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A. CRITIQUE
Introducing
Teaching Listening and Speaking From Theory to Practice that the title of the article that I want
to give some critiques.It was wrote by Jack C.Richards.This article was written when this writer
had been analyze and do some research about teaching listening and speaking.The writer said
that course in listening and speaking skills have a prominent place in language programs around
the world today.Ever-growing needs for fluency in English around the world as a consequence of
the role of English as the worlds International Language have given priority to finding more
effective ways to teach English and its therefore timely to review what our current assumptions
and practices are concerning the teaching of these crucial language skills.From this article it will
explore what some of those changes are and what their implications are for classroom teaching
and materials design.
The teaching of listening has attracted a greater level of interest in recent years than it did in the
past. The writer said that the university entrance exams, school leaving and other examinations
now often include a listening component, acknowledging that listening skills are a core
component of second language proficiency and also reflecting the assumption that if listening
isnt tested, the teachers wont teach it.
For the teaching of speaking in EFL/ESL have been more strongly influenced by fads and
fashions than the teaching listening. The writer said that speaking in traditional methodologies
usually meant repeating after the teacher, memorizing a dialogue or responding to drills. What
the most important is fluency became a goal for speaking courses and this could be developed
through the use of information-gap and others tasks that required learners to attempt real
communications despite limited proficiency in English.
Approaches to the teaching of listening and speaking the writer had explored in this article in the
light of the kinds of issues discussed. The writer goal is to examine what applied linguistics
research and theory said about the nature of listening and speaking skills and then to explore
what the implications are for classroom teaching. So that the means the main purpose of this
article are to examine the nature of listening and speaking skills and the implications are for
classroom teaching.
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Content
The Teaching of Listening
The writer was considered listening from two different perspectives:
a. Listening as comprehension
b. Listening as acquisition
Listening as comprehension is the traditional way of thinking about the nature of listening. The
writer had been examined it from considers some of the characteristics of spoken discourse It is
usually unplanned and often reflects the processes of construction such as hesitations, reduced
forms, fillers and repeats.
From this article we could know that there are two different kinds of processes are involved in
understanding spoken discourse. It referred to as bottom-up and top-down processing.
Bottom-up processing refers to using the incoming input as the basis for understanding the
message. Comprehension was viewed as a process of decoding. he writer also said that the
listeners lexical and grammatical competence in a language provides the basis for bottom-up
processing. Clark and Clark (1977:49) summarizes this view of listening in the following way:
1. They ( listeners ) take in raw speech and hold a phonological representation of it in
working memory.
To understand using bottom-up processing, we mentally break the utterance down into its
components. It is referring to chunking. It help us identify the underlying propositions the
utterances express.
In this article mainly state that the learners in teaching bottom-up processing need a large
vocabulary and a good working knowledge of sentence structure to be able to process texts
bottom-up.
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So the fact is many traditional classrooms listening activities focus primarily on bottom-up
processing, exercises such as dictation, close listening, the use of multiple choice questions after
a text and similar activities which require close and detailed recognition and processing of the
input.
Top-down processing, refers to the use of background knowledge in understanding the meaning
of a message. Bottom-up processing goes from language to meaning but top-down processing
goes from meaning to language. If the listener is unable to make use of top-down processing, an
utterance or discourse may be incomprehensible. Bottom-up processing alone often provides an
insufficient basis for comprehension.
From this article we know that in real world listening, both bottom-up and top-down processing
generally occurs together.
Listening Strategies
Strategies can be thought of as the ways in which a learner approaches and manages a task and
listeners can be taught effective ways of approaching and managing their listening.
Buck (2001,104) identifies two kinds of strategies in listening:
a. Cognitive strategies
b. Metacognitive strategies
Teaching listening strategies can help make learners more effective listeners. The writer also
suggests that we can firstly distinguish between situations where comprehension only is an
appropriate instructional goal and those where comprehension plus acquisition is relevant focus.
The writer proposes a two-part cycle of teaching activities as the basis for the listening as
acquisition phase of a lesson:
a. Noticing activities involve returning to the listening texts that served as the basis for
comprehension activities and using them as the basis for language awareness.
b. Restructuring activities-oral or written tasks that involve productive use of selected items from
the listening text.
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The writer hence advocating that in contexts where comprehension and acquisition are the goals
of a listening course namely listening as comprehension and listening as an acquisition.
2. The teaching of Speaking
The mastery of speaking skills in English is a priority for many second or foreign language
learners. Learners consequently often evaluate their success in language learning as well as the
effectiveness of their English course on the basis of how well they feel they have improved in
their spoken language proficiency.
An important dimension of conversation is using a style of speaking that is appropriate to the
particular circumstances.Different styles of speaking reflect the roles,age,sex,and status of
participants in interactions and reflect the expression of politeness.Lexical,phonological and
grammatical changes may be involved in producing a suitable style of speaking as the following
alternative illustrated.Different speech styles reflect perceptions of the social roles of the
participants in a speech event.If the speaker and hearer are judged to of more less qual status,a
casual speech style is appropriate that stresses affillilation and solidarity.
Functions of speaking
The writer uses an expanded three part version of Brown and Yules framework (after Jones
1996 and Bums 1998) : talk as interaction, talk as transaction, talk as performance.
Talk as interaction refers to what normally mean by conversation and describes interaction
which serves a primarily social function.
Talk as transaction refers to situations where the focus is on what is said or done. The message is
the central focus here and making oneself understood clearly and accurately, rather than the
participants and how they interact socially with each other.
Talk as performance is the third type of talk which can usefully be distinguished has been called
talk as performance .It refers to public talk. Talk as performance tends to be in the form of
monolog rather than dialog often follows a recognizable format and closer to written language
than conversational language.
Implications For Teaching
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Three core issues need to be addressed in planning speaking activities for an oral English course.
a. Teaching talk as interaction
Talk as interaction is perhaps the most difficult skill since instructional talk is a very complex as
well as subtle phenomena that takes place under the control of unspoken rules.
The writer had tried two simple activities tom practice topic management are in the hot seat
and question time.
b. Teaching talks As transaction
Talk as the transaction is more easily planned since current communicative materials are a rich
resource of group activities, information gap activities and role plays that can provide a source
for practicing how to use talk for sharing and obtaining information as well as for carrying out
real-world transactions. These activities include ranking activities, values clarification activities,
brainstorming and simulations.
c. Teaching talk as performance
It requires a different teaching strategy. This involves providing examples or models of speeches,
oral presentations, stories (through video, audio recordings or written examples)
Evaluating performance on speaking activities
The third issue was stated in this article is in planning speaking activities are determining the
expected level of performance on a speaking task and the criteria that will be used to assess
student performance. For any activity we use in class, whether it be one that seeks to develop
proficiency in using talk as interaction, transaction or performance , we need to consider what
successful completion of the activity involves.
Different speaking activities such as conversations, group discussions, and speeches make
different types of demands on learners .


