitive awareness of listening, leading them to become the smart listeners envisioned in Principle 1 of the Topic of the Week article. See the key stages and the related metacognitive process illustrated in the Figure below.

Key stages in the metacognitive pedagogical sequence, and the corresponding metacognitive processes, for listening instruction as exemplified in the two listening activities.

Activity 1:

This generic activity can be used with any text to lead students through the process of listening. Have students divide a sheet of paper into three columns: Predictions, First listen, Second listen. Leave room at the bottom of the sheet for some reflective notes after the activity.

After choosing an appropriate text, proceed as follows:

• Students enter the date and the topic (e.g., an advertisement for an Italian restaurant) of the text at the top of the page.

• Based on their knowledge of the topic and the type of text, students brainstorm the kinds of information they might hear, as well as any related vocabulary, and enter this information in the ‘Predictions’ column. Students are reminded that they should consider all logical possibilities. This prediction phase can first be done together as a class, then with a partner and, eventually, on their own.

• After completing their predictions, students listen to the text for the first time. As they listen, they place a check mark beside the predicted information and words, if they heard these elements. In addition, they note any other information that they may have understood under the ‘First listen’ column.

• At this point, students work in pairs to compare predictions and information understood thus far. They are encouraged to discuss points of confusion and disagreement, to consider other logical possibilities, and to identify parts of the text that would require careful attention during the second listen.

• Students now listen to the text a second time. They attempted to resolve points of difficulty raised after the first listen, and they also enter newly comprehended information in the column ‘Second listen.’ When students finish entering this information, the instructor engages the class in a discussion, to confirm their comprehension of the text and to enable the students to share how they succeeded in comprehending. Any accompanying comprehension activity (if the text comes from the course text) could also be done at this time, with a focus on resolving comprehension breakdowns.

• A third listen allows students to verify their perception and comprehension of what they may have missed earlier. This third listen may be accompanied by verification with the text transcript (or part of it) in order to resolve difficulties in sound-form connections.

• Finally, each student in encouraged to complete a personal reflection on the activity, noting any strategies that they would try to use the next time. This can be prompted by a class discussion.

Publishdate2015-01-05 02:15:01