Teaching and Assessing Listening - Week 13 - Using Artistic Materials in Listening

Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 13 of the course Teaching and Assessing Listening for the master's in English teaching at ULACIT term IIICO 2022. In today's class we discuss the use of song and other artistic materials in listening activities for language classes. We will participate in several demonstration activities as well as look at two frameworks for exploiting listening texts for additional purposes: the Text-Based Approach and the Ideas Grid.

Today's Goals:

• Participate in a demo PWP lesson with a song and a TDA lesson using a poem.
• Use McGrath's Ideas Grid to brainstorm possible language tasks to do in reaction to a text.
• Reflect on your highlights and takeaways from the course. 

Guiding Questions: 

• How can I effectively use songs and other artistic texts in listening lessons?
• How can the Ideas Grid and Text-Driven Approach help me exploit listening texts?
• What are my takeaways from this course?

Topic 1: Guided Course Reflection

This is it! The final class of the term. Next week you will present your listening lesson plans and explain your designs. Let's take a few minutes to participate in this guided writing task to reflect on our experiences this term. 

• Peter: CLICK HERE
• Ignacio: CLICK HERE
• Francisco: CLICK HERE
• Stephanie: CLICK HERE
• Arianna: CLICK HERE
• Gabriela: CLICK HERE

Topic 2: Using Songs and other Artistic Media in Listening

In today's class we are going to look at the use of songs and other artforms in listening lessons. Discuss these questions with your partners. 

• How often do you use songs in your language classes? 
• How do you use them and for what purposes?
• Do you have any favorite songs that you think are particularly good for and English class?
• What are the opportunities and challenges of using songs in class?

Topic 3: Demo Lesson - Song Analysis

Let's participate in a brief demo sequence using a song you've probably never heard, the 1967 song "Branded Man" by Merle Haggard and the Strangers. This is a country song that I have used as part of an intermediate adults lesson on the topic of crime, punishment, and justic. 

• Group 1: CLICK HERE
• Group 2: CLICK HERE

• Group Discussion: 
• What are alternatives to fill-in-the-blank While listening tasks?
• Songs are not just valuable in terms of the grammar content!
• How can we use songs to stimulate students' language use?
• How can we have our students react to the song's meaning, style, artistic content?
• Some teachers incorporate songs that their students like. What are some of the challenges and oppotunities associated with that approach?

Topic 4: Text Exploitation Frameworks

There are a number of frameworks that have been proposed to help teachers make use of texts (spoken and written) in their classes. We are going to look at two, Tomlinson's Text-Driven Approach and McGrath's Ideas Grid.

Brian Tomlinson's Text-Driven Approach provides a radically different method of materials design. It uses texts as the primary building block of the syllabus. Although a full implementation of this approach is unfeasable to most of us because of curricular constraints in our schools, his framework can give us great ideas for developing a learning sequence around a single text.

The charts below outline the steps in his framework, but before reading them, consider the unwritten Stage Zero!

• Stage 0 - Select interesting texts! Without the "wow" factor, there is no potential for engagement.

• Stage 1 - Readiness Activities - Pre-listening/reading activities designed to establish a connection between the learner's own lives and the text.

• Stage 2 - Experiential Activities - Help the learner to make concrete connections with the text and are given to the learners before they listen or read the text.

• Stage 3 - Intake Response Activities - Focus on getting learners to reflect on what the text means to them.

• Stage 4 - Development Activities - Encourage learners to use the text as a stimulus for a productive language task related to their own lives.

• Stage 5 - Input Response Activities - Are of two kinds, awareness and interpretation, and are intended to involve learners with the language of the text or the author's purpose on a deeper level.

• Stage 6 - Development Activity Extension - Cyclical Approach

Task 1: TDA Demo - Nasty School
You will participate in a demo lesson following the Text-Driven Approach. Follow the teacher's instructions and enjoy the activity sequence as a student. Later you will analyze what happened in the sequence from a materials design perspective.

