“Techniques for teaching listening comprehension in foreign language lessons. Methods of teaching listening comprehension in English lessons Stages of teaching listening comprehension in English lessons
K.A. Krylova
teacher in English
Municipal educational institution No. 8 Kyshtym
Technology of teaching listening or how to teach listening and understanding English speech in the classroom
Teaching listening skills is very relevant today, since without listening, verbal communication is impossible. The concept of listening includes the process of perceiving and understanding spoken speech.
Listening is definitely an important aspect in learning English.
Knowledge of all the difficulties allows you to correctly assess the level of difficulty of listening, take them into account when organizing educational listening, remove them, and sometimes create them artificially, bringing the training session as close as possible to real communication situations. This article will help you understand that teaching listening should be approached with the utmost seriousness, carefully planning formulations, tasks and forms of control, taking into account the factor of the language and speech preparation of students.
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Teacher's actions when teaching listening:
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Analysispossibledifficulties(linguistic/ linguistic,meaningful) giventext.
Determining the conditions for presenting text (using audiorecordsordirectlyvoteteachersorunknown voiceWithusingdeployedsupportsorwithoutthem).
Definitionpreparatoryworkonpretextualstage taking into account allocateddifficulties.
FormulationinstallationsbeforelisteningAnddefinitionquantitiesauditions/ presentationstext(one or two times), which depends on the goal set by the teacher: listening is the goal or means of learning. Herewe thinknecessaryMark,Whatonseniorstagetraininginstallationmusttargetstudentsonunderstanding the content, not the facts from the text), therefore, based onfromabove, it is necessary to pay special attention to thesimulationinstallations,SoHowsuccessunderstandingtext by studentsinin many waysdependsfromher.
Determining ways to control text understanding: usingtionlinguisticornon-linguisticwayscontrol.
Teaching listening to texts can be based ona certain scheme . The educational process includes:
introductory conversation by the teacher, goal setting in the process of work;
removing language difficulties that occur in the text;
problem formulation;
initial listening to the text;
task control;
formulating a new communicative task;
secondary listening to the text;
monitoring the implementation of a communicative task;
speaking exercises based on the text you listened to;
summarizing the work on the text.
Thus, mastery of listening as a type of speech activity should ensure a successful communication process, develop students’ ability to speak and understand a foreign language, and since this process is complex and difficult, schools need to pay more attention to this procedure. It is very important to increase students’ motivation to understand foreign speech by ear. But there are all the prerequisites for improving the process of teaching listening: technology in modern times is developing at a high pace, and teachers have more and more opportunities to use various types of ICT tools, taking into account various technologies listening training.
In conclusion, it should be noted that these recommendations will allow you to avoid mistakes when teaching listening comprehension to students, and will help you correctly build your own algorithm, based on the technology presented in the work for teaching listening comprehension in English lessons at school.
Bibliography
Kashina, E.G.Traditions and innovations in teaching methods
foreign language: textbook. a manual for students of philological faculties of universities \ E.G. Kashin; resp. ed. A.S. Greenstein. - Samara: Publishing house "Univers Group", 2006. - 75 p.
Kolker Ya.M. Practical methods of teaching a foreign language: Textbook.
Benefit /Ya.M. Kolker, E.S. Ustinova, T.M. Enalieva. - M.: publishing center "Academy", 2000. - 264 p.
Lurie A.S. Methods of teaching listening. - M., -1988. - 32 s.
Mirolyubov, A. A. General methods of teaching foreign languages in
secondary school / A. A. Mirolyubov, I. V. Rakhmanova, V. S. Tsetlin. - M.: Education, 1967. -504 p.
Pidkasisty P.I. Textbook for pedagogical students
universities and teacher training colleges/ Edited by P.I. Faggot. Moscow, 1998.
Polat E.S. New pedagogical and information Technology V
education system / Edited by E.S. Polat, Moscow, 2002
Sakharova T.E., Rabinovich F.M., Rogova G.V. Teaching Methodologyforeign languages in high school. - M.: Education, 1991.
Selevko G.K. Modern educational technologies: Educational
allowance. - Moscow, 1998
Solovova, E.N. Methods of teaching foreign languages: basic
course of lectures: a manual for pedagogical students. universities and teachers / E.N. Solovova. - 4th ed. - M.: Education, 2006. - 239 p.
Filatov V.M. Methods of teaching foreign languages in primary
and basic secondary school: tutorial for students of pedagogical colleges (edited by V.M. Filatov) / Series “Secondary professional education" - Rostov n/a: “Phoenix”, 2004
Chechel I.D. Pedagogical design: from methodology to
realities // Methodology of educational project. - Moscow, 2001
Yastrebtseva V.N. Methodological recommendations, Moscow, 1992
Bukharkina M.Yu. Multi-level learning technology //
Foreign languages at school // Scientific and methodological journal, No. 3, 2003
English Language Magazine. Everything for the teacher! No. 6 (42) June 2015
IG "Osnova"
Explanatory note
The main goal of teaching foreign languages at school is to develop students' ability to communicate in a foreign language. And one of the ways to improve the quality of teaching is to start training earlier in the school education system. At the initial stage of training, the foundations of communicative competence are laid, which allow foreign language communication to occur at an elementary level.
That is why the author pays great attention to teaching listening, since this type of speech activity forms the basis of communication, and mastery of oral communication begins with it. This allows the teacher to fully appreciate the benefits of listening in teaching English at an early stage, as it provides students with rich language material and speech patterns, which they will then use to construct their own utterances. Mastery of this type of speech activity enables the author to realize developmental, educational and educational goals.
Underestimation of listening skills can have an extremely negative impact on the language preparation of schoolchildren. Despite this, for a long time it was not considered by methodologists as a separate and independent type of speech activity, but was a “by-product of speaking.” (Galskova N.D., Gez N.I. – p. 161). However, at the moment, it has been proven that listening is an active process, during which intense work of all mental and mental processes occurs.
A special type of speech activity, which is both the perception and understanding of speech by ear. This is a rather complex skill that cannot be completely automated. Since auditory memory is less developed than visual memory, and fatigue quickly sets in with prolonged listening, the process of forgetting heard information occurs much faster. Taking into account the psychophysical characteristics, the author concludes that teaching listening is much more difficult than other types of speech activity. And the analysis of control and verification works confirmed the author’s conclusion. Students received the lowest grades for listening tasks. In addition, working on listening skills does not evoke positive emotions among the students themselves.
Faced with this contradiction, the author faced a number of questions. How to improve the quality of listening knowledge? What tasks should be chosen so that students enjoy this type of work? How to make the learning process interesting and entertaining at the initial stage?
The goal of working on this topic is to improve the quality of listening knowledge through the use of non-standard teaching methods, which also ensure increased motivation of students to learn English.
The implementation of the learning goal is carried out through the following tasks:
- Learn to understand and respond to teacher messages.
- Create listening mechanisms
- Teach to understand the main content based on visual motor clarity, as well as gestures, facial expressions, rhythm, intonation, and emotional support.
- Teach to understand the statement in full.
In the methodology of teaching foreign languages, several ways of teaching listening can be traced: as a means of teaching other types of speech activity and as a learning goal. According to N.D. Galskova, listening as a means can be used as: a way to organize the educational process; method of introducing language material orally; means of teaching other types of speech activity; a means of monitoring and consolidating acquired knowledge, skills and abilities. Based on the works of Galskova N.D. and Gez N.D., who believed that a well-thought-out organization of the educational process (clarity and logic of presentation, maximum reliance on language experience, a variety of presentation methods) allows students to direct their attention to those moments that will help program their future activities with the perceived material, the author does the conclusion is that it is necessary for students to present a clear setting before listening to the text, depending on which the perception will be either passive or active, contributing to the successful functioning of memory. Listening is a receptive activity, and mastery of receptive activities is a prerequisite for the development of productive skills and, first of all, speaking. Consequently, the conclusion about the need for special, targeted training in listening as an independent type of speech activity is obvious.
The problem of teaching the perception of authentic speech by ear is one of the most important aspects of teaching foreign language communication, and that is why the development and development of technologies for teaching listening that meet the needs of the time is extremely important.
Experience technology
One of the requirements of the program for the level of preparation of elementary school students in English is to be able to better understand by ear the speech of the teacher, classmates, and the content of small texts containing the studied vocabulary, based on visual clarity. And the author sets himself the task of finding methods and techniques that will ensure the child’s success in learning to listen.
Working on educational and methodological complexes Biboletova M.Z., the author of the experiment has the opportunity not to limit herself in creativity in independently processing materials for the lesson. Having mastered the methodological intention of the authors of the manual, the teacher tries to use various non-standard listening tasks, during which students develop their language skills and master language as a means of communication.
Listening is a rather difficult type of speech activity, therefore, when selecting material, the teacher takes into account the following points:
- age of students;
- lexicon;
- level of language proficiency;
- student interests;
- natural speech
- sound recording quality.
I. Preparatory exercises:
- listen to the sounds and identify (show card) VOWEL and CONSONANT sounds: [m], , [f], [u], ;
- listen to the sounds and identify those that are SIMILAR to the sounds of the Russian language and DIFFERENT from them:
[m], [θ], [w], [k], [v], [ ǽ ], [f], , [b], etc.
- listen to vowel sounds and identify SHORT and LONG;
, [o] in the words horse, block, corner, daughter, stop, fox…;
2. To activate the studied vocabulary in the 3D class, the teacher used the following tasks.
- listen to the word and show the corresponding picture (food, animals, actions;
- listen to the names of the products and name a dish that can be prepared from them:
Сarrot, oil, salt, cabbage - salad.
- listen to the story and determine on whose behalf it may sound:
I am small and nice. I live in the house. I like milk. (A cat).
3. To develop probabilistic forecasting skills and WARM-UP ACTIVITIES exercises:
- listen to a group of words and name their topic:
1)blue, 2)red, 3)yellow, 4)brown, 5)black, 6)green ...
1)dress 2)soup 3)grandfather 4)cash 5)credit-card 6)kitchen etc.
When performing preparatory or training exercises, the teacher often uses auxiliary skills (gestures, movements, facial expressions). In this way, not only phonetics and vocabulary are checked, but also counting, spelling, school phrases, and physical education lessons are held. At the same time, students watch and learn from each other: if someone does not understand the task right away, then he looks at what others are doing and, imitating them, carries out the required command, remembering what it means.
For example, this exercise:
Listen and repeat:
Can you hop like a rabbit?
Can you jump like a frog?
Can you swim like a fish?
Can you be like a good child
As still as you wish?
II. Speech exercises performed while listening:
- Number the objects in the picture in the order they are mentioned in the text.
- Fill out the table (cluster) with the necessary information after listening to the dialogue.
The success of language acquisition as a whole depends on the level of listening comprehension. In his lessons, the author teaches children to perceive dolls and fairy-tale characters as “native speakers” who do not know how to speak Russian and understand only foreign speech. Practice shows: the younger the students, the easier it is to overcome the psychological barrier of understanding that arises when studying.
From the very first lessons, the author includes listening to dialogues in the learning process. They contain all types of sentences: questions, answers, orders, requests, advice and are an example of living everyday speech. The dialogues aim to provide examples of lexical and grammatical patterns in conversational form.
The process of teaching listening in primary school will happen faster and more effectively if students have an appropriate clear mindset, and it is very important for them to remember this or that material. The easiest way to do this is in the game. The gaming situation is the most important driving force that can arouse a child’s interest in learning a foreign language and stimulate listening. Therefore, in his lessons, the teacher tries to use interesting game moments to teach different types of listening.
For example, the author often uses the technique (Listen and draw), based on the fact that elementary school students love, and most of them are able to, color pictures and draw. Auto gives an example of a lesson in 2nd grade on the topic “Appearance of fairy-tale characters” using this technique.
Topic: “Appearance of fairy-tale heroes”
Target:
- development of lexical skills,
- monologue speech training,
- development of listening skills.
I. Organizational moment
Good morning, boys and girls.
Reading rhyming greetings:
Good morning, good morning,
Good morning to you,
Good teacher morning,
I'm glad to see you.
II. Phonetic warm-up.
III. Development of lexical skills. Introduction of new vocabulary on the topic “Appearance”.
Look at the blackboard. What can you see on the blackboard? You are right. This is Tim. I shall describe him and the task for you is to repeat what I have said.
IV. Activation of monologue speech.
Tim has got a lot of friends. Let's describe the clown and his friends. The beginnings of the sentences from ex.2, page. 104, will help us to make up the stories.
V. Systematization of reading skills.
It's time to read now. Today we shall learn to read new words: have and live. Read the words after me.
VI. Physical education minute.
It’s time to stand up and do some exercises. The song will help us remember the parts of our face and our body. Listen to the song, please.
Head and shoulders
Knees and toes,
Knees and toes,
Knees and toes,
Head and shoulders
Knees and toes,
Eyes, ears, mouth and nose.
VII. Formation of listening skills.
Now look at this picture. It"s a clown Tim. OK, I"ll give you a picture.
Where"s his nose? Point to the nose. The nose is black.
Now, color the nose black. Now show me the eyes, the clown's eyes. Yes here they are. Now color the eyes blue. Great. OK, now color the hands. The hands are yellow. The mouth is orange, he has brown hair. Let's check now. OK, let's see how many clowns we have.
The teacher selects a text with already familiar words, and writes unfamiliar words on the board. Matches the picture to the text. Then he reads the text several times, and the children color the picture in accordance with the content.
XI. Summing up the lesson.
The time is over. Thank you for the lesson.
I can ski, I can skate,
I can sing, I can skip,
I can swim, I can't fly,
I can read and say “good-buy”
- Good-bye, boys and girls!
Using this technique helped achieve the goals and make the learning process more interesting and exciting.
No less interesting is the task when students are asked to listen to a description of an animal, person or some place, choose the correct one from the listed options and color it in accordance with the content. (Listen and circle)
T.: Listen carefully/Point to the picture I am talking about. This is a boy
He wears a blue sweater.
(The children's point)
Yes, very good. It's the boy... OK. Now,
She carries a green schoolbag. The girl wears a red T-shirt and a blue jeans.
She carries a green schoolbag....
The teacher names the letter, number and color in which to color this cell. For example: D6, green.
Junior students school age I always like working with pictures. The author offers them a task to sort pictures by topic (Listen and classify). Or students use pictures to find errors in the sound text (Listen and correct).
When teaching listening comprehension, the author often uses games in lessons that require increased attention. The simplest example of this game is True or False. The teacher asks the children to listen carefully to what he says. If what he says is correct, students clap once, if not, twice.
Today's Tuesday. (one clap)
It's rainy today (two claps). Very good. It is sunny today
This is Peter (one clap)
This is Helen (two claps). Oh, silly me. This is Pat.
Such a variety of techniques and listening tasks allowed the author to awaken emotions in the students, gave them the joy of creativity and ensured success, since everyone coped with the task. And success increased motivation to learn English. The learning process has become more interesting and exciting.
Due to motivation through the use of non-traditional methods, the quality of students' listening knowledge has increased.
In turn, underestimation of listening skills leads to incorrect phonetic design of independent speech actions, problems in composing speech statements, and the inability to listen to the interlocutor and actively participate in communication.
Bibliography
1. Galskova N.D., “Modern methods of teaching foreign languages,” a manual for teachers of ARKTI Moscow. 2004.
2. Galskova N.D., Gez N.I., “Theory of teaching foreign languages. Lingvodidactics and methodology”, textbook. aid for students linguistic un-tov i fak. in. language higher ped. textbook establishments. - 3rd ed., erased. - M.: Publishing Center "Academy", 2006.
3. Gez N.I., Lyakhovitsky M.V., Mirolyubov A.A. and others. “Methods of teaching foreign languages in secondary school”: textbook. – M.: Higher. school, 1982.
4. Elukhina N.V. “The main difficulties of listening and ways to overcome them”: J. “Foreign languages at school.” – 1977 - No. 1 - p. 18.
5.Filatov V.M., “Methods of teaching foreign languages in primary and secondary schools. Part 1": a textbook for students of pedagogical colleges. - Rostov n/D: Phoenix, 2004.
6. Vary Slattery & Jane Willis. English for Primary Teachers, Oxford
Introduction
English can rightfully be called one of the most popular and sought-after languages in all of Europe. This language is currently the official language of the representation of the European Union, and is also quite often used for conducting various types of negotiations at the highest level. In addition, this language is most often used to implement business projects, both for one country and for international projects. During the discussion of such projects, knowledge of English is the only means of communication between representatives different countries and nationalities. It is for these reasons that important issue for anyone modern man who understands that without knowledge of the English language in the modern world, nothing can be achieved, and this is the study of this language.
