Numbers - Pronunciation & Listening

Pronouncing numeric expressions, and understanding them when listening, is an important skill for our English language learners. After teaching about how the main stress of the expression is placed on the last syllable (either the last number or the unit, if there is one), I had them do a series of activities to practice.

Using Wikipedia, I found entries on Hammond, Indiana (the city in which our university is located), as well as other cities, such as Rome and Moscow. In the passages are many numeric and statistical facts. I had them take turns reading their respective passage aloud to their partner. Meanwhile, the partner would write down any expressions they could. During a second reading, they listened for specific facts. I must credit Renata Phelps for this activity, which she described in her article in the ITBE Link, "Numbers in Context - A DIY Activity." 

Below is the text that Student 1 would see and read to his/her partner.

After a first listening, he/she would listen again and note the following specific details.

Person 2 would then read his/her section (the second half of the article.) Overall, it seemed to be good practice. The students were pleasantly surprised at how many statistics they could write down in the first part, but they realized they had no idea what they meant. The second listening was important for them to target their listening and put the numbers in context. 

Commentary: Visuals and Listening Comprehension

In a recent issue of Language Testing, Batty (2015) explores the long-standing question of video-based vs. strictly audio material to test listening comprehension. Is a test where the speakers can be seen on a screen easier than a test where only the voices are heard? As always, I find the literature review almost more interesting and insightful than that the “present study” itself. For one, it saves me the time of researching and reviewing the literature. I also find it interesting to see the author’s take on all of these findings.

In this particular article, after he discourses on the difficulties of defining and measuring the construct of listening, he turns his focus to the role of visual aids and nonverbal communication. He notes that apparently, “70% of the meaning in a social situation is encoded in the visual…channel” (p. 5). Like other researchers I have read, he argues, “Listening rarely occurs ‘in the dark’. For sighted people, in virtually all situations and circumstances, listeners can see those speaking to them” (p. 5). Subsequently, he does admit that telephone conversations and podcasts are exceptions.

This has led me to reflect on the various media that I listen to in my own life, as well as the degree to which I use nonverbal communication to ascertain meaning. I am not sure that I agree with the conclusion that nearly all listening happens face-to-face. In my personal life, I spend a lot of time talking on the phone to family and friends who are far away. Indeed technology has influenced my communication style with the added formats of online chatting, email, and text. But honestly, one of my favorite apps is Voxer, which allows me to send short audio messages (like texts). Thus, a lot of my day-to-day communication with family happens through listening to these short clips of my nieces and nephews telling me what they are playing, etc. (I have found this to be a more effective way to keep in touch than Apple’s Facetime or Skype, where I watch dizzying videos of the room twirling around me as my three-year-old niece dances and temporarily forgets that we are even having a conversation.) In addition to the audio-only phone conversations, I also spend a lot of time listening to news radio, audiobooks, lectures, and podcasts in my car and as I exercise. And, going back to my college days, I remember the experience of countless lectures in huge auditoriums (where I could barely see the professor, let alone watch his body language) where I sat eagerly scribbling notes. As I watch the students in my ESL listening class, they are doing the same thing. Talking head or no, they have their noses in the paper, eagerly trying to answer the questions. Or, even when there are no questions, they are not necessarily focused on the screen.

I suspect that the role of nonverbal communication depends on the type of listening task. I believe that as ESL instructors, we might assume that a video is better than audio only. Academic listening textbooks, such as the Contemporary Topics (Beglar & Murray, 2009) series often contain video recordings of the lectures. However, because the lectures are more based in the liberal arts (e.g. themes of communication, social trends, etc.), there aren’t really any valuable visuals to help listeners understand the material. Really, it is just a talking head. Regardless of whether or not the speaker’s facial expressions and hand gestures truly help comprehension, listeners are not necessarily motivated to pay attention visually. However, for topics that require visual aids (for native and non-native speakers alike), obviously a video would be more effective. Take the lecture videos available on the Khan Academy website. Khan Academy hosts a multitude of resources on academic topics: mathematics, chemistry, accounting, etc. These don’t have a talking head at all, but instead employ video-recorded screen capture techniques. This enables the viewer to see the lecturer writing on a chalkboard, drawing diagrams, and showing pictures. These types of visuals would be more likely to enhance listening comprehension.

