Transformative Teachers
Webinar 9 - Listening and confidence
Summary notes
Firstly, thank you for participating in the Trinity College London teacher support webinar series. We are delighted to have over 1000 teachers from 70 countries participate in the series.
In this webinar Academic Consultant, Tom Garside is interviewed by University Recognition Manager, Jonathan Frank. Tom and Jonathan discuss the relationship between listening and confidence. During the discussion, they explore how a learner's confidence is the key factor for success in their listening.
If you were unable to attend the webinar, you can watch is again via the following link:
Webinar 9 video - Listening and confidence
Summary of questions and responses
Interview: Tom Garside and Jonathan Frank
What do we mean by ‘listening and confidence’?
- Listening to what? The purpose of listening needs identifying (recordings, exam practice, everyday transactional/interactional, music, radio, in class?)
- Confidence: implies we are talking about authentic communicative settings (service encounters, conversations, seminars, lectures, meetings), where the listener is taking part, or actively listening.
- This presents a challenge - it goes beyond straightforward comprehension, which is the sub-skill most often targeted in ESOL classes.
- Learners need to not only develop confidence of knowing, but also of not knowing – what we mean by this, is that they have the tools to repair listening from communication acts.
Is there any theory or evidence to support the idea that anxiety or nerves can impact listening?
- Confidence dropping and stress can be the language killer, in any language (even our own). Second-language learners are subject to very unpredictable listening texts: accents, word choice, content, number of speakers.
- Stephen Krashen made a hypothesis that stress and anxiety, coined as ‘affective filter’ (1985) can be managed and mitigated, e.g. silence between utterances for students to understand, is better than slowing down all speech.
- Hard to balance scaffolding with over-protecting when keeping in mind authentic communication acts students will have to traverse.
How can language learners take from athletic preparations?
- Robin relates this to exam preparation, as the listening that students are exposed to can be somewhat predictable.
- Robin’s metaphor of listening as 'a performance outside the exam room' has its limits – language use outside the classroom is much more unpredictable and harder to prepare for in this way.
- Competence of not-knowing is very important, i.e. knowing how to cope. This is done in L1s when watching films or speaking: we can ‘zone out’ but recover or repair quite easily in our first language, and for some reason language learners evaluate their second language differently, with unreasonable expectations (e.g. listening once and ‘knowing’ everything).
To what extent do class profiles impact how listening is approached in the classroom?
- Monolingual: more restrictive set of styles of language; preferences for learning; linguistic distance (e.g. Spanish class learning English will have a different departure point to a group of Vietnamese students).
- Certain cultures emphasise exam achievement over student process and development - i.e. the listening mark is all that matters.
- Other cultures take a more holistic and communication-based approach
- Knowing principles and establishing training/skills development is common across both contexts.
Why are candidates in exams given a listen and re-listen of texts?
- Makes assessment fairer: listening in exams increases cognitive load, and candidates may miss words/phrases they’d otherwise have understood.
- Exams should be a test of language use rather than how they handles nerves – links back to the affective filter: candidates feel reassured that they’ll have a second listening.
….but in the classroom multiple listenings are often used aren’t they?
- You can’t listen for everything
- Multiple listening gives students the chance to look at other areas, having understood the text - such as grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation features.
- As with reading, listening audio can be re-used and re-purposed to develop a wider skills-set.
Is it the case that technology has now provided a whole host of resources and devices which can help with listening?
- Instant messaging: audio notes which learners can listen to again and again
- Music and videos: also good listening and re-listening opportunities
- Phonology apps: dictionary apps (hit the word and hear it spoken); BBC; British Council – great learning platforms with graded and authentic listening
- Films and TV series: preferably ones which you already know in your own language – allow you to fill in the gaps and mediate the listening experience
- Technology makes pausing and re-visiting much easier
Is there still a role for listening transcripts?
- Students will typically go to the security of the written word if given too early i.e. they will make a listening exercise a reading one (this may be useful as a differentiation tool). If used correctly- i.e. post-listening, they can still be useful.
How can we support students outside the classroom?
- There is a theory that listening can’t be thought – meta-cognitive skills which go beyond language - e.g. dealing with unknown content, predicting messages – can we teach that?
- But, we can equip students with strategies so they can develop these on their own
- Being a good listener is more than listening to texts in class – students need to listen to each other, in order to develop their wider skills. If someone is listening in class, listen to them.
Do candidates just get lucky on exams, or with support can we mitigate against that?
- This can vary: but if you have strategies which go beyond language and grammar areas, you’ll generate ideas from topics you don’t know much about
- Strategies:
- For prediction
- For deducing meaning
- Getting ahead rather than catching up with the listening CD.
What activities can we do in class to practice careful reading?
- Discourse maps
- You can map out quite predictably, e.g. in a restaurant – totally predictable situation
- Students then compare this to a situation, e.g. recording or sit-com
- Discuss similarities and differences between map and actual text
- Work on any number of language areas afterwards - e.g. grammar, discourse, pronunciation, vocabulary
- Students can take this outside of that task/the classroom and use this as a model for other communication acts - i.e. pre-thinking, speaking and listening, reflection.
- ‘Stop me’ dictation
- Dictate a text to students without stopping or considering their level of understanding
- ‘Do you want me to stop or repeat?’ – if the answer is no; continue
- Stop again and repeat above
- Students will eventually ask for clarification, repetition, and time
- Excellent for combatting the ‘shame’ factor which students may have – and which can be more prevalent in certain cultures more than others – and a springboard for developing repair strategies, e.g.:
- Asking for clarification
- Asking for repetition
- Reformulating / recasting
- Films and TV series:
- Pick one which you have seen/know the story of
- Don’t use subtitles, but apply some of the strategies covered above, e.g. what are they likely to say? How will they most likely reply?
- Reflect on situational language use
- Report back to class – particularly useful if looking at pronunciation points covered in class, e.g. schwa or rising intonation
- Someone is speaking, so listen!
- To develop a wider listening understanding, students need to listen to each other
- In a speaking task, nominate a listener who then reports back to the class about questions used, effective communication, breakdowns in communication, stress used etc.
- Prediction tasks
- ‘What happened next?’ before listening and comparing
- Post-listening
- Always ask why the speaker spoke as they did
- Paralinguistic features
- Use mime or acting as a fun way of showing what else is happening as we listen
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
We very much look forward to welcoming you to the tenth webinar on Wednesday 4 July at 13:00 UK time, when Jonathan Frank, University Recognition Manager, will be interviewing Cathy Taylor, Senior Academic, English Language. They will be discussing listening and note taking and how we can help learners improve their listening skills through note taking techniques.
Click on the 'Join Webinar' link below at the appointed time for the next webinar.
