Listen For This

1. Listen For This Elements of Spoken English for L2 Listening Instruction Jacqueline Jeffers TESL Ontario, November 2008

2. Background Advanced level learners interested in talking to the “people they meet” every day ELT Conference – Ottawa, 2006 Academic background, EFL Looking for listening resources

3. How many times have we heard students say…? “I don’t understand English” Who are you talking to? What is your relationship to the speaker(s)? What are they talking about? What don’t you understand?

4. “They talk too fast!” • “You listen too slow.” Non-native speakers need to know how to decipher the acoustic noise (Brown, 1977) that comprises spoken English Teachers require a comprehensive approach to teaching the elements of English as it is spoken, in real time, by a variety of people

5. Outline Learning to Listen - for real Features of Spoken English Stress and Rhythm Pitch Intonation Reductions Suggested Reading

6. Learning to Listen – for real? Authentic spoken English consists of a range of bad habits, poor performance, incorrect grammar, and incoherent statements Q: Where did you go? A: To the store. Incomplete answer A Toronto radio broadcaster: “Less people are using the TTC” Non-grammatical constructions “I seen him five minutes ago” Register

7. Learning to Listen – for real? (continued) Enunciation Teaching English is not the same as listening instruction. If teachers adopt a slow, deliberate style of speaking (Brown, 1990), it may be helpful in delivery of content. However, it doesn’t prepare students for the flow of language they hear outside the classroom. Fluency Fillers, false starts, and pauses are part of normal conversation, but for the most part they are neither observed nor discussed by native speakers (or teachers). Brown (1977) referred to this as “native speaker impunity”

8. “Students should be doing what they do when listening in their first language… It must, however, be borne in mind that much of what we do in our first language is not conscious, and consequently, one of our tasks is to bring to a conscious level what we do, and then try to get the students to apply the same strategies in the second language”(Mendelsohn, 1994)

9. Stress and Rhythm English places emphasis on particular parts of words or specific parts of sentences, and deemphasizes other syllables The stress and unstress of sounds throughout an utterance provide English with its rhythm Stress is the guide to the structure of information in the spoken message (Brown 1977)

10. Syllable-timed French, Spanish, Italian, and Czech are syllable timed languages

11. Stress-timed English, like German, Russian, and Arabic is a stress-timed language

12. Tonic Stress Because meaning is conveyed through louder and longer stress on a word or part of a word, learners of English who are engaged in learning to listen like a native speaker must focus on the stressed syllables of the spoken language (Brown, 1977)

13. Pitch The specific meaning of a word, phrase, or sentence can be altered through use of the voice. This change is signaled by changes in tone that surround pauses; the change of tone indicates a focus on particular or salient words (Brown, 1990)

14. “Sorry, we don’t serve the Lumberjack Breakfast to accountants”

15. Final Intonation Rising falling – used in declarative statements or in H5W questions When the speaker’s voice falls to the bottom of the pitch range, the listener can assume the speaker has finished speaking (Avery & Ehrlich, 1992). Rising intonation – the speaker has asked a question e.g.: I’m going to the store. (Do you) need anything? An utterance that is grammatically a statement (SVO word order) can be turned into a question e.g.: You want to go to Hawaii. You want to go to Hawaii ?

16. Non-Final Intonation Rising/Falling Used in complex sentences; a rise-fall to a lower pitch completes the utterance NS listen for the lowered pitch and will respond or wait for another person to provide input after this pause. NNS should try to listen for this drop, and use it to track why speaker turn has changed. Continuation Rise Used for listing items; a fall occurs on the last item “We visited Kingston, Brockville, Ottawa, and Montreal.”

17. Tag questions Confirmation: final rise “It’s a long weekend, isn’t it?” Agreement: final rise/fall “They don’t listen, do they?” To open a conversation: rise/fall “Looks like fun, doesn’t it?”

18. Reductions Function words and unstressed syllables are reduced in normal speech: unstressed vowels are reduced to schwa, consonants are joined to each other, or omitted entirely. “Do you want a cup of coffee?”