Returning to the article at hand, Batty goes on to discuss many studies that have been conducted looking specifically at visuals in an assessment context. Naturally, he explains the limitations of all of these studies (e.g. different questions were used, only used classical test theory), but it seems that several of the studies he reports concluded that there was no significant difference in performance on audio-only and video-mediated tests. One that showed the opposite was a study involving a French test with three versions: strictly audio, video, and completely silent (only the video) (Baltova 1994). Surprisingly, the examinees performed similarly on the video and the silent tests. This leads me to wonder if having the visual cues and nonverbal communication enhances the true listening comprehension or if it helps the listener to infer what they didn’t really hear or understand. Perhaps it doesn’t matter in real world listening. But if the object is to isolate the construct of listening for testing purposes, this might be a consideration. Batty confirms my conclusion by saying the following:

Anyone who has traveled in a foreign country with out knowing the local language knows that a great deal of information can be passed with simple hand gestures and a few words, but a test of foreign language listening comprehension is typically concerned with mastery of the language itself, not that of pan-cultural, ad-hoc, gesture-based communication. (p. 17)

I completely agree with Batty here. As a student of Russian as a second language, I remember trying to communicate on the streets of St. Petersburg, and probably 70% of the meaning I was able to take away from what a stranger on the street was saying to me was from his gestures (e.g. in essence telling me, “What are you doing on the streets in -40 degree weather without your face covered with a scarf?!”). However, as one attains more proficiency, we hope that more of the meaning (the literal meaning, at least) comes from the language itself and less from this type of body language.

After Batty reviews this literature, he presents his study. The novel thing about it is the use of the many-facet Rasch analysis, which as we know, is all the rage now in testing research. Still, Batty’s study concludes that there is no real difference in performance on the audio-only and video tests, regardless of proficiency level. He says, “Overall, it seems likely that the divide in the research over whether video has a facilitative or no effect can be more easily explained by differences in test design than anything inherent to the format of delivery” (p. 17).

After digesting this article and others like it, I am left wondering if it is really possible to truly assess listening comprehension. There are so many variables involved—nonverbal gestures or visual aids that may convey the message, reading skills required to differentiate between multiple-choice options, etc.—it seems nearly impossible to really isolate the construct of listening ability. Both as an instructor and also the Testing Coordinator, I spend a lot of time looking at test scores. What is the difference between a student who got 86% correct and a student who got 80% correct? Why did a particular student get a question wrong? Was it because of proficiency, or was it that student’s interaction with the test item? Is there really such a thing as a perfect test question? I feel that the tests we give in English programs can give us only a ballpark estimate of student ability, which perhaps is sufficient in identifying low versus high performers. However, because these are real human beings, even sophisticated measures such as the many-faceted Rasch analysis can only tell us so much.

References

Batty, A. (2015). A comparison of video- and audio-mediated listening tests with many-facet Rasch modeling and differential distractor functioning. Language Testing, 32(1), 3–20.

Beglar, D. & Murray, N. (2009). Contemporary Topics 3: Academic Listening and Note-Taking Skills, 3rd Ed. Pearson Longman.