In recent years, the problem of listening has increasingly attracted the attention of psychologists, psycholinguists and methodologists. A serious theoretical search is underway to study this complex process. However, so far the output into teaching practice has been small. Receptive oral speech (listening) has the same physiological and psychological nature as expressive oral speech. However, each of these parties oral speech has its own specifics, requires different skills, requires special techniques and different methods for solving them. Listening is the basis of communication, and mastery of oral communication begins with it. Listening consists of the ability to differentiate perceived sounds, integrate them into semantic complexes, retain them in memory while listening, carry out probabilistic forecasting and, depending on the communication situation, understand the perceived sound target.
The problem of teaching listening is one of the most pressing topics in modern methods of teaching English, since without listening, verbal communication is impossible, since this is a two-way process. And underestimating listening skills can have an extremely negative impact on the language preparation of schoolchildren. The concept of listening includes the process of perceiving and understanding spoken speech. It is also known that listening is a very difficult type of speech activity. Lack of auditing skills is often the cause of communication breakdowns.
In general, listening as an action that is part of oral communicative activity is used in any oral communication subordinated to production, social or personal needs.
Also, listening as feedback for each speaker during speaking allows you to exercise self-control over speech and know how correctly speech intentions are realized in sound form. And of course, listening can be separate species communicative activity with its own motive, reflecting the needs of a person or the nature of his activity. It plays this role, for example, when watching a movie, TV show, listening to a radio program, etc.
Hence the importance and relevance of the problem of teaching listening is obvious.
In accordance with the State Educational Standard for Basic General Education, students must be able to understand:
Understand the main content of short, simple authentic texts (weather forecast, TV/radio programs, announcements at a train station/airport) and highlight significant information;
Understand the main content of simple authentic texts related to different communicative types of speech (message/story); be able to determine the topic of the text, highlight the main facts, omitting the secondary ones;
Use questioning, asking to repeat.
The problem The research is the contradiction between the requirements of the State Educational Standard for the level of development of listening skills and the lack of simple and effective methods for teaching listening at the middle stage of teaching English.
Thus, based on this problem, research topic is: “Teaching listening to a foreign language text at the middle stage of teaching English.”
Object research is the process of teaching listening.
Subject– methods and techniques for teaching listening at the middle stage of education.
Purpose given course work is the study of technologies for teaching listening at the middle stage of education.
Tasks of this work:
1. study and analyze scientific and methodological literature on this topic;
2. determine the algorithm for teaching listening comprehension at the middle stage of teaching English;
3. diagnose the level of development of listening skills;
4. develop and conduct a series of lessons on teaching listening comprehension at the middle stage of learning English;
5. evaluate the effectiveness of the work performed.
Chapter 1. Theoretical foundations of teaching listening to a foreign language text
1.1 Listening as a type of speech activity
Speech activity is an active, purposeful process of transmitting or receiving a message, mediated by the language system and determined by the communication situation. Activity is a system of creative skills that is aimed at solving various communicative problems.
The form of speech is divided into 2 types: oral and written. Also, types of speech activity differ on the basis of productive / receptive. Accordingly, there are 4 main types of speech activity:
| Forms | Receptive view | Productive view |
| oral | listening | speaking |
| written | reading | letter |
Oral communication consists of speaking and listening, which is called listening in the methodology. The concepts of “listening” and “listening” are not synonymous. Listening means only the acoustic perception of a scale, and listening- this is the process of perceiving sounding speech, in addition to listening, it also involves hearing, understanding and interpreting the information perceived by ear.
Listening can act as an independent type of speech activity (for example, long-term perception and recognition of reports, lectures and other oral presentations) or enter into dialogic communication as its receptive component, i.e. be one of the parties to the conversation.
Listening is a very complex type of speech activity, since the processes of listening in real communication are irreversible and practically impossible to analyze and record. What has already been said irrevocably “flies away”, new information replaces the old, there is not enough time to think about the incoming information, and therefore understanding is often not achieved and the communication process can be nullified.
The success of listening depends on the listener himself (on the degree of development of speech hearing, memory, on his attention, interest, etc.), on the other hand, on the conditions of perception (temporal characteristics, number and form of presentations, duration of sound) and, finally, on linguistic features - linguistic and structural-compositional complexities of speech messages and their correspondence to the speech experience and knowledge of students. Let us turn to a more detailed analysis of the factors listed above. Individually - the age characteristics of the listeners. It is generally accepted that listening is associated with difficulties of an objective nature that do not depend on the listener.
At the same time, the success of listening depends on the listener’s ability to use probabilistic forecasting and transfer skills developed in their native language to a foreign language. Of great importance are such individual characteristics of the student as his resourcefulness and intelligence, the ability to listen and quickly respond to all kinds of signals of oral communication (pauses, logical stresses, rhetorical questions, etc.), the ability to switch from one mental operation to another, to quickly enter in the subject of the message, etc. These skills develop in the process of learning many subjects, and in high school students generally master the culture of speech, both in terms of its generation and perception. A foreign language should also make a certain contribution to the solution of this important problem for secondary schools.
The success of listening depends, in particular, on the need to learn something new, on the presence of interest in the topic, on the awareness of the objective need to learn, etc., i.e. from the so-called subjective factors that contribute to the emergence of an attitude towards cognitive activity.
Thoughtful organization of the educational process, clarity and logic of presentation, maximum reliance on active mental activity, a variety of teaching methods, clarification of perception tasks allows you to create internal motivation, direct students' attention to points that will help program future practical activities with the perceived material.
Depending on the target setting preceding listening, perception will be either passive or active. IN the latter case the listener will be able to quickly engage in “search activity”, successfully put forward hypotheses, test them and correct them, and better remember the logic and sequence of presentation.
The target setting can have both a positive and negative impact on the nature of perception and memorization of content, i.e. it can make perception more accurate or, on the contrary, erroneous if the listener, under the influence of what is expected, attributes non-existent signs to the perceived phenomena.
The pace of speech depends on the importance of the information contained in individual parts of the message. More important information is given more slowly, by emphasizing the length of vowels, while unimportant information is given more quickly.
The nature of the messages also matters. It is known, for example, that an emphatically colored reading of a poem takes place at a rather slow pace.
Longer pausing, as experimental tests show, improves probabilistic forecasting and makes it possible to fill gaps in understanding based on the general meaning of the received message. Speech messages must be presented not only by the teacher, but also using special means.
For effective teaching of listening, it is of no small importance to correctly decide the question of the advisability of repeated presentation of the same speech message and the duration of its sound. Experiments conducted in a school classroom revealed a very noticeable dependence of understanding on the number of presentations, especially at the initial stage of learning. Thus, according to some studies, repeated listening to a message improves understanding by 16.5%, third - by 12.7% (compared to the second), subsequent listening does not provide a significant improvement in speech understanding.
Thus, Listening is a complex receptive type of speech activity. This process has a number of difficulties associated with the process of listening to speech, memorizing it, its pace, and the nature of its presentation.
1.2 Goals and content of listening training
In a modern foreign language program, the main goal of teaching listening comprehension is to develop students’ ability to understand by ear:
· Foreign language speech, built on program material with the assumption of a certain amount of unfamiliar vocabulary in the conditions of direct communication in various communication situations;
· Educational and authentic audio texts with varying degrees and depth of penetration into their content (within the framework of program requirements);
· Basic information (global understanding);
· Necessary information (selective understanding);
· Complete information (detailed understanding).
Let's look at these types of listening in more detail.
In global listening, the listener is, as a rule, only interested in the general content of the information, its main topic. In texts reporting on any events, we are interested in finding out what happened, where, when, and who was involved in the event. In this case, we pay attention only to what is understood. Global listening is only a general, primary orientation in an audio text.
Sometimes global listening is not enough, since the listener may be interested in some details, details, for example, names, quantitative data, etc. in this case we use detailed (exploratory) listening. However, to understand the details, you must first understand the general content of the text. Thus, detailed and global listening occur simultaneously, which naturally makes detailed comprehension difficult. For learning purposes, it is necessary to separate these processes from each other: during the first listening, global understanding should be achieved, and during the second, detailed understanding. This type of listening is convenient in dialogue, discussion, and lecture. But in real situations it is used extremely rarely. The mistake of many teachers is that they ask students to listen to almost every text in detail. Most often, in an audio text, we are still interested in some specific information.
Global and selective listening are the most “economical” auditing strategies, constantly used in the native language.
Students must master all types of listening: within the framework of the basic course (by the end of 9th grade) achieve elementary communicative competence (survival level), by the end of the supra-basic course - the threshold level.
The content of listening training includes linguistic(including linguistic, cultural and sociocultural) component, i.e. language and speech material, regional studies, linguocultural and sociocultural knowledge; psychological component, which represents psychophysiological mechanisms and actions for their use in the listening process, communication skills and abilities; methodological component- a set of educational and compensating skills, which, together with speech skills, constitute a strategy for understanding audio text.
As noted above, the linguistic component of the learning content consists of language and speech material - lexical, grammatical, phonetic. However, the material of greatest interest is at the text level. Therefore, the issue of text selection requirements should be considered in more detail.
The psychological component of the learning content is, first of all, actions that ensure the functioning of listening mechanisms, as well as actions with specific language and speech material, which, thanks to exercises, turns into skills and abilities. The following 6 skills are distinguished as basic listening skills:
· Separate the important from the secondary;
· Determine the subject of the message;
· Divide the text into semantic connections;
· Establish logical connections;
· Highlight the main idea;
· Perceive messages at a certain pace, a certain activity, to the end without skipping.
There is also a slightly different group of skills:
· Perceive, segment (separate) the flow of speech and differentiate (distinguish) perceived sounds and complexes;
· Integrate (combine) them into semantic blocks;
· Keep them in mind while listening;
· Carry out probabilistic forecasting (linguistic and semantic);
· Based on communication situations, understand what is perceived.
General educational and compensatory skills that make up the methodological component of the content of teaching listening include the ability to take notes during listening, use supports, avoid difficulties, use information that precedes listening (pictures, plans, keywords), as well as relying on your life experience, knowledge of the subject of the message. All these skills are complex. They are based on the synchronous operation of many mechanisms and on the structure of listening as a type of speech activity.
When determining the difficulty of a text, the method of transmission is taken into account main idea- inductive or deductive, presentation form - auditory, audiovisual. In addition, the relevance of the text to a specific style and genre, and the sphere of communication are taken into account.
Taking into account the above, three groups of texts can be distinguished, differing in varying degrees of complexity:
1) Easy texts
· compiled (educational) and semi authentic texts colloquial - literary, scientific - popular and artistic styles in the genre of message or plot narration with a simple sequential presentation;
· the main idea is expressed explicitly at the beginning of the text;
· sphere of communication: informal, in the form of a simple monologue or dialogue - message/request for information;
2) texts of average difficulty :
· authentic and semi-authentic texts of colloquial - literary, scientific - popular or artistic style in the genre of conversation, message, description with a consistent and simple presentation;
· the main idea is expressed at the beginning or in the middle of the text;
· sphere of communication: official and informal; monologue - description/narration; dialogue - questioning/explanation; polylogue with a limited number of storylines;
3) difficult texts :
· authentic texts of journalistic, popular science and artistic styles in the genre of conversation, interview, report, description;
· the main idea is expressed at the end of the text or not explicitly expressed;
· informal sphere of communication, polylogue with various storylines, monologue in dialogue.
Thus, The main goal of teaching listening is to develop students' ability to listen to foreign speech. The content of listening training includes three components: linguistic, psychological and methodological. Texts for teaching listening comprehension can be divided into three degrees of difficulty: easy, medium and difficult texts.
1.3 Listening difficulties
It is known that in teaching practice, the methodology for teaching listening is the least developed. One of the main reasons for the lack of attention to listening on the part of methodologists and teachers is the fact that until recently, listening was considered an easy skill. There was a point of view that if, when teaching oral speech, the teacher concentrates all efforts on speaking and ensures mastery of this skill, then students will learn to understand speech spontaneously, without special targeted training. The incorrectness of this point of view has been proven both by theory and practice.
So, those teachers who think that the ability to speak at least a little in a foreign language also ensures the ability to freely understand oral speech within the same limits are very mistaken. Although these two skills are in a certain relationship. Their uniform development can be achieved only by using special graduated exercises to develop the ability to understand oral speech in different communication conditions.
Undoubtedly, the most significant difficulty in auditing should be considered the auditor’s lack of ability to regulate activities. Listening is the only type of speech activity in which nothing depends on the person performing it. The listener, unlike the reader, writer or speaker, is powerless to change the activity being performed, to facilitate it, to adapt it to his capabilities and thereby create favorable conditions for receiving information.
In the methodology, there are two ways to deal with difficulties: eliminating them or overcoming them.
Removing difficulties naturally makes it easier to master listening and gives quick and tangible results. Therefore, teachers often strive to make students’ activities as easy as possible. However, such artificially facilitated listening does not prepare for the perception of natural speech, since all the eliminated difficulties are present in it, and the student is not prepared to overcome them.
Since the main goal of training is to prepare the student for verbal communication in natural conditions, the learning process will only be purposeful and effective when already at this time the student has encountered the difficulties of natural speech and learned to overcome them. Consequently, it seems to us that the correct thing to do is not eliminate, but gradually and consistently overcome difficulties in the learning process. It should also be noted that excessively facilitating activity does not contribute to its improvement. As psychologists point out, the most effective is such training in any activity that is carried out under conditions of high tension in the individual’s psyche, mobilization of his will and attention, and the clear functioning of all mental mechanisms.
In order to focus listening training on overcoming difficulties and on this basis developing skills that can function successfully in natural conditions, it is necessary to clearly imagine these difficulties.
Let's look at these difficulties in more detail.
1. The most numerous group of difficulties seems to be related to the conditions of perception:
· One-time and short-term presentation of information, which requires the listener to quickly react when perceiving the sounding text;
· Pace set by the speaker. The average rate of English speech is 250 syllables per minute, German - 220 syllables, French - 330 (measured in syllables, since German words are much longer than English and French). Thus, the average German word consists of 6 - 13 letters, and the average English word consists of 4 - 5 letters;
· Source of listening: live partner in conversation, sounding speech from an audio cassette, speaker, radio text, timbre, voice strength, individual characteristics of speech, deviation from standard pronunciation, gender (male or female voice), age (child or adult voice);
1. The next group of difficulties is related to the perception of linguistic form:
· The presence in the information of homonyms (words belonging to the same part of speech and sounding the same, but different in meaning);
· The presence of homophones (words that sound alike but have different spellings);
· Use of words in a figurative meaning, polysemantic words;
Language difficulties distract the listener from the content, making it difficult to understand.
2. Difficulties associated with the content of the audio text:
· Understanding of facts (numbers, dates, proper names, geographical names, etc.);
· Understanding the logic of presentation due to information overload;
· Understanding of the general idea.
3. Difficulties associated with the form of presentation of audio text.
Research proves that it is easiest to perceive a teacher’s speech illustrated visually, it is more difficult to perceive speech without visual aids, audio texts from an audio cassette, and the most difficult are texts on the radio. Having studied various forms of presentation of audio texts (audio text with illustrations, listening based on printed text and without support, presentation of audio text), it is believed that listening comprehension of the text depends on:
· On the complexity of the text (the more complex the text, the more support is required to overcome difficulties);
· Listening skills of students (the more competent and experienced students are, the faster they are able to abandon the support of printed text and other illustrations, the faster they can move on to listening to texts without pauses);
· Educational goals and objectives (if the goal is to prepare students for a real situation and develop truly auditing competence, the printed basis should be abandoned). It is unlikely that in a real communication situation there will be a need to perceive information through the auditory and visual channels simultaneously. True auditing competence is formed only through “pure” listening.
4. There are difficulties associated with the perception of a certain type of speech activity and type of statement. Most researchers believe that monologue texts are easier to perceive than dialogical ones, and among monologues, plot texts are much easier to perceive than descriptive ones.
5. A special group consists of difficulties associated with mastering sociolinguistic and sociocultural competence. Lack of knowledge of the norms of language use in accordance with the situation, lack of knowledge of situational options for expressing the same intention, ignorance of the rules and social norms of behavior of native speakers, traditions, history, and culture can make it difficult to interpret the partner’s speech behavior and understand the information perceived by ear.
