Listening Strategies and Applications in EFL Classroom

Stella Liao Keelung Municipal ZhongShan Senior High school

CONTENTS I. Introduction II. Motivation

2.1 Ineffective students listening habits 2.2 Analysis of the listening sections in EFL textbooks

III. Preparation
3.1Teachers Role 3.2 Students Role 3.3 Consideration to select listening texts and activities 3.4 Collaborative learning 3.5 Guidelines of Listening Activities

IV. Listening Strategies and Applications

4.1 Pre-listening
4.1.1 Mixed-Up Charades 4.1.2 What was the message: Who ate the cookies 4.1.3 Film watching: Hearing ears 4.1.4 Jeopardy 4.1.5 Vocabulary competition

4.2 During Listening

4.2.1 Note taking skills

4.2.2 Make predictions: Hearing between lines

4.3 After Listening

4.3.1 Review notes: Oral summary 4.3.2 Act upon the message_ short dialogue 4.3.3 Stating a Preference and Giving Reasons 4.3.5 Twist the ending

V. Conclusion Appendix
(1) Teacher checklist for establishing a collaborative classroom (2) Checklist for listening comprehension (3) Worksheet of vocabulary competition Sample Lesson Plans References

I. Introduction
This study aims to provide simple and clear teaching strategies for listening to help students actively comprehend spoken messages, work out implied meanings, and develop organized points of view in response in class. The relevant activities are designed for ninth and tenth to eleventh grade EFL students in a large-sized classroom, and encourage students to listen actively and think out loud as they work to organi ze their ideas within the listening process. Every activity is set to take 15 minutes and the topics are related to the textbooks in order to suit the Taiwanese EFL classroom. Various tasks provide students with opportunities to improve their listening strategies, memory retention, and learning motivation. Teachers feedback is included to show how students actually responded, and to help other teachers use them more handily. Key words: listening comprehension, guided listening, guided reading, metacognition, cooperative learning, note-taking, EFL students in Taiwan

II. Motivation
EFL students in Taiwanese senior high schools now encounter some difficulties in cultivating their listening abilities, including weak phonemic awareness, a test-oriented environment which overemphasizes reading and writing ability, a passive approach to of listening and speaking, a lack of learning strategies in listening, and the time limitation for English teachers in class. Even though EFL students in eleventh grade have been learning English for ten years, some of them still dont know how to pronounce words clearly, and dont push themselves to listen and speak actively in class. As for teachers in senior high, most of them have tight, test-focused teaching schedules in class which rarely emphasize the importance of listening ability. Besides, most teachers have fewer teaching strategies for listening comprehension, which also affects their teaching motivation. Therefore, the study integrates bottom-up and top-down strategies, suggests different teaching tasks and activities for a large class with a cooperative learning approach and note-taking skills, and then indicates some simple but useful listening activities for EFL teaching in Taiwan.

2.1Ineffective students listening habits

There are two traditional teaching methods that actually restrain students listening proficiency. The first one is that most teachers only use tape recorders for their classroom listening practice, and students just sit back and listen without thinking. This task prevents students from using physical or visual clues to think actively with their brains. However, to be an effective listener, students need to learn to conduct the following steps,

1. determine a reason for listening; 2. take the raw speech and deposits an image of it in short-term memory; 3. attempt to organize the information by identifying the type of speech event (conversation, lecture, radio ad) and the function of the message (persuade, inform, request); 4. predict information expected to be included in the message; 5. recall background information (schemata) to help interpret the message; 6. assign a meaning to the message; 7. check that the message has been understood; 8. determine the information to be held in long-term memory; 9. delete the original form of the message that had been received into short-term memory (Brown 1994; Dunkel, 1986). In other words, listening is an active process of selecting and interpreting information in the human brain, but most EFL learners do not use their brains actively while they follow the first teaching task, Thus, these students listening comprehensive abilities does not improve with such guidance. The second traditionally teaching method requires students to think and discuss after listening to a script, without giving them any guidance about what specific information they should listen for. In this task, most students get lost in masses of spoken information and feel frustrated. In order to overcome such difficulties, this study uses the note-taking skill and various pre-, while-, and post-listening activities to guide EFL teachers to provide visual cues or background knowledge before they use tape recorders for listening practice; furthermore, EFL teachers will have a clear map of how to conduct a series of effective listening activities to encourage students to follow such rules to think actively when listening.

