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SPONS AGEREPORT NOlobt DATECONTRACTNOTE

:

AVAILABLE F OM

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Devine, Thomas G.Listening Skills Schoolwide: Activities and ,

Programs.ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading and CommunicationSkills, Urbana, Ill.; National Council of Teachers ofEnglish, Urbana,National Inst. of Education (ED), Washington, DC.ISBN-0-8141-2956-082400-78-002667p.National Council of Teachers of English, 1111 KenyonRd., Urbana, IL 61801 (Stock N6. 29560, $6.50non-member, $5.25 member).

MF01/PC03 Plus Postage.*Class Activities; Educational theories; ElementarySecondarTEducation;-Inservice Teacher Education;*Language Arts; Learning Processes; *ListeningSkills; Pro4ram Development; *Tdacking Methods

40.A_

ABSTRACT-Designedifor workshop, teacher inservice, and

classroom use, this monograph pulls together theory, researchfindings, and descriptions of successful classnoom'practices toimprove instruction in listenin'g skills. Chapier 1 discusses the

, importance of litening instruction, providing genpral backgroundinformation om the nature of listening. The next three chaptersprovide suggestions for teaching (1) accurate listening (usingpersonal involvement to improve attention to detail and lummary); (2)purposeful listening (following directions, recognizing theorganization of spoken discourse); and (3) critical listening(distinguishing fact from opinion). The final chapter outlines stepsfor developing a schoolwide program of listening instruction,including information on how teabhers may test most effectively torlistening success using both standardized and teacher-madeinstruments. Appendixes contain reproducible exercise pages for class,sets and annotated references both for further reading and foradditional teaching materials. (HTH)

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LISTENING SKILLSSCHOOLWIDE

ACTIVITIES AND PROGRAMS

THOMAS G. DEVINEUniversity of LGwell

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION

EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION

Iterved from th e person or organization

CENTER (ERIC)is document has been reproduced as

originating it.! I Minor changes have been made to improve

reproduction quality.

Points of view or opinions stated in this docu-ment do not necessarily

represent official NIEposition or policy.

ERIC Clearinghouse n Reading and Communication SkillsNational Institute of ducation

National Council of teachers of EnglishIIII,Kenyon Road, Uibaa, Illinois 61801

NCTE Editorial Board: Marilyn Hanf Buckley, Thomas L. Clark, Jane Hornburger,Elisabeth McPherson, Zora Rashkis, John C. Maxwell, ex officio, Paul O'Dea, exofficio

Book Design: Tom Kovacs

NCTE Stock Number 29560

Published 1982 by the ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading and Communication Skillsand the National Council of Teachers of English, 1111 Kenyon Road, Urbana,Illinois 61801

This publication was prepared with funding from the National Instituteof Education, U.S. Department of Education, under contract no. 400-78-0026. Contractors undertaking such projects under government sponsor-- ,

ship are enCouraged to express freely their judgment in professional and technicalmatters. Prior to puNication, the manuscript was submitted to th Editorial Board ofthe National Council of Teachers of English for critical review an sletermination ofprofessional competence. This publication has met such standards Points of view oropinions, however, do not necessarily represent the official view or opinions of eitherihe National Council of Teachers of English or the National Instit te of Education.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

De Vine, Thomas G., 1928-Listening 'skills schoolwide.

Bibliography: p.1 ListeningStudy andteaching. I. ERIC

Clearinghouse on .Reading and Communication Skills.II. National Council of Teachers of English.III. Title.LB1065.D37 1982 428.3 t 82-14419

, ISBN 0-8141-2956-0

,

CONTENTS

List pf Figures

Forewcird

Preface' ix

1. The I'mportance of Listening Instruction

2. Teaching Accurate Listening 7

3. Teaching Purposeful Listening 19

4. Teaching Crittcal Listening 35

5. Developing:a S"choolwide Program 47

References 59

An Annotated List of Teaching Materials 61

4

LIST OF FIGURES

II.

1. Exercise sheet for Listening Accurately for Details2. Exercise sheet for-Are You Really Listening?

,3. Key signal expressions.,

4..Sample notetaking map5. Exercise sheet for Giving and Following Directions

4)6. Exercise sheet for Following Spoken Directions7. Exercise sheet for Noting Organizational Patterns8. All-pnrpos listening study guide9. Persuasion analysis chart

10. Critical listening chart

11. A simple checklist for appraising listening skills of a ktudent

12..A checklist for appraising Specific listening skills of a student13. A checklist for appraisifig c;itical liste ing growth of.class members14. A checklist for appraising listening skill of class membersE. Scope and sequence of basic listening ski s

14

16

24

27

30

32

33

44

45

50

51

52

52

FOREW RD

The Educational ResOurces Inform tion Center(ERIC) is a national information syst m developedby the U.S. Office of Education 'and n w sponsoredby the National Institute of Educat on (NIE). Itprovides ready access to descriptions of emplary

,

programs research and development efforts, andrelated information useful in developing more ef-fective educational programs.

Through its network of specialized centers orclearinghouses, each of which is',responsible for aparticular edu9tional area, ERIC, acquires, eval-uates, abstraciV, and indeltes current significant in-formation and lists this information in its referencepublications.

ERIc/Rçs, the ERIC Clearinghouse on Read-ing and Communi4tion Skills, disseminates edu-cational information rlated to research, instruction,and personnel preparation, at all levels and in allinstitutions. The scope of interest of the Clearing-house includes relevant research repOrts,Aiteraturereviews, curriculum guides and dekriptions, con-ference papers, project or program reviews, and other

! \

print materials related to all aspects of reading,English, educational journalism, and speech com-munication.

The'ERIC SyKem has alreaq made available.4

through the ERIC Document Reproduction Sys-temmuch informative data. However, if the find-ings of specific educational research are to beintelligible to teachers and applicable to teaching,considerable bodies of data must be reevaluated,focused, translated, and Molded into an essentiallydifferent context. Rather than resting at the pointof making research reports readily accessible, NIEhas directed the separate clearinghouses to workwith professional organizations in developing in-formation analysis papers in specific areas withinthe scope of ihe clearinghouses.

ERIC is pleased to cooperate with the NationalCouncil of Teachers of English in making Listen-ing Skills'Schooltvide: Activities and Programsavailable.

Bernard O'DonnellDirector, ERIC/RCS

vii

a

. PREFACE,

IP

\More and more; teachers and parents are concernedabout student listening skills. "Students aren' t learn-ing as much as they could," .it is said, "because

aty don't know how to listen purposefully andurately; 'they are going to be in trouble later

on their jobs and even in their homesbecausethey on't listen well.'' Increasingly, teachers ask,"How can, we improve/student listening skills? Howcan .we tie in listening instruction with study inthe conte t areas? with reading? with the other lan-guage ar In what ways does"Iistening relate toattention? to IQ? What are the best ways to teachcritical liste ng?"

- Fortunately answers do exist for such questions.ese ar chers have investigated listening and listen-

.mg instruction; teachers have created and tried outteaching strategies in their classrooms; psycholo-gists have begun to fit the pieces from research Ad

;

actual classroom practice into a picture that makessense. At last, a coherent view of the listening pro-cess is emerging. k substanCial body of theoreticaland research literature and an impressive numberof descriptions of actual teaching practices in thearea of listening are available to teachers today.

