EDUC90048 Chap.3 Teaching Listening and Speaking
Teaching Listening and Speaking
Listening coordinates auditory discrimination, language knowledge, background knowledge, attention and pragmatic inference under time pressure. Speaking adds fluency, accuracy, intelligibility, register and interactional repair. This chapter integrates the skills through a prepare, process and respond cycle. Each listen receives a distinct purpose, and the post-listening task requires information from the text.
Speaking activities create a reason to exchange meaning, while limited prompts preserve choice instead of scripting the interaction. Task conditions shape what comprehension evidence means: topic familiarity, accent, signal quality, visual support, number of playbacks and required detail all change the demand.
A first listen can establish situation and purpose, a second can locate selected information, and a final excerpt can verify a recorded uncertainty. Partner comparison before replay makes misunderstanding diagnostic rather than shameful. The speaking transfer should depend on the understood information and require a response from another learner.
Information distribution, role constraints and compact repair stems can make participation necessary while leaving wording and strategy choices with learners.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Learner factors in listening
- 02
Pre-listening knowledge activation
- 03
Gist before selected detail
- 04
Purposeful repeated listening
- 05
Fluency, accuracy and intelligibility
- 06
Clarification and communication repair
Worked example · free
Move from an announcement to a clarification call
- 1Activate the station context and predict the kinds of details likely to matter.
- 1Use the first listen for speaker purpose and the second for selected route details.
- 1Ask pairs to compare notes and identify one uncertainty before any replay.
- 1Transfer the information into a staff-traveller exchange with clarification and confirmation.
Key terms
- Gist Listening
- Listening for the overall situation, purpose or main message before pursuing detailed information.
- Selective Listening
- Directing attention to a limited set of details needed for a specific outcome.
- Information Gap
- A task in which partners need one another's information to complete a shared result.
- Communication Repair
- The clarification, repetition or rephrasing used when understanding breaks down.
- Intelligibility
- The extent to which a listener can recover a speaker's intended words and message.
Teaching Listening and Speaking FAQ
Why should repeated listening have different purposes?
Changing the purpose teaches learners how to allocate attention. A first listen can establish context and gist, while a later listen targets only the details needed for action. Replaying the same text without a new demand may encourage learners to chase every word rather than develop a strategy for managing real-time input.
How can listening and speaking be genuinely integrated?
The speaking task should depend on information, stance or language noticed in the listening text. Learners might report changes, solve a route problem or ask for clarification. If they could complete the speaking activity without listening, the skills are adjacent in the timetable but not functionally connected.
How much language support should a speaking task provide?
Support the barrier without scripting the entire exchange. A small set of clarification stems, planning notes or a role constraint can reduce retrieval pressure while preserving learner choice. Judge the support by whether learners still need to listen, select language and respond to one another during the task.
Assessment move
Sketch the prepare, process and respond cycle, then annotate a listening text with its demands: speed, accent, density, inference, vocabulary and memory. Assign only one or two demands to each listening phase. For speaking, decide whether the primary criterion is fluency, accuracy, intelligibility, interaction or presentation structure. Design an information gap and verify that each learner must contribute, listen and repair.
Rehearse explaining why the support targets a particular processing burden. Build a playback ledger stating the job of each encounter, what learners record and what evidence determines whether another listen is needed. If two plays have the same job, redesign the second. Then compare a transcript-first lesson with a context-first lesson and explain which listening demand each removes.
For speaking, write one version with no support and one with a small planning resource; identify whether the resource protects participation or scripts the answer. Finally, create criteria for a spontaneous exchange and a rehearsed presentation. Justify why their accuracy, fluency and interaction expectations differ, and limit your conclusion to the task conditions under which performance was observed.
Review the sequence through the learner perspective by listing what must be held in memory at each moment. Remove any simultaneous demand that is not essential to the target, then restore complexity in a later transfer. Pair this load map with an evidence map that records gist, selected detail, uncertainty, repair and final outcome. The two maps show whether support develops a strategy or simply makes the recording easier.
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