• Introduction: You are going to hear a poem about children behaving badly in school. Before you listen to the poem, discuss these questions with your partners:
• What are some rules that kids typically have to follow in school?
• What are some ways that kids misbehaved when you were a student?

• Listen and Read: You are going to hear the first part of the poem called “Nasty School” by Shel Silverstein, a poet who was very popular with children when I was young. As you listen, imagine you are a 3rd grader in this elementary school. Try to visualize the answers to these questions. (CLICK HERE to access the poem)

• What are you wearing?
• What and who do you see around you?
• What are you thinking and feeling?

• Share some of the images that came to your mind. 
• Did you ever do any of the behaviors mentioned in the poem?
• Now you are going to listen the second part of the poem where you will hear about what students learn at Nasty School. As you listen, imagine you are a naughty child in Nasty School. Visualize yourself doing these naughty things.

• Discussion: Discuss the following questions with your partners:What do you think of the poem?
• What is an image that stays in your mind related to the poem?
• Why do you think this poet was popular with children?
• Do you agree that it is sometimes fun to break the rules?
• Some people think that one of the primary functions of school is to teach children to control their impulses and learn how to be obedient. Do you agree with this perspective?
• What role should school shave in the formation of values and good behavior in society?

• Writing: Now you are going to write your own poem about one of the following imaginary schools. Choose your school and write a brief poem discussing what happens in this school, how students behave, and what they learn to do. CLICK HERE and go to your section of the document.

• Pleasant School: A utopian school where children learn to be model citizens
• Tico School: An academy where foreigners learn to think and behave like Costa Ricans
• School of Life: A school where children learn essential non-academic life skills that will prepare them for the real world

• Speaking: Re-read the first part of the poem with your partners and then read the roles information below to participate in an improvised roleplay with your group members.

• Student A: You are Johnny, a very misbehaved 3rd grader. You have been very disruptive in class for several months. You are a good kid but being naught is just so fun. Now it is time for the semester parent-teacher conference. You know that your teacher is going to tell your parents about all of the bad things you have been doing. Try to minimize your behavior to avoid punishment from your parents.
• Student B: You are Johnny’s mother or father. You know your son can be a little hyperactive but you think he is a good kid. Now it is time for the semester parent-teacher conference. Ask the teacher questions to find out how Johnny has been behaving.
• Student C: You are Johnny’s teacher. His terrible behavior has made your job a nightmare for the last six months. Now it is time for the parent-teacher conference. You want to explain to Johnny’s mom or dad all of the bad things that he has done and get their support to help him change his behavior.

• Language Focus: Now let's take a moment to look at the poem again. What do you notice about the verbs after the word "how"?
• Finish this sentence about you: "In school I learned how to ..."

• Let's Try: Let's go back to the school poems document and complete the final task as a group.
• Group Document: CLICK HERE

Task 2: Reacting to the Text-Driven Approach

• Now that you have learned about the structure of the Text-Driven Approach, discuss the following questions with your partners. CLICK HERE to view the lesson plan.
• How did the text influence the activities that occured at each stage in the lesson?
• What language skills (listening, reading, speaking, writing) were addressed in the lesson sequence?
• Tomlinson says that texts and tasks used in class should be cognitively (intellectually) and affectively (emotionally) engaging for students in order to provide the ideal conditions for langauge development. Where you cognitvely or affectively engaged by the text or any of the tasks? If so, how?
• TDA depends on finding or creating texts with a high degree of potential engagement, what are some kinds of texts that your learners would find engaging? Why?

Ideas Grid: McGrath suggests a simple template to guide the text exploitation process. Consider the short text below and all of the ideas he proposed to exploit it for use in the language classroom.

Now it's your turn. CLICK HERE to access a sample text and a copy of McGrath's ideas grid. What possibilities does this text offer us?

References: 

Rost, M. (2017). Teaching and Researching Listening (3rd ed.). Routledge.