It is the purpose oi this book to pull together asmuch of the theory, the research findings, and thedescriptions of successful classroom experiences aspossible. Indeed, students do not listen as well asthey could, which should concern teachers and par-ents. However, listening problems are now beingdefined and addressed, and some possible solutionsare available. General background information ispresented in the first chapter; specific ideas for teach-ing activities and programs are developed in chap-ters two through five.

ix

`14

1 THE IICIPORTANSE Ok.. LISTENINGANgtRUCTION

Many teachers are concerned about listening, andmany parents share their concern. Complaints suchas these are regularly heard:

"These boys and girls simpfy don't listen!""They cannot follow basic directions!""I -may as well talk to the walls!"Those teachers who have reviewed research find-

ings in the field may agree, yet ask: "But have wetaught them to listen? Have we shown them how?Have we given them practice?" Teachers who haveinformally experimented with listening instructionand have become enthusiastic about its potentiallike to remind complainers \hat students cannotusually do square roots without some instructionor even drive automobiles well without purposeful(and guided) practice. They note that swimmingmay be "natural" but that swimmers respond wellto coaching and practice.

Listening instruction in most schools has beenneglected. The reasons for its neglect are many andvaried, but one explanation stands out: listeningskills are taken for grauted. Listening is such anintrinsic part of schooling that few educgional the-orists and planners have bothered to examine itwithin the total context of teaching and learning.It is so basic to the educational enterprise that mostlearning theorists are not conscious of it. It playssuch a supportive role in the daily drama of mostclassrooms that many teachers overlook it. Listen-ingthe most used and perhaps most important ofthe language (and learning) artshas been lostsight of in the business .of sunning schools. Tamil-iarity may lor may not breed contempt; it surelyleads to fuzzy focus and forgetfulness.

Teachers should be concerned about listening. Itis crucial .to studeitts in school as well as later intheir lives, and reisearcherS are now turning theirAttention to it. Five important characteristics of lis-vtening ha,e been \identified, -and a discussion ofthese characteristics will provide teachers with thebackground for the activities in the followingchapters.

V

t

Important Characteristics of Listening

One reason listening has not been taught ilichoolsis that it has not been carefully characterized anddefined. Listening means too many things to toomany people. Fortunately, researchers and special-ists in language arts have gathered enough back-wound information so that teachers may begin todevelop effective programs.

Listening Is Central to All Learning

In what seems to have been the first formal studyin the area, Paul Rankin, in 1927, followed children,adolescents, and adults through the activities oftheir daily lives to discover which of the languagearts predominated. He discovered that pople didnot really write much: only 9 percent of their totaltime devoted each day to verbal communicationwas spent with pen, pencil, or typewriter. (And

.this figure may have been inflated by the numberof students in his sample.) The people in Rankin'sstudy devoted about 16 percent of their time toreading. About 30 percent of communication timewas spent speaking, but about 45 percent was spentlistening. Since Rankin, other researchers havecompared these figures with.different populations,in different places, at different times. The resultscome out about the same: people, generally, listenmore than they read, write, or speak. More recently,Miriam Wilt did a similar study in classrooms. Shetimed all class activities in elementary schools, hour.by hour, day' bpday,' and dikovered -that childrenspend almost 60 percent of their classroom timelistening. 'Other studies done with secondary schoolstudents indicate at least this much time is spentlistening in junior and senior high school class-rooms. Studies in recent years examining the effectsof wide use of radio and television support thebelief that ours is a society of listeners: (For specificreferences, see Devine, 1978.)

These statistics assume added significance whenone realizes the peculiar impact of listening. Read-

'

2 Listening Schoolwide

ers have opportunities,t9 go back and forth on theprinted page, to.,'Itlfink. through new informationanA ideas at ibe'll;lejsure,,and to accept or rejectmaterial as4.10ey chOose. Listeners are bombardedwith spok dat Nv hich they have little time tocriticize, sinnilating. This characteristic ofIiswiiingJaks hsuiiers especially vulnerable. It ispossE for ski

itshak personalnce attithde

, erved, "The,

advers at country f'It is in their liable.' Yet whilof persuasion,to listen, espec,p. 299).

V.

Lislening Can

Hundreds of stthe pasc decadits teaChabiliting skills can

lful- but unprincipled speakers toopinion, affect behaviors, and in-and values. As many teachers haveprofessional persuaders, whetherrtisers, pleaders of causes, or bark-irs, have learned yith Hitler, that

tening that people are most vulner-speakers have developed the skills

isteners in general have not learnedally listen critically" (Devide,41978,

Be Taught

dies have been done on listening ins, 'most of which have focused upon. All have demonstrated that listen-

taught. At this,point, there seemslittle doubt abnut the teachability of basic listeningskills. A teacher who sets out, for example, to teachseven'th-grade Students how to follow spoken direc-tions Will prObably succeed. Structured lessons,spaced over a period of time and using reasonablyinteresting examples, will work..Two studies fromthe 1950s are worth noting here. Sister Mary Hollowset out to teach fifth graders four listening skills:drawing iMerences, recalling. facts in sequence, re-membering facts accurately, and summarizing. Shepretested 600 students, gave thirty twenty-minutelessons to half the group, and followed the school'sregular language arts program with the other half.When retested, students in Tier experimental groUpscored higher on.the listening test, and she wasable io dernonstrate statistically that these elemen-tary children could, indeed, be taught to listenbetter. Another well-known study in listening wasdone by Charles Irwin at Michigan State College.He gave listening instruction to students in foursections of freshman composition, and, at the endof seven weeks, tested these students against foursections that had not been given listening help.Irwin concluded that "a sufficient number of pro-cesses involved in listening can be positively influ-enced by teaching as to result in improvement in

li ening" (Devine, 1978, p. 298). Studies similr tot ese have been r plicated so often that teacherscan be fairly sure t at they are not wasting studenttime when they s ,t out to teach listening skills.cior a further d scussion of these studies, see/Devine, 1978.)

Listening Is Not Simply Attention

A great many theories have been developed bypsychologists to explain attention. One widely ac-cepted theory suggests that attention is a limitedmental resource. Ali explanatory metaphor says itis an :`energy limitation": attention is poviered bya fixed electrical Orrent, allocable to only 'so manytasks. According to this notion, when the current isspread too far, a fuse is blon.- Attention, as many,contemporary c,4nitive psychologists interpret it,is "single-minded' ; that is, one cannot footst wellon two matters' t once, and one cannOt performtwo demanding tasks 4imultaneously (Anderson,

,1980). Is listenin simply attention? Most research-ers in this area 'ay no. However, most agree thatattention has riid to do with stictessful listening.Clearly, listening involves more Oian attention butis impossible without attention.

Examples in 1 ter chapters clarify this importantdistinction, Twc specific, examples are given here.In the first, Ma y is tested for recall of data in anexperiment' in s ort-term memory conducted in auniversity psychological laboratory. The experi-menter flashes combination of letters on a screen(such as ADF) nd ihen recites verbally a string ofsomewhat Simi ar letter combinations (ABD, AFD,FAD, ADC). When Mary hears the original com-bination, she is supposed to ring a bell. Js'her suc-cess contingent upon her attention or her listeningabilit)," A reasonable answer must include both.Mary must be paying attention, and must be listen-ing. However, the nature of listening in this casemay be termed 143W-level. Mary needs only to recog-

'Mize the phonemes, and recall the order in whichthey were,flashed on.the screen. Several perCeptualand cognitive tasks are demanded, but they are cat-egorized as low-level in relation to those confront-ing the 'listener in the next example.