As you can see, listening is indeed a very complex type of speech activity. Much of the difficulty occurs in natural communication, since we cannot go back to what we have heard and rewind the tape. In addition, in a situation of natural communication there is a lot of distracting interference - street noise, audience noise, music, laughter, etc. But as some wise person said, if you cannot change the situation, you need to change your attitude towards it. To do this, you need to know how listening functions and understand its mechanisms.
Thus, listening has many difficulties. Difficulties associated with perception, with the form of presentation of the text, with the conditions of perception. Listening training is aimed at overcoming these difficulties.
1.4 Listening mechanisms
Listening as any process is based on certain psychophysiological mechanisms: perception, recognition and understanding.
To the mechanisms perception include the mechanism of internal pronunciation, operational and long-term memory, identification (comparison), anticipation (probabilistic forecasting). Let's look at them in more detail.
The success of listening depends on the size of the “operational unit of perception,” which is closely related to the mechanism of auditory memory. The process of understanding an audio text and the possibility of its interpretation depends on the ability to retain perceived segments of speech in memory. Auditory RAM retains words and phrases until the information heard is comprehended.
As you know, auditory reception of information is impossible without the participation of internal pronunciation. The effect of understanding depends on the success of the “internal imitation” of audible speech. Thanks to the mechanism of internal pronunciation, sound images turn into articulatory ones, and an “internal imitation” of the perceived audio fragment occurs. If we imitate correctly, then we perceive correctly.
In the process of speech perception, there is a continuous comparison of incoming signals with those models that are stored in our memory. Comparison is closely connected with a person’s past experience, with his feelings and emotions. The better the long-term memory is developed, the better the mechanism of comparison - recognition (identification) operates.
Using the concept identification mechanism, the listener determines which of the lexical-semantic variants of the sounding word is actualized in the speaker’s speech.
Researchers have found that even before the start of perception, as soon as the listening attitude appears, the articulatory organs already show minimal activity. Due to this, certain patterns are aroused in the listener's cognition. Such pre-tuning is the basis for the action of the anticipation or forecasting mechanism, which makes it possible to predict their end from the beginning of a word or phrase. There are linguistic and semantic forecasting.
Imagine hearing the beginning of a phrase. Having some language experience, it is not difficult for you to guess what word this phrase will end with. Linguistic forecasting is facilitated by the skill of word combinations. Knowing the rules of combinability of lexical units, students are more and less likely to be able to predict the content of incoming information, since the combinability of words in the language is limited.
Semantic forecasting is provided by the context, the communication situation, personal experience listener, his knowledge. The success of semantic prediction largely depends on the expectations of the listener.
Imagine that you, for example, know that the text you are about to hear contains an interview with a high school student about how his family celebrates German Christmas. It is quite natural that you expect to hear questions about who, when and how decorates the Christmas tree in the family, what is on festive table, what gifts are customary to give, whether he likes to spend Christmas with his family or with friends at a disco, etc.
The richer our knowledge about the world, about a specific topic or situation, the richer our vocabulary, the higher our ability to predict content and use context clues.
So, the main mechanisms of perception (recognition) of listening are the mechanisms of auditory memory, internal pronunciation, operational and long-term memory, identification (comparison) of concepts, probabilistic forecasting (anticipation).
But recognition is not yet understanding. The basis of understanding is the mechanism of comprehension, which functions already at the level of actual awareness on the basis of analytical and synthetic activity of the brain. The comprehension mechanism “compresses phrases and individual text fragments by omitting details and, leaving only semantic milestones in memory, frees it up to receive a new piece of information.”
The main characteristics of understanding are completeness, accuracy, depth.
The depth of penetration into the meaning of the perceived information indicates the level of understanding. As a rule, there are two main levels of understanding: the meaning of language units (level of facts) and meaning (critical).
But there is no single concept on this matter. Many researchers (A.R. Luria) identify the following levels of understanding the text:
· Fragmentary (individual lexical units);
· Global (message topics);
· Detailed (facts);
· Critical (subtext).
Levels of understanding allow us to judge student learning levels and specify learning goals.
In addition to the internal mechanisms discussed above, listening, like any type of speech activity, also has its own unique horizontal structure. Researchers (I.A. Zimnyaya) distinguish three phases in listening: motivational - incentive, analytical - synthetic, and executive. A.A. Leontiev speaks about the need to separate the control phase.
The motivational - incentive phase is set in motion by the communicative task. Students need to be told before listening what they will be listening to and what they specifically need to hear. The motive is created, as a rule, by an interesting exposition, a conversation about the author, the theme of the work. In natural communication, the source of the motive for perception and understanding is the topic of communication and the interlocutor himself (his manner of communication, ability to attract the attention of the listener, etc.).
The analytical-synthetic phase is the main part of listening. This is where the perception and processing of information coming through the auditory canal occurs. With the help of the mechanisms described above (auditory memory, prediction, identification, etc.), inference occurs - the result of understanding.
All these processes, including the result of listening itself, are hidden, i.e. The executive phase in listening merges with the analytical-synthetic phase.
In real communication, the result of listening, i.e. understanding (or misunderstanding) remains, as a rule, hidden and unobservable. In a learning situation, understanding must be made observable in order to teach this type of speech activity. That is why understanding is brought to the external plane, which is carried out during the control phase. With the help of verbal or non-verbal reactions on the part of students, the teacher must seek feedback: they understood or did not understand, they succeeded or failed to solve the communicative task.
Experience shows that teaching listening, taking into account the functioning of its psychophysiological mechanisms and structure as a type of speech activity, gives positive results: the auditory canal becomes a reliable communication channel that ensures high quality information reception. Well-developed listening skills of students are one of the main conditions for successful mastery of a foreign language, since in the conditions of the communicative orientation of the educational process, listening, in addition to its main function, the communicative one, also performs many auxiliary functions. It plays the role of a stimulator and management of the educational process, as it acts as a means of developing skills (lexical, grammatical, phonetic) and abilities in all types of speech activity. Perception of information by ear takes up from 40 to 60 hours in a lesson, according to scientists: this is the perception of the speech of the teacher and classmates, the perception of information in sound recordings, watching video clips, etc. that is why it is necessary to specially teach this type of speech activity, taking into account its specificity and complexity of mechanisms.
Thus, the listening process is accompanied by the mechanisms of perception, recognition and understanding. All these mechanisms are hidden, so it is necessary to specially teach listening, taking into account its specificity and the complexity of the mechanisms.
1.5 System of exercises for teaching listening
Teaching listening and developing skills involves the gradual formation of receptive listening skills when working with phonetic, lexical and grammatical material, i.e. skills in recognizing and understanding words, phrases, grammatical design of lexical units of different levels in phrases, sentences and related texts.
Auditory skill – understanding a coherent text.
Since listening is an internal activity hidden from observation, it is advisable to teach its component actions specifically, making them the object of purposeful formation.
Methodists Filatov V.M. divide audit exercises into preparatory and speech exercises. Preparatory ones are aimed at overcoming certain difficulties of listening and at developing its mechanisms. Speech represents controlled speech activity, since they provide listening practice based on comprehensive overcoming of audit difficulties, involve semantic perception of speech reproduction in conditions approaching natural communication and the implementation of the communicative function of audio activity, are aimed at improving the process of semantic perception and achieving a certain level of understanding .
Let's consider the system of preparatory exercises by V.M. Filatov.
Preparatory exercises Some methodologists call them orienting, preparing for the actual listening.
These are exercises for the perception and recognition of sounds, sound combinations, words, phrases, intonation patterns of phrases, grammatical forms of words, for example:
· Listen to the words and raise your hand if there is a long sound in the word;
· Listen to a few sentences and raise your hand when you hear a question sentence;
· Using signal cards (“.”, “?”, “!”), determine the type of sentence;
· Listen to the words and choose those that match the picture;
Exercises in repeating words, phrases, phrases, and texts play a big role. This type of exercise is called basic, as it helps to develop such important listening mechanisms as speech hearing, memory, articulation, and probabilistic forecasting.
A special place is occupied by the exercise of repeating expanding syntagmas (“snowball”).
Among the preparatory exercises, exercises to develop the mechanism of probabilistic forecasting are important:
· Listen to the beginning of the words and finish them;
· Listen to the beginning of the phrases and complete them;
· Listen to the words to the audio text and name its topic;
Structural signals play a major role in the development of predictive skills: conjunctions, allied words, adverbs, etc.
Verbs and nouns also serve as signal structures.
Exercises in teaching comparison (identification) focus students on comparing the meanings of familiar lexical units, phrases that correspond or do not correspond to speech passages, on defining and identifying words, phrases, phrases that were absent when the text was first presented, for example:
· Listen to the sentences and replace the word with another word;
· Listen to two sentences and say how they differ from each other. What clarifying information appeared in the second sentence?
· Listen to the sentences and mark those that do not correspond to the content of the text you listened to.
It should be said that the division of exercises in accordance with the mechanisms being formed is arbitrary, since listening is a single, spontaneous process during which students simultaneously carry out all the actions of semantic processing of information.
In general, the preparatory exercises are based on analytical-synthetic activity, which is realized by the students, as a result of which all the necessary listening mechanisms are formed and developed.
Speech exercises are often called exercises in listening proper, which are performed at the level of a complete speech whole, i.e. expanded text:
· Listen and understand who or what is meant;
· Title what you listened to;
· Break the audio text into meaningful pieces;
· Write down the main content in the form of keywords;
· Convey content in your native language.
The choice of one or another speech exercise depends on the type of listening (global, selective, detailed).
Working with audio text requires a clear sequence in the actions of the teacher and students: preliminary instruction and preliminary assignment; process of perception of audio text; tasks that monitor understanding.
A communicative task or instruction, setting plays an extremely important role, since it focuses on the result of listening: listen to the text, understand its general content and title it, answer questions (who is doing what, where, when, with whom, for what), draw what you heard. The communicative attitude orients students towards the conscious and purposeful extraction of information. It prevents attention from being scattered and helps you concentrate on the main thing. According to psychologists, correct and precise installation can increase the effectiveness of understanding by 25 percent.
In addition to communicative tasks, it is also necessary to give clear instructions on how to listen: understand only the main content of the message or all the details; understand the content based on guesswork, avoiding interference, what supports to use in the process of perceiving and comprehending information.
Speech exercises with audio text are performed before listening, during listening and after listening.
Exercises before listening to the text.
The purpose of these exercises is to prepare students to perceive an audio text, introduce them to the topic, update their existing knowledge and experience, create a motive for upcoming activities, remove possible difficulties, “turn on” the mechanism of expectation and forecasting using:
· Associationograms;
· Visual impulses in the form of pictures, photographs, graphs;
I would especially like to dwell on such a technique as the “associagram”. Let's imagine that students are going to hear a text about football as one of the popular sports in England. Before listening, the teacher asks you to name all the words that are associated with the concept of “football.” He writes the word “football” on the board, and students name the words. Work can take place in pairs or individually. The emerging associations are called by students in both the foreign and native languages. In the second option, the teacher can translate the words himself and write them down in a foreign language, or he can (after the associogram has been compiled) offer to find the translation of the words in a dictionary.
After listening, the teacher suggests underlining (highlighting) in the associogram the words that appear in the text and supplementing the associogram with a number of words from the listened text that are important for a global understanding of the information.
Exercises while listening to audio text.
While listening to the text, students must understand its meaning and the communicative intention of the speaker, retain in memory what they have learned from the text and evaluate it (interesting, important, useful, educational or not). During the listening process, students answer questions, perform actions to correlate (illustrations, plan points with content), take notes (dates, names, geographical names), recognize the type of text,
characters, context, ordering of text fragments or dialogue lines.
Most of these exercises involve the use of various working materials in the process of perceiving audio texts: a list of words, maps, a city plan. While listening to the text, students are asked to:
· Mark in the picture (diagram) the names of the places of events discussed in the text;
· Number the objects mentioned in the text in the picture;
· Use the city plan to get from one place (from the train station) to another (youth center...);
· Find the “treasure” using a map of the area;
Exercises after listening to the text.
Post-text assignments involve students in active creative activity, serve to control understanding and successful communication. These are exercises of a text nature (right - wrong, yes - no), answering questions, drawing up a plan, retelling, completing the text, conversation, discussion, evaluating the characters, their actions and the text itself, etc.
Let's consider another classification of speech exercises in listening.
1. Exercises for learning to perceive dialogic speech “from the outside.”
· Listen to the dialogue, make up a similar one on the same topic.
· Listen to the beginning of the dialogue, expand and complement the last remark of one of the partners.
· Listen to a film fragment and retell the conversation between the characters.
2. Exercises for teaching the perception of dialogic speech when participating in dialogue.
1. Listen to a series of questions recorded on an audio tape. Give detailed answers in the pause provided for this.
2. Listen to the beginning of the dialogue (polylogue), continue it in pair work.
3. As you perceive the dialogue in the audio recording (or a fragment of the film), replace the remarks of one of the characters with synonymous expressions. Then reproduce the dialogue in a new version in pair work.
3. Exercises for teaching the perception of monologue speech.
· Listen to the text, answer the questions in detail.
· Play back what you listened to with some modification of the end (beginning, middle).
· Watch the film and explain its main idea.
Let's consider a system of exercises for teaching listening, developed by methodologist N.D. Galskova.
The components of the exercise system are, as is known, groups, types, types of exercises and their arrangement, corresponding to the sequence of formation of skills and abilities, the number of exercises, the form and place of their implementation. Of these components, only the reasoned sequence of exercises remains constant; other components will change depending on the nature of the audio texts, the language background of students, the complexity of communicative tasks and other factors. For example, when perceiving an easy text by ear, there is no need for elementary operations, to which we include imitation, distinguishing between phoneme oppositions or close intonation patterns, identifying synonyms, splitting the text into smaller semantic pieces, etc. A well-prepared student, as is known, does not need exercises that develop the perceptual-sensory base, since he has technical listening skills, including phonemic and intonation hearing, instant receptive combination of words and sentences, predictive skills, etc.
In the domestic methodology, two subsystems of exercises are most often distinguished: training/preparatory and speech/communicative.
The training/preparatory exercise subsystem is an extremely important link common system exercises, although this is not yet speech activity, but the creation of the basis and means for its implementation. It is designed to provide the technical side of listening, remove the linguistic and psychological difficulties of semantic perception, and develop the skills of logical and semantic processing of lower-level signs - from words to microtexts.
The subsystem of speech/communication exercises promotes the development of skills to perceive speech messages in conditions approaching natural speech communication (contact and distant), without support, tips and preliminary familiarization with the situation or topic, the exercises teach:
· identify the most informative parts of the message;
· eliminate problems in understanding by predicting at the text level;
· relate the content to the communication situation;
·divide the audio text into semantic parts and determine the main idea in each of them;
· combine disparate semantic pieces into a whole text;
·use perception guidelines (pauses, stress, intonation, rhetorical questions, repetitions, clichés, etc.) to create an attitude to perform a certain activity with a speech message;
A person who speaks a foreign language at the level of its native speakers can purposefully correlate the content with the linguistic form and situation of communication, which makes it possible to separate objective information from subjective information.
Galskova also divides exercises for teaching listening into preparatory and speaking exercises. Let's look at them in more detail.
Preparatory exercises.
1. Exercises for training speech hearing.
· Listen and repeat a few pairs of words:
· Identify rhyming words by ear, mark them with numbers, for example:
Sort – pot – part – port (1,4)
· listen to pairs of sentences, put in the graphic key (on the card) “+” if the sentences are the same, and “-” if they are different;
2. Exercises for teaching probabilistic forecasting:
· listen to a number of adjectives (verbs), name the nouns that are most often used with them;
· name the meanings of words formed from elements known to you, for example:
thankful, thank1ess (thank)
· listen to a number of speech formulas, name (in your native or foreign language) the situations in which they can be used;
3. Exercises for the development of short-term and verbal-logical memory:
· listen to a number of isolated words, remember and reproduce from them those that relate to the same topic;
· listen to two or three short phrases, combine them into one sentence;
4. Exercises in recognizing realities and abbreviations by ear:
· listen to phrases containing realities; translate them (write down the realities in the process of perception);
· listen to the text containing realities; group the realities you understand (proper names, geographical names, names of institutions, etc.). Test yourself using the graphic key;
5. Exercises in the development of word-formation and contextual guessing:
· listen to a number of verbs, form nouns from them with the suffix - er, for example:
to listen – listener
· listen to complex and derivative words formed from word-forming affixes (or words) known to you, translate them (or explain their use in a sentence);
· determine the meaning of international words by context and their sound form;
Speech exercises.
