Providing a comment about the article:After analysing the article, we had to provide comments about it. These are my comments about the lists suggested in the mentioned text:
Ideas given by David Numan:
1. Link task with real life: important thing to do to engage students. (I believe in this.)
2. Wide range of input: in this way students will get used to accents and rate of speech speed. (I believe this is a good point.)
3. Listening strategies: have not thought on it when writing my own list and I think it is nice to be thought or adviced on how to go about this kind of task. The teacher has experience as a student as well and can put him/herself on the students’ shoes to give tips.
4. Encourage practice outside classroom: this sounds very nice, however, I believe it is difficult. Ts should try to “cover” the activities in order not to look as a task but as an entertainment.
5. Encourage to reflect on their learning: nice way to give motivation. (Thought I do not think this is so important to be placed on this list.)
Ideas given by Jack Richards:
1. Testing vs teaching: one of the best ways to deal with this kind of activites. If students feel pressured to understand every single word and that they will be graded it will probably create a bad atmosphere for the learning process.
2. Pre, while, post listening activities: good organization of activites is one of the key points for a successful lesson (and obviously, for the learning process. This is why I think this idea is quite linked to number 4.)
3. Authentic materials?: I do not believe this is so relevant. In the beginning of the learning process there is a high difficulty to understand and follow tracks. For this reason I do not think this should be on the list.
4. Listening to develop comprehension and acquisition: opinion already expressed on number 2.
5. English as an international language: I think this is important as long as we are dealing with at least a certain level of proficiency.
Ideas given by Michael Rost:
1. “the right stuff”: important to please students and encourage them to work. It helps motivation and most importantly to establish a good “relationship” with the language.
2. Spoken language: this can only be important when having students of a certain level of proficiency.
3. Interpersonal listening: I think this is interesting. However, I think this should be done before doing listening activities. It will help students when engaging on oral activites and then the next step would be deal with it in listening activities.
4. Interpretation: this help students to creat a “native” thinking. It is nice to encourage students to expect things. I think this also helps on creating motivation.
5. Memory: I believe the person who wrote this list was thinking on a certain type of students and not about all types of levels. I do not think this to be so important.
Ideas given by John Flowerdew and Lindsay Miller:
1. Bottom-up vs top-down: I think that starting with bottom-up strategy is quite daring. I think this is the most difficult way to do listening activities, this is why I think this method should be exploited with more advanced students (even if both ways are good.).
2. Individualization: I have the feeling this is about acquiring listening strategies. It has already been commented in another list.
3. Cross-cultural: I like this point, in some way is like relating to real life as well. A nice way to establish the “relationship” with the language and to be more open-minded.
4. Contextualize: this is important. There must be clear instructions. Organized activites as secondary activites to understand and work the vocabulary found in the track.
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