skkn using post listening activities to help students feel more interested in listening

SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM Using Post-listening Activities to Help Students Feel More Interested in Listening Lĩnh vực nghiên cứu: Quản lý giáo dục Phương pháp dạy học bộ môn: Tiếng Anh Lĩn

SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐỒNG NAI

Đơn vị : Trường THPT NGÔ QUYỀN

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Mã số: ………

SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM

Using Post-listening Activities to Help Students Feel More Interested in

Listening

Lĩnh vực nghiên cứu:

Quản lý giáo dục Phương pháp dạy học bộ môn: Tiếng Anh Lĩnh vực khác:

Có đính kèm:

Mô hình Đĩa CD (DVD) Phim ảnh Hiện vật khác

Năm học: 2016-2017

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SƠ LƯỢC LÝ LỊCH KHOA HỌC

I THÔNG TIN CHUNG VỀ CÁ NHÂN

1 Họ và tên: BÙI PHÚ XUÂN

2 Ngày tháng năm sinh : 02 / 09 / 1976

3 Nam/Nữ: Nam

4 Địa chỉ: 103/71 Đường 30/4 Phường Trung Dũng Thành Phố Biên Hòa -

Tỉnh Đồng Nai

5 Điện thoại: Cơ quan: 061.3829029 Nhà riêng: 061.3819495

7 Chức vụ: Giáo viên

8 Nhiệm vụ được giao: Thư ký HĐ, giảng dạy bộ môn tiếng Anh

9 Đơn vị công tác: Trường THPT NGÔ QUYỀN

II TRÌNH ĐỘ ĐÀO TẠO

- Học vị (hoặc trình độ chuyên môn, nghiệp vụ) cao nhất: Thạc Sỹ

- Năm nhận bằng: 2007

- Chuyên ngành đào tạo: Giảng Dạy Tiếng Anh

III KINH NGHIỆM KHOA HỌC:

- Lĩnh vực chuyên môn có kinh nghiệm: Giảng dạy bộ môn Tiếng Anh

- Số năm có kinh nghiệm: 18 năm

- Các sáng kiến kinh nghiệm đã có trong 5 năm gần đây:

+ Strategies for Developing Reading Skills Skimming and Scanning + Arousing Students’ Interest in Reading

+ Using Interactive Tasks to Arouse High School Students’ Interest in Learning Speaking

+ Using Communicative Tasks or Activities to Promote High School Students' Grammatical Competence

+ Five-minute activities to activate students' schemata in reading

TOPIC: Using Post-listening Activities to Help Students Feel More Interested in Listening

I INTRODUCTION:

Nowadays English is considered as an international language Many people in Vietnam, as well as in other countries, need to use it as a communicative tool at work, and in business environments In all Vietnamese secondary schools, high schools, colleges and universities, English is a compulsory subject In comparison with other English skills, listening skill is one of the most difficult skills and teaching listening is a hard job for any ESL teachers This is because successful listening skills are acquired over time and with lots of practice It's frustrating for students because there are no rules as in grammar teaching

I’ve been teaching English at Ngo Quyen High School for many years and from

my own experience of teaching I have found that a lot of students at my school are afraid of listening periods They seem very tense while listening in class and almost lose interest in listening lessons because listening lessons which are based on the school curriculum cannot satisfy students’ learning needs They also find no pleasure when completing the listening tasks Therefore I strongly believe that it is very essential to do something to help them get pleasure from listening first and then improve their listening skill For this reason I would like to apply some post-listening activities in the listening lessons in order to help students feel more confident in developing their listening skills

II RATIONALE OF THE STUDY

A The importance of listening:

Listening takes as much as 50% of our everyday communication time It is the main channel of classroom instruction and the most used language skill at work and at home Many learners want to develop effective listening comprehension because it is crucial to their success in studies, business, careers and personal relationships

Listening is assuming greater and greater importance in foreign language classrooms There are several reasons for this growth in popularity By emphasising the role of comprehensible input, second language acquisition research has given a major boots to listening As Rost (1994, pp 141-142) points out, listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learner Without understanding input as the right level, any learning simply cannot begin Listening is thus fundamental to speaking

Adrian Doff also says that we cannot develop speaking skills unless we also develop listening skills; to have a successful conversation, students must understand what is said to them Later, the ability to understand spoken English may become very important (for listening to the radio, understanding foreign visitors, studying, etc.)

