Honing Listening Skills with Audio & Video Deborah McGee Mifflin Johns Hopkins University GWATFL / MFLA Fall 2010 Conference Saturday, October 16, 2010

Session Goals Consider the learner challenges when listening in a foreign language (L2) Look at the basics of creating listening activities Experience 3-4 German language examples & activities

Listening What are students doing?

Listening chunking looking for clues top down interpretation making a mental representation matching words they hear with words they know tuning out distractions bottom up processing comparing with world knowledge

Choices – What to listen to! Pros of authentic materials: –language in action –high validity –encripted cultural information Cons of authentic materials: –assumes a native speaker audience –fast, idiomatic, dialect influences

What now? Finding & Storing (Internet, Books, Youtube) Evaluating appropriateness, theme, level Manipulating & Editing (Audacity, PowerPoint, other software programs) Identifying purpose & linguistic challenges Creating activities

Template for Activity Sequence Pre-Listening –Getting students ready –Providing vocabulary support –Previewing selected content Listening –Providing motivation to keep listening –Multiple times, depending on purpose Post-Listening –Working with meaning –Solidifying vocabulary knowledge –Evaluation

Types of Activities Inferring content from title, pictures, portions of text (Vermutungen) Matching –vocabulary w/ visuals –vocabulary w/ L1 –vocabulary w/ L2 definitions –sequences

Activities, continued Listening –for specific vocabulary items –for longer expressions –for grammatical items –for words to complete a text (Lückentext) Content –true-false –multiple choice –matching –fill-ins –short answer …

Example 1 / Beispiel 1 Der relaxte Outdoor-Single Ein Ausschnitt aus Leonhard Thoma: Idealpaar (2007, Hueber) Stufe: ab A1 Themen: Language, Cognates, Lehnwörter Soundclip: 7,21 Minuten (Audio) Einstieg & Vorentlastung Hören: Clip 1: 1,59 Clip 2: 1,05 Clip 3: 1,15

Example 2 / Beispiel 2 Erich Kästner: Ein Auszug aus Als ich ein kleiner Junge war (1957) (Erinnerungsorte, Cornelsen) Stufe: B1 – C1; Intermediate to Advanced Themen: Heimatort, Kindheitserinnerungen, Sehenswürdigkeiten, Dresden vor und nach dem Krieg Soundclip: 2,25 Minuten (das Vorlesen einer literarischen Passage)

Example 3 / Beispiel 3 Der kleine Nils von Youtube 2 – 3 minutige Radiosendungen von RTL Beispiele: Der Friseur (2,50) Der kleine Nils will heiraten (3,03) Der Führerschein (2,55) Pro: Short, Conversations, idiomatic, real Con: not book language, slang, dialect

Example 4 / Beispiel 4 Das Jahr 1968 in Bildern von Stephan Trinius (2009) Pictures w/ narration Downloadable from Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung hichte/objekt_648.html Stufe: C1 Thema: Geschichte, die 1968er Generation

Handouts and Materials from this presentation are available at GWATFL_MFLA%20Listening%20Mifflin