First off, let me explain what's meant by 'interpersonal listening'. Also known as 'two-way listening', it is when we listen while engaging in conversation or when a student is having a dialogue with the teacher - for example when the teacher is asking questions. Most listening students do in class is of this type. It stands in contrast to listening while answering comprehension questions on paper, or when doing a gap-fill, dictation or true-false task (known as 'one-way listening').
Students who engage with interpersonal listening on a regular basis over five years or more become good listeners. It's why teachers are urged to maximise their use of comprehensible target language and interaction.
So, below are three examples of advanced level interpersonal listening tasks. They are taken from our Teaching A-Level Modern Languages book and are related to thematic material from the English and Welsh awarding body specifications.
1. Describe a film you saw
Time: 45 minutes. Thematic context: talking about films.
Pre-listening: explain what you are going to do and how it is relevant
to the course. Being able to talk about films in general, target language films
in particular and gaining some knowledge about cinema in the target language
countries.
Preparation
Display a still photo from a target language film. Be prepared to talk about the film for two to three minutes. On a second slide, display some film-related language: words such as genre, actor, plot, director, character, soundtrack, theme, action and special effects.
Task
· Describe
the film, adjusting your delivery to include repetition, rephrasing and
including occasional translation where necessary. (As a general rule, try to
avoid using English as far as possible, but do not be too dogmatic about this.
Making sure students can understand is vital.)
·
Describe
the film a second time as students make notes in English about what you say.
·
Ask the
students to compare their notes in pairs, using the target language.
· Lead into
general teacher-led conversation, asking students to tell you if they have seen
a foreign-language film or TV series, what they remember about it and the value
of watching films in another language.
· Provide
some factual information about the film industry in the target language
countries, plus the names of a few famous movies, directors and actors.
·
Do an
instant vocabulary memory quiz to see how many words and phrases the class can
recall.
As a homework follow-up, students could be given a film to research. In the next lesson, they would provide a brief oral or written summary of the film. Encourage the recycling of language already used in class.
2.
Creative storytelling from a picture
Task
Look at the following picture to be used for creative story construction.
Display it on the class screen.
Image: pixabay.com
- Where are these two people? What are their names? What are they doing? What is their
nationality?
- What do they do for a living? How did they meet? How long have
they been together?
- Why did they decide to get married? Describe the proposal of
marriage.
- Is this their first marriage? Will they go on a honeymoon?
End the initial activity by summarising the class’s story, clarifying any remaining difficult points of language. The story may be a lead-in to a discussion about marriage in general, living together and living alone. Information, facts and figures could be provided relating to the target language societies. General discussion questions might include:
- What are the pros and cons of getting married?
- Would you rather live together in a civil partnership or get married?
- What are the benefits of choosing to live alone?
To scaffold answers to these questions, a set of arguments could be
displayed or given on a handout.
3. Recounting an anecdote
Time: 30 minutes. Thematic context: cultural differences
Preparation: This simple idea is adapted from Nick Bilbrough’s book Memory Activities for Language Learning (2011). Think of an anecdote from your past which you are happy to share with the class and which, preferably links to an A-level topic, for example family, tourism, a festival or tradition. It is quite reasonable to choose a story not directly related to the syllabus, since the language used will transfer to many other topics. Write up or display some chunks of language you will use to tell the story.
In the example below I recall trying to buy some beef
for a barbecue from a Spanish butcher’s. The small village meat-purveyor had
nothing on display, so I had to ask for beef without knowing its Spanish
translation. (This was in the days before mobile phones.) I raised my fingers above my head and tried to make the noise of a bull. The butcher
retreated to his refrigerated back room and returned with a bag of meat cuts.
On getting out the meat that evening I noticed that the ‘beef’ was not very
red and a bit more like pork. It transpired that my animal impression had
been inadequate and I had in fact purchased goat. So here are some language
chunks you could display in this case:
for a barbecue decided to buy didn’t
know the word
went
to the butcher’s in a village near
Seville oh no!
when
I ate the meat what a surprise! pretended to be
Give a moment or two for pairs to guess what the story could be about.
Elicit some ideas, responding appropriately. Then recount the story to the
class in the target language. The students could take down notes also in the
target language. Ask the class to recount what happened. Prompt them for more
details, developing a conversation. Have students then write out the events
described, using their notes. Alternatively, students could think of an
anecdote from their own lives or the lives of a friend or parent. Keeping the
language as simple as possible, they could draft their own account. An
open-ended task like this is not easy to scaffold since the students’ stories
will be so varied, so use this option only if you are confident the class will
cope.
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