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Conclusions
In the real world both the teaching of listening and speaking have changed considerably in recent
years as insights from research and theory have prompted a rethinking of the process involved in
second language listening, the nature of oral interaction in a second or foreign language and a
reconsideration of what it means to teach these important components of second language
proficiency. Effective approaches to teaching listening need to make a clear distinction between
teaching and testing, and provide learners with guided practice in using relevant listening skills
for specific listening purposes depending on their needs and their proficiency level.
Approaches to the teaching of speaking have also been able to draw on to be a better
understanding of the nature of spoken language and the characteristic of different types of
spoken discourse. So from this article straightly state that the challenge for teachers and
materials developers is to find strategies that help learners develop fluency, accuracy as well
appropriateness of language use.
So from this article we hope that the suggestions outlined in the article and the further references
will provide some of the answers to these important questions. So that means from this article
thoroughly show to us that teaching listening and speaking is not just a theory anymore but it
show that it must be practice to be a good listener and better speak either in classrooms or
outside classroom








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B. REACTION PAPER
Introduction
Courses in listening and speaking skills have a prominent place in language programs around the
world today. Ever-growing needs for fluency in English around the world because of the role of
English as the worlds international language have given priority to finding more effective ways
to teach English. It is therefore timely to review what our current assumptions and practices are
Concerning the teaching of these crucial language skills. Our understanding of the nature of
listening and speaking has undergone considerable changes in recent years, and in this booklet I
want to explore some of those changes and their implications for classroom teaching and
materials design. In recent years, listening has also been examined in relation not only to
comprehension but also to language learning. Since listening can provide much of the input and
data that learners receive in language learning, an important question is: How can attention to the
language the listener hears facilitate second language learning? This raises the issue of the role
noticing and conscious awareness of language form play, and how noticing can be part of the
process by which learners can incorporate new word forms and structures into their developing
communicative competence.
Approaches to the teaching of speaking in ELT have been more strongly influenced by fads and
fashions than the teaching of listening. Speaking in traditional methodologies usually meant
repeating after the teacher, memorizing a dialog, or responding to drills, all of which reflect the
sentence-based view of proficiency prevailing in the audiolingual and other drill-based or
repetition-based methodologies of the 1970s. The emergence of communicative language
Teaching in the 1980s led to changed views of syllabuses and methodology, which are
continuing to shape approaches to teaching speaking skills today. Grammar-based syllabuses
were replaced by communicative ones built around notions, functions, skills, tasks, and other
non-grammatical units of organization. Fluency became a goal for speaking courses and this
could be developed through the use of information-gap and other tasks that required learners to
attempt real
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Communication, despite limited proficiency in English. In so doing, learners would develop
communication strategies and engage in the negotiation of meaning, both of which were
considered essential to the development of oral skills.

