John Field Universities of Reading and Cambridge, uk

The expert listener versus the novice

• [maɪˈtreɪn]  my train / might rain /
• (might train)
• + or  might rain > might train > my train
• + snow  might rain or snow
• [maɪˈtreɪn]  my train
• + or  my train or
• + snow  my train or snow

How do expert listeners recognise grammar patterns?

• The heavy fall…
• clumsily
• The actor learnt the words…
• had been written by Shakespeare
• The teachers taught by modern methods …
• did better than their colleagues
• The rescuers discovered the plane …
• had crashed
• The promise made…
• was finally kept.

Exercise types (Field: Listening in Language Classroom, Chap 12)

• a. Teacher plays a sentence from a recording of natural speech. Learners transcribe the words they understand. Teacher replays, learners add more words. Learners compare answers, teacher replays.
• b. ‘Listen and fill in the missing words’. Teacher gives learners a transcript, in which groups of words (not just single words) have been omitted.
• c. ‘Write what you hear’. Teacher dictates ambiguous sequences to the learners, adds an unexpected ending.
• a nice cream … dress
• the way to cut it … is like this
• some boxes have … arrived
• I want to drive a … train.