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HBEL2103 Listening and Speaking and Teaching of Listening and Speaking

Introduction

Spoken language differs from written language in a number of ways. In

writing, words are printed on pages or displayed on screen as medium. We use our
eyes to read and our hands to write or type. Spoken language use sounds as medium
and we use our speech organs to speak and ears to listen. During a writing process, a
writer is able to take his own time to write or compose an idea but not likely during a
conversation where thinking, speaking and listening will go on at almost all the time
from the start till the end of a conversation. A writer may take his time to read and re-
reading what he has written but not when you are in a conversation where you will not
be able to understand what might be said if you failed to listen and to understand
instantly. In a conversation, we use paralinguistic features such as pause, loudness,
stress, intonation and many more. Not to forget extra linguistic features, for example,
gestures, facial expressions, eye contact and many more. In writing, it’s only words
on pages without any interactions unlike during a conversation where two or more
people who will definitely interact with each other. During speech interactions, a
speaker is able to find out the listeners response to what he said at almost instantly
and spontaneously. All these interactions will make a situation more alive rather than
a dull and quiet reading moment. Reading activities are usually a private activity
where people who read will look for a place comfortable and free of distractions.
Most writing is meant for record and archive for future reference. Spoken language is
mostly for leisure and the main purpose is to show social skills. In a more serious
matter, spoken language is use to convey ideas directly.

According to Wilga Rivers (1981), listening is an important skill in daily life

where we listen twice as much as we speak, four times as much as we read and five
times as much as we write. Before humans learnt to read and write, we can only utter
sounds that have meanings. As Nida (1957) rightly concludes, ‘Learning to speak a
language is very largely a task of learning to hear it.’ In the KBSR syllabus it
specifies the aims of listening in many ways such as to develop pupil’s ability to listen
to information with understanding and precision. To achieve this, pupils are
encouraged to respond to the information heard in a variety of ways. To achieve this
in a child’s early age at the beginning stage of learning a foreign language as second

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HBEL2103 Listening and Speaking and Teaching of Listening and Speaking

language is not an easy task. Before pupils meet language in its written form, they
develop knowledge of words and structures through repeatedly hearing these words
every day. This shows that listening and speaking is an active process in order to
develop an understanding of the language before they are able to learn how to write
the language. In order to learn a language is by using the language by the simplest
mean is to speak in the language. Before pupil’s able to speak the language, they need
to hear to the language with understanding. Only then the pupils be able to imitate the
sounds made by the language during conversations or reading aloud activities. By
repeating the sounds or saying words of the language repeatedly may the pupils able
to speak the language gradually.

English teachers should teach more listening and speaking skills during
classroom activities rather than focusing mainly to written skills. Languages are
meant for speaking not only writing essays or answering written questions. In
Malaysian primary schools, the written Primary School’s Examination or UPSR
(Ujian Penilaian Sekolah Rendah) were put to priority above all which does not
reflect the aim of the National Education Philosophy FPN (Falsafah Pendidikan
Negara). Unable to cope with academic excellence in the UPSR examination will pull
down one’s school’s grade and society will look it as a failure. All this issues changed
teacher’s ways of classroom teaching due to demands around them. The simplest way
today in solving this issue is by integrating ICT (Information and Communication
Technology) and multimedia in teaching language.

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HBEL2103 Listening and Speaking and Teaching of Listening and Speaking

The Lesson Plan

Class Mercury

Year Year Five

Number of Pupils 38

Duration One hour

Theme The World of Knowledge

Topic Animals and Us

Language skills:

• Listening Skills : 1.7.2 Listen to stories and and fables and recall details

• Speaking Skills : 2.5.1 Give details about the people and animals of a story
heard, read or viewed

• Reading skills : 3.3.3 read and understand simple paragraphs.

• Writing Skills : 4.5.3 Take dictation of paragraphs given to be learnt.

Level : All levels

Language Content :

• Grammar : Past Tense

• Vocabulary : About animals and their young

Behavioural objectives : By the end of the lesson, pupils should be able to speak and
extract information heard regarding main ideas and details.

Previous knowledge :

• Names and identify animals (goat, sheep, cow, chicken, duck, etc)

• Peoples at a farm/ village.

• Teaching Aids/Materials : Composite picture

• Moral value (s) : Love the animals

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HBEL2103 Listening and Speaking and Teaching of Listening and Speaking

Procedures :

Teaching/ Learning
Stage/Time Content Remarks
Activities
Sounds of animals. Pupils listen and Listening and
(farm animals) guess/ name the speaking skills
animals base on the Play recorded
sound (recorded) they sounds of farm
make. Teacher will let
SET animals (mp3).
the pupils to guess the
INDUCTION Pupils use their
animals that made the past experience
5 min
sounds. around a farm/
village.

A composite picture Pupils seek and Speaking skills

and text in speech identify animals and Using LCD
bubbles about people situations orally in a projector to
and animals on a farm. composite picture with project
speech bubbles. Talk composite
about the animals and picture (power
Development 1 life on a farm using point
the speech bubbles in
(Pre) presentation).
composite picture as Teacher helps
10 min
guided. the disscussion
flow by asking
pupil’s
experience at a
farm/ village.

Development 2 Vocabulary items of Pupils listen to teacher Listening and

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HBEL2103 Listening and Speaking and Teaching of Listening and Speaking

farm animals and life read aloud a passage a writing skills

on a farm. few times in order for Listen to stories
the pupils to and and fables
understand the story and recall
and identify specific details
details. Pupils to be
given a task (set of
questions in
worksheet). Pupils
(While)
transferring
15 min
informations into
blanks in written form
correctly with similar
data found in text
heard.

Development 3 Passage with animals Teacher reads aloud Listening skill

on a farm passage (same passage
(Post) Exercise book
again) while pupils
20 min
listen and write them
out. (dictation)

CLOSURE/ Comprehension Pupils ask to answer Writing Skill

EVALUATION worksheet base on the comprehension Worksheet,

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HBEL2103 Listening and Speaking and Teaching of Listening and Speaking

passage heard. questions in written exercise book

work while listening
to a passage (same
10 min
passage) read aloud by
teacher.

Vocabulary items. Pupils given a task to Worksheet,

Farm animals. list animals on a farm exercise book
FOLLOW UP
and to name their
ACTIVITIES
young.

The Reflections and Comments

Speaking and listening activities should reflect pupils interest and previous
experience before able to do a speaking activity. Only when a pupil is ready with a
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HBEL2103 Listening and Speaking and Teaching of Listening and Speaking

certain degree of experience and understanding will then a listening and speaking
activity will be able to be done in a classroom. Most of the time during this activity
where pupils are all engage in getting something done orally or conveying
information heard.

This class has the basic experiences need to engage in discussions neither
without any vocabulary problems nor with the basic language itself. This class seems
to show lack of politeness during discussions from the beginning of the activity.

The aim of a listening and speaking classroom activity for primary pupils is to
give them basic social skills using the language with ease and better command to have
a clear and understandable conversation. At the end of the lesson, pupils should be
able to covey details and specific information pertaining to the topic. In this case, this
class is able to give appropriate response using their previous experience. They are
well equipped with appropriate English vocabulary to make a conversation on. The
problem arise with a few pupils are conversation shyness. Some pupils have lack of
self confidence against the confident in writing skills. Using a simple and familiar
topic seems less stressful among the pupils during conversations and discussions.
Most of the are familiar with the topic, vocabulary and situations pertaining to the
topic.

The problem seems being unable to maintain a balance between langguage

accuracy and fluency but meaning is still clear. Pupils do not use a complete sentence
during the disscussions and conversations and this shows lack of confident using the
language and pupils background. Most pupils don’t use the language outside the
classroom. Lack of speaking experience make them less spoken and maintain only to
convey ideas and specific informations among them. A much more active activity
needed to help pupils to gain better confidence and having fun using the language,

The Suggestions to Improve

Listening and speaking skills gives a lot more importance to the listener as a
person than to any exchange of information. The main purpose is to maintain good

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HBEL2103 Listening and Speaking and Teaching of Listening and Speaking

social relationships. In this situation, it’s important to show politeness whenever one
is talking to or listening to you. Giving an appropriate response politely is a good way
to start a conversation. Phrases mostly use should be start with Excuse me…, May I..,
and etc. It’s important to make sure pupils practices politeness at all time during
discussions or conversations.

In a mixed ability group it’s best to have some sort of guidance before a
conversations or discussions. This will help those who lack of confidence to have
some ideas of what to say or how to ask correctly. Teacher needs to drill some of the
phrases and sentence structures before letting them go for a free conversation
pertaining to the topic picked.

A dictation that seems a bit heavy should be replaced with something simpler
with more tasks on listening or speaking and less writing. Writing should be at
minimal and used to convey ability to understand the information heard or being
discussed especially with the instructions given by the teacher. Oral instructions
should be simple and straight forward will only then the pupils able to follow them
accurately. Dictation activity should be change to fill in the blanks with words exactly
with the passage heard when teacher read aloud the passage. Passage should be read
many times to give pupils more chance for them to more understand the story better
and able to.

Since in Malaysia, English was spoken as second language or in other cases

third or fourth language therefore most pupils will be facing with pronunciation
problem. Teacher needs to help and to correct the immediately during conversations
or discussions. The more they practice speaking, the more they will be able to master
the language. Spoken language is made of sounds, therefore it’s important that pupils
able to pronounce word correctly. The sound system varies between languages so that
when pupils speak a foreign language, they may have problems because they are
unable to reproduce the same sound exactly what a native speaker can do.

Due to this weakness, it’s important that pupils need to really ready (pre
listening) and know what will they hear (topic/ title) and what they need to do (oral
instructions).

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HBEL2103 Listening and Speaking and Teaching of Listening and Speaking

Hearing passage/ instructions once is not enough. Teacher needs to keep

repeating passage and instructions many times will only then pupils able to keep up
and understand the details or information within the passage they heard read aloud
much more clearly.

Listening has several principles to follow such as to encourage pupils to listen

tentatively as often and as much as possible i.e. to keep the discipline of the class at
all times. The more pupils listen to the passage being read by the teacher, the better
they get at understanding the main points and specific details that follows.

Second principle is for teachers to help their pupils prepare to listen by making
them seriously involved. Composite picture used is a good start but teacher needs to
give specific and clear instructions using simple words, short phrases and sentences
will then only they are able to engage with the topic.

The next principle is to make sure that pupils take part actively during
conversations and respond to questions asked. They need to respond to the content
and not just to the language. Pupils need to give opinions on the issue being
discussed.

During different listening stages, may need different listening tasks and is
better to use the same material many times (repeating) but pupils will be asked to do a
different task based on the same passage they heard over and over again. Same
passage with different task will developed different level of ability. First task is to
hear and understand the main points. Second task is to find a more specific details
from passage heard while filling blanks with exact words and exact phrases. This will
help them focus on what they are learning pertaining to the topic.

Finally, a good teacher will always able to exploit listening text to the full
potential. Use many applications for the same skill (listening) before they are able ti
speak about the topic being discussed.

The Revised Lesson Plan

Class Mercury

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HBEL2103 Listening and Speaking and Teaching of Listening and Speaking

Year Year Five

Number of Pupils 38

Duration One hour

Theme The World of Knowledge

Topic Animals and Us

Language skills:

• Listening Skills : 1.7.2 Listen to stories and and fables and recall details

• Speaking Skills : 2.5.1 Give details about the people and animals of a story
heard, read or viewed

• Reading skills : 3.9.2 Read and give details about the animals in the story.

• Writing Skills : 4.7.9 Write stories with little or no guidance.

Level : All levels

Language Content :

• Grammar : Past Tense

• Vocabulary : About animals and their young

Behavioural objectives : By the end of the lesson, pupils should be able to speak and
extract information heard regarding main ideas and details.

Previous knowledge :

• Names and identify animals (goat, sheep, cow, chicken, duck, etc)

• Peoples at a farm/ village.

• Teaching Aids/Materials : Composite picture

• Moral value (s) : Love the animals

Procedures :

Teaching/ Learning
Stage/Time Content Remarks
Activities

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HBEL2103 Listening and Speaking and Teaching of Listening and Speaking

Sounds of animals. Pupils listen and Listening and

(farm animals) guess/ name the speaking skills
animals base on the Play recorded
sound (recorded) they sounds of farm
make. Teacher will let
SET animals (mp3).
the pupils to guess the
INDUCTION Pupils use their
animals that made the past experience
5 min
sounds. around a farm/
village.

A composite picture Pupils look and Speaking skills

and text in speech identify animals and Using LCD
bubbles about people situations orally in a projector to
and animals on a farm. composite picture with project
speech bubbles. Talk composite
about the animals and picture (power
Development 1 life on a farm using point
the speech bubbles in
(Pre) presentation).
composite picture as Teacher helps
10 min
guide. the disscussion
flow by asking
pupil’s
experience at a
farm/ village.

Development 2 Vocabulary items of Pupils listen to teacher Listening and

farm animals and life read aloud a passage a writing skills
(While)
on a farm. few times in order for Listen to stories
15 min
the pupils to

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HBEL2103 Listening and Speaking and Teaching of Listening and Speaking

understand the story and and fables

and identify specific and recall
details. Pupils give a details
task (set of questions
in worksheet). Pupils
transferring
informations into
blanks in written form
correctly with similar
data found in text
heard.
Development 3 Things pupils like and Teacher demonstrate
dislike on a farm. on white board a table
(Post)
on how to group
20 min
things one likes or
dislikes on a farm.

Likes Dislikes
Animals dirty
fresh wet

Teacher Pupils in
groups discuss and list
on things that they like
and things that they
dislikes on a farm.
Each will ask each
other on the reasons
(Why…) they like or
dislike certain things
on a farm.
CLOSURE/ Comprehension Pupils ask to answer Writing Skill
EVALUATION worksheet base on the comprehension Worksheet
passage heard. questions in written

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HBEL2103 Listening and Speaking and Teaching of Listening and Speaking

work while listening

to a passage read
aloud by teacher.
10 min

Vocabulary items. Pupils given a task to Worksheet

list animals on a farm
and to name their
FOLLOW UP
young
ACTIVITIES

Conclusion

Teaching listening and speaking is essential to provide oral experience with

the language being taught. It’s hard at first but a good listening and speaking class
activity can be judge by looking at the pupils being enjoyed doing language activities.
This type of activities involving listening and speaking will effect pupils’ acquisition

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HBEL2103 Listening and Speaking and Teaching of Listening and Speaking

of good pronunciation and other speaking habits. At the same time, pupils are exposed
to different varieties of English, and different kinds of listening.

Both intensive and extensive listening can be achieved between detailed

listening and teaching pupils how to listen for pleasure.

The fact is, pupils need to be able to deploy different skills of listening in
order to understand the general meaning or, alternatively, to get specific information.
By looking at the three listening sequence starting from beginner onwards,
pre-intermediate toupper intermediate shows multiple ability of pupils level/ degree.

Creative and fun way of learning English will help weaker pupils with very
low ability will be able to learn English better and with less stress and with more
chance of understanding the language since listening and speaking activities helps
them to think all the time during a listening and speaking lesson.

Most listening and speaking lesson are easy but what pupil’s need is attention
and able to listen actively. All these skills and habits need to be taught to primary
school pupils. Not all primary pupils are able to keep their mouth shut and open their
ears to instructions to follow or identify specific details while listening.

References

1. Harmer, Jeremy. (2008). How To Teach English. Pearson Longman: England.

2. Nesamalar Chitravelu. Saratha Sithamparam. Teh Soo Choon. (2005). ELT

Methodology, Principles and Practice, 2nd Edition. Fajar Bakti: Selangor.

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HBEL2103 Listening and Speaking and Teaching of Listening and Speaking

3. HSP KBSR PPK

4. SP KBSR PPK

5. Ab. Majid bin Mohd Said. Mohd. Marzuki bin Maulud. Saodah binti Khalid.
Abdul Hakim bin Zakariah. (2007). English Year 5 Sekolah Kebangsaan
Textbook. DBP: Kuala Lumpur

6. S.Sivagnanachelvi. Dr. Chong Poh Wan. (2008) OUMH1303 English for Oral
Communication. Open University Malaysia (OUM): Selangor.

7. Mohd Rosli Abd. Ghani. Mohd Iskandar Daud. Adnan Yusoff. (2009) HBEL2103
Listening and Speaking and Teaching of Listening and Speaking. Open University
Malaysia (OUM): Selangor.

Appendix

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