Job Discussion Forums

[cormac]

Ok. I'm completely and utterly confused or perhaps bemused. My university has decided to give me Listening classes to teach. I've never had to do them before.

One week in a normal classroom (twice a week) without any way to play the CD and then the second week in a media room.

I've gone through the allocated books but i can't see the point of my being there. The books have English on one page and the Chinese on the other side. I've gotten admin majors whose English is rather low so they have difficulty with individual vocabulary questions. They can read the Chinese well though. Helpful that.

I mean, what the hell am I supposed to be doing? I can understand my duty as a conversational, business, or oral English teacher, but listening? I have no clue how to teach anything useful.

Anyone been there, done that?

[choudoufu]

they gave me listening last year, fortunately in the fancy lis'nin lab.
chinese teachers were using century 21 integrated course. the
listening was too hard for the students. only 1 out of 25 was able
to get more than 5%.

seems to me, listening classes are usually just 'reading along' classes.
teacher plays an audio clip, students read the text in the book. in some
rare cases, they are asked to fill in the blanks, perhaps 10-12 words in
a 30-second clip.

my solution was to throw the book out. bought a copy of new concept
sychronized listening. only one copy (teacher's edition), students actually
had to listen and try to understand. play the clip, ask questions. can
be simple at first....how many speakers, be they boys or girls, what are
their names, what is the topic, list some key words......

later on, can start discussions, do transcription, create their own dialogs
based on the clip, continue the dialog where the clip left off, and so on.

[Denim-Maniac]

This being China, all the following may be disregarded under the TIC rule. (This is China).

Listening classes should have a similar structure to a text based class really. My listening classes might be something like the following:

A warm-up or introduction section. Perhaps I will bring in a lotto ticket and we'll have a 5 minute brainstorm about lotto tickets, winners etc etc. That sets the scene for the class.

Then I will pre-teach key vocabulary. Of course, you dont need to teach all the vocabulary, just pre-teach / test the vocabulary they need to complete your listening tasks.

(you could add a prediction stage here if you wanted. If you can predict things your ability to answer the following questions is easier. Students can predict the topic and nature of the listening based on your warmer / intro and the key vocab given).

Then the first listening task. This would be to listen for gist only. Following the same lotto theme, the single gist question might be 'Did the lotto winners have a good or bad experience? Why' - students only answer that question ... and you conduct feedback at that point.

Then a detailed listening task. Students have to listen and answer detailed questions ... what was the exact amount Denim-Maniac won? What date did Cormac buy his ticket? etc etc. More feedback after.

Then (assuming I wanted to continue the listening theme) I would highlight one or two sentences from the listening tape that showed a particular feature of pronunciation. This might be something like sentence stress and weak forms (Cormac went tuh Xian Fuh work un tuh learn Chinese). Or linking sounds (Cormac boughta ticke ti na nopen market). Or intruding sounds (I like to /w/ eat rice / three /j/ an four times a week)

Students then listen again and identify all the times they hear the feature of pronunciation. Maybe Id ask them to identify some rules of usage.

Then Id wrap up with a discussion task on the same topic, giving students the chance to use the vocabulary learned in the lesson and to apply the pronunciation that they have identified in the listening.

Thats how I teach listening classes ... but this is China. Experiences may vary

[cormac]

Ok. Thanks guys. Food for thought. I'm at a newly raised university and they're being rather heavy handed about following their own ideas for the class.. I.e. their book. Still, from your posts I've seen I can be more effective even by keeping within their guidelines.

Cheers.

[Non Sequitur]

Then again they may feel that you have too few teaching hours and the CTs will complain if they get that duty.

[wonderingjoesmith]

OP has a great example of why a language shouldn't be broken into categories of reading, writing, speaking and listening. Unless learners are too young to read or write, there is no reason to render some of those parts powerless.

[teachingld2004]

Denim, that is a great idea about a lottery ticket. Thanks. I will use it.

As far as a listening class, I agree it is insane to have listening without reading and writing.

What I have done is to bring in kids books. Really. Books like "Good Night Moon". Any kids books.

It is much easier to listen to those. And the books even have pretty pictures!

I have even photo copied my own photos. From my vacation, from ,y family one set to each pair of students. I tell them a story. MY STORY (so I do not forget what I said!) and I have them tell the story back to each other. Then I put two pairs of students together. They have to write my story and then read it to the class. They sign what they wrote and give it back to me. Each person must write something and sign his/her name.

Sure I can not tell if every one wrote something, but it still is something.

Problem for me is with more then 42 students in each class I can't....Oh yea, that is for another topic.

[sui jin]

Without seeing the textbook and what it contains it is hard to give good advice , but I have never seen a listening textbook with both English and Chinese. Maybe the Chinese is just a commentary on the English text , rather than a full translation (?). If it's the full text , the students will just use the chinese version to answer any comprehension questions.

The students (and maybe admin) will expect you to use the book , so you could use it every second week in the media room , and then do as DM advises in the other week , maybe bring in your own media player ,and play songs , or tell stories and have the students answer questions.

[chinatimes]

[LarssonCrew]

Maybe he means more:

What is luck.
When are you lucky?
Who plays the lottery?
Do rich people or poor people play more?
Would you play it if China had a national televised lottery?
What numbers would you pick?Random?Not Random etc?
What would you do if you won?

I'm upset Denim didn't name drop me in his ideas posts :< :cry:

[chinatimes]

[Denim-Maniac]

LarssonCrew is right. The ticket is the realia and the prompt for any number of warmers ... this could be the questions as listed or a brainstorm when students shout out the first thing they would buy if they won the jackpot etc etc.

Im very lucky with my students chinatimes - I could probably use the lotto ticket idea and get 45 minutes just from that. With our students it sometimes a problem because they want to talk and chat too much (in English of course) when there is sometimes class material to cover. I posted in a thread quite recently saying that my experience is wildly different to many here. Students that dont want to talk is something we just dont get really ... perhaps a single student here and there ... generally shutting them up is our problem