14sual

Input and Output in Language Learning

Language learning involves two main activities: input (what we take in by

listening or reading) and output (what we produce by speaking or writing).
These two activities are closely connected and help each other.

Input refers to the language we hear or read. This is the main way we learn new
words, grammar, and expressions. The more input we get, the better we
understand and use the language. For input to be helpful, it should be
understandable (comprehensible). We can get input from many sources:
1. Teachers: Teachers provide a lot of input during lessons by speaking,
explaining, or giving examples.
2. Audio and Video: Watching videos, listening to audio clips, or using the
internet exposes us to English in different ways. This can include TV shows,
podcasts, or online lessons.
3. Reading Texts: Reading books, articles, or even short passages in class or
at home gives us input to build our skills.
4. Talking with Others: Conversations with other English speakers (inside
or outside the classroom) give us real-life input.

Output refers to what we produce in the language. This includes speaking in

conversations, answering questions, writing essays, or even texting. Output helps
us practice and test what we’ve learned from input.

When we produce output, we also learn from it. For example:

• If we say something and it doesn’t come out right, we may realize we need
to improve.
• Writing helps us notice mistakes and think about how to correct them.
• Output can make us aware of gaps in our knowledge, so we can work on
filling those gaps.

Feedback also plays a big role in learning:

1. Self-Feedback: When we speak or write, we can reflect on how clear or
correct it is. We often adjust as we go, trying to improve.
2. Feedback from Others: When we talk to someone, they may ask
questions or show with their tone, expression, or words if they understand us.
This helps us improve what we’re saying.
 3. Teacher Feedback: Teachers can guide us by correcting mistakes or
giving advice. This can happen during an activity (like when a teacher helps
while we’re writing) or after (when they review our work).

In short, input (listening and reading) gives us the material we need to learn.
Output (speaking and writing) helps us practice and improve. Feedback, whether
from ourselves, others, or teachers, connects input and output, creating a cycle of
learning.

18,19,20
Listening
Listening: Challenges and Strategies

Listening can be very difficult for students. Amos Paran (2012: 456) points out
that many teachers don’t realize how hard it can be. Spoken English often feels
too fast, and if students pause for a moment to figure out a word, they can miss
the rest of the conversation.

However, listening is a vital skill. Without it, students can’t join conversations,
listen to the radio, watch movies in English, speak on the phone, or attend
lectures. Our job is to help students become better listeners by overcoming these
challenges.

Skills and Strategies for Listening

In many coursebooks, students listen to recordings and then answer

comprehension questions, like multiple-choice or true/false questions. These
exercises are easy to use but may not actually teach listening skills—they might
just test what students already know. To really help learners, we need to go
beyond these tasks and use creative ways to teach listening.

One way is to focus on sub-skills like:

• Listening for gist: Understanding the main idea.
• Listening for specific information: Picking out key details.
• Listening for inference: Understanding implied meanings.

Some people believe learners can transfer these skills from their own language to
a foreign language. However, many students face unique difficulties when
listening to a new language, so they need extra help to manage these challenges.

Effective Listening Strategies

Another way to help students is by teaching strategies to make listening easier.
Useful strategies include:
1. Thinking about the topic beforehand: Activating background
knowledge.
2. Identifying common issues: Predicting what might come up.
3. Understanding dialogues: Thinking about what people typically say in
those situations.
4. Predicting vocabulary: Guessing which words they might hear.
5. Taking notes: Writing down key words to remember important points.

However, some experts, like Renandya and Farrell (2010), argue that there is no
clear proof that strategy training always works. Instead, they suggest focusing on
extensive listening—listening to as much English as possible to improve
naturally.

Reflecting on Listening

Many experts believe it’s more useful to encourage students to reflect on what
works best for them. For example, Jenny Kemp (2010) asked her students to
keep listening logs. In these logs, students recorded:
• What they listened to.
• How easy or hard it was.
• Why they found it difficult or easy.
• What they could do to improve.

Similarly, Jeremy Cross (2011) recommends teaching students to think about

their listening processes. Students can reflect on questions like:
• Does predicting words help them when they hear those words?
• Is it better to write down general ideas or exact words?
• Do they understand better with or without a transcript of the audio?

Just thinking about these questions can help students listen more effectively.