2.2 Unrelated texts of the listening sections in EFL textbooks

Theoretically, EFL textbooks in Taiwan should offer clear teaching materials with four skills in each lesson so that teachers can integrate listening, speaking, reading, and writing tasks flexibly in class. Yet the fact is that the four main publishers in Taiwan now do not offer any listening topics or text connected with their previous lessons. They all introduce new sections to teach listening, which strongly reduces teachers willingness to teach listening in their heavily restricted teaching hours. In order to overcome this difficulty, this study is designed to help teachers to use the current reading texts to conduct listening activities in class.

III. Preparation
3.1Teachers Role
The role of the teacher in this study is as a modulator and a supporter. Teachers modeling is crucial in this study since clear i nstruction is strongly required to reduce students learning anxiety in listening activities. Teachers scaffold students understanding in listening activities by guiding them how to construct their own ideas. For instance, teachers create a supportive learning environment, facilitate the inquiry process instead of dominating it, and model the listening skills required for successful cooperative learning. As for modeling questions, the following would be examples. 1. Am I right that you mean? 2. Can you give me some more/further evidence/ examples? 3. What do you mean by.? 4. Can you explain that in more detail? 5. Why do you think this is the reason? 6. What assumptions might you be making about? The teacher does not have to to talk to each student individually. Students are encouraged to ask questions and respond to each other in their groups, and then the whole class will discuss the issue. Furthermore, a constructivist approach involves students synthesizing new experiences with what they already know instead of teaching specific knowledge to students, so the teachers role is to encourage students to think and talk, listen and write about the content as they keep on clarifying their ideas. In the listening activities discussed here, the teacher provides the background knowledge, introduction of key words, a movie/literature preview,

or a series of questions with oral directions to guide students to practice and assess the message.

3.2 Students Role

The main approach is a learner centered one, which means that students are encouraged to play a more interactive role and to think aloud. In the cooperative learning process, students are required to explain their ideas in the thinking process, develop skillful questioning strategies, and reflect on their ideas all the time to confirm their opinions. As students shape their ideas, its acceptable for students to make a false start, change their ideas, hesitate when speaking, or rephrase themselves during the discussion.

3.3 Collaborative Learning

Collaborative learning is the key to a successful listening acquisition since students not only listen to each others statements but also examine how the ideas form, how to express their points of view, and how to clarify the their own thinking within the interaction of collaborative inquiry. This process requires students to learn how to think and enables them to explore, develop, monitor, and adjust their thinking and talking in cooperation with others. This is also a better process for helping students to adjust to an authentic listening environment. As for the collaborative inquiry, it requires students to listen and speak about the content of the message. It does not need to be a debate or a contest, but rather than an exploration and clarification of ideas. In the inquiry, students learn to respect themselves and others, even when they have different opinions. The following checklist is modified from the checklist of Teacher Checklist for Establishing a Collaborative Classroom, Abbott and Godinho (2004), to outline some key points that can help teachers to provide a supportive environment and a cooperative classroom. Illustration 1: Teacher checklist for establishing a collaborative classroom Please check to see if you provide a supportive learning environment. V 1 2 3 Rule Build a relaxed and comfortable learning atmosphere. Provide time for students to think, talk, clarify, and organize their ideas. Complement students responses without giving irrelevant praise.

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Ask open-ended questions that do not have predetermined answers. Model questions to clarify meaning and to seek elaboration of responses. Encourage students to question one another. Turn students responses back to the group for further comment. Check that summaries are an accurate representation of the classs thinking. Listen actively and challenge students thinking Discourage repetitious anecdotes and retelling of a storyline. Model thinking aloud. Encourage students exploration of reasoning.

Modified by Colleen Abbott and Sally Godinho, 2004, Speak, Listen, and Learn.

3.4 Guidelines of Listening Activities

In this study, students use the collaborative learning strategy to do every activity, based partly on Abbott & Godinho (2004), Speak, Listen, and Learn. They construct a framework for listening comprised of four units: 1. Tuning In- concentrates on developing individual and small-group communication skills that provide a foundation for learning and working cooperatively in any situation 2. Tell Me the Story- explores narrative frameworks and strategies for engaging an audience. 3. So Whats New?- promotes dynamic performance and presentation skills 4. Let Me Change Your Mind- investigates provocative ways of developing and contesting points of view. In this guide, students will find significant aspects of the language through cooperative learning, such as the identification of the message, the understanding of the category, the understanding of the higher-order ideas in the text, the implied meaning, and the justification or persuasion within the discussion. This study also follows the teaching pattern described by Lund (1990) to construct the learning framework for listening as the following diagram.

