I’ve followed and benefitted from the work of Marnie Reed and Tamara Jones for over a decade. These are two names I highlight on my TESOL convention schedule when I see them listed as presenters.
At TESOL 2024 in Tampa, these ladies focused on listening skills. Tamara’s Teaching Tip session was well-attended, especially considering its early placement at 8 AM on the final day of the conference. Apparently, I’m not the only one who knows where to go for new teaching ideas! Later in the afternoon, Tamara teamed up with Marnie Reed from Boston University, and again the room was filled with teachers eager to gain insights and strategies for building listening skills.
Representing Howard University, Tamara offered Fun and Games: Listening for Multiword Units. Her classroom activities target collocations, phrasal verbs and lexical bundles. It is these multiword units that are common in everyday English yet pose difficulty for learners to identify and understand due to reduction and connected speech. In fact, Tamara noted that multiword units make up one-third to one-half of all natural discourse. Therefore, learning these chunks of language can increase fluency and lower the so-called cognitive load.
Tamara has generously made her presentation slides available on Google Drive. The five activities are clear and simple to carry out. I’ll comment on three, as I see how easily they can be done in an online classroom (which is my context).
Word Counting is exactly what it sounds like. In advance, the teacher prepares a list of level-appropriate multiword units (e.g., look it up). In class, s/he reads them at a natural pace. The students listen and count the number of words they hear. The second reading can be done more slowly, and the words may be shown on the board/screen. Confirm the number by counting together. Tamara recommended selecting lesson-related lexical units, such as “as I mentioned earlier” or “that’s it for today,” and compared this to teaching road signs to a new driver.
Moving Repetition can be done in a variety of ways, but the basic concept is to move your body in time with the stress (e.g., cost and arm and a leg). If everyone is seated at their computer, a combination of an open hand and closed fist can work. Other possible contrasting movements are arms-out/arms-in, eyebrows-up/eyebrows-down, or even stand up/sit down if you think bigger physical movement will engage your learners. Tamara got her morning workout by demonstrating big steps/little steps as a combo that’s appropriate for the traditional classroom. With any of these variations, the bigger movements are performed on stressed words. The smaller movements are made as function words are said.
Unscramble can make use of words on index cards, but if you’re online, Tamara demonstrated the convenience of using Wordwall. Either way, preparation time is minimal. The teacher needs to select a small set of multiword units (each of four words or more) and write individual words on the cards. In pairs or small groups, the students unscramble the phrases. If online, Wordwall allows students to click on words to reorder them.
More activities were shared in the later session Listening for the Little Words: Three Action Steps to Success. I truly appreciated Marnie and Tamara’s approach to a Gapped Dictation where all the reduced words are gapped in a level-appropriate text. Students can initially work in pairs or groups and make use of their syntactic knowledge to fill in the gaps. Then the teacher reads the text aloud for the first time. Students will try their best to complete the text and can compare their work with a partner. A second reading can be done with the text shown on the board/screen for correction.
Reduced Speech Card Matches also doesn’t require much preparation. The teacher only has to create matching sets of cards (full phrases and their reduced forms, e.g., “going to” and “gonna”). In a traditional classroom, students can physically get up and make matches with one another. Online, matches can be made on the screen.
The numerous activities were balanced with relevant research. Marnie explained the importance of learners’ beliefs and the way they affect language learning. I also found it insightful to hear how “metalinguistic awareness often precedes skill acquisition.” The presenters’ slides go into greater detail, but I wish to highlight their 3-step strategy for successful listening:
1. Determine beliefs. (E.g., People speak too fast. I don’t have enough vocabulary.)
2. Identify strategies.
3. Assess skills.
Basically, if student beliefs, strategies, and skills do not align, instruction is necessary. Marnie shared models for pre- and post-instruction assessments.
Marnie and Tamara have kindly shared their information-packed slides on Google Drive. Many thanks to both educators for sharing their expertise and practices!
Featured image by Michéle from Pixabay
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TESOL 2013 Highlights
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