How Teachers Can Help

To help students improve listening, we should:

 1. Encourage reflection: Ask students to think about their listening
experiences and what works best for them.
2. Provide lots of practice: Give students plenty of opportunities to listen to
different types of material, focusing on different tasks (like listening for
details or general ideas).

By combining reflection and practice, we can help students become more

confident and skilled listeners.

Bottom-Up Listening

Bottom-up processing focuses on understanding individual words and sounds as

a way to comprehend the whole text. Many students, especially at lower levels,
find this challenging because of how fluent speakers connect words through
features like ellipsis (leaving out words), juncture (pauses or links between
sounds), and assimilation (sounds blending together). These aspects of natural
speech make it hard for learners to identify where words begin and end.

To help students improve bottom-up listening, teachers need to:

• Train them to recognize individual sounds and words.
• Focus on problematic features of connected speech.
• Provide repeated listening practice to help them separate words in fluent
speech.

Here are some practical activities to develop bottom-up listening skills:

Dictation

• Teachers dictate sentences containing challenging features of speech.

Students write what they hear, and the teacher repeats the sentences as
needed.
• Afterward, students compare their answers with classmates to better
understand the words and sounds.
• Dictogloss: Instead of writing every word, students write as much as they
can while the teacher reads a short text (two or three times). They then work
with a partner to recreate the text based on their notes.

Micro Listening
 • Students focus on short phrases or problem areas in listening (e.g., difficult
sounds or fast speech).
• This helps them get used to recognizing these elements, making it easier
when they encounter them in longer texts.

Audio Tools and Repetition

• Using software like Audacity, teachers can create repeated recordings of

short sentences for listening drills.
• Audio concordances: Teachers record sentences with the same word,
phrase, or connected speech feature (e.g., assimilation or ellipsis) so students
hear repeated examples.

Narrow Listening

• Students listen to several short recordings on the same topic or genre.

• Repeated exposure to similar themes helps them recognize words and
phrases that occur frequently.

Using Transcripts

• Providing transcripts of audio helps students see how words are

connected in speech.
• Reading along while listening can improve their ability to separate words
in fast, fluent speech.

By focusing on these techniques, students can become more confident in

processing individual sounds and words, which will ultimately improve their
overall listening comprehension.

Live Listening

What is Live Listening?

Live listening involves real-time, face-to-face interactions where students listen
to their teacher or visitors speaking directly to them. This method promotes
genuine communication and helps students practice active listening and
strategies for fixing misunderstandings (called “listening repair strategies”).

These strategies include:

 • Using phrases like “Sorry?” or “I didn’t catch that.”
• Repeating what they understood up to the point where the breakdown
occurred.
• Using rising intonation to confirm meaning, e.g., “She didn’t like the…?”
• Rephrasing what they heard to confirm understanding, e.g., “You mean she
said she didn’t know anything?”

Students also benefit from observing body language, facial expressions, and tone,
which are important for understanding meaning.

Forms of Live Listening

1. Reading Aloud
• Teachers read aloud to the class with energy and emotion, giving students
clear examples of spoken English.
• Teachers can also act out dialogues, playing multiple roles or inviting
colleagues to join for more variety.
2. Storytelling
• Teachers tell stories, making listening enjoyable and interactive.
• Students can predict what happens next, describe characters, or share
opinions.
• After listening, students can retell the story from different perspectives or
act out scenes to reinforce language skills.
3. Interviews and Conversations
• Live interviews where students create and ask their own questions are
highly motivating.
• If possible, invite visitors to the classroom (in person or online via Skype)
to speak with students.
• If visitors aren’t available, teachers can take on a persona or topic of
interest for students to interview.

Pre-Recorded Audio

Advantages of Pre-Recorded Audio

1. Exposure to Different Voices
 • Students hear different accents, speech patterns, and varieties of English,
helping them adapt to diverse speakers.
2. Wide Availability
• Pre-recorded material is easily accessible, with teaching materials, online
resources, podcasts, and radio programs available worldwide.
3. Repetition
• Unlike live listening, pre-recorded material can be replayed multiple times
to help students focus on details.
4. Specially-Designed Materials
• Many audio materials are tailored for language learners, including audio
tracks with coursebooks, podcasts, and graded readers.
5. Transcripts
• Accompanying transcripts allow students to read along and better
understand how spoken language works.