Illustration 2: Lunds Function- Response Matrix for Listening (Advertisement Example)

Function response Identification Orientatio n Main Idea Comprehensio n Detail Comprehensio n Full Compr ehensi on Tune in Doing Pantomime the product Choosing Match ads and pictures Tell me the story Answering Transferring List Adjectives What kind of text? Write magazine ad What goods are advertised? Condensing Write close-caption text So, whats new? Duplicating Extending Second ad in campaign .. Transcribe the text Let me change your mind Modeling Conversing Create own ad Talk back to the ad List the selling points Select best ad Replicatio n

Source: Lund, Randall J. A Taxonomy for Teaching Second Language Learning. Foreign language Annals 23 ii(1990), p. 111.

IV. Listening Strategies and Applications

4.1Pre-Listening
Students need to understand how to recognize the purpose of the listening message, and make connections about the topic or tone to tune in as preparation for processing the information in the pre-listening stage. Teachers can use TPR directions, vocabulary competition, film watching, or description of drawing sketches to tune their brain in the second langue listening. The following are some relevant activities.

4.1.1 Mixed-Up Charades

* Objectives: This activity is designed to inhibit the listeners impulse to immediately answer questions, and to help him or her to learn to adjust to the situation while he/she responds to the speaker without internal distractions. * Teaching steps to follow: 1. Invite four students to come to the board and write down a series of actions in different places. The one who writes the most wins the game. Ex. In the classroom Writing a test Chatting with friends In the hospital Taking the pill Having a surgery Taking the blood measure 2. Work in pairs. Every pair needs some space to use their body gestures. *Rules of the game: a. Role A begins by pretending to do something such as swimming in the pool. b. Role B calls on the phone and asks, what are you doing? c. Role A claims to be doing something else. For example, Role A says, I am playing the piano while actually pretending to be swimming in the pool. d. Role B MUST begin pretending to do what Role A just said (Playing the piano) e. The activity repeats as Role A now asks Role B, What are you doing? 3. The activity continues until one student does the wrong thing. They then switch partners. Students should listen carefully and try to change activities smoothly and quickly. 4. After the activity, each student comes back to the seat and writes down the reflection. Questions: a. What did you learn from this activity? b. Can you hear someone but still not really listen? Explain

 Teachers Feedback: Mix-up charades is a great activity to mix up students thinking and body movements. For those who like to think by doing, its indeed a complex and interesting activity. The key point to conduct this activity successfully is that the teacher has to clearly demonstrate for students and set a relaxing atmosphere for them to practice in.

4.1.2 Problem solving: Who ate the cookies

* Objectives: This active listening activity aims to train students to listen to remember, listen for details, and listen for implied meaning. Students listen to a series of mini-conversations about the topic Who ate the cookies? provided by the teacher. They attempt to understand various aspects of the talk, cross out the irrelevant clues, and jot down the right one in a chart. Teaching steps to follow: 1. Before listening to the conversation, students study the chart in small groups. 2. Students cross out the irrelevant clues while listening. 3. Students discuss, share opinions, and fill out forms. 4. The teacher reads aloud the conversations three times and then checks the answer with the whole class. Those who get the right answer win the points Teachers feedback This activity requires the active listening process and collaborative inquiry which is indeed a challengeable but joyful means of second langue acquisition. Whether the answer is right or wrong is not the crucial thing; instead, when the teacher provides enough time for students to participate in discussion, most of them will pay more attention to the listening in order to clarify their ideas. This activity successfully motivates arouses senior high students.

4.1.3 Film Watching: Hearing Ears:

Objectives: The purpose of this activity is to explore what students hear and what they remember, and then to build their listening and memorization skills. Then, students will develop a strong desire to learn how to take notes and how to pay attention in listening. Teaching steps to follow:

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1. Ask students to fill in the performance checklist for listening comprehension while they listen to a short passage three times to get the gist of the listening. 2. Every student shares their feedback to check their performance for the listening comprehension. Illustration3: Checklist for listening comprehension Questions
After 1st listening (Guess? Reason?)
Where? (setting?) When?(time? time of day? season?) who? (speakers? their relationship?) How? (tone? mood?) What? (What is it about?) why? (goal? particular circumstances?)

