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Lesson Plan #1/3

Listening Skills: Global Listening

By Mudasar Jehan

Level Diploma TEFL

Submitted in Workshop

Department of English Language and Applied Linguistics Allama Iqbal Open University Islamabad Study Center: 10-X Peoples Colony Regional Campus Gujranwala

Level: Topic: Aims:

Secondary level students Listening skills especially Global Listening. The main objectives of this lesson plan are:

To develop the global listening abilities of the students, To teach them a few basic listening strategies, To remove the flaws the students might be facing in global listening, and To expose them to a number of different listening situations through activities.

Time: Aids:

40 minutes approximately. Charts, laptop with speakers, audio recordings, handouts, video clips, white board.

Anticipated Problems: Students might be confused about how to carry on with global listening
or the listening for gist and how to differentiate it from the other types of listening.

Procedure/methodology: The overall procedure of the lesson is constituted by four major Ps,
each of which has its own purpose during the lesson. They will be discussed in the following discourse.

Preparation or Warm up:

Paste the charts on the board and write down the topic of the lesson. Ask a few questions from the students in order to stir their prior schema related to listening. Ask them the difference between listening and hearing. Narrate some event or story and check how many students are able to grasp whatever we are saying, and how many of them can reproduce it. Check how many students are having difficulty in listening. At last, see if the students are capable of listening specifically for gist i.e. global listening.

Presentation:
Topic will be introduced to the students by writing on the black/white board .It would be made clear to the students that what is listening and what is global listening. It may be done by introducing a definition of global listening. When the students listen to something and try to understand it in a more general way, it is known as Global Listening or the listening for gist. Then students will be introduced with the terms with whom they would be already familiar, such as identifying the main idea, main topic/topical sentence, thesis sentence etc. Then teacher will elaborate the idea of global listening by supporting detail; as: Global listening occurs when we simply want to get the main point of what we are listening to. We might only want to know the topic of a conversation, radio or TV programme, or we might be vaguely following it at the same time as doing other things like driving or cooking. Native speakers do this type of listening frequently and automatically because they need pay little attention to get the general idea. Learners of a second language may find it more difficult. They may feel the need to understand every word, and give up completely if they dont, and they may be disturbed by distractions such as noise and poor sound quality, which are not generally a problem for native speakers. Teacher will focus on the point that Global listening passage /recording should be short (4 to 5 minutes of duration). His/her monologues are most effective at this level if they are delivered in a simplified code. New material gradually have to add

Use pre-listening activities to prepare students for what they are going to hear or view.

The activities chosen during pre-listening may serve as preparation for listening in several ways. During pre-listening the teacher may First of all teacher will assess students' background knowledge of the topic and linguistic content of the text provide students with the background knowledge necessary for their comprehension of the listening passage or activate the existing knowledge that the students possess clarify any cultural information which may be necessary to comprehend the passage Make students aware of the type of text they will be listening to, the role they will play, and the purpose(s) for which they will be listening. Provide opportunities for group or collaborative work and for background reading or class discussion activities.

Practice:
We need to give the students a lot of practice in order to help them develop their listening abilities. For this purpose, there are usually three different types of activities used by the teachers. They can be controlled, guided or free. All the three types of activities along with their examples are given below. These activities are used in the classroom to give ample practice to our students.

Controlled Activities:
Controlled activities are those where clear and complete directions are given to the students according to which they give their answers or do the activity. This helps to develop specific abilities in them. The controlled activities are usually given to the beginner level students as they are less

experienced and need full instructions. Some controlled listening activities are given below which will help students to develop their global listening skills.

1. Describing the appearance and recognizing the person in the picture: a recorded tape is listened by the students which tells the overall appearance of the two people in the pictures given to them, and after that they are required to recognize the respected person.

