Creating Narrow Listening Libraries (Joint)
- 1. Creating Narrow Listening Libraries Poole Gakuin University Alan Bessette bessette@poole.ac.jp Anne-Marie Tanahashi anmarie@poole.ac.jp
- 2. What is a narrow listening library? • A collection of listenings Of different topics By different speakers Of interest to students
- 3. Listenings • Several listenings on one topic • Brief (2 to 3 minutes) • Natural speaking
- 4. Learners are free to decide • When they listen • How many times they listen • Which topics they listen to
- 5. Rationale for Narrow Listening • Comprehensible input • Motivation • Practicality
- 6. Comprehensible input • Similar to narrow reading, narrow listening recycles input and makes it more comprehensible. • Recycling facilitates language acquisition (Krashen 1996)
- 7. Research findings: Dupuy (1999) • Learners reported that narrow listening was helpful in improving their French. Listening comprehension Fluency Vocabulary • Learners made significant gains in listening comprehension. • Comprehension increased with frequency of listenings.
- 8. Motivation • Learners agree with their teachers that listening is important. • Learners often find listening lab exercises not interesting or effective (Harlow & Muyskens (1994).
- 9. Student Reactions: Dupuy, 1999 • Narrow listening is more interesting and it allows to listen more carefully. • It helps me to listen to people speaking French fluently even if I’m unable to understand everything they say. • Narrow listening helps me feel better about French.
- 10. Our students • I was surprised at how much more I could understand with each listening. • I liked no pressure to answer questions. I liked that I could listen many times. I hate listening in class because never enough times. • I got some new words.
- 11. Practicality • A variety of listenings • Listenings are readily accessible to students • Immediate feedback
- 12. The bottom line • Although empirical evidence for narrow listening is weak, student reactions and its possible positive effect on students’ motivation, make the case for narrow listening. • Narrow listening libraries are a practical means to provide our students with access to materials.
- 13. Evolution of the narrow listening library at Poole
- 14. First Steps • Narrow listening was initially offered As a supplementary activity To 1st year learners in an elective class • Learners were asked to write 3 or 4 questions on a topic that interested them. • The instructor wrote scripts to answer those topics and found 2 or 3 speakers for each topic.
- 15. First topics • A total of 6 topics were prepared American High School Proms, Movie Locations for Harry Potter, Tea Time in England, etc. • Listenings were scripted. • Listenings were a bit longer (3 to 5 minutes). • Students were given the listenings on CDs or MDs. • Students were advised to listen a minimum of 8 times.
- 16. Second Steps • Other colleagues became interested. • The listenings were expanded and moved to the Poole EnglishWeb site.
- 17. Narrow listening library • Topics followed speaking class topics. • There are now 20 topics with 59 listenings: Vacations, shopping, movies, hometowns, food, etc. • Listenings are shorter (1 to 2.5 minutes). • Listenings are unscripted.
- 18. Components
- 19. Listenings • Focus questions • Listenings • Quizzes
- 20. Focus Questions • 3 or 4 questions • Two purposes Guide speakers so that listenings are similar Provide students with advanced organizer
- 21. Listenings • Speakers are asked to speak for about 1 to 2 minutes naturally without a script • Listenings are Recorded in a recording studio Edited with Audacity and saved as mp3 files Uploaded to our website.
- 22. Quizzes • Optional • Created within Moodle • Short – five multiple choice or true/false questions • Specific to one listening • Two chances to take quizzes
- 24. Audacity • Audacity is a free, open-source recording and editing software. • It’s very user-friendly.
- 25. Audacity
- 26. Key Audacity features • Import audio • Cut • Silence • Amplify • Noise removal • (Compress) • Export as mp3
- 27. Website • Located at http://poole-englishweb.com • It is stored on a Moodle site. • Moodle is a free, open-source course management system. • It is also user-friendly with extensive support and documentation available at http://moodle.org/.
- 28. Website • Site organization • Features
- 30. Moodle Features • Upload sound (and video) files • Make announcements about the site • Communicate with students • Keep track of student use and quiz scores • Create quizzes Multiple choice, true/false, matching, short answer, embedded answers (cloze), etc.
- 31. Website Considerations • Webhost Budget, reliability and support • FTP server to upload files Moodle uploads are limited to 2MB and most sound files exceed that limit.
- 32. Future Directions • More listenings • Conversations • Vocabulary glosses • Images and maps • Levels
- 33. Thank you for your attention
Editor's Notes
- #7: Although there are differences between the listenings for one topic, many of the vocabulary, grammar features, expressions, etc. will be the same or similar. Repeated listenings with familiar input make the input more comprehensible for learners. Example: Food topic several of the speakers mention not liking natto because it is sticky and smelly.
- #8: Learners reported that NL helped listening comprehension first, then fluency and finally vocabulary
- #10: Last quote is half the battle.
- #16: Students were provided with a listening log. It is on the back of the handout.
- #18: Majority are unscripted.
- #23: These are in response to a student request. The number of chances to take the quizzes is decided by the instructor. Some of the original longer listenings have more questions.
- #25: Garage Band is an alternative for Apple users. Information about where to download and user’s manual is on the handout.
- #27: Open Audacity and Show features: Record, Mic input level, stop and play Input demo listening and play: point out the first part is too loud. Too close to the mike and input level was too high Demonstrate features: cut, silence, amplify, (undo and redo), noise removal, compress Demonstrate Export as mp3
- #31: Students have access to files at school and at home. Can be downloaded onto Mp3 players. Posts are automatically sent to participants
- #32: See handout
- #33: Vocabulary glosses, images and maps will help student understanding. As the number of listenings increase, it will be important to help students choose appropriate levels. One way that we will probably explore is to ask students to rate them as easy, so-so and difficult.