Before 2nd listening (Other possibilities?)

After 2nd listening (Did I miss anything?)

My reflection:
What I found easy: What I found difficult: What I will do the next time:

3. Explain to students that the teacher will read a short passage and they need to record the key words they hear in the column marked what was heard. 4. Read the passage again and ask students to mark out the key words they consider important in the what was heard column, and fill in some more words in the new to me now column.

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5. Ask students to open the book and check the words that they did not record during the previous hearing. 6. Discuss what was not heard and ask students to share their feedback.

4.1.4 Jeopardy: Questions about 921 earthquake

Objectives: The purpose of Jeopardy is to encourage students to activate their existing knowledge and utilize their background knowledge by asking questions. Students will get a board as follows with various clues to brainstorm, discuss, and then provide the relevant questions to this issue. In this questioning process, students develop the confidence and skill to ask questions in class and establish a list of useful questioning strategies. Teaching steps to follow: 1. Students listen to a short passage. 2. After the passage, the teacher shows a chart on the board and asks students to come up questions with the relevant questions. 3. Students do the group discussion and compose interesting questions. 4. Those who come up the most interesting and coherent questions win the game. Sample Chart Illustration 4: Jeopardy of 921 Earthquake (B3L3 in Sammin Publisher) Jiji Victims feeling News broadcasting The epicenter Mental support A valuable lesson Reconstruction Physical support Debris

Teachers feedback This activity helps most students to recall their background knowledge within a new lesson. Besides, it is a learner-centered way for students to learn a better way to ask questions through discussion. This questioning procedure is not only useful to developing learners but also important for the advanced EFL learners in participating in class.

4.1.5 Vocabulary competition

*Objectives Learning new vocabulary is vital for EFL learners to understand the key words in the listening. However, its essential to teach only five to ten words before listening or the new words will distract listeners concentration in getting the main idea. Thus, this activity uses a form of competition to allow students

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learn to find out the most important words from the text cooperatively instead of learning passively. Teaching steps to follow: 1. Students work in groups to find out six new words listed in the textbook and write down the correct spelling. ex. Averageclimateadaptessentialregradfactor Average, climate, adapt, essential, regard, factor 2. Students need to identify any words they dont know but which are important in this lesson, and then explain the reasons. Illustration 5: K/W/L chart for new vocabulary K (words I already knew) Dumpling delicacy W (words I dont know) Unemployed Aid stranded L (words a bit familiar to me) Wonder Add factor

3. Students discuss and clarify verbs for cooking with mind maps. The group with the best reasons wins the game. Teachers feedback Students learn well when the teaching is learner-centered, and students learn better when they learn from their peers. In this activity, its exciting to notice that students learn to classify which words are essential for them to learn this time, and try to compose a organized sentence explaining why by themselves. Furthermore, since they are aggressively learning new vocabulary, they gain more clues to understand what the listening text is about.

4.2 While- listening

In this part, the teaching task will mainly focus on note taking skills. While practicing this skill, students will learn to identify main ideas and predict the details of the listening. In the listening process, effective listeners understand the main ideas and implications, but EFL learners need to be taught and encouraged to actively think about what theyre listening to. In order to teach EFL learners to think when listening, focusing on note-taking skills is a good way of helping learners to concentrate and to look for clues in what they\re listening to. Before playing the listening script, students learn to ask questions as they see a picture cue related to the listening paragraph. Then, they take notes

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as they listen. The tape record is played three times. As for the format of the notes, they can be a rough outline, a graphic organizer, a chart, or a story map. Students work in small groups to clarify what they hear, make predictions, and make inferences after listening to the scripts all the time. By practicing these listening tasks, students will prepare themselves to listen effectively in most situations.