Disadvantages of Pre-Recorded Audio

1. Acoustic Issues
• In large or poorly equipped classrooms, it can be hard to ensure that
everyone hears the recording clearly.
2. One-Speed Listening
• The fixed speed of a recording might not suit all students, as everyone
listens at the same pace.
3. Lack of Interaction
• Unlike live listening, students cannot interact with the speaker or ask
questions. They also miss visual cues like facial expressions or gestures.
4. Unnatural Setting
• Sitting in a group to listen to a single recording doesn’t reflect how people
typically listen in real-life situations.

Tips for Using Pre-Recorded Audio Effectively

To overcome its disadvantages:
• Test the audio equipment and quality before class.
• Adjust the classroom setup to improve acoustics.
• Consider portable solutions like headphones for individual listening tasks.
By combining live listening and pre-recorded audio, teachers can provide a
well-rounded listening experience that prepares students for real-world
communication.

Using Film and Video for Listening Practice

Films and videos are powerful tools for language learning because they combine
both audio and visual elements. By watching and listening to film clips, students
can engage with “language in use” and observe how communication happens in
real-life contexts. This includes not only the spoken language but also non-verbal
communication such as facial expressions, gestures, and body language, which
can enhance understanding of the language.

Benefits of Using Film and Video:

1. Language in Context:
Film provides a rich environment to see how language is used in real-life
situations. Students can observe how intonation aligns with facial expressions,
what gestures accompany certain phrases, and how body language plays a role in
communication.
2. Cultural Insights:
Watching films exposes students to cultural behaviors, such as how people greet
one another, maintain personal space, or act in social situations. These cultural
nuances are often easier to understand through visuals than through written or
spoken explanations alone.
3. Engagement:
Students often watch films at home for entertainment, so using video in the
classroom can be a motivating and enjoyable way to engage them. However, it is
essential to provide structured viewing tasks to keep them focused and ensure
they are actively listening and learning.
4. Access to a Variety of Materials:
The internet offers an almost unlimited supply of video content, including short
clips from YouTube or Vimeo, documentaries, and educational videos. Students
can also engage in extensive or intensive video viewing on their own and share
what they have learned with the class.

Viewing and Listening Techniques

These techniques aim to build curiosity, so students approach the film with
expectations and become more involved in the learning process.
1.Silent Viewing (for Language):
• Play a film clip without sound. Students must guess what the characters
are saying based on their gestures and body language. Then, play the clip
with sound so they can compare their guesses with the actual dialogue.
2.Silent Viewing (for Music):
• Play a video sequence without sound and ask students to predict what
kind of music would accompany the scene and why. When the sound is
added, they can evaluate if their choice matches the mood conveyed by the
director’s music selection.
3.Freeze Frame:
• Pause the video at any moment to ask students what they think will
happen next or what a character might say. This encourages prediction and
deepens engagement with the content.
4.Partial Viewing:
• Cover parts of the screen to reveal only small sections of the video at a
time. This technique encourages students to focus on details and listen
closely to contextualize what is happening.
5.Fast Forward:
• Play a segment of the video rapidly and silently. Afterward, ask students to
summarize what happened and predict what the characters were saying.
6.Pictureless Listening (Language):
• Hide the screen or turn off the monitor, and have students listen to a
dialogue. They must guess details like the setting, who the speakers are, or
their age based solely on the conversation.
7.Pictureless Listening (Music):
• When the film includes a prominent musical track, have students listen to
it and predict what kind of scene it could accompany. They can then compare
their guess with the actual scene once it is shown.
8.Pictureless Listening (Sound Effects):
• Play a scene with no dialogue, only sound effects (e.g., a gas stove lighting,
eggs frying). Students listen to the sounds and try to recreate the scene or
story based on the sounds they hear.
9.Picture or Speech:
• Divide the class into two groups: one group faces the screen, and the other
does not. The students who can see the screen describe what is happening to
those who cannot. This encourages spontaneous speaking and helps develop
fluency.
 10. Subtitles:
• Subtitles in English can help reinforce what students hear and see.
Alternatively, if subtitles are in the students’ native language, play the clip
without sound and have students predict the English version based on the
subtitles.
11. Videotelling:
• Ask students to predict what will happen in a video clip based on hints you
provide. After they make their predictions, show the video to see if it
matches. Students can then retell the story they saw, integrating new
vocabulary and structures.