Bob has taken his first job in a neighborhoodservice station. His new boss fires this string ofphonemes at him the first morning:

Go around back where I keep the new stuff. Find thatcase of synthetic motor oil and take out two cans forthe display case. Put the rest in the pit where Charlie

is working and then go over to the M.obil stationacross the street and get that wrench that clown Herbborrowed three weeks ago.

Does this speech demand attention? Does it dial-lerige Bob's listening skills? Bot1 answers must beaffirmative. Bob must pay attenti n. And becauseattention is, as the psychologists say, "single-mind-ed," Bob Cannot listen to the words 8,his favoritesong being played on the station stereo or wave tohis friend driving down the main street ospeculateon his chances of persuading his favOrite girl to godancing, if he is paying attention to his boss. Buthere, so different from the laboratory situation dis-cussed earlier, other aspects of listening play roles.An experienced listening teacher analyzing the tasksfacing Bob will find that he must use several well-defined likening skills:

Listening to note detailsListening to follow sequence

, Listening to identify main pointsListening to note inferencesListening to recognize speaker bias

Listening, when analyzed this way, becomes acomposite of processes extending beyond payingattention. Bob must convert spoken sounds to"meaning in the mind" (Lundsteen, 1979, P.. 1); hemust do some rather high-level thinking as he fol-lows the spoken directions of the service'stationmanager.

Listening Is Related to Thinking

The relationship between listening and thinking isstill being studied by researchers, but at this pointit seems clear that many of the operations involvedin listeningespecially higher-level kinds of lis-teningare mental operations. Listening at itsmost basic level is simply a matter of processingthe incoming meaningful sounds into syntacticaland larger units so that the listener may make senseof the sounds. Listening at )ts basic level is likedecoding in reading. However, thinking and themental operations associated with it are involvedin both decoding and listening. An examination ofthe listening skills Bob needed in his first day ofwork at the service station helps to explain therelationship between listening at its higher levelsand thinking. "Listening to note details" is moreakin to attention. "Listening to identify mainpoints" and "Listening to note inferences" sound

Yh? Importance of Listenmk InstruCtion

more like t.Qpics from a college freshman logicbook.

Ftequently, a teacher who says, "You afe notlistening to me," really means, "You are not think-ing along (with me." High school and college stu-dents who listen well to lectures rrtay be said to bethinking along the same lines as the lectiirer. Severalyears ago, James Moffett noted, "If a reade cantranslate print into speechread it aloud as sen-tences ,with normal intonation patternsand stillfail to grasp the idea or relate factS orinfer or drawconclusions, then he has no reading problem; hehas a thinking problem, traceable to mart}, possiblesources, none of thdn concerning primed wOrds".

,4,s(Moffett, 1968, p. 16). Miriam Wilt, r 'searcher inlistening, extends this argument to co

ter listening

and not comprehending and concludes that thelistener has a thinking problem (see Devine, 1978).In chapter four on critical listening, these mattersare explored in greater depth.lt is enough to notehere that listening is much more than simply pay-

, ing attention; listening involves facets of reasoningand thinking of a very high order.

,..

Listening Is Not the- Same as-lntellikence

iEarlier researchers won ered if listening might bedirectly related to intelligence. Observations in-theclassroom revealed that "smart kidg" seemed to pickup more of the teacher's spoken messages than titeircounterparts at the. other end of the bell-shapedcurve. Some suggested that the ability to listen wellwas an aspect of IQ. Correlational studies foundcoefficients ranging from .22 to .78 between scoreson standardized listening tests and IQ tes,ts. Earlycritics of these studies noted, however, 'that suchhigh coefficients were to be expected becaive bothlistening and intelligence tests involve languagecomprehension alid the interpretation of verbalsymbols. Overlapping, they said, should Ve expected.Enough variance existed in scores of bOth kinds pf4ests not accounted "for by elements common to boto conclude, that listening did depend upon some-thing besides intelligence. Since these studies, somuch criticism has been focusecjupon the standard-

, ized intelligence tests that the argument now seemsout-of-date. At present, no one knows beyond theshadow of a reasonable doubt exactly what iraelli-gence is. It may be said that intelligence is a com-bination of thinking skills. (And many authorities,say that such cognitive skills are teachable.) Listen-,

r's

4 Listening Skills Schvolwide

ing teachers, may set out with good professionalconscience to teach students to think more effec-tively through their listening lessons. (For more onthis topic, see Devine, 1.98l.)

The Need for 'a Scope and Sequence of Skills

Effective programs are generally built upon a care-full sequenced structure of learnings. A successfullistening program also needs such underpinni s.

Before examining lessons and strategies, it is eces-sary to look at.,,a suggested scope and sequrence andthe rationale underlying it arid to revi,e some ofthe recent disctission of skills-baed programdeveNpment.

The Controversy over Order of Comprehension

At the Rresent tinne, discussion continues amongreading pecialists about whether reading is bestviewed as a top-to-bottom-or bottom-to-top activity.Those who take the first view say readers confrontthe tot.1 text,pick out possible clues within it, andgo directly to the.' author's message. Traditionalreading skills, to these authorities, are constructs ofthe reading teacher that have little or po impor-tance to the child learning to read. Skills to read-ing specialists holding this view is, an° ill-chosenpalmost unnecessary term. "We don't teach boys andgirls reading skills," they say; "we teach them toread!" The more traditional bottom-to-top readingspecialisks still recommend that young childrenlearning to read be taught discrete reading skills insome defensible order"Children first need to fol-low a sequence before they can begin to select keyideas; then they go from main ideas to details, andfrom these basic comprehension skills to higher-level reading skills."

This debate among reading specialists has clearimplications for teachers of listening..Do listenerstake in total communications and work back intheir minds to the details, or do they work fromdiscrete listening skills to the larger context? Thetwo points of view and the various attempts toreconcile them have occupied considerable space inresearch journals and will continue to'enga0 thetttention of researchers in the field. However, theassumption underlying any program for developinglistening ability is that for teciching purposes listen-ing is best viewed as a composite of sepdrate teach-able skills. Listeners may derive meaning from,

larger structures o spoken discourse, but teachersof listening ,ca sest teach the stotal process byfocusing upo one or two skills at a time.

Listeni teadhers whcl, accept this basic assump-tion are Wed with two difficult questions: What arethe s ecific skills in listening? What is the bestor r for sequencing them? The first question may

e answered based on five decades of research inlistening: most teachers and researchers have agreedthat specific listening 'skills are at least somewhatcomparable to basic reading skills. A teacher whowants to set up a program in listening may start byexamining the reading skills listed in one of thepopular basal reading series. Each of the basic read.-ing skills may be translated into a basic listeningskill. For exarnple, three basic reading skills selectedfrom a seventh:grade teacher's manual accompany-ing one basal reader`rnay easily be rephrased intorelated, listening skills:

Recognizing an author's main ideasFollowing an author's sequence of ideas,Noting an author's, bias

became

Recognizing a speaker's main ideas s

Following a speaker's .sequence of ideasNoting a speaker's bias

It should be noted that no one knows if these areindeed the basic listeningor ,readingskills. Asmore and more research is done in both fields, pres-ent lists will be refined; some iterns wit) be added_and some deleted. It may be said, with a modicumof confidence, that a comparison of accepted read-ing skills can lead tb a wbrking list'of comparable,listening skills so that tea-C.-hers who want to start'teaching listening in their Classes may say, withsome assurance, "Let's.start here!" Debates abouttop-to-bottom and bottom-to-top approaches toreading instruction are important However, theindividual teacher ;who Awants to'clesign a/program.to improve listening skills cannot wait for the retsearch and theory to Ie settled to the satisfaction ofall. The eager teacher of listening may as well startat.the teachable beginning: "Here are some basiclistening skills that no one can quibble about; let'steach them."