4.2.3 Note taking Skills

Objectives Taking notes is the most fundamental training approach for listeners to listen actively and effectively. It helps EFL students learn to work at listening. There are four important elements to successful note-taking: language, speed, organization, and accuracy. The first thing is to take notes in the language in which the person needs to use the notes. That is, if the lecture is spoken in English, the note taker needs to take notes in the same language. This will help the note taker to remember precise terms and the context, and further develops his or her English skills. The second thing is about the speed of taking notes. An effective note taker is required to record information quickly. Thus, students will need to learn to use abbreviations, initials, shorthand, key words, or symbols to represent the ideas more quickly and clearly. The third thing is to use outlines, a mind-map, or graphic organizers to organize the notes. That is, the notes should neatly reflect the lecturers main ideas and detailed examples. In general, clear, organized notes require practice. If students are familiar with the note-taking process, they can use it whenever they listen to a lecture or a speech, as part of an active listening process. 1. 2. 3. Teaching steps to follow: Students learn to write down the date and unit. Write notes in short phrases instead of whole sentences. Use abbreviations to save time. For example, and &, butX

4. If a name often occurs in the listening task, use initials. For example, Republic of China R.O.C. 5. Be brief, but make sure the writer understands what she/he writes. 6. Number the notes, so students can understand where to start or stop. 7. When taking notes from a long article, jot down/ mark one or two essential points in each paragraph or chapter. 8. Leave a wide margin while taking notes Illustration 6: Cornell Notes

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Date: Questions

Unit: notes

Summary

Illustration 7: Worksheet of note taking in listening Title of the Key words article:______________________________________________ Paragraph 1 1 round 2nd round
st

Paragraph 2

(Write key words/phrases)

(Use abbreviated words/ initials to add details)

3rd round

(use outline to make notes organized)

Summary Refection

Students need to review the notes and write down the summary and reflection for recitation Teachers Reflection: In the note-taking process, some students may have difficulties in spelling out unknown words, recognizing their messy words/ abbreviations, or leaving

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large space for missed points. When such problems happen, the teacher can assist by writing key words on board for reference, clarifying the abbreviations, or suggesting clues for the missed points. After that, its essential for students to do a group discussion, share opinions, and write a brief summary for recitation to fix the listening text into their long-term memory.

4.2.2 Identifying main ideas

Objectives The purpose of this practice is to teach students to explore implied meanings as they take notes on the lecture. A speaker might signal a main idea through some important rhetorical questions, the repetition of key words, emphasis, or the pace of a speech. (Berman, 2003) Thus, students will learn to identify main ideas from different reading sections in this strategy. Tips to follow Students need to be able to recognize and identify the main ideas and points of a speech. The following list shows possible ways for a speaker to emphasize such ideas. Students should listen carefully once, and then concentrate on the main ideas while listening a second time. After a group discussion about the main ideas, students should write down a brief summary and reflection to help them organize their thoughts. Illustration 8: Guess the Main Ideas in the listening The speaker uses~ Direct statements 1st round (What I hear in the listening) 2nd round (Main ideas I recognize)

The point I want to make/cover here is The main point is The important thing here is What Im trying to show is What Im going to talk about today is The purpose of my remarks is This afternoon Id like to explain/focus on others:___________________________

Repetitive words/ phrases

repeats what has been said repeats the textbook takes more time on one area

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Important points spoken in more slowly and clearly pace Body gestures or mood

pauses increases volume changing pitch of voice

adds class activities or worksheets uses body language (facial expression, gestures, posture, pace) writes on the chalkboard

Reflection (the checklist is modified from Effective Listening and Notetaking,

http://www.northshore.edu/support_center/pdf/listen_notes.pdf )

Teachers feedback After students follow the note-taking skill a couple of times, their listening proficiency will gradually improve, compared to those who only have listening practice in class. Besides, students learn how to use the recitation method to remember new messages, providing them with new strategies for figuring out main ideas.

4.2.3 Making predictions

Objectives The purpose of making predictions is to teach students to figure out implied meanings texts in different contexts. Teaching steps to follow 1. Explain the meaning of the expression reading between the lines when people read between the lines they construct meaning that is implied rather than stated. 2. Guide students to discuss the different meanings people may infer when they hear the same words. Use expressions that may have different meanings, such as wicked, or How are you? 3. In small groups, have students explore implied meaning using tone of voice, facial expression, and posture. One student selects a statement and says it to his or her partner. The partner explains his or her analysis of the implied meaning. For example,

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Nice haircut. I did well on my exam. I really like your shoes. Are you going out tonight? That was wicked. I need some food. 4. When sufficient examples have been provided, ask students to reflect on the reasons why meanings are different. Consider, for example, meanings that vary depending on age groups or cultural groups, the purpose of the speaker, and the intention of the hearer. Teachers Feedback After going through these through tasks, students will have a vivid picture of how to think actively when listening. Besides, these activities help them get higher scores when they have listening tests since they are already aware of how to identify, clarify, compare and contrast the main ideas of a listening script.

