listening

=Introduction to listening= vocabulary Listening is a similar skill to reading in that it is //receptive// rather than //productive//. Receptive, however, does not mean "passive". There is always a lot of processing and elaborating going on when you read or listen.

//How is the listening skill different from reading? What particular difficulties might you encounter when listening that you would not when reading?//

When we read, one of the main problems is the vocabulary we do not recognise, and this is just as true of listening as well. Listening, however, requires certain additional skills to reading, which are related mainly to pronunciation and time. One of the main problems when listening is to distinguish between word boundaries, that is, recognising where one word ends and another begins. Listening requires more elaboration, then, than reading, which is one reason why the spoken language tends to be more simple, less densly packed than written language. There is also the factor of time. When you read you have more time to go over things and read them more than once, thinking about certain points etc. When you listen, in real life, you can usually only listen once or twice.

The activities on this page are designed to be used in class but those working independently can do them on an individual basis, although they should remember the value of discussion, sharing and devloping ideas and working through the medium of the language they are learning, in this case English. It is always useful to work together with another person, in English, as far as you can, whether you are in class or at home. So if you are working at home perhaps you could do the activities with a friend. Note also that the first listening activity on this page **__can only be done in class__**.

Activity One
(Adapted from Unit One in First Certificate Gold by Sally Burgess with Richard Acklam (Pearson Education 2000)

You are going to listen to a journalist talking about "Taking risks" and why people take risks in everyday life. Before you listen to this in class, think about what you would expect the journalist to say.

//Now discuss you ideas with your partner.//

The information has been divided into 4 sections and below you can see the first sentences for each section. Questions have been added to help you think about and understand the way in which vocabulary is being used here too.

//With your partner decide how you think each section will continue://

1) //Risk sports are one of the fastest growing leisure activities. Daredevils try anything.....// (Perhaps you don't know what daredevils means but you can probably understand this from the context be thinking of the two parts "dare" and "devil" and connecting it to the situation it is being used in.)

2) //So why do some people's lives seem to be dominated by the 'thrill factor', while others are...// (What do you think the 'thrill' factor is? Is 'thrill' the same or different in English from the way 'thriller' is used in Italian, for example?) 3) //Risk sports have a positive side as well. They help people to overcome...//

4) //Of all the risk or adrenalin sports, bungee jumping is proving the most popular.// ... (Think about the meaning of "popular" here, is it similar to the way you use an equivalent word in your language?)

//Now share your ideas with other people in your class in small groups. Now listen to the information and see how similar of different it was to your own ideas. Did anything surprise you?//

Now let's go back to the reading page.

=Listening Activity Two= media type="youtube" key="g8rOy33sU0k&rel=1" height="355" width="425" This video is a discussion about child language acquisition. When you listen you do not have time to write full sentences, so write notes what is said under the following headings: 1. Who is speaking? 2. Describe the study. 3. How much should children be able to say at different ages? 4. Write down "keywords" for other ideas you find itneresting. Then write your conclusions on the forum connected to this page.
 * A 1997 interview on local TV in which Steve Reznick (then an Associate Professor at Yale, now a Professor at UNC) is interviewed about language development. ||