The first person is wearing a coat, spectacles, and has an umbrella in one hand while a suitcase in the other. There can be seen a white overall slung over one arm. The person is also clean-shaven with a moustache. Is the person:

A) A doctor B) A driver C) A Pilot

The second person is sitting on a chair and table, and is writing some stuff. The person is quite serious looking with big spectacles. Is the person:

A) A Nurse B) A housewife C) A school principal

2. A picture diagram is given to the students and at the same time they are made to listen to a tape recording about the different parts of the human mouth and esophagus.

The humans eat food through their mouths. The food enters the mouth where it is chewed by the teeth and broken down into small pieces with the help of the tongue as well. Then it is sent down to the esophagus by passing through the pharynx, the glottis closes down so as to close the opening into the trachea and stop the food from entering into the wind pipe.

Label the different parts of the diagram given to you after listening to the recorded material.

3. The third activity is about a story told to the students through a recorded tape. It is about a certain group of people living in a certain area of the United States. After listening to that story, the students are asked to answer a few questions regarding the recorded material they listened to.

A) What country do these people belong to? B) What is the man sitting by the pond doing? C) What type of life is shown in the story, Rural or Urban? D) What time of the day is reflected through the activities of the people in the story?

Guided Activities:
The next category is that of the guided activities. They are used for a little higher level of students as in these activities the students are given partial outlines or incomplete frameworks which they are required to complete. In some cases, they might be asked to develop similar stories or events in their writing or speech as they are made to hear. Lets see a few examples of the guided activities that can be used in the classroom for listening:

1. The first activity concerns the tale of a family tree. The students listen to a story told by the teacher about a family. A related picture is also given to them. After that they are required to follow some instructions.

Mr. and Mrs. Ahmed is an old couple with quite a big family. They have three children of their own among whom only two are married. However, the extension that is given to their family population is due to the fact that one daughter among the second generation gave birth to a lot of children.

Recognize and name the different people given in the family tree and add to it the next generation of their family by listening twice to the recording.

2. The students listen to another recording. It is about two cars moving in the opposite directions. From one car a person is coming out while a person is going in to the other car.

Tell which car is likely to be started soon. Also create a story regarding both of the cars. Where do you imagine the first car came from, and where is the second car going to?

3. The third activity concerns a narration listened by the students about a certain community of people living in a very peaceful environment. But there is one thing that is about to spoil their lives and it is air pollution spread by the smoke coming out of cars etc.

Production Free Activities:

The free Activities are usually given to the high and advanced level students because of their high level of experience. They can easily do these activities as it requires experience and creativity. Some examples of free activities are given below that are given to students in the class for practice of global listening. 1. The first activity concerns playing an audio clip for the students of Atif Aslams song sung at the coke studio. It evokes different feelings and memories among the students while they listen to it.

Now the students are asked to write something after listening to that song. They might be asked to narrate any experience of theirs regarding the song that they have heard, or they might be asked to write about their feelings

2. The second activity is given to the students in the form of a story that is narrated to them by the teacher. It can be related to any topic. The story may have a number of characters involved in a number of activities.

In the end they are asked to create another story from the events that they have listened to in the story narrated to them. They can pick any event of their own choice. They would also have to give a title to their story of their own choice.

3. The third and last activity is that of a telephonic conversation listened to by the students. The conversation between the two people on the phone can be about weather conditions of their respected areas.

Evaluation/ follow up
In the end, the students are asked to narrate or give an overall gist of whatever they have listened to in the recording. They might listen to it again if required.

Towards the end of the whole lesson, the teacher needs to evaluate the students about whatever he/she has taught to the students. For example, we might ask them what we have taught during the lecture. This can be done by asking them a few questions and listening to the answers that they give attentively.

The teacher might encounter a few problems that are still faced by the students while listening to their feedback. These problems can be corrected by the teacher at that time, or they might be left for the next lectures if they are not relevant to the topic of that day.

Some activities at this stage are also advisable. For example, in order to evaluate our students for global listening, we will ask them a few general questions regarding our topic.