One problem remains. What is the best order?Separate lessor*, exerciscs, games, and, activitiesscatlered throughout tht 'gchool 'year represent akind, of shotgun attack on the listening problem.Underlying instructionfrom elementary. grades

through the last year of high schoolshould folilowsome coherent framework, a taxonomy or a scopeand sequence of well-defined and widely acceptedskills arranged from "easiest" to "most difficult."Unfortunately, such a scope and sequence does notyet exist. In her Comprehensive study of listeninginstruction, Sara Lundsteen (1979) examined ap-

'proaches to the development of progressions onlistening skills and looked at tentative hierarchiesof both general .and critical listening skills. Shedecided that until much more is _known. about thecognitive development of children and yoting adults,a truly definitive listing of skills was impossible.

Basic Listening Skills: A SuggestedScope and Sequence

The top-to-bottom/bottom-to-top controversy isreal and important; its imPlications for reading andlistening instruction are great. However, teachersdesigning listening programs do need some masterplan; otherwise instruction may become randomand repetitive. Such a plan (adopted from Devine,1981), is presented here as a framework for both

' lesson, and 'program development in listening. Itsuggests scope and sequence of basic listening

I. Determining one's owri purpose for listening2. - GuegsIng the .s.peaker's purpose for speaking

.Following the sequence 'Of ideas4 Noting details acCurately '

5. Following spoken 'directions6. Guessing the spe4ker's pla n. of organization7. Noting;transitional or signal words and phrases8: Recognizing a speaker's main point, or- ideas9. Noting the speaker's suppOrting details and ex-

amples10. Using a study guidet.or outline whet provided11. Keeping track of main points, by notetaking or

mqntal- recapitulation ,a'S the talk. 'proceeds12. ilistinguishing between new and old material13. Distinguishing be't.i....een relevartt and itrelevant

"material

14: Noting' ilssible 'speaker bias154' Noting timational apbeSls'.16. Distinguishing 'between Taci and opinion17.: Pi'edicting 13.Ossib1 c .test2.questiorts in a lean1,8. Recognizing s'peaker iereikes19. Predictinke outcomes.. 0,120. Drawing concluskinshe, talk'

The Importance^ of Listening Instruction 5

21. Asking one's own personal questions (mentallyor on paper) as the talk proceeds

22. Summarizing the speaker's main points (mental=ly or on paper) after the talk

23. Itelating the speaker's ideas and information t&one's own life and interests

An individual teacher may use such a list, how-ever tentative, to plot ouLlessons. Key skills appro-priate for a given grade level may be selected as theebasis fof a One-year program for one class. Thus,rather than just teaching listening, the teacher, canfocus on five or ten-skills for a particular class forthe year. "If nothing else," such a teacher can say,"my students are going to be good a Following,asequence of ideas, .Following, spoken directions,Noting details accurately, and Recognizing a speak-er's main points." A teacht.r at a higher grade levelmay say, "My students seem to be pretty good atthat sort cif listening; but ttiey need help with criti-cal listening; I am going to focus on ;Noting emo7,tional appeals, Noting speaker bias, Distinguishingfact from opinion statements, 'arid Drawingconclu-sions from a talk." Groups, of teachers May ,use;.such 'a lit to plan an entire curriculum in listen-ing. They may choose items that seem appropriate'for specific grade levels in their school or systpmand together plan a series of lessons aimed 'At ,e44-4of the skills. Overlapping, redundancy, repetition,and oveiteaching may not be eliminatedindeed,fhey perhaps)J.should not be eliminatedbut an or-derly frameWOrk exists for schoolwide instruction.As individuals and groups. of teacher's VOA .withthis suggested scope and sequerft, they will stirelymake changes. They will refine, delete,, and add,but they will make their 'changes within a frame-work- of order.

A Teacher's Self-Assessment Checklist-,

Teachers initiating listening programs; eitherschoorwide or in'their own classtooms, fintSelf-assessment asproductive. first, step. They ask: "Whatam I already doing that's valuable? What parts of*my Qresent prograTh need .to be .1c,ept? expanded

ctive.upqn? eliminated? What features' `Oprogram must introchice?" IThe.f011owaig c ck-list, deyeloped by a group of, secondary sC olteachers, will aid teachers in ass6sing, theii- listenf1ing programs. Respond to each question with Hard-lyever, SoMetimes, Fre.quent,ly,?or', Most always.

1. 0 1 include listening instruction. ip ihy courses.ols

6 Listening Shills Schoalwide

2. I read professional literature about listening in-struction.

3. 1 attend workshops, conferences, or courses inwhich listening is discussed.

4. 1 structure my classroom talk so that studentlisteners may derive maximum gain.,

,5. 1 try to make students aware of listening skins.6. I compliment good listening.7. I provide for students a model of a good listener.8. I refer to listening skills in class discussions of

other topics.9. I teach lecture notetaking skills.

10. 1 teach my students toa. Determine their own purpose for listening.b. Guess the speaker's purpose for speakiing.

- c. Follow a sequence of ideas.d. Note details accurately. .

e. Follow spoken directions.f. Guess a speaker's plan of organization.g. Ndte transitional words and phrases.

h. Recognize a speaker's main points.i. Note a speaker's- supporting details and ex-

amples.Use a listening, study guide.Keep track of main points by notetaking ormental recapitulation.

I. Distinguish between old and new material.m. Distinguish between relevant and irrelevant

material.n. Note_ possible speaker bias.o. Note emotional appeals.p. Distinguish between fact and opinion.q. Recognize a speaker's inferences.r. Predict outconies ol a Efilk.s. Draw conclusions from a talk.t. Ask personal questions as the talk proceeds.

u. Make personal- associations.v. Summarize a speaker's main ideas.w:, Evaluate the speaker's competence to talk about

the subject.x. Note use of propaganda.y. Y.redict possible test questions in lectures.z. Care about listening skills.

J.k.

2 TEACHING ACCURATE LISTENING

The line separating listening from attention is afuzzy one. So-called good listeners sometimes failto pay attention to speakers, while poor listenerssometimes, pay attention yet miss the message. Onetraditional area of concern4for listening teachers,which brings listening antrattention together, forthe purpose of instruction, has been called accuratelistening. Teachers Who develop lessons to promoteaccurate listening are concerned with such ques-tions as: What classroom activities will encouragestudents to pay attention? What strategies will forcestudents to heed the details of a talk? How maysuch actiVities be related to out-of-school listening?This chapter suggests answers to these importantquestions.

Some çeneral Suggestions

Ideas for teaching tend to group themselves bygrade levels. Some ideas work well with youngerchildren; some appeal to boys and girls in middleschool; others are clearly more effective with highschool students. However, some general guidelinesunderlie the development of all classroom activities.

Build lessons in accurate listening into the dailyand weekly schedule. Isolated, one-shot activitiesmay be better than none at all, but experiencedlistening teachers note thatiessons need to be regu-larked. It is better to have one fifteen-minute lessoneach week (or one five-minute lesson each day) thanto have loAnger lessons spaced irregularly through-out the school year. Students begin to realize thatthey can indeed improve their accuracy, that theycan become more and more proficient as time passes,that they can learn "not to miss a thing."