4.3 Post Listening

EFL students need to act upon what they have heard to expand their thinking, and a well-planned post-listening activity is a useful device for them to speak and think about links between the lecture and their life experiences. The following are some post-listening activities for the teachers to take as a reference.

4.3.1 Oral summary: Chain of Love

*Objectives: After the listener has understood the message, its important for them to think aloud by telling someone what they have heard. Therefore, giving an oral summary is necessary for students in EFL classroom. Teaching steps to follow: 1. Put students in pairs. Person A pretends to be a neighbor of the main character, Joes friend, and asks him about the topic. Person B pretends to be Joe. 2. Students need to be good conversationalists, and take turns to create a short dialogue.

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3. Pairs rehearse the dialogue. 4. The students with the best ideas perform their dialogue in front of the class. Role A: Hey, Joe. I heard an interesting topic in class today. Role B: Oh, what about? Role A: Well, ____________________________________________. Role B: Do you mean that_______________________________! Role A: Yeah! How do you think about this? Role B: I like/ dont like it because____________. Role A: What a good point!

4.3.2 Song & Stress: Practice Stress and Intonation

* Objectives: L2 learners can improve their listening and speaking abilities by being aware of how to use stress and intonation consciously and the best way to teach stress and intonation is to use a song. Teaching steps to follow: 1. Students get in two large groups and listen to a song, Toms Diner. 2. Then, they learn to highlight all the important words in each line. 3. After that, students learn to read aloud with the stresses that they have highlighted already, and practice the song and rhythm. 4. The teacher plays the song again, and students sing along. In the end, volunteers will be invited to sing the song.

4.3.3 Retell the ending of the story

Objectives The students learn to retell the story again by focusing on the following words that they have learned about the 921 earthquake. By retelling the story, they have to pay attention to the pronunciation of vocabulary, the stress and intonation of the sentences, and learn to think aloud by practicing or imitating the listening message. Teaching steps to follow: (1) For lower-achievers: 1. Put four students in each group. Each student chooses three words randomly. 2. The teacher will play the CD once, and then students need to use these words to retell one part of the story. 3. One student takes the role of a sectary and takes notes about the retold story.

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Word list 1.aftermath

2. victim 3. tremendous 4. Physical support 5. destroy

6.encounter 7. Support 8. Imagine 9. In addition After the discussion, everyone writes down the summary of the story on the paper as an assignment. (2) For higher-achievers: (3) 1. Put four students in each group. Each student chooses three words randomly. 2. The teacher plays the CD. 3 The students have to retell one paragraph from the story in 30 seconds, without using any of the words from the list. They have to use synonyms instead. 3. Every student retells a paragraph in turn until the story is finished. 4. The team who finishes the task first wins the game.

V. Conclusion
This study explores all aspects of listening tasks and activities in order to offer simple but useful teaching activities for EFL teachers to use when needed. During the experimenting process, the researcher has noticed four points to pay attention to. First, its better for the teacher to pre -teach important new vocabulary, but no more than ten words. If the teacher teaches all of the new words, the students usually get distracted by the vocabulary instead of focusing on listening. Secondly, its good to give students questions to follow, but dont give them irrelevant comprehension questions. Since listening is unlike reading, students dont get the reading material to follow and if the teacher asks about too many details, they may become frustrated. Thirdly, unlike teaching reading, the teacher should not spend too much time on grammar. One grammatical point per time is enough for the listeners to pay attention to as they listen. Last but not least, the teacher doesnt need to spend too much time on teaching listening per class. Instead, fifteen minutes is enough for one listening activity. What is more important is that listening is taught at least once per lesson. As long as the teacher becomes familiar with the relevant teaching activities, she/ he can use one activity a day.The researcher hopes that EFL teachers will have a better map of how to teach listening in class after reading and demonstrating these activities and EFL students can become more effective listeners in their future.

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Appendix 1

Teacher checklist for establishing a collaborative classroom

Please check to see if you provide a supportive learning environment. V 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Rule Build a relaxed and comfortable learning atmosphere. Provide time for students to think, talk, clarify, and organize their ideas. Give complements to students Reponses without giving irrelevant praises. Ask open-ended questions that do not have predetermined answers. Model questions to clarify meaning and to seek elaboration of responses. Encourage students to question one another. Turn students responses back to the group for further comment. Check that summaries are an accurate representation of the classs thinking. Listen actively and challenge students thinking Discourage repetitious anecdotes and retelling of a storyline. Model thinking aloud. Encourage students exploration of reasoning.