Listening is a critical element in the competent language performance of adult ESL learners, whether they are communicating at school, at work, or in the community Through the normal course of a day, listening is used nearly twice as much as speaking and four to five times as much as reading and writing (Rivers, 1981) In a recent study of Fortune 500 Corporations, Wolvin and Coakley (1991) found that listening was perceived to be crucial for communication at work with regards to entry-level employment, job success, general career

competence, managerial competency, and effectiveness of relationships between supervisors and subordinates

B The aim of the innovation:

 Using Post-listening Activities to Help Students Feel More Interested in Listening

C The participants of the study:

 Tenth grade to twelfth grade students in Ngo Quyen High School were chosen

to take part in the innovation

D Timing:

 The activities finish in about 5 minutes of lesson time, but some can be even

shorter and others can be lengthened

E Content of the topic:

 This contains some of the activities that teachers can use in class and I use the Units in “English books 11 & 12” as examples in my activities

III PROCEDURE:

The Post-stage is like the follow-up stage After students have practised the target skill in the While-stage, they do an extension activity This helps students take the information or whatever they have produced in the While-stage, and do something meaningful with it

Post-listening is an important part in teaching listening skill Post-listening activities should be an extension of communicative outcomes and listening materials They have several aims which can be achieved concurrently or separately These aims include helping students to:

 Practise other language skills (speaking, reading and writing) using the same topic

 Consolidate what students had listened

 Examine and reinforce language points (e.g grammar, vocabulary, useful expression)

At the end of the lesson it is advisable for the teachers to have some post-listening activities in order to determine how well the students have understood what they listened to, however it is not always an easy job for the teacher to design the tasks in an effective way

Now let's look at some types of post-listening activities

1 Activity 1: DISCUSSION

In an discussion students may aim to arrive at a conclusion, share ideas about an event, or find solutions in their discussion groups The purpose of the discussion activity should be set by the teacher before the students are asked

to work in groups For efficient group discussions the students should always

be encouraged to ask questions , paraphrase ideas, express their own opinions, check for clarification, and so on

Here are some examples :

Unit 1: HOME LIFE – English 12

After listening and finishing the tasks, students are asked to work in groups of four and discuss some of the questions relating to the topic they’ve learnt

a How big is your family?

b Do you live with your parents?

c Do you live with your grandparents?

d Are you the oldest or the youngest among your brothers and sisters? (if you have any)

e How do you get along with your brothers or sister? (if you have any)

f How do you get along with your grandparents?

g Who is the breadwinner in your family?

h Who does the housework in your family?

i Should children help with the housework?

j How should we discipline children?

k How important is family in your country?

Unit 6: FUTURE JOBS – English 12

I have my students work in pairs to discuss which of the following jobs they would like or would not like to do and state the reasons for their choice Then

I invite some students to report their ideas in front of the class and give comments

Pilot / waiter / taxi driver / singer / sir-hostess / teacher / farmer / tour guide / journalist / policeman …

OR: I ask my students to work in groups of four and discuss some of the

questions relating to the topic they’ve learnt

a When you were a child, what was your dream job?

b What is your dream job now?

c What do you think is the worst job?

d Do people usually get jobs related to their educational background? How about you?

e Does a university degree guarantee success in the future career?

f What is the most important in your job?

g Would you like to run your own business?

h Is it better to work for someone else or be self-employed?

i Should women and men be paid the same?

Unit 8: LIFE IN THE FUTURE - English 12

- Teacher asks students to work in groups of four to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of having a very long life

- Teacher goes around the class to give help if necessary

- Teacher invites some groups’ representatives to report their ideas

- Teacher gives feedback and makes comments

Suggested ideas:

 Advantages:

- do many thing they want to do/ enjoy life more

- see their children and grandchildren grow up

- help their children and grandchildren

 Disadvantages:

- too weak to do things and often ill

- feel lonely when their children are busy with work, and their friends

are dead

- …

Unit 11: BOOKS - English 12

I have my students work in groups of four to discuss the sentence: “A good

book is a good friend”, then I call on some groups’ representatives to report

their ideas

Suggested ideas:

- Bring much help to our daily life (like a good friend)

- Tell us good things to do and bad things to avoid

- Our sadness can be driven away by an hour reading; a book can

comfort us, support us to overcome the most difficult moment in life

- It is the easiest friend of all; we can come to him any time we like

and talk to him as long as we want

- When we are tired, we can leave him without excuse

2 Activity 2: GAMES

Games are useful and effective tools for teachers to apply in language classes Using games for post-listening activities helps to make the lessons more interesting, enjoyable, and effective Lee (1995) lists a lot of advantages of games when using in the classrooms such as they are “a welcome break”, “motivating and challenging”, “provide language practice in the various skills”, etc

The game “Slap the board” This is a competitive game requiring students’ memory and quickness

Unit 12: WATER SPORTS – English 12

Here is the rule:

- Teacher divides the students into two groups Each group has 6 students

- Teacher asks students to stand in two lines

- Teacher writes a number of key words that they have just listened on the board in English

- Teacher reads Vietnamese meaning of one of those words loudly

- First students of two lines have to find out the equivalent English quickly and run to the board to slap on it

- The faster student will get 1 point for his/her group

- Go on until the last students

When using games to teach languages, teachers are able to bring relaxation and fun to students Students can learn and remember words more easily Moreover, games bring real world context into the classrooms Therefore, students are able to communicate effectively Games should be an integral part of the lesson, helping students practice language and enjoy themselves at the same time Of course, not all the lessons need games They should be used appropriately and flexibly in order that students are always eager for games

3 Activity 3: GUESSING

Let’s take Unit 12: WATER SPORTS - English 12 as an example:

- Teacher divides the class into groups of four or five

- Choose one of the sports to talk about Try to give as much information on the game as possible

- The other groups guess the name of the sport

Suggested ideas:

+ It is the most popular sport in the world

+ People often play it in a field

+ The game is played by two teams of ten players and a goal keeper, using a round ball that must not be handled during the game except by the goalkeeper

The ball can be advanced by kicking up and down the pitch Teams try to kick the ball into the other team’s goal

 KEY: Football

4 Activity 4: ROLE–PLAY

Let’s take Unit 15: WOMEN IN SOCIETY - English 12 as an example:

- I have my students work in pairs

- Student A plays the role of an interviewer and student B is a city woman

- Student A interview student B about her daily activities

- After 5 minutes I invite some pairs of the students at random to present their conversation in front of the class

Suggested questions:

- What time/get up?

- What time/leave for work?

- What time/finish work?

- How much/earn?

- How many hours/do housework per week?

- What/do/weekend?

5 Activity 5: Find Someone Who

- We can use this kind of activity to give students a chance to interact with each other at the end of the listening lesson

Let’s take Unit 15: WOMEN IN SOCIETY – English 12 as an example

Questions Classmate’s

name

Additional information (Who ?/What…?/Where…?/When

…?

Why…?/How…?

… always gets up before

six in the morning

… always has a big

breakfast

… exercises 2 or 3 times

each week

… watch TV more than 3

hours each day

… does homework after

class

… cooks dinner every

day

… goes to bed after

midnight

6 Activity 6: SUMMARY

In some units I ask my students to write a summary of what they remember after the listening

Let’s take Unit 3: WAYS OF SOCIALIZING - English 12 as an example:

- Teacher asks students to work in groups of four or five

- Teacher asks students to summarize Ms Linda Cupple’s talk

- Teacher gives some students as hints for student to summarize the talk

- Teacher invites some groups’ representatives to report to the class

- Teacher gives feedback

+ Length of time + Time for calling + calling late at night + calling at weekend

- The students can begin their summary with:

In this talk Ms Linda gives us some pieces of advice on how to use the telephone

in the family The first is to work out a reasonable length of time for a call …

Let’s take Unit 5: HIGHER EDUCATION - English 12 as another example

I encourage the students to summarize what advice David gave to the international students, based on his own experience as an international one After that I have them work in pairs to act out the roles of David and John

At the end of the lesson I invite some pairs at random to the front of the class to make their own conversation

7 Activity 7: INTERVIEWING

Let’s take Unit 1: FRIENDSHIP - English 11 as an example

- Teacher asks students to work in pairs

- Students interview their partners about their best friends