Conclusion:

Using films and videos in the classroom provides a dynamic way to enhance
students’ listening skills by combining spoken language with visual context. By
engaging in structured viewing tasks, students not only practice listening but also
develop a deeper understanding of how language functions in real-life
communication.

16reading aloud

Intensive and Extensive Reading in Language Learning

To maximize the benefits of reading for language learners, it’s important to

engage students in both intensive and extensive reading practices.

Intensive Reading

Intensive reading typically involves teacher-guided activities that focus on

developing specific reading skills. These may include:
• Skimming (reading for general meaning or the gist),
• Scanning (finding specific details),
• Inference (understanding deeper meanings beyond the words).

The purpose of intensive reading is to help students practice these skills and
improve their ability to process texts for different purposes. These activities also
offer valuable exposure to varied language forms and structures. It’s not only
about acquiring reading skills but about applying them in English, so students
become comfortable with reading strategies in a second language, even if they
already use them in their native language.
Extensive Reading

Extensive reading encourages students to read as much as possible, often outside

the classroom, with a focus on improving their vocabulary, grammar, spelling,
and punctuation. The goal is to read for pleasure or general understanding rather
than for specific learning tasks. This approach helps students build a broad and
natural understanding of language through repeated exposure to various texts.

While beginner learners focus primarily on bottom-up processing (decoding

words and matching sounds to written forms), more advanced learners engage in
top-down processing—reading for inference, gist, and deeper understanding.

Analytical Reading (Text Mining)

One technique for deepening language knowledge through reading is text

mining, or analytical reading. Here, students analyze texts to focus on specific
language features, such as:
• Identifying verb tenses and understanding their usage,
• Analyzing lexical cohesion and how words and phrases connect within the
text,
• Examining punctuation and paragraph structures.

This process not only enhances students’ grammatical knowledge but also gives
them insights into language use in different genres or contexts. For example,
students can compare how different texts use cohesive devices, such as
conjunctions, pronouns, or transitional phrases, to hold the text together.

Text mining can happen with any text, no matter how short. Students might
analyze street signs, advertisements, or even short phrases in public spaces, as
this kind of “linguistic landscape” reading can be motivating and offer real-world
language exposure.

Reading Aloud

Reading aloud is a traditional but effective way to practice reading in a classroom

setting. It can be a tool for both comprehension and fluency practice, though it
needs to be approached thoughtfully.

Common Issues in Reading Aloud:

• Reading aloud without preparation often leads to stumbling over
unfamiliar words or awkward intonation.
 • When students are asked to read sentences they haven’t seen before, they
may feel self-conscious, which can detract from their overall experience.

Making Reading Aloud Effective:

1. Preparation: Students should first read the text silently to themselves,
allowing them time to familiarize themselves with the material.
2. Rehearsal: Before reading aloud to the class, students can practice in pairs
or small groups, ensuring they understand stress, pronunciation, and
intonation.
3. Choice and Ownership: Letting students choose a favorite sentence from
a text and practice it multiple times can increase their engagement and
confidence. They might then read it aloud with the preface “It says here…” to
make the reading feel more natural and personally meaningful.

Parallel Speaking:
To enhance confidence, students can first listen to the teacher read the passage
aloud, marking stress, pauses, and intonation in their books. They can then read
along with the teacher or audio, gradually transitioning to reading independently
as their confidence builds.

Using Reading Aloud as a Diagnostic Tool

Reading aloud can also serve as a diagnostic tool. The way students read a
passage—where they place emphasis or how they phrase sentences—can reveal
areas where they may not fully understand the content. This can be especially
useful in identifying pronunciation issues or areas of misinterpretation, making it
a helpful tool for teacher assessment, especially with young learners.

Conclusion

Incorporating both intensive and extensive reading practices, along with

analytical reading and effective reading aloud techniques, can help students
improve their language skills in a comprehensive and engaging way. By
integrating these strategies, students gain a fuller understanding of language
structure, context, and pronunciation, which are crucial for both comprehension
and fluency.