Listening/Speaking Textbook Review

• Pathways (National Geographic/Cengage) - I am just looking at this as a possible replacement for Q. The topics are more academic and science-based. For instance, instead of talking about the dangers of fast food and consumerism, the chapter includes graphs and numbers to talk about how many servings of vegetables people should have. It's a lot more authentic, and engaging.
• Q: Skills for Success (Oxford) – We just switched to this series in January. So far I like the skill-building activities, vocabulary, student online practice that I can check, and variety of listening material. Not impressed with the assessment bank as much.
• Face the Issues, Consider the Issues (Longman) – I taught for four years from this book. Pros include authentic NPR listening material. Cons are vocabulary lists that are not important AWL words, topics a little dated (eg, radio call-in show for dating). Most importantly, the book lacks sufficient skill-building activities.
• Northstar (Longman) – I use Northstar Advanced occasionally as a supplement. The listening passages are very authentic, but I find that some of the topics are too difficult and far removed for my students (for example, Workplace Privacy, Tipping Point, etc).
• Contemporary Topics (Pearson Longman) – Great ESL note-taking book. I used this as a regular supplement. I like the variety of questions in the student book to assess students' notes, including an audio quiz, where the questions are recorded on the CD, requiring students to listen to the questions rather than read them.
• Lecture Ready (Oxford University Press) – Another good source for note-taking practice. The assessment questions aren't as developed as those in Contemporary Topics, though.

Resource: Favorite Authentic Listening Websites

Topic	Websites
Environment History Geography Technology Other	The Discovery Channel — www.discovery.com
Weather Geography	The Weather Channel — www.weather.com
Nature Animals Environment	National Geographic — www.nationalgeographic.com
Automobiles	Car Review Sites — Cars.com, CarTV, Edmonds
Dating Romance	Storycorps — www.storycorps.net New York Times "Vows" — http://video.nytimes.com/video/
Stories Personal Experiences	Storycorps — www.storycorps.net Radio Diaries — www.radiodiaries.org
Jobs and Careers	Job Profile Videos — http://web1.dol.state.nj.us/coei/CareerVideos/careervideos_list.html
Business	Entrepreneur.com — www.entrepreneur.com
How-to Health Auto care	About.com — www.about.com
Cooking	Martha Stewart — www.marthastewart.com Foodtube — www.foodtube.net Flavorshare — www.flavorshare.com
News	NPR — www.npr.org VOA News — www.voanews.com

Understanding a Lecture

Taking notes is always a struggle, and I focus more on helping my students to understand the structure and organization of a lecture. To this end, I prefer to give them a partially-filled outline for them to complete, followed up by a set of questions to answer using their notes. Source: Contemporary Topics 3, Animal Communication

Lecture Practice: Animal Communication

Vocabulary

sophisticated – ADVANCED

Who has a more sophisticated brain? Animals or humans?

Animals in the lecture (besides cats and dogs) 

First Listening: Fill in the chart

1.    First Characteristic: Arbitrariness

a.      Definition: No logical ___________________________ between a sound and its ____________________________.

Eg) ______________________________

b.     Most animal communication not arbitrary

Eg) _______________________________

c.      Some animal communication is arbitrary

Eg) ________________________________ -> Make 20 distinct sounds (alarm for snakes, eagles, cats, etc)

Conclusion: Human comm. is more sophisticated à English has more than 40 distinct sounds

2.    Second Characteristic: Displacement

a.      Definition: Communicating ideas about things not _________________________________

Eg) What you did __________________________________

b.     Animals can’t do this!

Eg) Your dog_______________________________

c.      Exception: ______________

-> Dance to communicate _____________________________

Conclusion: Animal language more limited than humans à _______________________, magazines, _________________________ (all displacement)

3.    Third Characteristic: _______________________________________ Transmission

a.      Definition: Language is ________________________________________

b.     Animals are skilled

Eg) _________________________ whale à Live in groups, different __________________________

c.      Humans more developed

Eg) Pass on to children

__________________________

__________________________

___________________________

4.    Fourth Characteristic: __________________________________________

a.      Definition: Definition: Language is made of ________________________________________ combined to _________________________________________

b.     Humans: Use sounds to make _____________________________

c.      Animals

Eg) _________________________________________________________________

                  Make phrases: ___________________________________ for watermelon

Conclusion: Most linguists -> They don’t really understand and use grammar like humans 

Use your notes to answer the questions

1.     What is one of the main ideas of the lecture?

a.      Animal communication has changed from simple to complex.

b.     Animal communication is less sophisticated than human language.

c.      Animals have a large set of vocabulary, but not grammar.

d.     Animals communicate complex ideas, but only with other animals.

