Spoken Communication Skills Developing Listening and Speaking Skills

Spoken Communication Skills Developing Listening and Speaking Skills Mr. Amit Bamane Dept. of English

ESTABLISHING RAPPORT Field of Consciousness

How do you go about Establishing Rapport? l l l You need Self-Confidence You must Understand People You must be Enthusiastic You must make Eye Contact You must be Interested in them

Communication is a Series of Experiences of Hearing Smell Seeing Taste Touch

Communication - Meaning l l Communication is a dynamic process… through this process we convey a thought or feeling to someone else. how it is received depends on a set of events, stimuli, that person is exposed to. how you say what you say plays an important role in communication.

TOTAL COMMUNICATION PROCESS

LEVELS OF COMMUNICATION l VERBAL l l Intra verbal: intonation of word and sound Extra verbal: implication of words and phrases, semantics

l NON-VERBAL l l l Gestures Postures Movements

l SYMBOLIC

Barriers in Communication (that have to do with the COMMUNICATOR) l Unwillingness to say things differently l Unwillingness to relate to others differently l Unwillingness to learn new approaches l Lack of Self-Confidence l Lack of Enthusiasm l Voice quality l Prejudice

Barriers in Communication (that have to do with the COMMUNICATOR) l l Disagreement between verbal and non-verbal messages Negative Self Image • Lack of Feedback • Lack of Motivation and Training • Language and Vocabulary Level • Lack of Self Awareness

Barriers in Communication (that have to do with the RECEIVER) l l l l Selective Perception Unwillingness to Change Lack of Interest in the Topic/Subject Prejudice & Belief System Rebuttal Instincts Personal Value System Here-and-Now internal & external factors

External Barriers in Communication l Environment l l l The venue The effect of noise Temperature in the room Other People – Status, Education Time

5 Basic reasons we Do Not Listen l l l Listening is Hard Work Competition The Rush for Action Speed differences (120 wpm v/s 360 wpm) Lack of Training

4 Levels of Listening l l The Non-Listener The Marginal Listener The Evaluative Listener The Active Listener

Improving Listening Skills l l l By not being Preoccupied Being Open Minded & Non Defensive Minimizing Interruptions Effective Listening is: Hearing, interpreting when necessary, understanding the message and relating to it. By Asking Questions

COMMUNICATION l 7% WORDS l Words are only labels and the listeners put their own interpretation on speaker’s words

l 38% PARALINGUISTIC l The way in which something is said - the accent, tone and voice modulation is important to the listener.

l 55% BODY LANGUAGE l What a speaker looks like while delivering a message affects the listener’s understanding most.

TYPES OF BODY LANGUAGE Remember that you are dealing with “PEOPLE” l (P)OSTURES & GESTURES l l (E)YE CONTACT l l l How do you position yourself? (P)RESENTATION l How do you deliver your message? (L)OOKS l l How’s your “Lighthouse”? (O)RIENTATION l l How do you use hand gestures? Stance? Are your looks, appearance, dress important? (E)PRESSIONS OF EMOTION l Are you using facial expressions to express emotion?

Communication l What should be the main goal of an English language course? l l To focus on developing students’ mastery of the language form l OR To focus on developing students’ ability to effectively communicate for study, work or leisure

Features of using language for communication l We communicate because we want to or need to, NOT just to practise the language l Focus is on what we are communicating NOT on how we are communicating (ideas vs. language) l The language that is used is VARİED in grammar and vocabulary, NOT made of a single structure or a few structures and NOT normally repeated over and over again

Communication in the Classroom l If you want to encourage real communication in the classroom you need to l Establish English as the main classroom language l Try to use interesting topics and stimulating activities, which take the learners’ minds off the language l l Real life events ( weather, the students’ cloths, their health and mood, pictures and realia brought to class) Events in the world outside ( new films, a circus in town, national sports victory, the students’ families, etc. )

l Focus on fluency vs. accuracy l l l Support and encourage listeners in their efforts to communicate their ideas Don’t try to control what they say Don’t interrupt learners everytime they make a language mistake to correct them.

Listening Skills l l Listening is not a ‘passive” skill but a “receptive” skill. It requires as much attention and mental activity as speaking. That of the time an individual is engaged in communication, approximately 9 per cent is devoted to writing, 16 per cent to reading, 30 per cent to speaking, and 45 per cent to listening.

Debates concerning the development of listening skills l Debates focusing on the nature of listening input l l Whether or not listening should be made comprehensible for learners through simplification? Debates focusing on the role of listening in the early ELT curriculum l Whether teachers should stress the importance of learners having a “silent period” in the early stages of learning and wait for “readiness” to produce the language

Debates concerning the development of listening skills l Debates on the role of listening for comprehension and development of oracy (the ability to understand participate in spoken communication) l l l How can classroom practice rehearse the kinds of listening purposes and situations that learners will experience outside the classroom? How can we help learners build confidence in dealing with authentic spoken English? What kind of classroom procedures will develop listening ability?

What do we know about the listening process? l There are two types of listening processes l l l Bottom-up: l l Bottom-up process Top-down process We use our knowledge of language and our ability to process acoustic signals to make sense of the sounds that speech presents to us Top-down l We infer meaning from contextual clues and from making links between the spoken message and various types of prior knowledge which we hold.

What learners need to be able to do in order to listen effectively l Bottom-up processes l l l l Retain input while it is being processed Recognize word divisions Recognize key words in utterances Recognize key transitions in a discourse l Another interesting development was… l One of the problems was. . / In contrast… Recognize grammatical relations between key elements in sentences Recognize the function of word stress in sentences Recognize the function of intonation in sentences

What learners need to be able to do in order to listen effectively l Top-down processes l l l l l Use key words to construct the scheme of discourse Infer the role of the participants in a situation Infer the topic of a discourse Infer the outcome of an event Infer the cause and effect of an event Infer unstated details of a situation Infer the sequence of a series of events Infer comparisons Distinguish between facts and opinions

Types of Listening l Participatory Listening l l l Interactional (for the purpose of engaging in social rituals) Transactional (for the purpose exchanging information) l İdentification of specific details Non-Participatory l l l Listening to live conversations without taking part Listening to announcements to extract info. Listening to or watching films, plays, radio and songs where purpose is enjoyment Following instructions in order to carry out a talk efficiently Attending a lecture or following a lesson Listening someone give a public address

What are the implications for the English Language Classroom? l Creating reasons for listening (motivate students) l Teachers need to ensure that learners experience a range of listening purposes, especially those that might be immediately relevant to their lives outside the classroom. l What purpose might there be for listening to this particular text? l Is that purpose similar to the purpose a listener might have in real life? l Does the task given to the learner encourage that listening purpose?

l Which is more authentic? l l Asking learners to listen to a short airport announcement to obtain information about a particular flight, as a passenger ? l OR Asking learners to listen for the details of four different flights ? Skills that are practised Listening for key words Picking out relevant information Retaining significant details l l

l Designing listening activities for the classroom The standard procedure used for listening activities are l Pre-listening stage l While-Listening stage l Post-listening stage

Pre-Listening stage l l The purpose of the pre-listening stage is to Prepare the learners for what they are going to hear by l l activating existing prior knowledge introducing necessary schematic knowledge Introducing the language which students will encounter Objectives l l Contextualize the text Provide any information to help learners appreciate the setting and the role of relationships between particiapnts

Activity types for the pre-listening stage l l l l l Predicting content from the title of a talk Talking about a picture which relates to the text Discuss relevant experiences Discussing the topic Answering a set of questions about the topic Agreeing or disagreeing with opinions about the topic Associate vocabulary about the topic Predict info. about the topic Write questions about the topic

While-Listening Stage l Purpose of While-listening stage is l l TO HELP learners understand the text While learners listen they need to be involved in an authentic purpose for listening and encouraged to attend to the text more intensively

While-Listening activities l l l l Ticking multiple-choice items Filling in a chart Complete a table, map or picture Matching pictures with the text Making notes Answer questions Complete sentences

Post-Listening Activities l l The purpose of post-listening activities is to help learners connect what they have heard with their own ideas and experience. Helps learners to move easily from listening to another skill.

Post-listening Activities l l l Give opinions Relate similar experiences Role-play a similar interaction Write a brief report Write a similar text Debate the topic