Speech exercises should be carried out on texts that have significant potential in terms of solving communicative and cognitive problems. When perceiving them, the linguistic form must be realized at the level of involuntary attention, unless we are talking about the most perfect, so-called critical level of understanding.
Taking into account the need to manage the formation of speech skills, as well as the importance of the interaction of listening and speaking in the subsystem of speech exercises, it is advisable to distinguish groups for the following purposes:
a) exercises for partially guided listening training;
b) exercises for unguided listening learning;
c) exercises to develop the skills of semantic processing and recording of perceived information.
The essence of management is the ability to influence the course of a process or state. The specificity of management is that it is purposeful and the purpose of management is set in advance.
If we compare individual groups of speech exercises with each other, it is easy to notice that the exercises are performed in conditions that facilitate semantic perception by ear, making it more targeted, prompted from the point of view of the direction of thought, clarification of the communication situation, etc.
The increase in difficulties occurs due to the complication of the linguistic form of the speech message, increasing the volume of the text, varying various sources of information, reducing/eliminating visual supports, eliminating instructions that precede semantic perception by ear, etc.
The effectiveness of exercises for partially guided listening learning depends on the repeatability of individual techniques, which is extremely important for the initial stage, the involvement of other analyzers along with the auditory, especially visual, sustained attention and the presence of creative, predictive mental activity. As a result of performing the exercises of this group, a certain “getting used to” occurs to the conditions of presentation of texts, adjustment to a given listening mode, and stable performance. As for visual supports, their use should be considered not only as a control element, but also as a means of individualizing learning.
1. Exercises for partially guided listening training:
· look at the picture/series of drawings, listen to the text describing this situation. While listening, choose one of the sentences for the name of the painting/series of drawings;
· familiarize yourself with the plan of the city center of London (Berlin, Paris), listen to a description of this center. Retell the content of the text in a foreign language, based on the plan, as well as realities and proper names written on the board;
· listen to the text based on keywords/plan. Distribute the words/points of the plan into
sequence reflecting the content of the text;
· listen to the text based on a series of drawings, continue the dialogue/description, matching it with the final drawing;
· listen to the beginning of the dialogue, expand and supplement the final remark of one of the partners;
2. Exercises for unguided listening training:
· listen to the text in a recording, divide it into semantic parts and title them/make a plan;
· listen to a fragment of a movie/radio game, play this scene;
· listen to a fragment of dialogical speech, retell the content of the conversation in the form of a monologue;
· listen to the text, characterize the communication situation;
3. Exercises for developing the skills of semantic processing and fixation of information perceived by ear:
· listen to the text, write an annotation/thesis;
· listen to the text, try to fill in all the factual, including digital, material. Group it by degree of importance, give reasons for your decision;
· compare the listened audio text with a graphic text on a similar topic. Compare the content based on similarities/differences, give a reasoned assessment.
Thus, each methodologist has his own system of exercises for teaching listening, but they have similarities: both of them distinguish two groups of exercises - preparatory and speech. Also exercises before, during and after listening to the text. Each exercise is aimed at developing students' listening skills and abilities.
1.6 Monitoring the development of listening skills
The composition of operations into which the perception of spoken speech is divided at different stages of education in secondary school is not the same and depends on the level of development of listening skills. A beginner learning a language performs more extensive analytical-synthetic activity, which, as learning progresses, turns into a compressed automated process of recognizing words and entire sentences.
Since the purpose of any control is to determine the level of development of speech skills and how accurately and completely students have perceived a particular audio text, then before talking about ways to check understanding, it is advisable to address the issue of levels of perception and understanding.
The most famous in relation to listening is the typology of A. R. Luria, who distinguishes four levels of understanding: the level of words, the level of sentences, the level of a complex syntactic whole (semantic) piece and the text level.
The main difference between these levels is the depth, completeness and accuracy of understanding, as well as the complexity of the operations performed by the listener. Comprehension at the word level is fragmentary and depends on the relationship between the listener's productive, receptive and potential vocabulary and on his ability to use the determining function of phrases and context.
Control should also be included in the program of actions with audio texts. Before listening, students should be informed about how the result of understanding will be checked: should they, after perceiving the text, answer questions, complete a multiple choice test or a cloze test, draw up a plan for the text or put things in order in the proposed plan, write down key words or write down them into the proposed table, classifying them in accordance with the perceived information, etc. The palette of tasks for monitoring understanding is very diverse. The main criterion when choosing a particular test task is the purpose of working with the audio text and the type of listening (global, selective, detailed). One can hardly count on successful listening if students, oriented before listening to a general, global understanding of a single perception of an audio text, must answer questions that require detailed understanding.
Here are examples of some tasks to monitor understanding. After listening:
· confirm or refute statements;
· select illustrations for the text;
· organize the points of the plan;
· mark the route plan on the map;
· perform a multiple choice test (out of 3 - 4 statements - one is correct, the rest are distractors);
· perform a recovery test (students listen to the text twice. The second time the text is presented with gaps at predetermined intervals, for example, every 7th word. The students’ task is to write down the missing words in order);
· perform an alternative test (yes - no, “+”, “- ~);
· select a text title from several proposed options.
Conclusion according to chapter 1. Listening is a complex type of speech activity and has its own characteristics associated with listening difficulties. Also, the listening process has its own specific psychophysiological mechanisms, such as perception, recognition and understanding of a foreign language text. The process of teaching listening has its own goals and content of teaching listening, various types of foreign language texts. The listening process has systems of training exercises that were developed by different methodologists (Filatova, Galskova). By viewing these systems, you can identify similarities and differences between them. In both systems, exercises are divided into two types: preparatory and speech; in the first system, speech exercises are divided into exercises before, during and after listening to the text; in the second system, speech exercises are divided into exercises for partially guided learning of listening, for unguided learning of listening, and exercises for developing the skills of semantic processing and fixation of information perceived by ear.
2.1 Diagnostics of the level of development of text listening skills of 6th grade students
The theoretical principles presented in the previous chapters of this work have been tested in practice. The study was carried out using the method of natural-experimental learning without disturbing the normal course of the educational process.
The work was carried out with an experimental subgroup of students (10 people) of grade 6 “B” of Municipal Educational Institution Secondary School No. 24. The experiment was based on the teaching and learning complex “English 4” by I.N. Vereshchagina, O.V. Afanasyeva.
The goal is to identify the level of development of foreign language text listening skills and conduct initial diagnostics of 6th grade students.
Initial diagnostics were carried out with a subgroup of students with different levels of knowledge in the field of English.
Students were asked to listen to the text “The Discovery of America” (see Appendix No. 1) and complete the following tasks based on the text:
Task No. 1
Choose the right option:
1) America is the name of two continents:
a. North America and south America,
b. Europe and Asia,
c. Arctic and Antarctic.
2) First of all America is the name of:
3) Columbus was born in…
4) Columbus discovered the...
b) New continent,
c) New mountain.
5) At first Columbus was going to sail to ...
6) People began to speak about the land as…
a) “the Old World”
b) “ the New World"
c) “the New Country”
Task No. 2.
Goal: to identify the level of development of foreign language text listening skills
1) The word America means the name of the country and the name of the two continents.
2) Christopher Columbus discovered the new continent America.
3) Christopher Columbus discovered the new continent in 1492.
4) Nobody remembers Columbus's voyage.
5) People know everything about this famous discoverer.
6) Columbus was born in Spain.
Task No. 3
Answer the questions.
1) How is the name of the country which is located in America?
2) When Columbus discovered America?
3) Where was Columbus born?
4) How many miles did Columbus sail?
5) Who gave Columbus money?
6) What the country did Columbus think he discover?
Results:
In the course of listening to a foreign language text with students, I identified gaps in the students’ knowledge. Many students cannot perceive and understand the text at a fragmentary level. There were also difficulties related to the content of the audio text. The text contained dates, place names and proper names. I offered students quite a lot of supports to overcome these difficulties. Almost all students coped with the first task perfectly; the second task was more difficult for them. In the third task, students had to answer questions, since their foreign language speech is not sufficiently developed, then no one got excellent results in completing this task.
Thus, we can distinguish three levels of students’ development of text listening skills.
High level - students were able to correctly choose the correct option, refute or confirm the statement; but could not clearly answer the questions.
Intermediate level – students were able to choose the option correctly, did not confirm all correct statements, and answered questions poorly.
Low level - students were unable to choose the correct option out of 3 proposed, were unable to refute, refute or confirm the statement, and did not answer the questions.
Table No. 1 Results of diagnosing the level of development of foreign language text listening skills among students in grade 6 “B”
Diagram 1 Level of development of foreign language text listening skills among students in grade 6 “b”
Thus, as a result of the diagnostics, it can be seen that two students (Vladimir V., Olga K.) have a high level of formation of foreign language text listening skills. They coped with all the proposed tasks and made no mistakes during the work. The average level of formation of foreign language text listening skills was revealed in five students (Irina B., Oleg N., Dmitry A., Albina R., Kirill.T). These students also coped well with all the proposed tasks and were confused about geographical names. Three students (Mikhail K., Daria A., Alexander V.) showed a low level of formation of listening skills in a foreign language text. From all of the above, we can conclude that the level of proficiency in listening skills among students in grade 6B is average. The data obtained during the experiment allowed us to adjust further work with students.
2.2 Formation of foreign language text listening skills for 6th grade students
Teaching English in the 6th “b” grade is carried out according to the educational and methodological complex “English Language”, a textbook for the 4th grade of educational institutions, edited by I.N. Vereshchagina and O.V. Afanasyeva.
The educational and methodological kit consists of the following components:
· Textbook
· Teacher's book
· Workbook
· Sound aid.
The structure of the textbook provides listening tasks at the end of each lesson: texts contained in the teacher’s book and on audio cassettes, assignments for them in the workbook.
During the period of state practice, lessons on teaching listening were developed and taught, and systems of exercises were compiled to develop listening skills.
The study was conducted with a subgroup of students (10 people).
The purpose of this study is:
1. Development of students’ abilities to understand foreign language speech by ear, built on program material with the assumption of a certain amount of unfamiliar vocabulary.
2. Development of students’ abilities to perceive foreign language speech at different levels of understanding.
3. Teach students to cope with listening difficulties.
4. Develop students’ listening mechanisms using various types of exercises.
Fragment of lesson No. 1
Theme: “NativeAmericans.”
Goals: 1. Educational:
Formation of skills in listening to foreign language text.
2. Developmental:
Development of educational and information skills;
Expansion of vocabulary;
Development of memory, thinking, attention.
3. Educational:
Structure:
1. Organizational moment.
At first I’d like to ask you some questions.
Children, look at the pictures. Do you know who is this? What do they do? How do you think about what will be the text?
These words and word - combinations help you to understand the text. Please I read and then you repeat it after me.
Smoke a pipe, reservations, native, hunt, friendship, fisherman, wood.
Now we read some proper names from the text:
The Mississippi, Alaska, Siberia, Asia, Indians.
· Please repeat the next words after me:
Peace - peaceful
Color - colorful
Wonder - wonderful
Beauty - beautiful
The suffix –ful makes from nouns to adjective.
3. Formation of skills and abilities to listen to text.
Children, listen to the text and say who lived in America many years ago.
Native Americans came from Asia. Over 20,000 years ago they traveled across the land between Siberia and Alaska.
When English colonists came to the New World on board the "Mayflower" the Native Americans met them and were very friendly and helped them a lot. In those days people lived in small earth houses and grew their own food. Some Indians ate only grass, nuts and what fruit they could find. Other people were fishermen and lived in wooden houses. Most Native Americans were very peaceful. They wanted to live happily with nature and each other. They believed in many gods and thought that gods lived in trees, stones, water and fire. They believed their gods could bring success in hunting, farming and fishing. They often had special ceremonies with dancing and music before they went hunting or fishing or when they began farming.
Native American songs and poems are a very important part of their traditions as they help them to keep their history and culture alive.
Another famous tradition was smoking of a peace pipe. When they smoked this pipe together with people they didn't know, it meant friendship and peace.
Many years ago Native American tribes lived in all parts of the USA, and hunted and fished wherever they chose. Now most of them live in poor lands to the west of the Mississippi River. Many live on "reservations".
Task No. 1
Give the title of the text.
Task No. 2
Task No. 3
Answers to the following questions:
I. Where did Native Americans come from?
2. How did they travel?
3. Where did they live? What did they eat?
4. What did Native Americans believe in?
5. Where do most Native Americans live now?
Task No. 4
Fill in the words:
1. Native Americans came from….
2. Over 20,000 years ago they traveled across the land between … and ….
3. Other people were… and lived in wooden houses.
4. Most Native Americans were very….
5. Another famous… was smoking of a peace pipe.
6. Many years ago … … tribes lived in all parts of the USA.
Task No. 5
“Yes” or “no”:
1.Native Americans came from Africa.
2. Over 40,000 years ago they traveled across the land between Siberia and Alaska.
3. Some Indians ate only grass, nuts and what fruit they could find.
4. Most Native Americans were very evil.
5. Native Americans often had special ceremonies with dancing and music before they went hunting or fishing.
4. Summing up.
Fragment lesson №2
Theme: “the Wild West”.
Goals: 1. Educational:
2. Developmental:
3. Educational:
· Maintaining interest in learning a foreign language.
Objectives: 1. Train in listening to text.
Equipment: pictures, handouts, textbook.
Structure:
1. Organizational moment.
Good morning children! How are you today? What day is it today? Who is absent?
Today we have listening comprehensive lesson.
2. Preparation for the main stage.
Task No. 1
· Listen and repeat the pair of words.
· Repeat the words after me and try to guess their meaning:
Colony, negroes, plantation, rice, tobacco, attack, police, president.
Children, listen to the text and say why the Americans went west.
At the beginning of the 17th century the first colonies appeared in America. Many of them were English colonies, for example, New England. But there were also Spanish, German colonies there. African Negroes arrived as slaves in 1619 and began working on plantations situated in the South. They grew rice and tobacco.
There were 13 colonies in America, in 1733. The English King who lived in England, far away, was the King of New England and the other colonies. The colonists in America didn't like that. They didn't want to depend on the English King or on England. The Americans began to fight for their independence and got it. George Washington became the first president of the United States.
In the 18th century some Americans went to the west to look for new lands, and the story of "Wild West" began. In the 19th century people went west to look for gold. They built new settlements and new towns on these lands. Some people were lucky but some were not as they couldn't find any gold. Then they left the towns, so they became empty. Now these "ghost towns" are very popular with tourists.
Life in the Wild West was full of danger. The Native Americans in the west didn't like white people who took their land. Sometimes they attacked them.
There were bears and other wild animals and people had to have guns. Today many Americans still keep a gun in their houses and all American police officers have guns.
Task No. 2
Select the title of the text:
2. Colonies in America.
4. African Negroes.
Task No. 3
Distribute the points of the plan in the correct sequence:
1.Colonies in America.
2.George Washington.
3.Search for gold.
4. African Negroes as slaves.
5. Danger life in Wild West.
Task No. 4
Have you understood the main themes of the text? Then think over the questions and answer:
1. When did the first colonies appear in America?
2. Were all the colonies English?
3. How many colonies were there in America in 1733?
4. Why did the Americans begin to fight for their independence?
5. Where did Americans go in the 18th - 19th centuries and why?
6. Why did Americans have to wear guns?
Task No. 5
Try to retell the text.
4. Summing up.
Children, you worked very well today. All of you get a good mark.
Say me, what do you know today? Good bye
Fragment lesson №3
Theme: “American Symbols”.
Goals: 1. Educational:
· Formation of skills in listening to foreign language text.
2. Developmental:
· Development of educational and information skills;
· Expansion of vocabulary;
· Development of memory, thinking, attention.
3. Educational:
· Maintaining interest in learning a foreign language.
Objectives: 1. Train in listening to text.
Equipment: pictures, handouts, textbook.
Structure:
1. Organizational moment.
Today we have listening comprehensive lesson.
2. Preparation for the main stage.
Task No. 1
· Learn how to read these proper nouns.
New York, France, the Statue of Liberty, Liberty Island,
the Star - Spangled Banner.
Plate - state, cold - sold,
Better - letter, bell - sell,
Know - own, news - newspaper.
3. Formation of skills in listening to text.
Listen to the text and say all American symbols.
American Symbols.
The American flag is often called "The Stars and Stripes". There are three colors on the flag of the United States - red, white, and blue. As there are fifty states in the United States, there are fifty stars on the American flag: one star for each state.