Provide for a variety of activities. A teacher whooverdoes a specific kind of activity finds that les-sons becomp nonproduCtive after a few repetitions.Lessons may be simple spoken messages followedby informal testing. Such exercises work. However,

the same type of exercise repeated day after dayactually leads to inaccurale listening. Teacherswho succeed in deVeloping accuricy note that theymake use of tape-recorded conversations, dramas,demonstrations, radio, television; music, formal lec-tures (even in the earlier grades), explanations,debates, films, and -videotapes. Tlie focus alwaysremains on accuracy in-lis,tening, but the situationsand tasks differ.

Emphasize good'listening behavior. Some stu-dentsin all grade levelshave never been intro-duced to good listening manners. Some have, beentold, "Be quiet" or "Do not talk when others argtalking," but they have not been given systematicguidance in the etiquette of listening. All need tobe reminded of the value of a quiet, receptive audi-ence; all need to be shown the futility of listeningin a noisy, distracting context. Some teachers taketime early in the school year to discuss the impor-tance of old-fashioned politeness, to encourage stu-dents to set up standards of listening behavior, andto post student-made codes on the bulletin boards.One eighth-grade class drew up the following setof standards for listening behavior:

A gbod listener:Looks at the speaker.Never talks when a Speaker is talking.Tries not tO distract the speaker.Shows ktention by body English (smiles, frowns,reacts).Thinks about what is being said.

Older students seldom make board charts). butthey too need to discuss audience behavior and theimportance of listener response. Some high schoolteachers approach the topic through body English:"How do facial expressions assist speakers? What #

f kinds of posture encourage speakers? discouragethem? Why is it important to show speakers thatyou are listening to them?"

Provide a good model. Many successful listen-ing teachers note that part of their suCcess is due to

7

8 Lislening Skills Schoolwide

the model they provide. As their students recite for-mally in class (and chat informally outside of class),these teachers respond politely and attentively, in-dicating through their facial expressions and bodymovements that they are indeed listening. They lookdirectly at speakers; they are later able to quotewhat speakers have said; they put aside recordkeeping and other paper tasks while their studentsspeak. Such teacher-models show that they valuegood listening by regularly praising students whocatch details of talks and lectures and by comment-ing positively on the classroom behaviors of goodlisteners. They signify by their own behaviors andcomments that they really believe listening is im-portant and that accurate listening takes effort onthe part of listeners.

_Make lessons a part of ongoing instruction.Separate listening lessons are necessary. Short unitsand exzi.d.d lessons are crucial to the developmentof listening s rt daily practice sessions keepskills alive and growinj11owever, listening in-struction cannot be detached from other aspects ofthe curriculumit needs to permeate all studies.Listening teachers should nbte what happens tospelling and writing in some schools: they aretaught regularly but separately, and students bminto think that, while spelling and writing may beimportant in English class, they "aon't cOunt" inother content areas. Listening dog countin his-tory and science classes and after the dismissal bell.Listening teachers may rela'te instruction to otherfacets of schooling and to life by having students:

Practice notetaking skills in their history and scienceclassesDiscuss problems they encounter listening to televisednewscasts and other out-of-school listening situationsCarry into content-area classes the listening guidesdeveloped in their listening lessonsReport back their observations and examples fromother classes and from homePractice their listening skills on school announce-ments, radio news and weather forecasts, proclam'a-tions, and messages from the principal's office

'Teaching Ideas for Middle School andJunior High

Many suggestions for teaching accurate listeningmay be found in language arts and reading books,in teachers' manuals, and in articles in professionaljournals. Here are some ideas from earlier gradesthat may be adopted by middle school and junior

high teachers and some ideas developed specificallyfor students in those grades.

Sixth-, seventhi and eighth-graders are not- yettoo sophisticated tonjoy and profit from strategiesregularly used by elementary-grade teachers. Spmesuccessful activities that may be adopted for olderstudents focus squarely on accuracy...

The old game of Simon Says is useful because it in-volves careful listening to directions. A leader gives acommand ("Simon says, 'Touch your toes' "), and thegroup does as it is told. If the leader omits the phraseSimon says, students should not obey. Those whofollow the command must drop out of the game.Airplanes F a variation in 'which students raisetheir arms a'htl fp them only when the leader men-tions something ihat flies, such as a rocke,,t or hawk.Students have to sit down when nonflying objects arementioned.

In a more difficult. variant, the teacher gives a stringof commands, such as: "Artfmr, take this chalk to mydesk; Susan, take it from, the desk and walk with itonce around the room; Debbie, you take it from Susanand place it on torn's desk ..."Another game has the teacher tell a story that includesnonsense information: ''The old man walked slowlyup the cornstalk and stopped to sit for a minute ..."Students are challenged to listen carefully for wordsthat do not make sense.

Middle school and junior high teachers can alsorework some of the listening activities in basal read-ing manuals. Such rhyming games and auditorydiscrimination exercises are still useful for manyupper-grade boys and girls.

b The teacer (or,child) says: "I rhyme with rain. I goon a tray . What is my name?" or "I rhyme with log.I have, 'a tail. What is my name?".The teacher starts with a word and students volunteerrhyttaing wTrds: bal, then cal, then mai," etc.The teacher tape-records sounds for students to iden-tify: an alarm clock, water from a faucet, a bell, foot-steps, a dog's bark, a car horn, etc.

Such simple exercises may be supplemented forsome middle.school classes with tests on short tales.Students listen for the pleasure of the story. Thenthe teacher asks four, or five simple questions aboutdetails to see how accurately students have listened.Once students realize that they may be asked torecall specific inforrnahon, they tend to listen fordetails.

Games play a major role in teaching listening toolder students as well. Teachers successful at pre-paring exercises note that the competitive elementunderlies many of their best listening activities. Di-rections are given for a few ideas that work.

To encourage accurate listening, read a short, carefullyselected magazine article and then ask ten questionsabout it. Reread the same article (or have a studentread it aloud) so that students may correct their ownanswers. Such "second-chance" listening is useful withpassages from textbooks. Students hear the passageonce, jot' down answers, and then hear it again todouble-check their responses. The second-chance as-pact of the activity seems to encourage accurate listen-ing during both readings.In a variation of this second-chance activity, have thestudents make up questions after they hear a story ortextbook passage. Write these questions on the chalk-board and let students listen a second time with thequestions before them. The exercise insiires involve-ment, purpose, and accuracy.

To maximize classroom listening, tell students t'hatthere will be at least one piece of inaccurate informa-tion given during the lecture. Students, who have readthe textbopk assignmenj, listen to discover the inac-curacy. They joi down`'the false information on cardsor scrap paper and share it with the class after theformal talk.

To encourage caieful listening, try contests. Announcethat. five points will be awarded after the formal talkor lecture for each piece of information accuratelyrecalled. After the talk, students jot down what theyremember, and points are given. The exercise alsoserves as an effective reviewing strategy.Divide the class into two relay teams and give eachteam captain the same written message. Each leaderwhispers the message to the next team member, whoin turn whispers it to the next member. Have the lastperson write the message down and decide which teamhas listened most accurately. Good messages mightinclude: "The principal's new car has a flat in thefront left tire" or "Today is Ihe fourth anniversary ofthe day Robert's brother lost his front tooth in ahockey game at Smith Field."Tape television news. To stay current, the short morn-ing newscasts can be recorded and played back forclasses that same day; Students either fill in the blankson the chalkboard or write True or False on paper.This is a good way of making students listen to thenews and listen for details.Retell news stories and have students act like reportersand answer the basic questions of when, where, what,why, who, and how. Such activities may be part ofjunior.high units on the'pewspaper or lessons in writ-ing.

