LISTENING FOR INFORMATION FROM DIFFERENT SOURCES
OBJECTIVE: a student should be able to listen to,
analyze texts and relate them to real life situations.
INTRODUCTION
What is listening?
Before we look at the definition of
listening let us have a look at some steps involved in listening. Real
Listening is an active process that has three steps;
a.
Hearing; this is the
capability to receive sound waves into our ears and understand (though not
always) what those sounds mean. Hearing is usually passive and automatic.
b. Understanding; here you take what you head and
understand it on your own.
c.
Judging; after hearing
and understanding think if it makes sense.
E.g. “Those
silent colourless green ideas made noise and slept furiously”.
Therefore listening can be defined as a
conscious and active attempt to receive sound waves into our ears for the
purpose of eliciting information, ideas, and attitudes in order to act. (Carry
out a specific task.)
LISTENING
MODES
There are three basic listening modes.
1.
Competitive
listening.
The listener is
more interested in promoting his/her
own point of view as in debates.
2. Passive attentive listening;
The listener is
interested in hearing and understanding the other person’s point of view, but
stays passive as in lectures or sermons.
3. Active and reflective listening;
The listener
stays active in checking his/her understanding before responding to the message
as in interviews or discussions
EFFECTIVE
LISTENING SKILLS
Effective listening requires the
listener to understand, interpret, and evaluate what they hear (Kadeghe, 2011)
How to become an effective listener.
Ø
Give
a full attention to the person who is speaking.
Ø
Make
sure that your mind is focused.
Ø
Let
the speaker finish before you begin to talk.
Ø
Let
yourself finish listening before you begin to speak.
Ø
Listen
for main ideas
Ø
Ask
questions. The most important skill of listening is asking questions.
o
Open
questions; wh-questions + how they help to show interest and open up a
discussion.
o
Closed
questions; ‘YES/NO’ questions these are used in ending conversation.
Ø
Give
feedback- face the speaker, now and then you can smile, frown, laugh or nod to
show that you understand. Remember you listen with your face as well as your
ears.
LISTENING
FOR SPECIFIC INFORMATION.
When listening you should not worry
that you might not know the exact word for something or that you might not
understand the meaning of everything that the other speaker says. Here are some
useful ideas to help you in everyday conversation, talks or in more formal
situations.
When you don’t understand
When you are
talking to someone you might not understand everything they say but you can
practice focusing on what is important. If you are asking for information think
of the key words you would expect to hear. (e.g. if you ask for time or price
be prepared for numbers).
Repeat it back
to them to make sure that you understood it correctly. Here are some useful
phrases.
v
Saying that you
don’t understand;
·
Sorry I don’t
(quite) understand.
·
I beg your
pardon.
·
Sorry I’m not
sure I understand what you are saying.
v
Asking for
repetition
·
Sorry, I wonder
if you could repeat that please.
·
Sorry, what did
you say your name was again?
·
Sorry, I missed
what you said about midterm exams – can you tell me again?
·
Sorry, may you
come again please?
v
Asking someone
to speak more slowly.
·
Can you speak
more slowly please?
·
Could you slow
down a bit?
·
Sorry that was
too fast for me.
v
Checking that
you understand correctly.
·
Have I
understood you correctly- did you say five or fifty?
·
Do you mean lie
down or tell a lie
v
Asking what
something means.
·
What is gynaecologist exactly?
·
Sorry can you
tell me what hyperbole means?
v
Asking how you
spell something
·
Could
you spell that for me please?
·
I
haven’t heard that name before – hoe do you spell it?
LISTENING FOR GENERAL INFORMATION.
Listening
for the Main Idea.
The purpose of
this type of listening is to train students to grasp the main points or general
information presented in the audio. Students often get stuck on a
detail, a word or phrase they don’t understand and fail to see the bigger
picture. So, this is a real exercise for this type of student.
Listening
Exercise:
Choose a short audio track that
presents information that may be easily summarized, like a news report. Have
students summarize the main points in one or two sentences. It is important to
clarify that students aren’t expected to deliver details, like numbers, names
or statistics but rather express the main point in a concise manner.
No comments:
Post a Comment