The American flag has thirteen stripes. The stripes are red and white. The flag has seven red stripes and six white stripes. There is one stripe for each of the first thirteen colonies of the United States.
People must know many things about the flag, for example: you should display it 1 only during the day and you should fold it in a special way. In some schools there is a flag in each classroom, and children stand in front of the flag every day. You can see the American flag in shops and offices, in the streets and squares, in small towns and in big cities. You can see pictures of the American flag in newspapers and magazines. Americans are proud of their "flag and display it in many places.
One of the most famous symbols of the USA is the Statue of Liberty.3 France gave the statue to America in 1884 as a symbol of friendship. The Statue is in New York on Liberty Island. It is one of the first things people see when they arrive in New York by sea.
The eagle became the official national symbol of the country in 1782. It has an olive branch (a symbol of peace) and arrows (symbols of strength). You can see the eagle on the back of a dollar bill.
The United States of America has an official song too. It is called "The Star - Spangled Banner".
Every state in the USA has its own flag, its own symbol and its own song too.
Task No. 2
Have you learned some new information about the American symbols? Could you answer the questions?
1.What do people often call the American flag?
2.What are the colors of the American flag?
3.How many states are there in the USA?
4.How many stars are there on the American flag? Why?
5.How many stripes has the flag got?
6.What colors are the stripes?
7.Why are there 13 stripes on the flag? What do they mean?
8.What must people know about the American flag?
Task No. 3
You have learned about four American symbols. Here are three of them:
The Statue of Liberty,
- “the Star - Spangled Banner”.
Which one is missing?
Task No. 4
Fill in the words:
1. The American flag is red, white and ….
2. There are 13… on the American flag.
3. There fifty... on the American flag.
4. There are fifty... in the USA.
5. There are 3 … on the flag of the USA.
Task No. 5
Noted on the picture the names of places and numbered them in the right order.
Task No. 6
Say everything you know about American symbols.
4. Summing up.
Children, you worked very well today. All of you get a good mark.
Say me, what do you know today? Good bye
Fragment lesson №4
Topic: “Everyday life in America.”
Goals: 1. Educational:
· Formation of skills in listening to foreign language text.
2. Developmental:
· Development of educational and information skills;
· Expansion of vocabulary;
· Development of memory, thinking, attention.
3. Educational:
· Maintaining interest in learning a foreign language.
Objectives: 1. Train in listening to text.
Equipment: pictures, handouts, textbook.
Structure:
1. Organizational moment.
Goodmorningchildren! How are you today? What day is it today? Who is absent?
Today we have listening comprehensive lesson.
2. Preparation for the main stage.
Task No. 1
· Listen and repeat the pairs of words.
Explain - explanation, relax - relaxation,
Prepare - preparation, translate - translation,
Decorate - decoration, operate - operation.
3. Formation of skills in listening to text.
Listen to the text and say why America is a friendly country.
America is a friendly country with friendly people. In small American towns you hear "hello" to friends and also to people who have just arrived. People easily start to talk with each other. Waiters in restaurants will often tell you their names and talk to you. When you leave they will tell you to "Take care!" or "Have a nice day!". Often, people you have just met begin to ask you personal questions or start telling you all about themselves.
When Americans meet people for the first time they usually shake hands. When they meet friends or relatives they haven"t seen for a long time they sometimes kiss them on the cheek.
“Pot luck”, dinners are very popular with Americans.
At a "pot luck" dinner all the guests bring something to eat and usually ask the host or hostess what they would like. Often you bring salad, some vegetables, or something sweet. Usually guests will arrive 10 or 15 minutes late - this gives your hosts time to finish their preparations.
Americans love to get together and to have parties.
Traditional parties are a birthday, moving to a new house, a wedding, 4 New Year's Eve and the Fourth of July - Independence Day.
These parties are often informal and there are not many rules for them. Americans like to relax and enjoy themselves. So, maybe the best advise is to relax, smile, and enjoy yourself too!
Task No. 2
Give the title of the text.
Task No. 3
Divide the text into semantic parts.
Task No. 4
1. America is a friendly country.
2. All people in the street you meet say: “Have a nice day!”
3. Americans never ask personal questions.
4. Americans never shake hands.
5. “Pot luck” dinners are very popular with Americans.
6. All parties in America are informal.
7. Americans like to relax and enjoy themselves.
Task No. 5
Answer to the questions:
1. Who tell you their names in restaurant?
2. What do Americans do when meet people for the first time?
3. What do Americans do when they meet friends or relatives?
4. What the name of dinners is popular with Americans?
5. What traditional American parties do you know?
6. What is the best advice?
Task No. 6
Say what you can about the way American people live.
4. Summing up.
Children, you worked very well today. All of you get a good mark.
Thus, in the process of work, exercises were selected that corresponded to the age characteristics of the students. At this stage, substitution and answer-question exercises, exercises of a reproductive and productive nature were used, which contributed to the solution of the set goals. These exercises were aimed at developing the skills of listening to text in 6th grade students. Also, the proposed texts were of regional content, which contributed to broadening the horizons of students and realizing educational goals. Almost all students successfully coped with the proposed material, as a result of which very good indicators were identified in the level of development of skills and abilities in listening to foreign language text.
2.3 Identifying the level of teacher effectiveness in developing text listening skills
Students were asked to listen to the text “BlueJeans” (see Appendix No. 1) and complete the following tasks based on the text:
Task No. 1
Selecting the correct answer from several suggested ones.
Choose the right option:
1. Levi Strauss came to America from
2. In.......he arrived in San Francisco
3. San Francisco is situated in.
4. Levi Strauss had a lot of material to make.....,
5. People were looking for.
6. Levi Strauss colored his jeans blue because.
a) he was fond of this color
b) he wanted to help people
7. Now people......... wear blue jeans.
b) all over the world
Task No. 2.
Goal: to identify the level of development of foreign language text listening skills
Confirm or refute the statement.
1.Levi Strauss came to America from Germany.
2.He arrived in New York.
3.He had a lot of material to make tents bf.
4.People looking for gold wanted to have light. beautiful jeans
5.Levi Strauss colored his jeans because he was fond of the blue color.
6.People usually wear a pair of blue jeans for more than 3 years.
Task No. 3
Answer the questions.
Answer the following questions:
1. When did Levi Strauss arrive in San Francisco?
2. Where are a lot of people and why?
3. What did people look for in California?
4. In what color Levi Strauss did color jeans?
5. Why do people think that jeans are good?
Table No. 2 Results of monitoring the level of formation of text listening skills and abilities among students of grade 6 “B”
Diagram 2 Level of development of foreign language text listening skills among students in grade 6 “b”
Thus, as a result of the diagnostics, it can be seen that many students have improved their performance. Five students showed a high level of formation of listening skills (Vladimir V., Olga K., Irina B., Dmitry A., Albina R.). These students successfully completed the tasks and did not make mistakes during the work. The average level of formation of listening skills was revealed in three students (Oleg N., Mikhail K., Kirill T.). These guys also coped well with all the proposed tasks, allowing only minor ones. A low level of development of dialogical speech skills remained in two students (Daria A., Alexey V). From all of the above, we can conclude that the level of development of listening skills among students in this class increased after the work. In order to develop students’ text listening skills, it is necessary to carry out constant monitoring, think through each lesson, selecting exercises for teaching listening comprehension of a different nature.
Conclusion for chapter 2. The process of teaching listening should be systematic. Listening skills are developed step by step under the close supervision of the teacher. First, the teacher trains students’ listening mechanisms, overcomes listening difficulties, and only at the last stage can the level of development of text listening skills be revealed.
Work on developing the skills of listening to a foreign language text requires strict consideration of age and individual characteristics on the part of the teacher.
During the study, one of the main goals of the study was achieved - the development of a series of exercises for teaching listening skills, the effectiveness of which is reflected in the results of monitoring the level of development of listening skills, namely in improving the quality of knowledge of the subjects.
Conclusion
Teaching listening skills is very relevant today, since without listening, verbal communication is impossible. The concept of listening includes the process of perceiving and understanding spoken speech.
Based on analysis scientific research It can be concluded that listening is an important aspect in learning English. During the course of the study, a system of exercises was developed to promote the development of skills in listening to foreign language text.
During the educational work, various teaching methods and techniques were used that stimulated the cognitive activity of students. The use of methods and techniques proved to be effective.
During the work, the set objectives were achieved, which made it possible to develop and test the effectiveness of the developed lessons.
It should be noted that the objectives set for the study were fully completed:
1. Scientific and methodological literature on the topic has been studied and analyzed;
2. An algorithm for teaching listening comprehension at the middle stage of teaching English has been defined;
3. A diagnosis of the level of development of skills in listening to a foreign language text was carried out;
4. A series of lessons was developed and taught to develop text listening skills for 6th grade students;
5. The effectiveness of the work performed was assessed.
However, the conducted research does not exhaust the content of the problem under study and assumes its further study.
List of used literature
1. Babinskaya P.K. Practical course on methods of teaching foreign languages: textbook / P.K. Babinskaya, T.M. Leontyeva, A.F. Budko. – 3rd ed. – M.: Tetra System, 2005.
2. Galskova N.D. Modern methods of teaching a foreign language: a manual for teachers / N.D. Galskova. – M.: ARKTI, 2001.
3. Gez N.I. Methods of teaching a foreign language in secondary school: textbook / N.I. Gez, M.V. Lyakhovitsky, A.A. Mirolyubov. - M.: Higher School, 1996.
4. Elukhina N.V. Teaching listening comprehension at the middle stage of school with teaching a number of subjects in English: Dis. cann. ped. Sci. M., 2001.
5. Galskova N.D., Gez.N.I Theory of teaching foreign languages: linguodidiactics and methodology / textbook for students of linguistic universities and departments. foreign language. higher pedagogical educational institutions. – M.: Publishing Center “Academy”, 2004.
6. Elukhina N.V., Kasparova M.G. Preparation of educational text for listening / Foreign languages at school No. 2 2005
7. Kolker Ya.M. Teaching listening comprehension of English speech: workshop: textbook for higher education students educational institutions/ Ya.M. Kolker, E.S. Ustinova. – M.: Publishing Center “Academy”, 2004.
8. Kolker Ya.M. Practical methods of teaching a foreign language: textbook / Ya.M. Kolker, E.S. Ustinova, T.M. Enamiwa. - M.: Publishing Center "Academy", 2004.
9. Kritskaya I.P. Some syntactic features of material for listening / foreign languages at school No. 4. 2005.
10. Kuzmenko O.D. Some questions of methods of teaching foreign languages at school and university./ M., 2003.
11. Passov E.I. Communicative foreign language education: a manual for teachers / S.I. Pass. - M.: Lexis, 2003.
12. Slednikov B.P. Teaching listening to foreign language speech in secondary school: Dis. ...candidate of pedagogical sciences. M., 2000.
13. Stasyulevichute A.A. Analysis of the reasons for misunderstanding of the studied vocabulary when it is visually perceived out of context / Current issues in teaching basic types of speech activity: Collection of works. / ed. M.K. Borodulina.M., 1995.
14. Fundamentals of methods of teaching foreign languages / ed. V.A. Buchbinder, W. Strauss. - M.: Higher School, 2004.
15. Methods of teaching foreign languages in secondary school / ed. M.N. Kolkova. - St. Petersburg: KARO, 2005.
16. Modern theories and methods of teaching foreign languages / ed. L.M. Fedorova, T.I. Ryazantseva. - M.: Publishing house "Exam", 2004.
17. Solovova E. N. Methods of teaching foreign languages: Basic course of lectures: A manual for student teachers. universities and teachers / E. N. Solovova. - M.: Education, 2002.
18. Methods of teaching foreign languages in primary and secondary schools: a textbook for students of pedagogical colleges (edited by V.M. Filatov) / Series “Secondary vocational education”. – Rostov n/a: “Phoenix”, 2004.
19. Vereshchagina I.N., Afanasyeva O.V. English language: textbook for 4th grade schools with in-depth study of the English language. - M.: Education, 2002.
20. Sakharova T.E., Rabinovich F.M., Rogova G.V. Methods of teaching foreign languages in secondary school. - M.: Education, 1991.
In this article we will try to consider the trend of using listening when teaching a foreign language at school; consider listening as a means of teaching monologue speech; We will also offer a system of exercises for teaching listening.
Mastery of listening as a type of speech activity should ensure a successful communication process, develop students’ ability to speak a foreign language and understand it. Our study is devoted to the problem of the specifics of teaching listening at different stages. Since the process of learning through listening is complex and difficult, schools need to pay more attention to listening. It is very important to increase students’ motivation to understand foreign speech by ear and use it as a means of communication.
It is important to achieve the desire of students to learn to listen to speech and understand what they hear, and to give them a sense of their capabilities, their progress. This increases their interest in learning a foreign language.
Listening is the basis of communication, and mastery of oral communication begins with it. Mastery of listening allows a person to understand what is being communicated to him and respond adequately to what is said, helps to correctly state his answer to his opponent, which is the basis of oral speech.
The use of listening in teaching a foreign language in a modern secondary school
Currently, there is a tendency to use listening at the initial stage of schooling, and this limits the work of teachers in teaching listening. Basically, songs, tongue twisters and rhymes are offered for listening to younger schoolchildren. Of course, one cannot deny the general educational value of such material, since thanks to it the children gain some idea of the culture of another people. But, at the same time, one cannot limit oneself only to the entertainment side of this material. Most teachers use it only for warm-up in class.
Without denying the usefulness of this approach to audit material, in our opinion, it seems unjustified to limit ourselves to only the auxiliary secondary role of listening. Moreover, teachers at the middle stage, following the above-mentioned generally accepted trend, do not consider it necessary to devote any time and attention to learning listening, believing that the children will independently master this type of speech activity. This point of view is deeply erroneous, since, based on numerous studies and experiments, one can, without any doubt, assert that without the purposeful and systematic work of the teacher aimed at mastering listening by students, it is simply not possible to teach it.
This statement can be proven by resorting to examples taken from the practice of scientists. They noted that students have difficulty understanding speech addressed to them in a foreign language; even with repeated repetition, there is a need for translation into their native language.
Partially justified by the similar inability of his students to understand foreign language speech, the teacher completely excluded listening from his practice both as a goal and as a means of teaching, as a result, they are taught only in their native language, which contradicts modern principles of teaching a foreign language at school. Scientists observed this state of affairs in several secondary schools.
Thus, we can conclude that, along with many other reasons, neglect of listening leads to a violation of all principles of the communicative orientation of learning. There is no verbal and mental activity of students, there is no situationality and functionality of the tasks performed, schoolchildren constantly expect translation into their native language and perform exercises that do not require any mental activity, based on automated skills and abilities, such as: translating texts with a dictionary, retelling, copying from a textbook , written translation and the like.
Based on the foregoing, listening must be introduced into teaching practice as a type of speech activity in full to effectively and intensify the process of teaching a foreign language, observing the principles of the communicative teaching method.
Listening plays a significant role in teaching monologue speech. It is used to introduce new vocabulary as a means of teaching speaking. Speaking can take two forms: dialogue and monologue. Monologue speech is characterized by greater arbitrariness, consistency, and harmony than dialogic speech.
Monologue has many definitions. A monologue is a special type of verbal communication between people, which involves the formulation of thoughts using the sound system of the language. A monologue is an organized type of speech, which is the product of an individual statement by one person addressed to an audience in order to achieve the necessary impact on the listener. According to G.V. Rogova’s definition, a monologue is a form of speech when it is built by one person, who himself determines the structure, composition and linguistic means.
A monologue can be included as an integral part of a conversation, or take the form of a story, speech, report or lecture. This, as we know, is the speech of one person expressing in a more or less detailed form his thoughts, intentions, assessment of events, etc. A monologue speech is usually prepared in advance. Oratorical speech is distinguished by the extensive presence of more complex syntax and lexical structures, although at the same time the monologue also has such expressive means as repetitions, rhetorical questions, exclamations, interruptions of thoughts and rhythm, introductory words, ellipses, and violation of word order in the English language. All this makes conversational monologue speech simple and natural, which increases contact with the audience.
The goal of teaching a monologue is to develop monologue speech skills, which are understood as the ability to express one’s thoughts orally in a logical, consistent and coherent, sufficiently complete and linguistically correct manner in accordance with the proposed situation. It is easier to teach students monologue speech than dialogic speech, because the student can think about his message in advance. The development of monologue speech is influenced by listening, which facilitates the mastery of speaking. Through listening, the development of the most important thing occurs - phonemic hearing, as well as the assimilation of the lexical composition of the language and its grammatical structure.