Similar activities may be tied to literature study. Afterthe class has read a selection, give five statementsabout a character in the book. Students,must listen todiscover which statement is false, and then they returnto the book to verify their hunches.Try a variant of the "cloze procedure" popular inreading class hy taping a passage from the textbookand beeping out key words. Students listenperhaps.two or three timesand decide which words have beendeleted. They check their guesses by reading the pas-

Teaching Accurate Listening 9

sage in the book. This listening exercise is an effectivereview for a test.

Teaching Ideas for High School Classes

Just as many elementary-grade activities may beadopted for use in middle school and junior high,so may many of the gamelike activities used inthese grades be reworked for high school classes.Because of the increasing maturity of high schoolstudents, however, instruction might better beginwith demonstrations and examples of the impor-tance of careful, accurate listening. One teacher,for example, begins the school year with a discus-sion of instances in whicb accurate listening affectedactual events. She collected examples of instancesin which a listener's failure to heed one or twofacts changed the course of people's lives. Some ofher examples had to do with economic crises, bat-tles, diplomatic events, political campaigns, and,business.operations. One particular example con-cerned a famous rock group that went to the wrongcity to perform a concert because someone had lis-

,tened carelessly to a telephone message. Students inher classes were able to see how misunderstandingone word in a message could influence events. Herintroductory unit ended with a research project thatsent students into their neighborhoods to collectsimilar examples for a cl,ass publication entitled"It Pays to Listen."

Accurate listening in the high scho;fol may beapproached in a number of ways: through con-sciousness-raising devices, direction-following ac-tivities, and variations of the simulated newsroom.

Consciousness-Raising Devices

Most people do not always realize that they do notlisten accurately. A first step in any program is tomake students aware of their bad habits. One highschool teacher does this ,by feeding classes outra-geous information: "The 200 million teenagers inthe United States are spending more than 50 per-cent of the total national income on records andtapes" or "As President Roosevelt's jet landed atO'Hare Field, he realized that he had enough votesfor the nomination." By delivering impossible datawith a straight face, he tricks some of his studentssome of the time. He comments, "I want to keeptheir brains twirling throughout every class; after awhile, they realize that listeners are responsible forcatching every fact, the obvious and the bizarre."

I0 Llstening Skills Schoolwide

'` Other teachers have-used versions of the Test forAccurate Listening. This i a simple list of itemsdirecting listeners to do something. The items areso designed that each listener must attend to detailsaccurately. Some commonly used items on thesetests are:

Write the numbeiS 9, 8, 4, 5, and 7; then circle thelargest.

If' you circled 8, make a square in the upper-rightcorner of your paper; if not, make a cross.If konald Reagan is president, write the shorter of thetwo words blue or black. If he isn't, write your lastinitial.Write the second letter of your last name in thre,lower-left corner of, the paper with a star beside/it.Write the letters G, D, S. V, and T. Now ciztle the onethat starts with the same sound as a worckhat appearsin the movie title Star Wars. /

/Such exercises need to be longto be effective.

Their purpose is to make stuçlents iealize how muchinformation floats by them in ordinary spoken Ian-guage. Students begin to se that truly accuratelistening is not easy. On teacher encourages stu-dents to contribute to all "item bank" of such corn-

. mands. Once a week, twenty or thirty items are'drawn from the b In k and presented rapidly to thegroup. The tea er reMinds the students, "We hearwords around us all day and stop really listening/to them; sPoken language is such a part of our/commom environment that we cease to pay heed/to it.'2

Another consciousness-raising device is the useof a standardized listening test. Many teachers haveadministered standardized listening tests, such asthe Browq-Carlsen Listening Comprehension Testor the STEP Listening Test. Students are allowedto score their own test sheets and compare theirscores to national norms. They are often disturbedto discover that they are not listening at their'gradelevel. Other teachers create their own listening tests,selecting a short article from a magazine and pre-paring twenty questions designed to measure ac-curate listening. Students listen as the teacher readsthe article aloud or listen to a tape recording. Theycheck their answers against the teacher's key andgrade themselves. One teacher administers such alistening test each week; students score themselvesby percentages and record their weekly scores innotebook chart-S. The)i are usually able to see week-by-week improvements and are- probably muchmore cbnscious of accurate listening than studentswho never participate in such an activity.

-

Direction-Following Activities

High school students also need to realize that otherkinds of listening are contingentupon accurate lis-tening, Purposeful listening in the classroom, eth-ical listening in front of the television set, and fol-lowing spoken directions in the shop or scienceclass are all based, to a large extent, upon attentionto specific details. One set of activities for helping

/students understand the primacy of accurate listen-ing grows from giving and following directions. Inthe following examples, students are given a seriesof commands.

'You are asked to help out in the school office, andan emergency arises. The principal says: 'A fire hasbroken out in the basement. I'm running down there.You call Mr. Barnes in the shop. Call his home if hedoesn't answer. The number is 576-8967.Y' Studentsare given sets of directions rapidly and asked to pickout what they believe are the essentials. After somepractice, students can make up similar exercises andtest one another."Imagine that you are driving a police patrol car.You get this message on the car radio: 'Accident atBurns and Fifth. Seems to be a fire. Ambulance on theway. Be ready for burns.' " Students are asked to repeatthe key points of the message. Discussion may centerupon such questions as: Which point is most impor-tant? Which matter is to be taken care of first? Whatwords are most important? What should you do? notdo?

"You are working temporarily in a local service sta-tion. The manager, leaving on a job, says quickly:'That pump on the right isn't acting properly. Tellcustomers not to use it. Move them to the other. If youhave a chance, call Bob at home and tell him tobeat it here. We need him. The_number's 987-2378.' "Discussion, again, may center upon such questionsas: What should you do first? What's essential? Whatdata do you have to recall? What could a listenermisinterpret here? What might a listener not catch?Students may prepare similar messages to test oneanother. The teacher's point in such exercises, ofcourse, is to help students realize the value of identify-ing key words and noting them for recall.

The Simulated Newsroom Approach

Here the teacher suggests that the classroom is atelevision or radio newsrOom. Several students are .news reporters scattered throughout the commu-nity; others are editors and rewrite staff based inthe office. As reporters in the field come acrossnews stories, they telephone the information to themain office to be rewritten and broadcast. Clearly,the news staff in the station must be accuratelisteners.

In the first stages of this simulation game, theteacher may prepare the stories for ireporters to callin: "This is Mendez calling from City Hall. I justtalked to the mayor, and he denies strongly therumor that he has been involved in an automobileaccident. He says the story is being circulated byhis political enemies. His only car is a brownChevette, and it is being serviced by the Mobil sta-tion near his home in Ashmount. The car in therumors is a big Caddie. The mayor says he hasnever owned a Caddie." Stories at this stage mayrange from the silly to the pedestrian; the teachershould try to pack each with as many details aspossible.

