Speaking and listening are neglected areas in second language acquisition/ learning. You want to propose that they should be included in the formal syllabus of classes 6 to 8. Write a proposal to your principal in about 250 words. Your proposal should include: (i) Rationale for inclusion (ii) What should be the course content? (iii)How should the skills be taught? (Pre, While, Post phase) Refer to the relevant units when you answer the question.
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Another kind of listening activity which is done most often in classes is listening to a text and reading it at the same time. But this kind of exercise does not really develop the learner’s skills of listening comprehension.
Apart from the above listening activities there are also some listening exercises in which learners are not supposed to make any verbal response or try make as less as possible. The best example of it could be a story telling by the teacher which in fact would be an extensive listening, wherein learners need not to do anything just listen to lots of spoken speech. This can be made little more interesting if the teacher introduces some sets of picture depicting different parts of the story and ask the students to put the pictures in sequential order once they have heard the story completely. Such a response would not a verbal and hence would allow students to focus on the spoken language.
One more listening activity which is very common in the classroom is that of read the text while listening to it. But such activities fail to develop students’ skill for the understanding of comprehension. Following are the points which can be considered as important while conducting a listening class effectively:
(a) Teacher should make the necessary arrangements before the class.
(b) If tape recording is to be used, then teacher should make sure that recording has properly been done, tape recorder is in good condition and volume of recorder is good enough.
(c) Teacher should make the seating arrangements in such a way that every student can hear what is being said.
(d) If the activity is to be done in groups, then teacher should make sure that groups are of not more than four students.
(e) Teacher should try to lower down the noise level of the class.
Sample Listening Lesson
In sample listening lessons usually the recorded material are used for the development of listening skills. Taking this sample listening lesson as an activity, let us consider that students are made to listen a recorded passage which is a recording of a group of students who went on to a trip to Bangkok. In the recording first the guide tells the students about various places. While this information is being played the student should be asked to locate the important places in map with the help of information provided by the guide in the recording.
The Pre-listening Activity
Once the teacher has made all the arrangement of the listening class, he/she should ask some questions before starting the listening activity in order to make sure that students are now well acquainted with map.
It would be a good start for the teacher to begin the lesson while asking a question like – how many of you use road map while travelling? Or something similar.
After the above preparation has been done, teacher should prepare students to listen to the recording material. Teacher should try to clarify any doubts that students may have regarding the listening exercise and should make sure that every student understands the instruction about the listening exercise.
The While-listening Activity
During this activity the main job of the learners is to complete the worksheet provided to them by the teacher while listening to the activity and teacher should make sure that students do their work with any external or internal disturbance. And also teacher should try to maintain noise level in the room and make sure that students are writing the answer while listening and not from their memory.
The Post-listening Activity
Once the recorded material has been played and the listening activity has been completed, teacher may ask students to complete the worksheet by exchanging the notes if some answers have not been completed. Once this has been done teacher should play the record once more and write the answer on the board so that it is visible to everyone. After this teacher may wish to discuss the form or the style in which the information is being provided by the recorded material. This is important because by this students may learn to take out the required information from the speech. Teacher can also try and attract students’ notice towards some of the vocabulary used in the passage.
At last it would be a wise attempt from teacher’s side if he/she would try to integrate the listening skill with other skills like reading, writing or speaking in order to give students a diverse exposure.
Comments on the Lesson
Here teacher needs to produce a listening recorded material. While choosing such a recorded material teacher should keep certain things in mind. First of all the recorded material should not be just flat reading of text or a passage but should be diverse in accent and realistic in voice range. The information in the recorded speech should not be densely structured. The recorded material should have certain repetition and redundancies. The voice should have proper clarification and there should be enough pauses, as it would give learners enough time to rethink and derive the required information from the speech. It is important that listening passage must be something which can interests the learners considering their level and need.
The learners’ task is to fill in the map given to them by the teacher. The map should not be complex but rather simple. But what is challenging for the learners is to keep the track of various names, places and directions. This would interest learners and they would be able to focus on what is being said, this will develop the skill of concentrating while listening.
A Framework for Testing Speaking Skills
Cyril Weir (1993) has proposed a three part framework to test spoken interaction, covering – operations, performance conditions, and the expected level of performance.
(a) Operations: Learners must have adequate vocabulary and some idea of how to put sentences together in order to speak a foreign language. The language routines that a learner uses can be broadly classified as informational and interactional. While information routines take into account ways of presenting information, interactional routines include ordered sequences of turns as in telephone conversations, interviews, meetings or conversations. Reciprocal ability to use both receptive and productive skills is involved in it.
(b) Performance Conditions: The parameters of assessment of speaking abilities are needed to be set out, viz., the time available, the permissible time lapse between exchanges, reciprocity or the responsibility for continuing the communication, the number of people involved, the familiarity of the people involved, etc.
(c) The Level of Performance: Attention is focused on fluency, appropriateness, coherence, effectiveness, accuracy and range of vocabulary. Evaluation experts are of the opinion that all assessment of spoken language should be based on tasks or activities which the learner performs ‘through using the language’.
