Teaching of Listening and Speaking

Teaching of Listening and Speaking English 
part of Applied Linguistics 

Subjects taught at the school/college level are divided into two categories.

1. Information subjects (for example History and Geography inform us about certain facts of history and geography.) Learning of these subjects requires good memory. 

2. Skill subjects (for example Mathematics and Language. These subjects are skill subjects and skills can be acquired by continuous practice only) Language actually involves 4 skills listening, speaking, reading and writing i. e/ LSRW.

Let us now focus on listening skill.

          Listening is a passive or receptive skill. A person who is listening looks physically passive. He is in the role of a receiver of language spoken by somebody else.

          Listening involves recognizing and interpreting spoken sounds.More specifically it involves the process of : a) identifying sounds and words (i. e. combinations of sounds) b) understanding them c) understanding syntactic patterns or sentences d) interpreting stress, rhythm and intonation e) identifying the information or meaning transmitted by the speaker and finally f) identifying the tone/attiude/emotion of the speaker.

          Here we need to distinguish he word 'hearing' from 'listening' Just hearing is not listening. Hearing is just recognition of spoken sounds. It is a passive and mechanical process. Listening is different because it involves attention and understanding. It is an active and meaning -oriented process. The listener is outwardly passive but his mind is alert and active.

          Listening is important because it is an important means of language learning. Listening provides necessary exposure to the language that we want to learn (i.e. TL/Target Language) If you listen to lot of English you learn it faster. Maximum exposure maximum learning.

Types : 

According to Anthony Howatt and Julian Dakin there are
 two types of listening. 

1. Intensive listening - 

This refers to listening with greater attention for deeper and detailed understanding of the spoken matter. 

2. Extensive listening - This refers to listening with lesser attention for general and non-detailed understanding of the spoken matter.

There are also levels of listening like half-listening, selective listening, holistic listening and listening with critical attention.

Strategies for Teaching : 

There are following ways to teach effective listening : 

1. Motivating the students and creating a proper mindset for listening. This can be done by arousing the interest of the students or highlighting the importance of the topic.

 2, The technique of guided or clued listening is also helpful. 

3.
Selecting material appropriate to the age and interst of the audience. 

4. Using varieties of topics to speak on so that attention is ensured. 

5, Speaking effectively by paying attention to pronunciation and body language 

6. Sometimes interesting matter on tapes/cassettes/CDs/DVDs can also be used to teach effective listening.





Speaking Skill :


          Teaching of speaking begins with repeating or imitating teacher's speech because it is a model for the student. So the teacher has to be extra careful about his own spoken language. His pronunciation and grammar must be a perfect model for imitation.


Speaking skill involves two things: 

1. Ability to produce utterances in the target language (like English) This requires knowledge of grammar and vocabulary and

2. Ability to pronounce them correctly. This involves knowledge of phonology, stress and intonation.

The objectives of teaching speaking are that 

1. The student should be able to participate in a conversation, respond appropriately to questions or statements. 

2. Make short contributions of his own to the conversation 

3. He should be able to read aloud properly. 

4. He should also be able to develop a short oral composition ( e.g. a short speech/lecture/presentation) of his own when necessary.

          The teacher simultaneously plays two roles in the teaching of speaking skill. He plays the role of a coach who encourages and guides the students in te art of speaking. He also plays the role of a judge or umpire because he watches and evaluates the spoken performance of the student and corrects him whenever necessary. So the there are two preconditions for teachers of spoken English. One is that he himself should speak good English and secondly he should have some raining in phonology and teaching of pronunciation.

In teaching spoken English 

1. The teacher has to begin with sentences. (How to pronounce them properly.) 

2. Then short basic dialogues can be taught. This will involve teaching of greetings and responses to them, introducing yourself and others, making inquiries and providing information, joining and leaving conversation etc. 

3.
Sometimes guided dialogues in which a subject is specified (e. g. buying a dress, visiting a doctor etc) Sometimes some parts are given and some parts are to be supplied by the students to complete the dialogue or conversation. 

4. All this has to finally lead the student to the stage of free conversation where he participates independently in a conversation.

Teaching Strategies include following : 

1. Asking students to read aloud from a written matter from a book/magazine/newspaper etc. 

2.
Asking students to describe a picture orally in spoken English 

3. Conducting question -answer sessions in which teachers ask questions and students respond orally in their own language. 

4. Role playing technique - for example teacher plays the role of a doctor and a student plays the role of a patient. They develop a conversation and talk to each other in this imaginary situation and other students watch their performance and learn from it. 

5. The annual social gathering of the school/college can be used to present a short drama/one-act-play/skit. Such activities provide a lot of speaking practice speaking English for students. And spoken English can be developed by practice. The more you speak the better your spoken English. 

6. Asking students to watch English programmes on TV will also provide necessary exposure to spoken English which is necessary for developing speaking skills.

Conclusion -

          In conclusion we can say that special courses for teaching spoken English can also be devised keeping in mind the situation in India. It is our experience in our country that students have no mastery over English despite long years of teaching it.

Three factors are important in Spoken English.

 1. Phonetic accuracy i. e. good pronunciation 

2. Grammatical accuracy or correctness of sentence structure and finally 

3. Contextual accuracy which means that whatever we speak should be appropriate to the situation.