In a second stage, the teacher may explain theclassic questions of newswriting: who, what, where,when, why, and how? Such a simple structure pro-vides guidance for both speakers and listeners: "Abad fire broke out in the old garage at Andover andGreene Streets. The firemen think it was ignited bykids playing in the neighborhood, but they aren'tsure. No one was hurt, but damage will run, theythink, to several thousand dollars. Chief O'Neilsays a c l check will be made for possible ar-son, at t is time he doesn't think it was setpurposefully.'

A third sta% has students creating their ownoriginal stories.)Zeporters prepare stories at homeor before class and call them in.If possible, studentscall over the intercom to add to the classroomdrama. In all its variants, th simulated newsroomdoes provide practice in acc rate listening.

Interest and Attention

The inescapable truth about accurate listening isthat care and attention to details are contingentupon one's interest in the spoken communication.Susan may not catch a single detail in an earlymorning newscast, but when the-announcer reads alist of rainy-day scbool,cancellations, she is sure topick out the name."of her school. Dave may nothear a thing in the noisy school cafeteria, but whensomeone mentions the cute new girl's name, hecatches it. Clearly, people pay attention to whatinterests them. They tend to listen more accurately,with or without special instruction in school, tothose spoken messages that somehow relate to thempersonally. Awareness of the relationship betweenattention and interest leads to three classroomguidelines.

TeachMg Accurate Llsten mg I l

Encourage Students to Relate Spoken Materialto Their Own Lives

Teachers in all content areas need to emphasize thevalue of relating new materials to students' ownlives. As students take in new information and ideasthrough classroom talk, they need to seek out itemsthat tie in with their own personalities, past lives,aspirations, problems, concerns. Psychologists pdintout that new material is most effectively encoded,stored, and later retrieved from memory when it ispackaged in some way that is meaningful to thelearner. Students who see relationships betweenwhat the teacher talks about and their immediatelives tend to take in and retain the information.

One successful listening teacher keeps a largewall chart in the front of the classroom with thesequestions:

How does this concern me?How does this relate to what I already know?What does it remind me of?What can I associate it with?What crazy things pop into my mind when I think ofit?

HOW can I use these crazy associations to help meremember?

HOw does this relate to my past? my future?How does it relate to my life outside of school?,

The teacher refers to the chart for both reading andlistening lessons. As students read asignments andlisten to lectures and other oral presentations,,.theyare 'reminded to make associations with aspects oftheir own lives.

Set Up Listening Situations That Involve Students

Interest grows out of personal. involvement. Teach-ers who develop oral language lessons that max-imize personal involvement note that lister-ling doesimprove. "Easier said than done!"some may say.But there are teachers who try never to make aformal classroom presentation without structuringinto it some personalizing activity. Some examplesfrom actual classrooms follow.

One literature teacher has students note on paper allpoints in her lectures that relate directly to their ownlives. After each lecture, she allows time for discus-sion of such questions as "What does this discussionof characterization mean to you? Have you ever no-ticed a person revealing personal qualities throughspeech or actions? Do you ever reveal your own innerqualities by the way you speak and act?"

1L)

I.

12 Listening Skills Schoolwide

A history teacher, lecturing on Prohibition, asks hislisteners tq write on cards a personal lesson that theyhave learned from the nation's futile attempt to legis-late against the wishes of a majority of people. Stu-dents share their lessons, and the discussion oftenturns to censorship and the outlawing of drugs. Suchdiscussions enhance his presentation of the topic:andlisteners are always much more attentive.A science teacher, speaking on water pollution, hasstudents concentrate on what they can do as individ-uals to prevent pollution. They often decide to writeletters to Congress, to inspect local ponds and streams,or to write to area newspapers; they invariably listenmore carefully.

Encourage Students to Listen with Pen in Hand

Recognizing thait attention is related to intinterest to personal involvement, many.teachers link lessons in accurate listeningtaking. They remind students that hum

est andistening,ith note'nternory

,is fragile and that the best listeners cpnnot catchand remember everything. These teachtrs, even inthe middle grades, begin guided pr4tice in note-taking. Listening with pen in hand 's an excellentway of maximizing attention and 'tapturing onpaper vital points of a talk. Some eff ctive strategies,.for beginning instruction in notetaking follow.

Provide student listeners with a detailed outline of theclassroom talk or lecture..(As students listen, they for--low the main and minor points, noting the specificdetails of the speaker.)Provide incomplete outlines that students fill in asthey listen. (Stop talking periodically to check studentresponses: "Did you get that date? that name? Whatare the three items that you filled in under the secondheading?")Have student listeners respond to the talk by develop-ing a time line. ("If we start with this event in 1861,what ought to come next in my presentation? Wheredo you put the next item of information?")Have students prepare maps as they. listen. (Using arough board drawing as a guide, note events as thetalk proceeds and as students develop their own note-book maps: "As the, settlers moved westward, theycame to the river. Approximately where did they cross?Indicate this on your map as we go along.")Listening with pen in hand tends to provide a

minimal structure for response while allowing forimportant physical involvement. It is not the com-plete solution to the problem of inattentive listen-ing, but it does focus the attention of the studentlistener on the task at hand.

One of the most effective ways of increasingattention through notetaking is the Guided Listen-

ing Lesson. This structure, based on the GuidedReading Lesson recommended by reading special-ists, is a step-by-step guide through the teacher'slecture. It usually consists of (1) an explanation ofthe lecture's purpose, (2) an introduction (givenbefore the presentation) of new vocabulary wordsand difficult concepts, (3) questions for listeners tohave in mind as the talk proceeds, and (4) a printedguide to fill in while listening. In a reading lesson,the guide forces student readers to move sequen-tially through a textbook assignment, noting im-portant points and focusing attention on detailsthat the teacher considers important. In a listeninglesson, the guide helps students note key general-izations and details and, similarly, concentratcs lis-teners' attention on matters that the teacher 4vantsthem to Linderstand and remember. A Guided Lis-tening Lesson may pull together many of the listen-ing goals of the lesson and reinforce learning ofbasic listening skills. It may be particularly usefulin teaching students to listen for accurate details. Asample lesson used by ai-4 eighth-grade social studiesteacher follows.

Paul Revere's RideDirections to listeners: You are going to hear a shorttalk on Paul Revere's faMous ride. Before the talkbegins, read through this guide. Make sure you knowwhat you are listening for.

I. How well do you pick,out main ideas? After thetalk is over, list the five main ideas it contained..

2. How well do you understand the main point of atalk? After the talk is over and you have listed thefive main ideas, indicate the main point of theentire talk in one or two sentences.

3. How well do you listen for details? While the talkis given, try to fill in as many of these details asyou cah:

a. Paul left fromb. His destination wasc. He was accompanied byd. His starting signal wase. On the way he saw

, andThe date of his ride wasA famous poem about,the ride was writtenby

h. The time when he left wasi. The time when he returned was

f.

g.

j. The weather was

4. How well do you follow sequence? After the talk isover, list in correct order five events that happenedduring the ride.

5. How well do you note signal words? While youlisten, jot down five signal words or expressionsthat the speaker uses (one example from the.begin-ning of the talk is first).

Sample Lesson Plans

As an outgrowth of regular class work in dramatics,one sixth-grade teacher uses variations of the fol-lowing lesson to emphasize accurate listening.

ObjectiveTo encourage students to listen accurately

Behavioral objectiveAt the end of the class session, each Child will beable to recall six specific details from the, situa-tion.