2.     Which idea was NOT discussed in the lecture?

a.      Humans language is arbitrary.

b.     Animals don’t have grammar and vocabulary.

c.      Animals use cultural transmission.

d.     Animals use language to bond with humans.

3.     What is the definition of displacement?

a.      the relationship between a sound and its meaning

b.     communicating ideas about things that are in a different place

c.      passing on information to children

d.     using complicated grammar

4.     Which creature can successfully use displacement?

a.      bees

b.     chimpanzees

c.      dogs

d.     meerkats

5.     What sophisticated communication ability do killer whales have?

a.      nonverbal communication

b.     a large vocabulary

c.      cultural transmission

d.     complex grammar

6.     What animal has shown a limited ability to use discreteness?

a.      bees

b.     cats

c.      chimpanzees

d.     killer whales

7.     What are chimpanzees NOT able to do when they communicate?

a.      learn words

b.     use nonverbal communication

c.      communicate the location of food sources

d.     understand and use grammar

8.     Which of the following is probably true of animal communication?

a.      Animals mostly use language to communicate with different types of animals.

b.     Animal language is as sophisticated as human language.

c.      Animal language differs from human language in many ways.

d.     Animals mostly rely on verbal communication.

9.     What would the speaker probably say about animals’ abilities to communicate about past events?

a.      It is not possible.

b.     Only chimpanzees can do it.

c.      Bees and their dances are a good example of this.

d.     Many animals can do it.

10.  What would the speaker probably say about humans’ ability to communicate with animals?

a.      It is not possible.

b.     It is possible, but only to a limited degree (only a little).

c.      Animals must first learn to use grammar.

d.     Animals must first learn to pronounce the human language. 

Vocabulary in Context

This semester, we're giving our students a push at developing vocabulary study skills. To help them learn a list of 250 AWL words, I'm trying to develop a vocabulary self-study module to help give them sample sentences using the words. Sometimes it is hard for them to find good sentences that they can actually understand, which will lead to their vocabulary acquisition.

The new website is http://www.vocabulary-AWL.blogspot.com. Check it out.

As part of it, I'm working on sets of listening activities too.  This has two purposes: a) Give them  opportunities to hear the new vocabulary word in context; and b) Practice listening and understanding paraphrases. Often, people repeat the same idea, but using different words. This helps to explain a new word. Here is an excerpt from the listening activity I have been building:

Listen to this short passage:


           Now, choose the best paraphrase:
           A

           B
           C

Can you guess?

Student-led Listening Activity

This semester, in my intermediate Listening/Speaking class, I had my students sign up throughout the semester to present their own listening activities.

Objectives:

• Engage in a listening passage that interests students
• Listen to a passage in a more meaningful way, in order to create comprehension and discussion questions for their classmates
• Apply presentation skills in delivering the activity to the class

Sample:

Here is one of the activities my students created.

Student-created Listening Worksheet (pdf)

Spring 2011 - Making the Transition to Mainstream Classes

I just wanted to share some of my recent and ongoing efforts to help students prepare for mainstream classes after the ELP. Two activities that I am spearheading this semester are:

Class Visits - Three times during the semester, my students find a regular university class they want to observe, take notes, fill out an observation report, and then report back to the class. The assignment consists of:

• Navigating the online course schedule and evaluating possible options. I require students to get my approval signature before moving forward with this. I want to make sure that all my students aren't bombarding the same professor, as well as ensure that the class is an is appropriate for them to observe.
• Contacting the professor via email to request permission. Composing emails is always a challenge for ESL students. To help them with this stage, I give them a template they can copy. If the professors have any questions, they can email me. Occasionally, some do, but for the most part, professors at my university do not seem to mind.
• Visiting the class and completing an observation report. What I want them to look for is phrases and key language the professor uses in the lecture to introduce topics, give examples, definitions, signal topic changes, and so forth.
• Writing a reflection.
• Presentation to the Class. Occasionally, I like to have students report back to the class in the form of a mini-presentation, although this depends on time constraints.

Click here to see the observation report and material.

