Listening might be the most difficult skill to achieve. As
we know, there are many factors that make listening comprehension that difficult
(Clustering, Redundancy, Reduced forms, Performance variables, Colloquial language,
Rate of delivery, Stress, Rhythm, and Intonation, and Interaction). The more unfamiliar
the language, the harder it is for us to understand it. See for example if you
listen to a Japanese guy. Even if you have practiced Japanese for some time, you
might have difficulties due to its different structure (subject-object-verb).
I remember that one of my English teachers told me that if I
wanted to increase my listening comprehension in the questions section, I should
focus on the key words. That is, try to identify the words that you need in
order to understand the question. For instance, say that the question is “What
did sally buy at the shopping mall? Here
we should try to identify, first the type of question (in this case it’s a WH
question ‘WHAT’, asking for ‘SOMETHING’), second, the verb, and third the
person (if there are many people in the story). Then, if the story is something
like “Sally went to the shopping mall with her sister, Diana. Sally wanted to
buy a pair of boots but she didn’t have enough money so she bought a pair of
sandals, whereas Diana bought the boots”. Then we are able to say that Sally
bought the pair of sandals. There have
been many teachers who have said that in English it is not important to listen
to every single word. If you can catch some words, the most important ones, you
can understand what they are saying. Trying to understand every single word may
lead us to lose focus and to be lost easier.
It also happens to us. In the listening exams we are frustrated
because we want to understand each word but sometimes we can’t. I think this
strategy is very useful and is a way to make our students realize that
listening can be easier than they think. I have noticed in my experience as a teacher
that when I’m asking questions to my students about a prior listening, e.g. “What
color is Suzy’s skirt?” I can see how they catch the words “color” and “skirt”
(because they repeat these words aloud) and rapidly they tell me the correct
color. Those students are kids and I had not told them about that strategy I
said before. I think our students, especially kids, can teach us lessons many
times.
As for speaking, there’s something I’d like to share with
you. When I attended the “Using ICT for Teaching the Four Skills” conference
at Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, they gave us many useful websites in
which we can make our students practice speaking, listening, reading, and writing.
For speaking, there was a website that I didn’t know and it called my attention.
It is Voxopop. This is like a kind of ‘spoken blog’, in which the teacher proposes
a topic and make the students talk about it, but they don’t have to write what
they think. They tape it and upload it. I think it is a useful way for, not
only evaluating, but also assessing your students’ speaking abilities. You can have a permanent observable product
for speaking performance. There is formative and summative assessment and also process
and product assessment because you give a final grade depending on the student’s
final recordings and you can also provide an accurate feedback based on the process
that the student followed. Plus, you can see if the student showed motivation
and willingness to identify and avoid his/her weaknesses in the previous
recordings. It is also useful for those students who are really shy when it
comes to speaking in public and in a class discussion they are just too afraid
to talk, but when they are in front of a computer they don’t have that anxiety
and are more relaxed to speak.
The cons with this website are that it does not provide
authentic speaking settings or real life communication. However, as a starter
for speaking I still think it’s a good tool.
Here you can have access to the website if you want to check it.