In the process of speech perception, two main speech mechanisms operate - speech motor coding and decoding of sounding speech, which constitutes the communication channel. The encoding process presupposes mastery of the phonological system of the language. At the beginning of learning a foreign language, phonemic hearing in the native language has already been formed, and the formation of phonetic hearing in a foreign language depends both on the articulatory properties of the sounds of the foreign language and on the sound system native language. Therefore, prolonged passive listening, not supported by external speech practice, can lead to distortion of auditory images and complicate the formation of acoustic-articulatory features.
Consequently, listening and speaking are interconnected in the educational process. Speaking is the result of the process of articulation of the speech organs, and hearing plays a significant role in this. Listening serves as the basis for speaking. Hearing has an important function of controlling oral speech, which allows the speaker to compare the spoken sound, word or phrase with a previously heard example. The quality of listening is usually controlled by answering questions about the content of what was listened to or by retelling it.
Comparative characteristics of speaking and listening make it possible to identify common psychological parameters. When speaking, the transition from a word and phrase to a whole statement is associated with the participation of thinking and memory, as in listening. Listening and speaking are characterized by the presence of complex mental activity based on inner speech and a forecasting mechanism. It is significant that both types of speech activity, being in close relationship, contribute to the development of each other in the learning process. “In order to learn to understand speech, you need to speak, and judge your understanding by how your speech is received. Understanding is formed in the process of speaking, and speaking in the process of understanding.”
The difficulty of monologue speech lies in the fact that you need to constantly maintain the logic of the statement and not lose your thoughts. Consequently, listening as feedback for each speaker during a monologue allows for self-monitoring of speech and knowing how correctly speech intentions are realized in sound form. The correctness of speaking is controlled by the speaker himself in two ways: through hearing and through the kinesthetic sensations of his own speech movements.
An important role in the regulation of speaking belongs to dynamic stereotypes that arise due to repeated auditory perception. The launch of monologue speech begins with excitations formed due to the traces that were left during the reception of someone else's speech and during one's own speaking. Consequently, a monologue turns out to be impossible without prior listening, since the output can only contain what was received during reception.
It is obvious that without the correct speech of the teacher it is impossible to teach students oral speech. And the teacher is the one whom students listen to first. Therefore, when preparing for a lesson, the teacher must clearly think through the material that he will use in his speech, as well as choose the optimal ways to introduce new speech units.
At the initial stage of learning, listening plays a big role in the development of monologue speech. It is very difficult for a child of primary school age, when constructing his monologue statement, to adhere to logic, coherence, continuity, semantic completeness of the statement, and he reproduces what comes to mind at that moment, without listening to himself and without thinking at all about the form in which he presents your story.
There is a real opportunity to develop skills in oral speech based on listening. The most preferable methods are those that create situations of natural verbal communication, encourage students to speak out and exchange opinions. Assignments based on the text listened to must be creative, and students’ actions must be internally motivated. It is desirable that they be of a problematic nature, encourage students to apply previously acquired knowledge in their answers, confront them with the need to compare, guess, look for a solution in the text itself and thereby develop monologue speech.
Retellings are very useful for training monologue speech. And retelling is the reproduction, “copying” orally of what was read or heard through a monologue. When retelling, it is important to be able to consistently and sufficiently fully express your thoughts, which is determined by the formation of internal speech. Work on coherent monologue speech begins by asking students to listen to texts that are small in volume and simple in content. Then ask questions about each sentence. Students answer the questions in full sentences, and after that, retell the entire text. In the process of creative retelling, after listening to the beginning of the text, children must come up with an ending, give a title and tell the text in its entirety.
Monologue speech develops in connection with listening, when students speak based on what they have listened to with an independent report and personal assessment, and the ability to speak in connection with the situation within the educational, labor, social and socio-cultural spheres of communication is also formed.
With the help of listening, a transition is made from speech at the sentence level to coherent monologue speech at the text level.
At the initial stage, it is important for students to acquire skills in perceiving and understanding foreign language speech by ear, which will help them, in turn, take part in acts of communication and oral monologue speech.
Thus, listening prepares oral speech, and speaking helps develop listening comprehension.
A system of exercises for teaching listening at different stages
Since listening is a very complex type of speech activity, it is still difficult for students to perceive foreign speech by ear, despite the fact that most of the words they hear are familiar to them from learning to read. That is why a special system of exercises is needed to teach students listening.
The system of exercises for teaching listening should provide:
a) compliance of exercises with the psychological and linguistic complexities of auditorily perceived messages;
b) the possibility of interaction between listening and other types of speech activity, and primarily listening and speaking as two forms of oral communication;
c) managing the process of developing listening skills;
d) successful implementation of the final practical purpose and intermediate learning objectives;
e) a gradual increase in difficulties, which will ensure the feasibility of performing exercises at different stages of training.
A system of exercises is understood as the organization of interrelated actions, arranged in the order of increasing linguistic and operational difficulties, taking into account the sequence of development of speech skills in various types of speech activity.
The components of the exercise system are, as is known, groups (exercises to eliminate linguistic difficulties in listening, exercises to eliminate psychological difficulties in listening), types, types of exercises and their location, corresponding to the sequence of formation of skills and abilities, the number of exercises, form and place of their implementation. Of these components, only the reasoned sequence of exercises remains constant; other components will change depending on the nature of the audio texts, the language background of the students, the complexity of communicative tasks and other factors. For example, when perceiving an easy text by ear, there is no need for elementary operations, to which we include imitation, distinguishing between phoneme oppositions or close intonation patterns, identifying synonyms, splitting the text into smaller semantic pieces, etc. A well-prepared student, as is known, does not need exercises that develop the perceptual-sensory base, since he has technical listening skills, including phonemic and intonation hearing, instant receptive combination of words and sentences, predictive skills, etc.
The methodology distinguishes two subsystems:
preparatory/training;
speech/communication.
The subsystem of preparatory/training exercises is an extremely important link in the overall system of exercises, although this is not yet speech activity, but the creation of the basis and means for its implementation. The purpose of the preparatory exercises is to first (before listening to the text) remove difficulties of a linguistic or psychological nature, to develop the skills of logical and semantic processing of lower-level signs - from words to microtexts, which will allow the auditor to focus his attention on the perception of the content.
Preparatory exercises contribute to the development of:
predictive skills;
volume of short-term and verbal-logical memory;
mechanism of equivalent substitutions;
speech hearing;
skills to reduce (reduce) inner speech, etc.
In general, the following requirements can be made for this subsystem of exercises:
1) combination of elementary operations with complex mental actions that develop the creative abilities of students and allow them, already at this stage, to combine mnemonic activity with logical-semantic activity;
2) strict management of the process of preparation for listening by creating supports and landmarks of perception, partial withdrawal“unprogrammed” difficulties, double presentation, etc.;
3) gradual increase in language difficulties;
4) focusing on one complexity or a group of similar difficulties;
5) combination of known and unknown material in exercises;
Preparatory exercises:
listen and repeat several pairs of words: law – low; saw - so...
Identify rhyming words by ear, mark them with numbers, for example: sort – pot – part; - port (1, 4)
listen to a number of adjectives (verbs), name the nouns that are most often used with them.
listen to a number of speech formulas, name (in your native or foreign language) the situations in which they can be used;
listen to the text from the soundtrack (as presented by the teacher), fill in the gaps in the graphic version of the same text, etc.
listen to two or three short phrases, combine them into one sentence;
listen to a number of verbs, form nouns from them with the suffix – er, for example: to listen – listener
determine the meaning of international words by context and their sound form;
determine the meaning of unfamiliar words using definitions (descriptions) in a foreign language;
look through the keywords and name the topic the audio text is devoted to. Then listen to the audio text and check your answer.
The perception of coherent oral speech is accompanied by complex mental activity and occurs under special conditions determined by a number of acoustic factors. Hence the need arises for exercises that direct attention to understanding the content of perceived speech and overcoming difficulties associated with perception. Such exercises are called speech exercises. The subsystem of speech/communication exercises promotes the development of skills to perceive speech messages in conditions approaching natural speech communication (contact and distant), without support, prompts and preliminary familiarization with the situation and topic. It is recommended to perform speech exercises on listened texts that have significant potential in terms of solving communicative and cognitive problems. When perceiving them, the linguistic form must be realized at the level of involuntary perception, if we are talking about the most perfect, so-called critical level of understanding.
Speech exercises teach:
resolve comprehension problems through text-level predictions;
relate the content to the communication situation;
divide the audio text into semantic parts and determine the main idea in each of them;
identify the most informative parts of the message;
adapt to the individual characteristics of the speaker and to different speeds of presentation (at a pace from below average to above average);
retain in memory the actual material of the audio text (digital data, chronological dates, proper names, geographical names, etc.).
In everyday speech communication, auditory perception is aimed at the meaning of the speech message, and the form and content form a complete unity, in conditions educational communication it can be directed either to content or to form. Research conducted in school and university classrooms has shown that when attention is focused on the linguistic form (an attitude toward performing search operations, differentiation, grouping, etc.), simultaneous understanding of the content becomes more difficult. It was mentioned above that when performing preparatory exercises based on any material, including isolated words, students’ mnemonic activity is combined with logical-semantic activity. In this regard, we can mention such a type of preparatory exercise as grouping the material perceived by ear (words, phrases) according to some characteristic. To complete this exercise, you need orientation in the material, the ability to differentiate it, having a set of various signs, highlight common features in memorized symbols, etc. Psychologists have repeatedly noted in their works that the ability to correctly group what one has heard or read indicates an understanding of internal logical relationships.
A person who speaks a foreign language at the level of its native speakers can purposefully correlate the content with the linguistic form and situation of communication, which makes it possible to separate objective information from subjective information.
Depending on the language preparation of the class and the complexity of the audio text, students’ attention can be specifically switched from content to linguistic form (with the help of instructions, a special kind of formal support, etc.) and vice versa, although it is known that at the initial and partially secondary stages this method of control listening is not always justified. It is known that too rapid switching of attention from linguistic form to content impairs prediction and leads to approximate understanding based on guessing facts.
The effectiveness of the exercise for partial guided learning of listening depends on the repeatability of individual techniques, which is extremely important for the initial stage, the involvement of other analyzers along with the auditory, especially visual, sustained attention and the presence of creative, predictive mental activity. As a result of performing the exercises in this group, a certain “getting used to” the conditions for presenting texts, adjustment to a given listening mode, and stable performance occur. As for visual supports, their use should be considered not only as a control element, but also as a means of individualizing learning.
Speech exercises:
listen to texts of varying content at a normal pace based on visualization, and then in a sound recording without relying on visualization and answer the questions.
listen to the beginning of the story and try to guess what happened next.
listen to two stories and say what is common and different about them.
listen to the text and choose a title for it.
listen to the text and determine its type (message, description, narration, reasoning).
listen to the dialogue and briefly convey its content.
listen to several fragments of the text, make a plan for the statement.
These exercises provide an opportunity to test the depth of meaningfulness of the content, i.e. the degree of penetration into the subtext, into the pragmatic aspect of the statement. The exercises are associated with the involvement of new facts and information, are distinguished by a critical orientation and an orientation towards selective memorization of the most interesting information.
So, at present, the methodology of teaching listening includes teaching this type of speech activity as a learning goal, and as a means of mastering other types of speech activity. Therefore, to achieve the desired results in teaching listening, both special and non-special speech exercises should be used, as well as, of course, language (preparatory) exercises.
The proposed method of teaching listening helps to make learning a foreign language more interesting for children, as well as strengthen their skills in this type of speech activity.
Speech exercises and monologue speech help train auditory memory, which creates more favorable conditions for learning a foreign language.
A rational change of teaching methods in the same lesson contributes to the involvement of new, non-tired areas of the cerebral cortex in the work, a change in stimuli, since prolonged and monotonous irritation of the cortical cell leads to the development of an inhibition process in it, which first reduces and then stops its work . Therefore, when constructing the lesson, we focused on different types of memory. Combined effects on the visual organs (as, for example, when reading) with the help of audiovisual means, which increase the coefficients of stimuli, affect long-term memory and ensure the processing and assimilation of information. Thus, tape recording creates clear auditory representations in memory and teaches listening comprehension in conditions that are as close as possible to natural ones.
Auditory teaching aids should be based on material that is as close as possible to oral conversational speech, based on a life situation and be predominantly dialogical or dialogue-monological in nature.
Scientists argue that to teach listening comprehension, it is advisable to first use the teacher’s speech (a conversation before listening to the material for listening), since in this case the factor of a familiar voice is involved, and also the teacher can, if there is insufficient understanding, resort to repetition, then you can move on to technical sources , which are characterized by a one-time presentation of information.
So, at present, the methodology for teaching listening includes teaching this type of speech activity as a means of mastering other types of speech activity. Therefore, to achieve the desired results in teaching listening, both special and non-special speech exercises should be used, as well as, of course, language (preparatory) exercises.
All this allows us to fully appreciate the benefits of teaching a foreign language in primary school. Since the process of listening itself involves memorizing feasible texts by ear, which develops memory, the use of riddles and “confusions” (develops attention), the ability to listen and understand what is heard (develops attentiveness to the interlocutor), and much more, listening can be classified as developmental education .
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State Autonomous Educational Institution of Secondary Professional Education "Provincial Vocational College"
Subject cycle commission
foreign language teachers
Novik Anna Viktorovna
251 group
Final qualifying work
Teaching listening skills at the initial stage of teaching English
Accepted for defense:
Scientific adviser:
English teacher
Kukushkina Olga Vadimovna
Serpukhov
Introduction
Chapter 1. Theoretical foundations of teaching listening at the initial stage
1.2 Listening mechanisms
1.4 Psychological and pedagogical characteristics of primary school age students
Chapter 3. Experiential learning
3.1 Entry testing
3.2 Description of experiential learning
3.3 Final testing
Conclusion
Bibliography
Application
Introduction
The topic of this final qualifying work, “Teaching listening at the initial stage of training,” is one of the most relevant topics in modern methods of teaching English, since without listening, verbal communication is impossible, since this is a two-way process, and underestimation of listening can have an extremely negative impact on language skills. preparing schoolchildren. But the study of this type of speech activity in the methodology is not deep enough, and the term “listening” is used in the methodological literature relatively recently. It is opposed to the term “listening.” If “listening” refers to the acoustic perception of a scale, then the concept of “listening” includes the process of perceiving and understanding sounding speech. It is also known that listening is a very difficult type of speech activity. THOSE. Sakharov and F.M. Rabinovich also note that it is the lack of development of auditing skills that is often the cause of communication disruption.
The initial stage is the most important, because it is at the junior stage of training that students must develop basic listening skills, which for successful learning should be improved throughout the entire period of mastering listening.
Listening as an action that is part of oral communicative activity is used in any oral communication subordinated to production, social or personal needs.
Listening as feedback during speaking allows you to exercise self-control over speech and know how correctly it is implemented in sound form. And of course, listening can be a separate type of communicative activity with its own motive, reflecting the needs of a person or the nature of his activity. It plays this role, for example, when watching a movie, TV show, listening to a radio program, etc.
Hence the importance and relevance of the problem of teaching listening is obvious.
The object of the study is the methodology of teaching listening comprehension at the initial stage of teaching English.
The subject of the study is the features of the process of developing listening skills at the initial stage.
The goal is to determine the most effective methods and techniques for developing listening skills.
· characterize listening as a type of speech activity;
· study various listening mechanisms;
· determine the goals and content of listening training at the initial stage;
· consider the main difficulties of understanding speech by ear;
· establish methods, modes and technologies for teaching listening;
· develop and test in practice a system of tasks that develop listening skills.
To achieve the objectives, it is necessary to use the following methods:
· study and analysis of psychological, pedagogical and methodological literature on the topic, synthesis and generalization of acquired knowledge;
· collection and accumulation of data;
· organization of experiential training;
· analysis of the results of experimental training.
Research hypothesis: we consider it possible to assume that the system of exercises proposed in the work for teaching listening comprehension at the initial stage of training contributes to the effective formation of skills in listening comprehension of English speech.
This qualifying work consists of an introduction, Chapter I “Theoretical foundations of teaching listening at the initial stage”, Chapter II “Methodology of teaching listening at the initial stage”, Chapter III “Experimental training”, conclusion, list of references and appendices.