Modified by Colleen Abbott and Sally Godinho, 2004, Speak, Listen, and Learn.

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Appendix 2

Checklist for listening comprehension

Class: Questions
After 1st listening (Guess? Reason?)
Where? (setting?) When?(time? time of day? season?) who? (speakers? their relationship?) How? (tone? mood?) What? (What is it about?) why? (goal? particular circumstances?)

Name:

No.

Before 2nd listening (Other possibilities?)

After 2nd listening (Did I miss anything?)

My reflection:
What I found easy: What I found difficult: What I will do the next time:

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Appendix 3

Worksheet of vocabulary competition

3M 202 Vocabulary class name A. Spot the Words Round One: 1~10 (find out 6 new words listed in the textbook) Averageclimateadaptessentialregardfactor Round Two: 11~21 (find out 7 new words listed in the textbook) Disgustthrivedelicacycomplexprosperityhunchedstaple B. KWL K (words I already knew) W (words I dont know)_important L (words a bit familiar to me) no

C. Idioms and Phrases: Fill 5 idioms and phrases in the blanks and write down their English definitions. Also, identify the shortest chunk in each example sentence that helps you understand the phrases. idioms and phrases 1 2 3 definition chunk

D. Synonym: Find words with similar meanings in this lesson, define the words in English, read their example sentences, and write down how to use them. synonyms English definition how to use them (e.g. the pattern)

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E. suffix -able:

F. suffix -able: Think up at least three more words that end in -able

G. Supplementary (1) adapt vt. _______________________________________________ adaptable adj. adapter adaptation adapt (oneself) to sth. ( adapt A from B B A e.g.1 The foreign student, Sam, _____________ himself well to life in Taiwan. He not only found things interesting, but also made some good friends. 2. The movie was __________ from a famous novel, but it was not as good as its readers had hoped it would be. 3. Before long, ________________________________________________ 4. The novel was adapted for TV soap operas from the French original. (**) 5. The new assistant is an ______________ man; he will no doubt adjust himself to the new work soon. 6. It was easy for the adapter to do the adaptation of the novel for children.

(2) prosperous adj. ________________________________ Prosper vi. prosperity n. [U]

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synonym: successful, thriving The country is very ________________ because it is a large oil producer. Most of the people there are wealthy. The company has grown and ________________over the years, and now it is planning to take over some small companies. The new business has brought __________________ to the city. The level of unemployment there is quite low now. (3) thrive vi. (____________________ | thriven | thriving) Synonym: p___________________ Those plants _________________ only in cold conditions. They will die if it is too hot.

G. please clarify verbs for ways of cooking with mind maps Candy, bake, toast, stew, steam, boil, barbecue, stir-fry, deep-fry, broil, pan-fry, season, simmer, brown, smoke, grill,

H. Reflection: Minute Paper 1. What is the most important point youve learned today?

2. What point remains least clear to you?

the worksheet is modified from the vocabulary worksheet of

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Appendix 4

Note Taking Self-Assessment

Listening and Note Taking Self-Assessment
Often Sometimes Seldom

1. I read my assignments before I go to a lecture. 2. I find lectures interesting and challenging. 3. My lecture notes are well organized. 4. I recognize main ideas in lectures. 5. I recognize supporting details of main ideas. 6. I recognize patterns in lectures, i.e. cause-effect, concept-example. 7. My lecture notes are complete. 8. I recognize relationships between lectures and readings. 9. I integrate my lecture notes with my reading notes. 10. I summarize my notes, both lecture and reading, in my own words. 11. I review my notes immediately after class. 12. I conduct weekly reviews of my notes. 13. I edit my notes within 24 hours after class. How did you do? Taking this self-assessment should help you identify the note taking skills on which you need to work. Good note taking skills include doing all of the things listed above for every class. http://istudy.psu.edu/FirstYearModules/NoteTaking/SelfAssessment.htm

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Appendix 5 Cornell notes for listening

Date: Unit: Name: No.