Sample Test Items
As we have already seen that an oral test requires more time than any usual written test. Therefore in order to make it quick, teachers must not try and complete it in less than fifteen minutes. The reason is the motive of the oral test cannot be fulfilled in less than fifteen minutes. In less than fifteen minutes all the information required cannot be obtained, in fact it would be better if the test is completed in around thirty minutes. In order to make really assess the learner teacher should make use of different items and also it would make a fair assessment.
Let us now go through different test items which teachers may find useful in their assessment of their learners.
Those students who have limited speaking skills can be easily assessed by the limited response item.
A. In this item students are given with a situation and also an example. And they are asked to make responses based on the situation and example.
Example:
Mr. Smith lives in a village, but he does not like it much. He likes the big cities and towns. (Mr. Smith wished to be in a city.)
Similarly:
David has a small television. He wants to get a new, big television. (David wishes………..)
Anna likes books. She wants to own a library. (Anna wishes…………….)
B. In this test item students have to respond according to the instruction given.
For example:
You have gone to city, and you do not know the way to library. Ask some one to direct you.
(Excuse me, will you please tell me the way to the library?)
In the same manner:
You have bought a book yesterday, but there are some pages missing. Ask the bookseller to change it for you.
(……………………………………..)
Tour friend wants you to come with him for a party, but you are busy in writing an important report. Tell him that you won’t be able to accompany him as you are busy. (………………………………………….)
One of the biggest advantages of the items with limited response is that since the response is limited a large number of tests can be done in short period of time, but at the same time it also has one disadvantage that the range
of criteria on which a student will be assessed is limited in this case.
Information Transfer Exercise
In many of the language skills test teachers make use of pictures. In the speaking skills tests, teachers can also make use of such visual sources to make a student speak, in fact it would provide student a very good platform to
form his/her thoughts and go on with it.
One picture can be shown to the student and give him the opportunity to describe the picture in his/her own words. This exercise can be made more challenging by showing two almost similar, but not identical pictures to the
students and asking him/her to describe the difference between the two pictures.
Another way of making use of picture in order to assess the narrative skills of student is to show him a series of pictures which might constitute in one short narration and ask him/her to narrate in his/her own words.
This activity of narration can be made more challenging by showing the pictures to students in a jumbled state, i.e. not in a sequence. Another thing can be added in this activity is that each picture should be given to a group and the group is supposed to describe the picture without showing it to the class. Once every group is done with their description then a plausible sequence is worked out by every group.
Another way of using picture and diagram is by showing students the graph of two different places for, let’s say temperature. Now let the student describe the difference between the temperatures of the two places. This way teacher would have a good chance to test the student’s ability of transforming the non-verbal communication to into the verbal communication.
Let us now look at the advantages and the disadvantages of using pictures and graphics in the assessment of speaking skills.
The advantage of the use of graphics and pictures is that in this, students do not required to read or to listen to anything and it can be performed with a lot of ease. Another advantage is that teacher can very assess different speaking skills of the students like narration, description and reporting.
The biggest disadvantage of this technique is that there is practically no interaction involved and students would face such situations in their real life scenarios.
Information Gap Activities
In such activities or tasks students are provided with different bits of information. They can accomplish the task by sharing that information which was provided to them. This kind of activities are generally done in groups or pairs.
Free/Controlled Interviews
The idea of an interview with the student is a very good idea for the assessment of his speaking skills. The main reason is that in such an interview student would actually get an opportunity to speak with someone. If the interview is not a structured one and is supposed to shape itself once the interview has actually been started then it would give student a lot more opportunity to take initiative and introduce some topics of his/her interest. In this way student can really speak from his/her own mind with being in control of any one.
Another interview which could take place is one in which everything is planned and is much more controlled by the teacher. In such interview teacher can ask many questions in order to make student speak in such a way so that the teacher can assess his/her different speaking skills. In this student might not get an opportunity to introduce many new topics but always present him/herself in a more informative and intellectual manner.
The advantage of free interview is that it is flexible, gives opportunity to the student to speak in real sense and helps in assessing him/her both information and intellectual sense. But the biggest disadvantage of this technique is that it is very time-consuming and if there is a large group of students then it is almost impossible to administer this technique. Another problem with this is that the success of the activity depends very much on the examiner and also in many of the cases those students who are shy might not perform well.
The advantage of controlled interview is that it tries to judge all the students over the same parameter and the judgment across performance is quite possible.
Role Playing and Group Discussion
Other techniques which are very effective and also efficient for the assessment of the oral skills of the students are the tests which involve role playing and group discussion as these tests provide an opportunity to the students to take part in active and meaningful events.
In the activity which involves role play, students are asked to enact a particular role. They are asked to improvise on the language which the target role person might use in his/her real life. Usually in such activity all students are distributed with a role card which has information and instruction of the role they need to play. A time period of one or one and a half minutes should be given to the student to think of the role and the language that he/she might want to use and then he/she must get ready for action.
Let us look at the following example of a role play: