By Melissa Meisterheim
Planning a listening class can be difficult. Sheppard (2015) accurately described what usually goes on in class: assessment disguised as instruction. Teachers and textbooks often give a few pre-listening activities, then have students listen to something before asking them to answer comprehension questions. In response, Sheppard advocates a balanced approach to listening instruction that combines the process approach as described in Vandergrift (2004) with explicit instruction in bottom-up listening strategies (see Field 2008) (e.g. recognizing sounds, word boundaries, intonation patterns, etc.) as well as top-down listening strategies (e.g. making predictions while listening, understanding relationships between ideas, etc.).
Vandergrift’s process approach can be very time-consuming if done solely in class because students listen to the spoken text three times with discussion before and after for predictions, outlines, gap filling and/or reflections. A listening activity could be assigned as homework, but then teachers miss out on hearing the student’s thought processes.
This is where EDpuzzle fits in. EDpuzzle is a free user-friendly internet resource that allows instructors to create a classroom filled with videos from YouTube, National Geographic, and TED Talks, among others. When a video is selected, it can be cropped and audio notes and questions can be added throughout the file. The site tracks how often a student listens to a file or a segment of a file and grades quiz questions (multiple choice). The video can also be set to disallow skipping, meaning that a student must respond before being allowed to proceed to the next part of the video.
Here are some suggestions for using this invaluable resource in a class incorporating the balanced listening approach:
- If the focus is on noticing transitions and making predictions about the following content, then the teacher can insert an open-ended question right after a transition, such as “What do you think the speaker will say next? What word or phrase helped you make that prediction?”
- If the focus is on word boundaries, the teacher could pause at the end of a sentence and ask the students to transcribe what the speaker said. After reading what the students think they heard, the teacher could diagnose problem areas.
- If the focus is on recognizing intonation patterns, the teacher could add a multiple choice question at the end of an utterance asking if the speaker’s pitch went up or down. A follow-up question addressing the interpretation of the intonation pattern (e.g. clarification, surprise) could also be added.
The possibilities go on and on. EDpuzzle is a useful tool teachers can use to plan their listening class so students can develop into more balanced and fluent listeners.
Field, J. (2008). Listening in the language classroom. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Sheppard, B. (2015, October) Balanced listening instruction. TESOL Connections, 3. Retrieved from http://newsmanager.commpartners.com/tesolc/issues/2015-10-01/3.html.
Vandergrift, L. (2004). Listening to learn or learning to listen? Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 24, 3–25.
Melissa Meisterheim received her M.A. in Linguistics with a TESL focus and her Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Iowa. She has been teaching at the University of Iowa for 12 years, teaching various types of courses for graduate students, students in the Iowa Intensive English Program and the MBA program, as well as employees in area businesses. In addition to teaching, she is the curriculum coordinator for the IIEP and has served on committees responsible for addressing international student needs at the university.