Chapter 1. Theoretical foundations of teaching listening at the initial stage
1.1 Listening as a type of speech activity
listening speech comprehension hearing
Teaching listening skills in the methodology of teaching foreign languages was given great importance, since listening to foreign language speech is a complex process that requires maximum attention from the student, and consistent preparation from the teacher for the development of this type of speech activity. Therefore, a methodically correct organization of the process of teaching listening is necessary, which means that the methodology of teaching foreign languages is faced with the task of correctly organizing and planning this process so that the level of development of students’ auditing skills meets the needs of modern society.
Listening is the understanding of speech perceived by ear. Listening is the basis of communication, and mastery of oral communication begins with it. It consists of the ability to differentiate perceived sounds, integrate them into semantic complexes, retain them in memory while listening, carry out probabilistic forecasting and, based on the communication situation, understand the perceived sound chain.
Outwardly, this is an unexpressed process, therefore, for a long time in the history of the development of the technique, listening was not considered as an independent type of speech activity, but was considered a passive process and a “by-product of speaking.”
However, later scientists proved that listening is an active process, during which intense work of all mental and mental processes occurs, the received information is perceived in the form of sound form, it is processed and compared with standards stored in the long-term memory of students, recognition and understanding thoughts.
At the present stage, special requirements are beginning to be placed on the development of listening skills as necessary condition successful communication process. The ability to speak a foreign language is built on the ability to hear and understand. Therefore, one of the main goals of the content of modern foreign language programs is to develop students’ ability to perceive foreign language speech aurally. Ideally, students should be able to listen to the speech of native speakers and respond to it based on the requirements of the current speech situation.
Listening is not an isolated type of speech activity; it is closely related to speaking, reading and writing. Moreover, listening, like reading, is a receptive type of speech activity, while speaking and writing are productive. Listening comprehension is closely related to speaking - expressing thoughts using the language being studied. Speaking and listening are two interrelated aspects of oral speech. Listening is not only the reception of a message, but also the preparation in internal speech of a response to what is heard. Listening prepares speaking, speaking helps develop listening comprehension.
Listening is also related to reading. They are united by belonging to receptive types of speech activity. Reading is the translation of graphic language into audio. When reading - out loud or silently - a person seems to hear the perceived text.
Listening is also closely related to writing. In the process of graphic design, a person speaks and hears what he writes.
Listening also serves as a powerful tool for teaching English. It makes it possible to master sound side language, its phonemic composition, intonation, rhythm, melody, stress. In accordance with the principle of the oral basis of learning, listening fulfills another important educational function- new language material and new grammatical structures are first introduced into listening, and then into speaking.
Modern methodologists of teaching foreign languages - G.V. Rogova, I.V. Vereshchagina, M.Z. Biboletova, Z.N. Nikitenko - emphasize the need to develop readiness to perceive foreign language speech by ear as a very important skill, without mastering which communication in a language is unthinkable. Listening should occupy an important place already at the initial stage of language learning. Thus, being closely related to other types of speech activity, listening plays an important role in learning a foreign language, especially in communicative-oriented learning.
Based on the above, we can conclude that listening is an active process that requires great intellectual effort. During listening, the listener performs complex perceptual-mnemonic activity and mental operations of analysis, synthesis, deduction, induction, comparison, contrast, and so on. Listening as a means of learning ensures that students become familiar with new language and speech material, acts as a means of developing skills in all other types of speech activity, helps maintain the achieved level of speech proficiency, and develops auditing skills themselves.
Having outlined the features of listening as a type of speech activity, in the next part we move on to understanding the mechanisms of listening.
1.2 Listening mechanisms
In the domestic methodology, there are 4 main listening mechanisms.
Speech hearing is one of the most important mechanisms. It ensures the perception of oral speech, dividing it into semantic syntagms, phrases, words. Thanks to this mechanism, recognition of familiar images in the stream of speech occurs. It is obvious that such a selection of units of speech perception, their differentiation, and therefore recognition of them characteristic features is possible only if you have a well-trained speech ear.
Memory is the next important mechanism of listening.
In psychology, there are two main types of memory: long-term and short-term. Short-term memory ensures the retention of incoming information at all phases of the perception process, until it is processed and part of the information enters long-term memory. The latter is designed to store auditory-articulatory images of words, phrases and syntactic structures, rules and schemes for their connection. Thanks to this, an understanding of phrasal structure and the communicative type of assumption occurs. Short-term memory is also necessary for comparing perceptions that follow each other with a certain interval.
In order for a speech message to be correctly understood, the listener must retain words and phrases, connect what is heard at this particular moment with what he heard before, and translate a sequential series of incoming signals into simultaneous ones. These functions are performed by RAM, which is characterized by low accuracy and poor noise immunity.
Short-term and operational memory play a service role. They help the entry of some information into long-term memory, and the success of this function depends on qualitative and quantitative selection, on the method of introducing the material and its consolidation.
For novice auditors, it is necessary, taking into account the above, preliminary work aimed at identifying the part new information with the one that is stored in memory, clarity and logic of presentation, elimination of information overload, especially due to realities, digital data and artistic and visual means.
Probabilistic forecasting is the generation of hypotheses, anticipation of the course of events. The methodology distinguishes between structural (linguistic) and semantic (probabilistic) forecasting.
Words do not exist in our memory in isolation, but are included in a complex system of lexical-semantic relations. It is these relationships that determine the nature of forecasting.
Semantic forecasting is determined by knowledge of the context, and, accordingly, possible situations, which, in turn, involve the use of certain structures, clichés, speech formulas, and so on.
In addition to semantic forecasting, there is also linguistic forecasting. Each word has a certain range of compatibility. The appearance of a new word significantly narrows the use of other words. The larger the volume of the semantic field, the stronger the lexical and grammatical skills, the better a person knows typical speech situations and masters speech patterns, the easier it is for him to recognize them by ear. Listening and speaking, reading and writing, vocabulary and grammar are inseparable in real communication, and even more so in the classroom. Linguistic prediction is supported by semantic prediction, and vice versa.
Speaking about the formation and development of listening skills, we must not forget about the mechanism of articulation. Psychologists note that during listening, internal pronunciation of speech occurs. The clearer the pronunciation, the higher the level of listening.
At the initial stage of learning, inner speech occurs especially intensively, and it can be considered as the main and necessary component of auditory perception. At the advanced stage, there is a curtailment of motor activity, its reduction, which is explained by the strong unification of the speech-motor auditory and visual analyzers into a single system. This, in turn, affects the perception and understanding of speech.
The mechanisms of speech activity discussed above are basic for the implementation of the listening process, and therefore their formation is one of the priority tasks of teaching listening at the initial stage. However, it should be noted that the development of mechanisms is not an end in itself, but only one of the means of enhancing learning to perceive a sounding foreign language message.
However, the question of the content and goals of listening training remains open, which we will consider in the next chapter.
The linguistic component includes:
· methodically organized lexical-grammatical and phonetic minimum;
· difficulties associated with the perception of linguistic form;
· requirements for texts for listening (cognitive orientation, fable content, accessibility of texts from a linguistic point of view, authenticity of texts).
At the initial stage, attention is focused on mastering the elements of the language. Children learn to distinguish sounds in isolation and in combinations, to hear length and brevity, rhythm, stress and intonation and their meaningful function. Speech material consists of speech units - situationally determined utterances of varying lengths, in which the elements of language are organized according to semantic and communicative characteristics.
Texts for listening with full understanding do not include unfamiliar vocabulary and expressions that could interfere with comprehension. Individual new words, if they appear in the text, should be easily understood by students. When listening to a text with an understanding of the main content, the student should strive to understand the text as a whole.
The psychological component of listening comprehension training includes the following components in its structure:
· taking into account the motives and interests of students when teaching listening as a type of speech activity;
· auditing skills and abilities (distinguish the forms of words, phrases, grammatical structures; anticipate syntactic patterns; develop the volume of auditory memory; understand speech at a normal pace; understand the general content and meaning of what is heard when there is unknown material in the audio text; understand different types texts);
· psychological mechanisms - long-term and operational memory, recognition and comparison, comprehension;
· difficulties associated with the perception of linguistic form (the perception of monologue speech is easier, and the perception of dialogic speech is more difficult, the perception of a text in a live performance is easier than the perception of a text in a mechanical recording);
· the nature of the connection between listening and other types of speech activity (primarily speaking).
The methodological component in teaching listening includes the following structure:
· skills independent work over listening;
· use of various supports to facilitate understanding of what you listen to.
It is necessary to explain to students how important it is to carefully, concentratedly listen to what is being said in English, the relationship of what they hear with a specific situation, with the visual perception of this situation.
General educational and compensatory skills that make up the methodological component of the content of teaching listening include the ability to use supports, avoid difficulties, and use information that precedes listening (pictures, plans, keywords). All these skills are complex. They are based on the synchronous operation of many mechanisms and on the structure of listening as a type of speech activity.
In a modern foreign language program, the main goal of teaching listening comprehension is to develop students’ ability to understand by ear:
Foreign language speech, built on program material with the assumption of a certain amount of unfamiliar vocabulary in the conditions of direct communication in various communication situations;
Educational and authentic audio texts with varying degrees and depth of penetration into their content (within the framework of program requirements);
Basic information (global understanding);
The necessary information (selective understanding);
Full information (detailed understanding).
Let's look at these types of listening in more detail.
In global listening, the listener is, as a rule, only interested in the general content of the information, its main topic. In texts reporting on any events, we are interested in finding out what happened, where, when, and who was involved in the event. In this case, we pay attention only to what is understood. Global listening is only a general, primary orientation in an audio text.
Sometimes global listening is not enough, since the listener may be interested in some details, details, for example, names, quantitative data. In this case, we use detailed listening. However, to understand the details, you must first understand the general content of the text. Thus, detailed and global listening occur simultaneously. For learning purposes, it is necessary to separate these processes from each other: during the first listening, global understanding should be achieved, and during the second, detailed understanding. This type of listening is convenient in dialogue. But in real situations it is used extremely rarely.
However, the goal of the initial stage of listening training is the formation of specific skills characteristic of the level of global and detailed understanding of the spoken text.
Having studied the content and goals of teaching listening at the initial stage, we can say that the main tasks at this stage are the formation of such skills and abilities that would allow students to further understand the basic facts, details of the sounding text, divide it into semantic parts, convey the main idea with their own in other words, perceive messages at a relatively fast pace. It is also obvious that the main goal of teaching listening is to develop students’ ability to listen to foreign speech.
However, the question of the psychological and pedagogical characteristics of children of primary school age remains open, which we will consider in the next chapter.
1.4 Psychological and pedagogical characteristics of children of primary school age
Junior school age is a stage of child development that corresponds to the period of study in primary school. The chronological boundaries of this age can be conditionally defined in the range from 7 to 11 years.
During this period, further physical and psychophysiological development of the child occurs, providing the opportunity for systematic learning at school.
The beginning of schooling leads to a radical change in the social situation of the child’s development. He becomes a “public” subject and now has socially significant responsibilities, the fulfillment of which receives public assessment. During primary school age, it begins to develop new type relationships with surrounding people. The unconditional authority of an adult is gradually lost and by the end of primary school age, peers begin to become increasingly important for the child, and the role of the children's community increases.
Educational activity becomes the leading activity at primary school age. It determines the most important changes occurring in the development of the psyche of children at this age stage. Within the framework of educational activities, psychological new formations are formed that characterize the most significant achievements in development junior schoolchildren and are the foundation that ensures development at the next age stage. Gradually, motivation for learning activities, so strong in the first grade, begins to decline. This is due to a drop in interest in learning and the fact that the child already has a won social position and has nothing to achieve. To prevent this from happening, learning activities need to be given new, personally meaningful motivation.
According to O.Yu. Ermolaeva, during primary school age, significant changes occur in the development of attention; all its properties are intensively developed: the volume of attention increases especially sharply, its stability increases, and switching and distribution skills develop. By the age of 9-10, children become able to maintain attention for a long time and carry out a randomly assigned program of actions.
At primary school age, memory, like all other mental processes, undergoes significant changes. Their essence is that the child’s memory gradually acquires the features of arbitrariness, becoming consciously regulated and mediated.
At this age, another important new formation appears - voluntary behavior. The child becomes independent and chooses what to do in certain situations. This type of behavior is based on moral motives that are formed at this age. The child absorbs moral values and tries to follow certain rules and laws.
New formations such as planning the results of action and reflection are closely related to the formation of voluntary behavior in younger schoolchildren. The child is able to evaluate his action in terms of its results and thereby change his behavior and plan it accordingly. A child is able to overcome his desires if the result of their fulfillment does not meet certain standards or does not lead to the set goal.
At primary school age, children's desire to achieve increases. Therefore, the main motive of a child’s activity at this age is the motive of achieving success. Sometimes there is another type of this motive - the motive of avoiding failure.
Certain moral ideals and patterns of behavior are laid down in the child’s mind. The child begins to understand their value and necessity. But in order for the development of a child’s personality to be most productive, the attention and assessment of an adult is important. The emotional-evaluative attitude of an adult to the actions of a child determines the development of his moral feelings, individual responsible attitude towards the rules with which he becomes acquainted in life. The child's social space has expanded - the child constantly communicates with the teacher and classmates according to the laws of clearly formulated rules.
Thus, primary school age is the most critical stage of school childhood. The main achievements of this age are determined by the leading nature of educational activities and are largely decisive for subsequent years of education: by the end of primary school age, the child must want to learn, be able to learn and believe in himself. From the above, we can conclude that when teaching listening at the initial stage, it is necessary to take into account that during this period the perceptual and articulatory basis of types of speech activity is laid, auditory-pronunciation and spelling skills and speech hearing are formed, sound-letter and letter-sound skills are installed communications, and also acquires the necessary supply of language material. At the same time, the basis for the development of all types of speech activity is laid, which is expressed in the formation of basic skills and abilities, which is very important.
Having studied the theoretical foundations of teaching listening at the initial stage, we can say that listening is an active process that requires great intellectual effort. Listening as a means of learning ensures that students become familiar with new language and speech material, acts as a means of developing skills in all other types of speech activity, helps maintain the achieved level of speech proficiency, and develops auditing skills themselves. One of the priority tasks of teaching listening at the initial stage is the formation of listening mechanisms in students, i.e. speech hearing, memory, prediction, articulation. As well as the formation of such skills and abilities that would allow students to further understand the basic facts, details of the spoken text, divide it into semantic parts, convey the main idea in their own words, and perceive messages at a relatively fast pace. When constructing a program for teaching listening to younger schoolchildren, it is necessary to take into account the psychological and pedagogical characteristics of their age, since the main achievements of this age are largely decisive for subsequent years of study.
Having outlined the theoretical foundations of teaching listening at the initial stage, we move on to describing the teaching methodology.
Chapter 2. Methods of teaching listening at the initial stage
2.1 The main difficulties of understanding speech by ear and overcoming them
Listening is one of the most difficult types of speech activity. Even people who are fairly fluent in a language have difficulty listening to the natural speech of native speakers.
Requiring extremely intense mental activity, listening causes rapid fatigue and loss of attention of the listener. Unfavorable operating conditions for the auditor make it difficult to understand. Thus, the presence of significant and varied listening difficulties is an indisputable fact. It is obvious that for successful teaching of listening, a methodological system is needed that takes into account these difficulties and ensures their overcoming.
In the methodology, there are two ways to deal with difficulties: eliminating them or overcoming them. Removing difficulties naturally makes it easier to master listening and gives quick and tangible results. However, such artificially facilitated listening does not prepare for the perception of natural speech, since all the eliminated difficulties are present in it, and the student is not prepared to overcome them.
Since the main goal of training is to prepare the student for verbal communication in natural conditions, it seems correct not to eliminate, but to gradually and consistently overcome difficulties in the learning process.
In order to focus listening training on overcoming difficulties and developing on this basis skills and abilities that can function successfully in natural conditions, it is necessary to clearly imagine these difficulties. Listening difficulties may be related to:
1) with a language form of message;
2) with the semantic content of the message;
3) with the conditions for submitting the message;
4) with sources of information.
Let us consider successively all these groups of difficulties and outline ways to overcome them.
1. Difficulties associated with the linguistic form of the message.
These difficulties arise for two reasons:
a) due to the unstudied language material contained in the message;
b) due to the familiar but difficult-to-understand linguistic material in the message.
