Teaching of receptive skills

TEACHING THE RECEPTIVE SKILLS
Đặng Hiệp Giang
Secondary Education Dept.
MOET
July - 2010
TEACHING LISTENING
Top-down versus Bottom-up
Top-down: listener reconstructs meaning using clues from the listening. Prior knowledge, context and situation are used.
Bottom-up: linear process: phonemes -> words -> phrases -> utterances -> complete, meaningful texts
Limitations to teaching listening
Test rather than teach
Passive listening (eavesdropping)
Overemphasize on vocabulary and structure
Intensive instead of extensive
What to take into consideration?
Purpose for listening
Role of the listener
Type of listening text
Background knowledge
A conventional template
An alternative
Some techniques and strategies to the limitations in listening
Students involved in the listening process:
Making questions, providing personal responses, comparing responses with peer. Teachers should save the best for last!
Give different tasks and instructions for each listening to the same material.
Encourage students to guess from clues
Nonnative understand only part of what they hear!
Use task-based approach
Students do some tasks such as labeling, selecting, drawing, form filling, grid completing instead of just comprehension questions.
The teaching of reading
Issues:
Test rather than teach
Product versus process
Non-authentic materials
Vocabulary and structure over understanding
Teachers get stuck to textbook
Work as groups of 5 to address these issues. You can add your own issue(s) if possible.
Food for thought


THANK YOU