Promoting Academic Listening and Speaking Skills with Adult ESL Learners

Betsy Parrish

Hamline University

NCTN Conference

November 2012

• Explore the impact of integrating language and content to challenge and engage students in listening, speaking, and pronunciation instruction.

• Experience parts of lessons and classroom activities.

• Assess activities for their value in teaching academic listening and speaking strategies.

• Reflect on their use in your own settings.

2

Objectives

3

Benefits of integrating language and content

• Multiple options proposed (Snow et al., 1989; updated 2003)

• Benefits of collaborative tasks in content-based instruction (Swain, 2001)

• Gains in both accuracy and fluency (Burger & Chrétien, 2001)

• Represents most closely what mainstream/content courses demand (Early, 2001)

4

Challenges/Obstacles

• Many programs don’t have resources to teach content-based courses.

• Many ESL programs are not co-located with content-based courses.

• Students in ESL classes have very different backgrounds, interested and experiences with content areas.

5

Possible Solution

• Create content-based units.• Choose content that would appeal to a variety of

learners.• Integrate both content and language objectives.• Include practice in skills and strategies needed for

academic success.

Language skills/strategies development Note-taking Higher-order thinking/Critical thinking

Others identified- see Johnson & Parrish (2010)

6

Some identified gaps between ABE/ESL and Post-secondary instruction:

ABE teachers rated the frequency at which a particular skill was included in classroom instruction

ABE/ESL transitions-level instructors

• College faculty rated the importance of particular skills needed for students to be successful in their classes

8

College instructors: developmental education, Health care and technical/trades

9

The disconnect between ABE/ESL and post secondary instruction

82.6% of ABE/ESL sometimes or rarely addressed. While 44.7% of college faculty report it is very or

extremely important.

10

Listening/Higher-order Thinking:Ability to synthesize information from lectures with other sources

82.6% of ABE/ESL sometimes or rarely addressed.

While 44.7% of college faculty indicate it is very or extremely important.

11

Note Taking During Lectures

Group/collaborative work

Emphasis on group projects in college. Limited use of group projects in ABE/ESL

Teaching Listening Skills

Academic• Directions• Lectures • Interaction with classmates

Purposes for Listening

Workplace• Directions• Meetings • Interaction with customers

15

Strategies that play an important role in listening

Teaching Adult ESL pg. 93

• Anticipating content• Listening to confirm predictions• Listening for gist• Listening for specific information• Listening for details-intensive listening• Making inferences

16

Interactive top-down and bottom-up processing

“In top-down processing, the listener’s background knowledge (of the topic, general world knowledge, and of how texts “work”) interacts with the linguistic knowledge drawn upon in bottom-up processing…”

(Graham and Macaro 2008, p. 748)

17

What we can do in class• Make students aware of strategies they are using;

• model selected strategies;

• provide guided and structured practice of the new strategies;

• include action planning, goal setting and evaluation.

(Graham and Macaro, 2008)

Teaching Oral Communication Skills

Academic• Oral presentations• Classroom participation• Small group work e.g., team

projects

Workplace• Train new workers• Clarification questions• Work in teams• Social interaction

Purposes for Speaking

20

Nature of communicative speaking tasks

Teaching Adult ESL pg. 101

21

Why do we need to integrate pronunciation instruction?

• Meet the demands of jobs (Parrish, 2004)

• Face the reality of NS’ attitudes (Munro, M.J., and Derwing, T.M.,1995).

• Learners perceived need to become intelligible (Derwing, T.M., and Rossiter, M.J.,2002).

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC 1995)Guidelines

• How frequently is English needed in the job? • How complex is the language that is needed for the

job? • Would miscommunication have grave results? • Is communication done under high-stress conditions? • Is communication with one-time listeners, or would a

listener have to time to become accustomed to the speaker’s accent?

Ask yourself those questions for each of the jobs below and see what you notice.

• Restaurant server

• Nursing assistant

• Manufacturing line operator• Supervisor in manufacturing• Doctor • Nurse

• Dental Hygienist • Dishwasher• Housekeeper• Teacher• Landscaper • Truck Driver

• Receptionist

Teaching Adult ESL p. 109

24

A focus on suprasegmentals(Field,2005; Hahn, 2004; Levis, 1999)

• Question intonation• Word stress• Sentence stress-Emphatic and contrastive• Reduced speech• Thought groups

Who is Muhammad Yunus ?

The Nobel Peace Prize

• What is the Nobel Peace Prize?• Why do you think the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded

to someone for an economic development project?

27

KWL ChartsMicro-financing

  What do I know?

What do I want to learn?

What did I learn?

     

   

Research on empowerment of women

Professor Fahima Aziz at Hamline University has been conducting research on the ways in which membership in the Grameen Bank has affected the lifestyles and well-being of women in rural Bangladesh.

These are some of the hypotheses she tested:Participation by women in Grameen bank willlead to:• greater decision-making power• more control over fertility decisions• decision making for children’s marriages

Husband decides

Wife decides

Both decide

God decides

Don’t know

Row Total

Grameen Bank Loan Recipients

1 19 57 2 79

Non-Grameen members

28 6 33 11 78

Group A Fertility Decision: Number of Children

Groups presentations

Create new groups of 4 (one member from each of the original groups). Present your findings and your graph to your classmates.

Summarize the findings

Considering ALL of the information you have gathered from your classmates…

1. In which area was there the greatest improvement in the lives of women as a result of membership in the Grameen Bank?

2. How do these results compare to your own predictions?

3. Were there any developments that surprised you? If so, what?

Something that surprised you about another culture

Sentence stress

Table 4.3Content WordsThese are the words that carry the most meaning in the sentences. We stress these in natural discourse

Function WordsThese are the small words that are the glue of the sentences. We tend not to stress these words.

Nouns Articles

Verbs Prepositions

Adjectives Short conjunctions (and, but)

Adverbs Auxiliary verbs

Conjunctions (however, therefore) Pronouns

Teaching Adult ESL p. 113

VenturesTransitionsp. 3

Integrate note-taking

Ventures 4, p. 97

Combine listening and critical thinking

37

Teaching Adult ESL Task 4.4

Group A Nowrouz in Iran Bastille Day in France

History/origin of holiday Freeing of Bastille PrisonFrench Revolution 1789

Special Food Fresh fruitWhite Fish

Activities MarchesMilitary marchesDances and music

Clothes New clothes

Group B Nowrouz in Iran Bastille Day in France

History/origin of holiday Celebrates start of spring

Special Food Eating outside

Activities Visiting FamilyGoing on picnicsJumping over fire

Clothes Anything red, white and blueTeaching Adult ESL pg. 96

Use listening grid activities

38

Mingles

Teaching Adult ESL pg. 105

Give learners tools/templates for organizing information Help learners recognize text types or genres Act as precursor to formal note-taking Promote deeper listening, thinking Provide tools for building autonomy

Use them for Pre-listening While -listening tasks Note taking while listening Sorting and categorizing ideas, concepts, words Preparing for speaking to organize ideas

(Parrish and Johnson; 2010)

39

Graphic Organizers

• the impact of integrating language and content to challenge and engage students in listening, speaking, and pronunciation instruction.

OBJECTIVESToday we explored…

40

REFLECT

• In what ways did the activities promote critical thinking and prepare students academically?

• What did you hear about that you hadn’t tried before?

• Which activities/topics would be appropriate for the learners you serve?