Overcoming the difficulty of understanding a text containing unstudied language material is ensured by developing the ability to guess the meaning of new words, as well as the ability to understand the meaning of a phrase and the text as a whole, despite the presence of unfamiliar elements in it, as if “jumping” over them. For this purpose, we can recommend exercises that teach guessing from word-forming elements, guessing about the meaning of words with a common root with the studied ones, international words, as well as guessing from context.
The second group of difficulties at the level of linguistic material is associated with the fact that when becoming familiar with new words, grammatical phenomena or speech patterns, students’ attention, as a rule, is drawn to the difficulties of reproducing this material, while the difficulties of recognition remain unprocessed. This leads to the fact that students do not easily recognize all the language material they have studied when reading and listening.
To ensure correct recognition of language material, during the process of familiarizing yourself with it, you should pay attention to the difficulties that may arise when perceiving it by ear. It is also necessary to perform special exercises to recognize these phenomena in phrases and microtexts.
The length of sentences should also be mentioned. If it exceeds the memory capacity, the listener forgets the beginning of the phrase and cannot synthesize its meaning, and for students who have not yet sufficiently mastered a foreign language, the memory capacity is much less. It should also be noted that depth also affects the retention of a phrase in memory. Simple sentences are easier to remember than complex ones. Therefore, at the beginning of learning, texts should use mainly short, simple sentences.
2. Difficulties associated with the semantic content of the message.
As is known, obtaining information is the goal of receptive types of speech activity. It is the desire to understand the meaning that will force the listener to mobilize attention, memory and all mental activity, and will force him to overcome difficulties. Consequently, the effectiveness of teaching listening depends primarily on the student’s interest in understanding the content of speech.
The main requirement for the content of texts for listening should be considered to be entertaining and meaningful. Entertaining texts include texts that have an interesting plot for a given age.
While caring about the content of texts, you should not overload them with information. The strength of the text is one of the basic principles of selection. Along with new information, texts should also contain information already known to students. The presence of such elements creates favorable conditions for the functioning of the probabilistic forecasting mechanism, increases its reliability and thereby facilitates understanding of the meaning.
Difficulties associated with the audited speech message include its volume. In order not to cause information overload, the volume of text must correspond to the mental capabilities of the student. At the beginning of training, it should not exceed 1.5-2 minutes of sound. If you need to listen to a longer text, it is useful to present it in parts with breaks.
3. Difficulties associated with the conditions for presenting the message.
Presentation conditions refer to the number of listening sessions and the rate of speech of the speaker.
Observations indicate that repeated listening to text is widely used by teachers to facilitate understanding and memorization of the content and linguistic form of the text. This practice appears to be harmful. It is advisable to immediately “accustom” the student’s psyche to natural functioning conditions and, at the beginning of training, present texts only once. Also, it is worth considering that the optimal tempo for the listener is the tempo of the speech being listened to, which corresponds to the tempo of his own speaking.
4. Difficulties associated with information sources.
In the process of teaching listening, audiovisual and auditory sources of information are used. Audiovisual sources include: all kinds of visual aids (paintings, slides, etc.), accompanied by the teacher’s story, sound films, television and the teacher’s speech. Audit sources include: recordings, audio recordings and radio broadcasts.
It is known from psychology that the more analyzers are involved in receiving information, the more successfully the activity is performed. That is, it is easier to perceive speech from audiovisual sources than from auditory ones.
The next most difficult source of information will be a filmstrip accompanied by the teacher’s speech. Students will not be able to observe the speaker’s facial expressions and gestures, but the presence of objective visualization in the form of filmstrip frames and a familiar voice will facilitate understanding.
Listening to a teacher's speech without visual clarity is somewhat more difficult. However, the teacher’s speech has qualities that make it understandable to students. These include, first of all, the teacher’s speech habit. Extensive practice accustomed students to the pace of the teacher’s speech, his timbre and diction, facial expressions and gestures. In addition, the teacher knows the capabilities of his students well, and therefore his speech is always accessible both in linguistic form and in content.
Film is the most difficult of audiovisual sources of information. The tempo of speech in a film is always stable and cannot be slowed down. Frame changes occur without pauses, and repeated demonstration of the frame is excluded. A student, distracted by the details, may not catch the main content of the frame, which will prevent the correct understanding of speech information, which, as a rule, is less than visual and covers only the main content of the frame.
As you know, familiar voices are easier to listen to than unfamiliar ones. You can start working with an audio recording by listening to the teacher speak. Then move on to listening to unfamiliar voices, first male, and then female and children. Using a tape recorder, you can listen to speech at different tempos: from slow to very fast. However, when working with a tape recorder, repeated listening and interruptions in listening are possible, which makes them an easier source of information than radio broadcasts. The value of radio broadcasts lies in the fact that during the learning process, students use language as a means of natural communication, obtaining new interesting information with their help. By listening to radio broadcasts, the student gets acquainted with the life of the country of the language being studied and learns about important events. The desire to understand the meaning of a radio broadcast stimulates mental activity and forces the listener to make every effort to comprehend the information that interests him.
In conclusion, it should be emphasized once again that effective teaching of listening is impossible without taking into account and grading the difficulties of this type of speech activity. A system of exercises designed to teach listening should be aimed at overcoming these difficulties. The strength of the exercises is ensured by both the gradualness and consistency of incorporating and working out difficulties, and the purposefulness of the exercise to overcome only one new difficulty. Also, for successful learning of listening, it is necessary to follow all stages of work on it.
Having studied the main difficulties of understanding speech by ear and overcoming them, we move on to considering the stages of work on listening.
2.2 Stages of work on listening
Both domestic and foreign methodologists traditionally distinguish three stages of work on listening:
· pre-text stage (Before listening)
· stage of one's own listening (While listening)
· post-text stage (Follow-up activities)
Let's consider each of these stages.
Pre-text stage:
1. Introductory conversation, usually in the “teacher-class” mode, in order to identify students’ background knowledge. Sometimes it is advisable to conduct the introductory conversation in the “student-class” mode, where the student, prepared in advance by the teacher, plays the role of the teacher. This technique - “learn to be a teacher” - is traditional, helps to activate students and intensify the educational process as a whole. Of course, correct use of this technique during a lesson requires a certain amount of time and effort from the teacher. During the introductory conversation it is also possible:
· the teacher’s guiding remarks about the importance of the information contained in the text;
· forecast of the possible content of the text based on its title/first sentence;
· presentation of supports (verbal: keywords, beginnings of sentences, plans, questions; visual/non-verbal: pictures, diagrams, maps, etc.).
2. Removing difficulties (linguistic/linguistic: phonetic-lexical - grammatical and content) of a given text.
3. Present students with the setting before listening to the text.
Thus, at the pre-text stage, three most significant moments are highlighted: introductory conversation, removal of difficulties and presentation of the installation. These points are mandatory, and the further success of the lesson stage during which listening is taught depends on the thoroughness of the teacher’s preparation and conduct of the pre-text stage.
Stage of own listening - presentation of the text:
If the goal this stage listening only the development of listening skills, i.e. Listening is here as the goal of learning, then students listen to the text only once, without removing any difficulties, and immediately after listening to the text, control of its understanding is carried out.
If a detailed discussion of the text is organized and speaking skills are simultaneously developed, that is, as mentioned above, listening is a means of teaching another type of speech activity, then the text is presented to students twice, and before the second listening it is necessary to change the setting.
The point of view of foreign methodologists on the possible number of listening/presentation of the text during a lesson seems interesting: it is believed that the text can be presented to students more than 2 times, as many as necessary - 3 or even 4. This is possible if the text is large enough in volume or very difficult for students. The traditional position of Russian methodologists is closest to us: a large text can be divided into several parts and, accordingly, worked in parts, and the level of the text should correspond to the level of language proficiency of the students, in addition, the text can be adapted by the teacher and more attention is paid to relieving difficulties in the pre-text stage. It is hardly advisable to present the text to students more than 2 times in class. However, in any case, the teacher always needs to navigate the specific learning conditions.
The text can be a message, a description for educational purposes, an interesting coherent story, a joke, a riddle, a thematic message, or instructions for some action.
The setting can be given as a general one for the whole class, it can be varied according to the options, and it is possible, taking into account a differentiated approach, to give different settings to different students depending on their level of proficiency in a foreign language.
Of course, all this requires an individual, differentiated, creative approach from the teacher to lesson planning, which in turn requires additional costs, time and effort from the teacher, but the desire to achieve good results, to give students real, lasting knowledge, as a rule, the teacher “wins” over all difficulties of both an objective and subjective nature.
The post-text stage is monitoring the understanding of the listened text.
This stage immediately follows direct listening and includes various exercises aimed at monitoring the understanding of the text. All control methods, as a rule, can be divided into 2 large groups: speech and non-speech.
Non-verbal methods of monitoring understanding usually include tasks such as: raise your hand when you hear..., testing, select a picture, arrange the pictures in the desired sequence, select (from several suggested) a title for the text.
Verbal methods of monitoring the understanding of a spoken text include the following tasks: answer questions, ask each other, agree or disagree, come up with a title for the text, arrange sentences in a logical sequence, come up with your own version of completing the text.
As can be seen from the non-speech and speech control methods proposed above, all of them can be successfully used at the initial stage of training.
After listening to the text and completing a series of exercises for it, you can continue to use it to develop oral and written communication skills (make a story plan, describe pictures, answer questions, continue the text).
Based on the foregoing, we can conclude that when teaching listening, it is important to follow all three stages: pre-text, stage of one’s own listening, post-text. At the pre-text stage, an introductory conversation is carried out, difficulties are removed and the students are presented with the installation. The text may be presented once or twice, depending on the learning goal of the lesson. And at the post-text stage, the understanding of the listened material is monitored.
Having outlined the basics of the methodology for teaching listening at the initial stage, we move on to developing and describing a system of exercises that were used during pre-graduation practice.
2.3 System of exercises for teaching listening
A system of exercises is understood as the organization of interrelated actions, arranged in the order of increasing linguistic and operational difficulties, taking into account the sequence of development of speech skills in various types of speech activity.
The sequence of formation of abilities and skills of listening speech perception is implemented by the hierarchical structure of exercises, which are divided into two subsystems - preparatory (linguistic) and speech. Preparatory ones are aimed at overcoming certain difficulties of listening and at developing its mechanisms. Speech activities are controlled speech activities, since they are aimed at improving the process of semantic perception and achieving a certain level of understanding.
When constructing a system of listening exercises, the following should be considered:
The interaction of listening and speaking as two forms of oral communication;
The interaction of preparatory and speech exercises, their dosage and sequence of implementation depend on the language training of students and their speech experience, in particular in the field of listening comprehension;
A gradual increase in difficulties, which will ensure that the exercises are feasible at different stages of training.
The purpose of the preparatory exercises is to first (before listening to the text) remove difficulties of a linguistic or psychological nature, which will allow the auditor to focus his attention on the perception of the content.
Taking into account the factors influencing the perception of speech messages, two groups can be distinguished in the preparatory exercises:
1) exercises aimed at overcoming certain listening difficulties;
2) exercises aimed at developing listening mechanisms.
As a result of performing the exercises of the 1st group, the following skills are formed: isolating unfamiliar phenomena from speech messages, their differentiation and understanding; correlating sound patterns with semantics; determining the meaning of words (using word-formation guesses); determining the contextual meaning of various lexical units and grammatical structures; recognition and comprehension of synonymous and antonymous phenomena, etc.
The second group of preparatory exercises promotes the development of: predictive skills; volume of short-term and verbal-logical memory; mechanism of equivalent substitutions; speech hearing; skills to reduce (reduce) inner speech, etc.
1. Repeating foreign language speech after the speaker a) during a pause or b) synchronously in the same language.
This exercise is considered basic. It develops all four listening mechanisms (probabilistic forecasting, articulation, memory, speech hearing). After all, in order to complete it, you need to hear the text, break it down into syntagmas, recognize familiar words and structures, and this is the development of speech hearing. To repeat, they must first be memorized, and this is the development of memory. If students have forgotten part of what they heard, then this can be made up by guessing, based on knowledge of lexical and grammatical compatibility, context, common sense; this is probabilistic forecasting. And finally, forecasting itself, and therefore articulation. All of these mechanisms are trained especially effectively during synchronous pronunciation.
2. Exercises to develop speech hearing.
- listen to the words and raise your hand if the word has a long sound;
Listen to a few sentences and raise your hand when you hear a question sentence;
Identify rhyming words by ear;
Using signal cards (“.”,” “?”, “!”), determine the type of sentence.
3. Memory training exercises.
- With agree with statements or refute them after listening to the text (you can use questions instead of statements);
Listen to the text/message and then compare it with the printed one and find discrepancies;
Listen to two or three short phrases, combine them into one sentence;
Listen to the words and group them according to some principle or characteristic, trying not to miss a single word.
4. Exercises or training in probabilistic forecasting.
Find as many definitions for the words as possible;
Make possible phrases with nouns, verbs, adverbs or adjectives;
Within specific situations, compose the most typical phrases and translate them;
Exercises in the logical development of a plan, which require the ability to complete a phrase or text;
Determine the content by title, illustrations, key words, question.
Speech exercises contribute to the development of skills to perceive speech messages in conditions approaching natural speech communication. They teach: a) to identify the most informative parts of a message; b) close gaps in understanding through text-level prediction; c) relate the text to the communication situation; d) divide the audio text into semantic pieces and determine the main idea in each of them. It should be emphasized that the subsystem of speech exercises is included in the three stages of listening to the text.
1. Pre-text exercises
Determine the topic of the text by choosing one of the three proposed;
Look at the illustrations to the text and guess its content;
Arrange illustrations in a logical sequence;
Read the outline and say what the text is about;
Listen to the beginning of the text and guess its continuation;
Listen short description characters, dates of events and guess the content of the text.
2. Listening Exercises
Listen to the text and insert the missing words in the sentences;
Listen to the text and say which of the phrases suggested below were used in it;
Number the objects mentioned in the text in the picture;
Mark in the figure (diagram) the names of the places of events discussed in the text;
Complete the following sentences;
3. Post-text exercises
Determining the topic of the text;
Retelling the text;
Listen and understand who or what is meant;
Break the audio text into meaningful pieces;
Write down the main content in the form of keywords;
Convey content in your native language.
Answering/posing questions to the text;
Come up with the ending (beginning) of the text;
Description of the characters;
Role-playing game;
Opinion exchange;
Discussion on the topic of what students learned new, important, useful, interesting.
So, let’s highlight the main types of exercises that help in teaching students listening. Exercises are divided into preparatory and speech exercises. Preparatory exercises are called exercises that prepare for the actual listening. Speech exercises are aimed at developing the skills of semantic processing and recording of perceived information.
Having studied the methodology of teaching listening at the initial stage, we can conclude that when teaching listening it is important to follow all three stages: pre-text, the stage of one’s own listening and post-text. Also, effective teaching of listening is impossible without taking into account and grading the difficulties of this type of speech activity. Difficulties may be associated with the language form, semantic content, conditions for presenting the message and sources of information. A system of exercises, which can be preparatory and speech, should be aimed at overcoming these difficulties.
Having outlined in the second chapter the methodology for teaching listening at the initial stage, we move on to a description of the experiential learning that was carried out during pre-graduation practice.
Chapter 3. Experiential learning
3.1 Entry testing
Experimental training was carried out in the 4th “B” class of the Municipal Educational Institution “Secondary School No. 4” in Serpukhov, Moscow Region. There are 14 students in the class. The students showed different levels of knowledge of the English language. The class has average learning abilities, but the children are able to learn. Most students study at 4 and 5. Children are disciplined, very active and inquisitive. Training is conducted according to the textbook by N.I. Bykova, J. Dooley, M.D. Pospelova, V. Evans “Spotlight 4”.
Let us note that the goal of teaching foreign languages at school is to develop students’ skills in all types of speech activity: speaking, listening, reading and writing. However, during the period of experiential learning, special attention was paid to the formation of listening skills at the initial stage. To master listening as a type of speech activity, initially a primary school student must:
Master the English alphabet;
Master basic knowledge of sound-letter correspondences;
Learn to voice transcription signs and read words in transcription;
Understand familiar words in isolation, in phrases and sentences;
Distinguish in rhythmic and intonation terms simple phrases (affirmative, interrogative, exclamatory) when listening to thematic dialogues and monologue statements;
The training was preceded by checking the students' level of development of the above skills. For this purpose, an entrance test was carried out, which included 3 tasks.
The first task was aimed at monitoring vocabulary learned by students earlier
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№1 Number of pictures.
In the second task, students had to listen to an audio recording twice and determine whether the proposed expressions were true or false.
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