Level 3 Panel Discussion - This is something I am in the process of organizing at the moment. I have invited former ELP students, now in their mainstream undergraduate programs in the university, to come to a panel discussion for all our advanced ELP students. In my listening/speaking classes, we are compiling questions about how to succeed in academic courses outside the ELP. This is set for April 25, if all goes well.

"This I Believe" - Activities

I got the idea for this activity from my colleague Pamela, who's been doing this for quite a while. I adapted it slightly into more of a worksheet and selected some particular essays for my students to listen to and take notes.

Pre-listening Discussion Questions
Talk about these questions in a group

• What is the difference between believing something/someone and believing in something/someone?
• What are some things that you believe?
• What are some things that you believe in?
• Why do you believe in them?

Browse the Titles
(Together as a class, look at the website, http://thisibelieve.org. Let’s look at the titles of some of the feature essays. What do you think they’ll talk about?

Listening & Note-taking
Essay #1: In Giving I Connect With Others
http://thisibelieve.org/essay/11/

First Listening
Just listen and then answer the following main idea questions.
1. Summarize her belief in one sentence.
2. Describe her background experience that led her to realize this belief in one sentence.

Second Listening: Take Notes
Write key phrases. Use the Cornell Note-taking method. Focus on these main ideas:

• Her daughter’s life
• Her own life
• Reflections

Reaction
Discuss your personal reaction to the essay. Is your belief similar or different?

Essay #2: A Taste of Success
http://thisibelieve.org/essay/52984/

Vocabulary
Bronx
Harlem
*Places in New York City where a lot of poor people live.

First Listening
Just listen and then answer the following main idea questions.
1. Summarize his belief in one sentence.
2. Describe his background experience that led him to realize this belief in one sentence.

Second Listening: Take Notes
Write key phrases. Use the Cornell Note-taking method. Focus on these main ideas:

• Work at a summer camp
• His own childhood/growing up
• Beliefs

Reaction
Discuss your personal reaction to the essay. Is your belief similar or different?

Essay #3: Unleashing the Power of Creativity and Intelligence
http://thisibelieve.org/essay/5/

First Listening
Just listen and then answer the following main idea questions.
1. Summarize his belief in one sentence.
2. Describe his background experience that led him to realize this belief in one sentence.

Second Listening: Take Notes
Write key phrases. Use the Cornell Note-taking method. Focus on these main ideas:

• Past Experiences
• What computers can do

Reaction
Discuss your personal reaction to the essay. Is your belief similar or different?

Essay #4: Asking the Right Questions
http://thisibelieve.org/essay/42143/

First Listening
Just listen and then answer the following main idea questions.
1. Summarize his belief in one sentence.
2. Describe his background experience that led him to realize this belief in one sentence.

Second Listening: Take Notes
Write key phrases. Use the Cornell Note-taking method. Focus on these main ideas:

• Past experiences
• Work success
• Safety in Chemistry
• Son, John
• Beliefs/Reflections

Reaction
Discuss your personal reaction to the essay. Is your belief similar or different?

Now, have students record their own This I Believe audio essays.

Listening: Critical Thinking

At the TESOL convention in Denver this year, I went to a presentation on critical thinking where the presenters discussed a model called D.I.E. - Describe, Interpret, and Evaluate. Although I didn't apply is exactly the way they did, I've implemented a variation of this model in my Advanced Listening Class. First of all, we watched this video and they took notes.



Describing is easy. They just do a basic summary using their notes. Then, for the interpretation part, I had them consider different questions about this video:

1) Who: who is involved? What are their values? What are their motivations? Who is being aided? What is their backgrounds?

2) What: What were the projects done? What resources were required? What is the effect?

3) Where: Where does this take place? How might this affect the outcome? What do we know about this place?

4) Why: Again, what are the motivations behind this?

5) How: How successful will this be? What are some limitations? How might culture and political background affect the success of projects such as this?

Again, I'm trying to get them to think carefully of different perspectives of all parties involved. This has been very challenging for my students, but I think they're gradually developing these critical thinking skills.