Notes Q&A

1st draft

2nd drat

Outline

Key words/ Questions

Summary

Reflection

NOTETAKING CHECKLIST: Use this checklist to evaluate your notes:

Did you... ___Write down key words and omit unnecessary words only to save time? ___ Use symbols (*, !, ->, etc.) to emphasize key points? ___ Indicate with question marks (_?_) where you got lost or points you dont understand? ___ Leave white space in your notes? ___ Include examples to clarify major concepts? ___ Include complete and exact definitions? ___ Review and edit your notes as soon as possible after class? Think about this: In 2 or 3 weeks, will you still be able to understand your notes and retrieve specific information from them?

Appendix 6

Guess the Main Ideas in the listening

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Date: The speaker uses~ Direct statements

Unit:

Name:

No. 2nd round (Main ideas I recognize)

1st round (What I hear in the listening) The point I want to make/cover here is The main point is The important thing here is What Im trying to show is What Im going to talk about today is The purpose of my remarks is This afternoon Id like to explain/focus on others: _________________________

Repetitive words/ phrases Important points spoken in more slowly and clearly pace Body gestures or mood

repeat what has been said repeat the textbook take more time on one area pause increase volume change pitch of voice

add class activities or worksheets use body language (facial expression, gestures, posture, pace) write on the chalkboard

Reflection (the checklist is modified from Effective Listening and Notetaking,

http://www.northshore.edu/support_center/pdf/listen_notes.pdf )

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Appendix 7

Learning Assessment
1. Name: No. What activities in class helped you understand the listening passage the most? __________________________________________________________ ___ Please give an example of when you had trouble understanding something. __________________________________________________________ __ Why did you have difficulty in listening comprehension? a. I didnt know the new words b. I wasnt paying attention c. I couldnt hear the speaker clearly. d. The speaker spoke too fast e. Others _________________________________________ 4. Did you have understand more than you had expected to about a particular subject? Were you less successful than you had expected? Why? ______________________________________________________________ _______ 5. Give one or two examples of successes you have had in understanding communication. Try to explain why you succeeded. ___________________________________________________________ _______ ___________________________________________________________ _______ 6. Give an example of a time you had difficulty communicating with your classmates. ___________________________________________________________ _______ 7. Why did you have a problem? a. My classmates didnt understand my pronunciation. b. I didnt understand my classmates pronunciation.

2.

3.

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c. I had trouble finding the main idea of the topic. d. There was too much new vocabulary. e. Others.________________ 8. What would you do to improve your listening ability next time? a. Will you prepare for a listening passage more carefully? How? b. Will you try to improve your listening skills when speaking in a group?

How?
Berman, Michael. 2003. Advanced Listening, Listening Strategy Guide, http://www.dyned.com/pdf/Study-Guides/SGAL2E.PDF

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Appendix 8

Performance Checklist for Listening Comprehension

Class: Name: No. YES

Pre-listening questions
I understand the task (what I have to do after I have finished listening) I have attempted to recall all that I know about the topic I have attempted to recall what I know about the type of text I will listen to and the type of information I will probably hear I know what I must pay attention to while I listen I have asked the teacher for clarifications, if necessary I have made predictions about what I am about to hear I am ready to pay attention and concentrate on what I am about to hear I have encouraged myself

After listening I concentrated on the task to be accomplished I attempted to verify my predictions I revised my predictions accordingly I focused my attention on the information needed to accomplish the task I used background noises, tone of voice, and other clues to help me I guessed at the meaning of words I did not understand. I used key words, cognates, and word families to understand the text I used my knowledge of the context and of text structure to understand the text I evaluated the logic/plausibility of what I understood (Place a check mark in the yes column when verifying each statement) In order to improve my performance, next time I will____________________________________________________

Yes

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Appendix 9

Students work
Pre listening: Hearing Ears_ K/W/L chart Pre listening: Scores of vocabulary competition

While listening: Note taking_ key-word practice

While listening: Note taking _ Mind map

Post listening: Retell the ending of the story

Post listening: Group discussion

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Reference
Learn English Feel Good, http://www.learnenglishfeelgood.com/eslvideo/ ESL Learning Exercise http://www.englishmedialab.com/listening.html Listening and Speaking Activities for Adult ESL Learners, http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdeadult/download/pdf/ListeningSpeakingCorrelate dBESTPlusCASAS.pdf How to do listening in EFL classroom, http://www.esl-lounge.com/blog/169/how-to-do-listening-in-the-esl-classroom Vandergrift, Larry, Facilitating second language listening comprehension: acquiring successful strategies, http://203.72.145.166/ELT/files/53-3-3.pdf BBC learning English http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/teachingenglish/talkingbusi ness/

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