Content
In the world of teaching listening and speaking I had identified three best teaching practices from
the teacher that I host the teacher uses. The strategies are:
a. Talking With puppets
b. Magic Pen
c. Describing Pictures
These three activities are the best for me because it really attracts the pupils to take part in the
activities. These three activities really combine the listening and speaking skills. They are really
enjoyable and fun activities.

Talking With Puppets
For this activity, one child (the "describer") is given a piece of paper with a picture on. These
pictures are not of any particular object, but should be strange, involving lots of shapes, letters
and numbers, and they should be hidden from all children apart from the describer. This child
then has to describe the picture to the rest of the class, who have to draw that picture by
following the instructions given. When the description is finished, the child who most accurately
reproduced the picture takes a turn at describing.
The activity encourages the describer to look carefully at every detail of the picture, forcing them
to explain clearly what they can see, and taking into account the needs of the audience. It also
encourages the rest of the class to listen carefully to the instructions being given, so that they can
reproduce the picture on the paper as accurately as possible.
Some examples of pictures which might be used for this activity are shown below. Pictures of
this type will encourage the children to think about the different shapes, letters and numbers
used, and explain where they are in relation to each other (above, below, to the right / left of etc.)
and how big they are in relation to each other.
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Magic Pen
This activity involves the whole class creating a story together. The story is not written down,
and is made up spontaneously by individuals in the class.
1) Find a suitable pen (or other object) which can be passed around the classroom easily.
2) Tell the children that the pen / object which you are holding up is M A G I C because people
who hold it can tell wonderful stories.
3) Explain that no-one is allowed to talk unless they are holding the pen (that includes the
teacher!).
4) Start of a story, making up one yourself.
5) When you have finished the introduction, give the pen to another child (preferably a more
confident one if this is the first time you have tried this activity with the class) and ask them to
continue the story in a few sentences.
6) When they have finished their part of the story, ask them to pass the pen on to someone else
who will continue.
7) Carry on passing the pan around until someone decides to finish the story (or if you are in a
hurry to finish, indicate that you want them to finish off the story in some way - discuss such
signals with the class before you begin).
Describing Picture
For this activity, one child (the "describer") is given a piece of paper with a picture on. These
pictures are not of any particular object, but should be strange, involving lots of shapes, letters
and numbers, and they should be hidden from all children apart from the describer. This child
then has to describe the picture to the rest of the class, who have to draw that picture by
following the instructions given. When the description is finished, the child who most accurately
reproduced the picture takes a turn at describing.
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The activity encourages the describer to look carefully at every detail of the picture, forcing them
to explain clearly what they can see, and taking into account the needs of the audience. It also
encourages the rest of the class to listen carefully to the instructions being given, so that they can
reproduce the picture on the paper as accurately as possible.
Some examples of pictures which might be used for this activity are shown below. Pictures of
this type will encourage the children to think about the different shapes, letters and numbers
used, and explain where they are in relation to each other (above, below, to the right / left of etc.)
and how big they are in relation to each other.


These three activities are truly the best activities when we want to use listening and speaking
skills in our lesson but I am also identifying two areas of concern but not a major concern.
a. Some of the students not involved in these activities
This matter always makes us feel that our activities have not reached the objective. It is because
some of the students are very shy to take part in what activities we give to them. They will sit
and quiet and dont want to say anything.
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For me to solve this problem I will put them in the group .So the others will help them to take
part as a group activity. So it will be a motivation for them to be an active person in that group.
B, Weak Class
Some of the school had streamed the pupils follow by their result academic so that means there
will be a weak class and the better class. The good class there is no problem for us to do these
activities but we have a problem when we enter the weak class and ask them through these
activities.
For me to solve this problem I will give them an easy activity. These three activities we can use
them but make it easier for them. For example Talking With Puppets we can use the basic
conversation for example What is your name?, Where do you live? and we asked them to role
play the puppets. But for these activities all of them need more guides from us to make the
activities fun and enjoyable either they are from the weak class.
Conclusion
From the search that I have made from looking to what my English teachers friend of me
teaching and what I have done in my class too that really show that listening and speaking is
the basic skills for whom to learn an English subject.If you want to imp[rove in English you must
also expert in listening and speakingskills.For us as an English Teacher we must know better in
teaching listening and speaking skills in our classroom.If we need our student concuir the
English subject,they must be better first in listening and speaking skills.Teaching listening and
speaking skills in classroom needs us to be a creative teacher to use a variety of teaching and
listening strategies and skills.





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REFERENCES
1.www.teachingideas.co.uk/.../contents_speakinglistening.htm
2. . www.professorjackrichards.com/wp-content/uploads/...
3. teachinglisteningandspeaking.blogspot.com
4. lesly-teachinglisteningandspeaking.blogspot.com
5. www.professorjackrichards.com/wp-content/uploads/..














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A. CRITIQUE

INTRODUCING

CONTENT
1. THE TEACHING OF LISTENING
2. THE TEACHING OF SPEAKING

CONCLUSIONS


B. REACTION PAPER


INTRODUCTION

CONTENT

CONCLUSIONS


REFERENCES


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