19. Schwa 34.5 % of occurrences of vowels in “running Canadian English speech” (Woods, 2005) Consider the sound of a, e, i, o, u in these words: atlas college promise purpose lettuce (Avery & Ehrich, 1992)

20. Elision Omission of a vowel, consonant or syllable produces elided forms: • not ideal citation forms of each word uttered maximally clearly or explicitly • sequences occurring in the stream of normal informal speech in non-prominent parts of the utterance • represent the natural simplifying processes which occur in all languages (Brown, 1977)

21. Elision Word final /t/ “aspects” “he must be” Vowels in the middle of words “interest” , “cabinet” pronounced as two syllables, not three

22. Assimilation “I don’t know.” “There is not always time for the tongue to assume the ideal position required to articulate a sound” (Richards, 1983) • Loss of word boundaries • Deletion of vowels and consonants • Insertion of sounds that are not represented orthographically in the written form of the words

23. Assimilation “Assimilation occurs with the final nasal consonants of function words, where the final /n/ sound of a function word assimilates (in place of articulation) to a following stop consonant” ( Avery & Ehrlich 1982) “I can’t believe it” /n/ assimilates to /m/ “I can go” /n/ changes to /ŋ/

24. Paletalization Occurs before words that begin with the semi-vowel /y/ “Did you see that yellow car?” “What yellow car? “This adjustment of each segment to its neighbours is a characteristic of all human languages” (Brown, 1990) Tendencies of assimilated sounds are different across languages

25. Contractions “We’ve been using that supplier for years” L2 speakers may not attend to a structure that doesn’t exist in their native language; NS may not actually pronounce all the words that written English requires

26. Ellipsis Speakers delete such elements as subjects, auxiliaries, verbs, articles, and pronouns, when context makes their presence redundant (Richards, 1983) Speakers are guided by the need to express meaning efficiently; words which play a less crucial role in the message may be slurred or dropped, and other words given more prominence (Brown, cited in Richards, 1983)

27. A final note: By some estimations, during an average day, we spend 4 - 9% writing 11 - 16% reading 25 - 30% speaking 40 - 50% listening (Rivers, 1981, Oxford, 1993, cited in Goh, 2002) Time spent on instruction in listening to everyday English is time well spent.

28. Suggested Reading • Avery, P., & Ehrlich, S. (1992). Teaching American English pronunciation. Oxford: University Press. • Brown, G. (1977). Listening to spoken English. London: Longman. • Brown, G. (1990). Listening to spoken English (2nd ed.). Essex, England: Longman. • Flowerdew, J., & Miller, L. (2005). Second language listening: Theory and practice. New York: Cambridge University Press. • Goh, C. M. (2002). Exploring listening comprehension tactics and their interaction patterns. System, 30, 185-206. • Gilbert, J. (1995). Pronunciation practice as an aid to listening comprehension. In D. J. Mendelsohn & J. Rubin (Eds.). A Guide for the Teaching of Second Language Listening. Carlsbad, CA: Dominie Press, Inc. • Goh, C. M. (2002a). Exploring listening comprehension tactics and their interaction patterns. System, 30, 185-206. • Goh, C. M. (2002b). Teaching listening in the language classroom. Singapore: RELC • Mendelsohn, D. J. (1994). Learning to listen: A strategy-based approach for the second- language learner. Carlsbad, CA: Dominie Press, Inc. • Mendelsohn, D. J. (1995). Applying learning strategies in the second/foreign language listening comprehension lesson. In D. J. Mendelsohn & J. Rubin (Eds.). A Guide for the Teaching of Second Language Listening (pp. 132 – 150). Carlsbad, CA: Dominie Press, Inc. • Woods, H. B. (2005). Rhythm & Unstress (Rev. ed.). Ottawa, ON: Public Works and Government Services Canada.

29. Text and Audio Resources James, G., Whitley, C.G. & Bode, S. (1980). Listening In & Speaking Out – Intermediate. New York: Longman Lewis, M. (1982). Out and about: A course to encourage fluency for more advanced students. Hove, England: Language Teaching Publications Lougheed, L. (1985). Listening between the lines: A cultural approach. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company Inc. Abraham, P. & MacKey, D. (1986). Get ready: Interactive listening and speaking. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents. Chan, M. J. (1987). Phrase by phrase: Pronunciation and listening in American English. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prenice Hall Engkent, L.P. & Bardy, K.P. (1992). Take part: Speaking Canadian English (2nd ed.). Scarborough, ON: Prentice Hall Canada. Dauer, R.M.(1993). Accurate English: A complete course in pronunciation. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents. White, J. R. (1997). Listen to the loon: An intermediate listening program. Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press. Petit, L. & Unwin, V. (1998). CLB Listening/Speaking Resource: Stages I and II – Teachers notes. Winnipeg, MB: Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Kingwell, G., Bonkowski, F. J., Stephenson, L., & Holmes, T. (2005). Canadian snapshots: Raising Issues. Saint-Laurent, PQ: Pearson-Longman Blackwell, A. & Naber, T. (2006). Open forum: Academic listening and speaking 2. New York: Oxford University Press. Harmer, J.& Lethaby, C. (2007). Just listening and speaking: Upper Intermediate – American Edition. London: Marshall Cavendish Education.