ProceduresL Tell students that they may volunteer to act

out the situation they will soon hear.2. Emphasize that they will hear it only, once.3. Have them listen with pencils in hand to

catch every important detail.4. crell them this -situation:

An elegant, uppertelass woman was drivingdown the highway one day when she saw a fa-mous fast-food hamburgeK stand. She had neverin her Life eaten at such a place, but on this dayshe was hungry. she told her chauffeur to stopand wait while, she went inside to order. She hadnever been inside such a place before. She wasstunned by all the noise and confusion. She hadnever seen so many children. Dozens of peopleWere in line. Young people behind the counterwore strange hats. Signs were all over the walls.She had no idea how to order or how to get atable, so she watched the people around her verycarefully. The4irl in ;he next line ordered a BigMac and a strawberry milkshake. The boy in frontof her ordered three hamburgers and three milk-shakes, all chocolate, plus five orders of french-fried potatoes. A child in another line orderednine hamburgers and nine soft drinks, plus threeorders of cookies. The poor lady was flabber-gasted! She tried her best.

5. Have students turn their notes facedown ontheir desks.

6. Allow three or four volunteers to act out thesituation.

7. Encourage class discussion of details that thevolunteers forgot or failed to hear.

Teaching Accurate Listening 13

8. Reread the situation while students double-check to see how many details they recordedor failed to record the first time.

9. Ask: "Why is it important to listen to details?What kinds of people need to be especialitgood listeners? How can you improve4yourability to listen more accurately?"

10. After students have had an opportunity todiscuss their answers, try a similar lesson onthe same day or the following day.

One eighth-grade teacher regularly uses varia-tions of the following lesson to foster accurate lis-tening and to develop creativity.

ObjectivesTo develop the skill of listening to detailsTo give students further practice in creativethinking

Behavioral objectivesEach student will be able to reproduce ten spe-cific details from each description heard.Each student will write a one-paragraph descrip-tion of a location never before visited.

Procedures1. Announce: "New Planet Discovered!" Tell

the students that they are to imagine the dis-covery of a new planet and the landing ofthe first spaceship from Earth on that planet.

2. Point out that the hitherto-unknown planetmay have a tropical climate and much vege-tation, no water or plant growth, no life re-sembling ours, or quite dissimilar life.

3. Allow time for students to discuss briefly thepossible appearance of the new planet, andthen encourage a quiet moment for "formingmental pictures."

4. Set fifteen minutes aside for a writing work-shop where students write out descriptionsof the new planet as they imagine it.

5. Suggest that each student writer pretend tobe the first person from Earth to step footonto the new planet.

6. Have students rewrite their descriptions fromthe point of view of the pTon who willsend back to Earth the first description..(Thisis the time for the teacher to help with spell-ling, punctuation, sentence structure, edit-ing, etc. Final drafts may be done at homeor in a subsequent writing workshop.)

14 Listening Skills Srci lwide

Listening Accurately for Details_

Listen carefullyfor specific directions and mark the following diagram accurately.

1

Figure 1. Exerckse sheet for Listening Accurately for Details.

7. On another day, six or,eight volunteers readtheir reports aloud.

8. Student listeners (with pen in hand) listento the volunteers for at least ten details thatmake the description of the planet unique.(For example, "Instead. of being green, all

"grasses and leaves are bright blu'e.")9. If time allows, each 'volunteer will read his

or her description a second (or third) time sothat,listeners can check theirskill in catchingdetails.

10. Each student creates a name for the newplanet.

1 1. The class selects the best description and.bestname.

12. Outstanding descriptions may be tape-record-ed for later use by the teachera listeningtest for the same class later in tM.year or forother classes.

One high school teacher of English uses a collec-tion of recorded old-time radio programs as thebasis for lessons in accurate listening.

ObjectiveTo make listeners attentive to details

ProceduresI. dote that literary scholars often must date

newly discovered manuscriPts of old poemsand novels. ("They can rely. -on the age ofthe paper and Chemical analysis of .the inkand so forth, but they also use details foundin the content. For example, if the author

-mentions railroads or Jhe telegraph, thescholar knows that the piece could not havebeen written much before the nineteenth cen-tury; if the author merltions television, themanuscript was probably written after thelate 1930s.")

2. ExplainAat the class will hear a recordingof a popular radio program Tsuch as "TheShadow" or "The Lone Ranger").

3. Challenge individuals in the group to list intheir notebooks as much factual data as-pos-sible to help date the program.Play the recording.

5. Allow. time for students to share their re-sponses.

6. Replay the recording so that students candouble-check their findings and locate newexampies.

I

l'eaching Accurate Listening 15

7. Allow additional time for students to com-pare and discuss the items they have located.

8. Follow up the class activity with this assign- 1,ment:

Tonight wateh and listen to one rerun of.anold television series or an old movie. List asmany details as possible that might help a future

'w scholar tell approximately when it 1:vas filmed.

Exercises

These exercises are design d and presented so th.t.teachers Tay reproduce m. They are intended tosupple ' the le ng activities in the lessonsa to give studentg increased practice in using

portant listening skills.

,Listening Accurately for Details

This activity leads to exercises in the followingchapter for teaching students the important skill offollowing spoken directions. It may serve as a modelfor a variety of similar teacher-made exercises.

Students are told to take their copies of the exer-cise sheet headed Listening Accurately for Details(Figure I) and to do exactly as directed. The teach-er then reads the following directions.

Write your last name in the third square downbeside the left margin.

_Write your first name in the third square up fromthe right margin.

Draw a small triangle in the fourth squarq;dgwn. to the right of the left dotted line.

Draw a small circle in the second square up fromthe bottom to the immediate right of the right dottedhne.

Make a dot in the third square down from the topto the right of the left dotted line.

Draw a large circle around the top four squares onthe left of the page.

Write the day of the week on the topmost line ofthe entire block of squares.

Write the year in which you were born in the secondsquare up from the bottom to the left of the left dottedline.

Write your initials in the fifth square down fromthe top, next to the right clOited line.

Put tIN, call numbers of your favorite radio stationin the top right-hand corner of the paper. If you haveno favorite, write the word school.

Place three dots in the fourth square up frimn thebottom to the right of the right dotted line.

Teachers should complete a master diagram for stu-dents,A4o use in checking accuracy of their finisheddiagrrms.

rt.

16 LiVening Skills Schoolwide

vAre You Really Listening?

Check the specific 'detail that best answers each question.

1. In what year was the ancient Egyptian 9. How tall was his burial chambef?tomb discovered? 9 feet

1903 11 feet

1922 17 feet1948 10 yards1980 10. What did they find in 'the chamber be-

2. In what month was it made? side the coffin?January grave robbersJune other pharaohsNovember live animalsDecember furniture

3. How many steps did the archeologistsdig down?

1012

16

22

4. What was the passage filled with?_ rubble"gasesstatues\ jewelry

5. Wh'iq was buried in ttle tomb?Lord Carnarvon

\CairoTutCit.er

6. In which ct4be'r did they find thepharaoh's remaips?

first \\secondthird*fourth

7. How old was the pharaoh when he died?10

12

1822

8. How many coffins was he. buried in?

23

4

11. What were on the walls?rugsmirrorspicturesair vents

12. How many packing cases were sentback from the grave?

31344144

13. ow many chariots were sent back?1

23

4

14. How were the discoveries taken to the. Nile River?

traintruckboatmules

15. How many pieces of jewelry were foundwh the mummy?

100123143193

16. Where are these treasures today?CairoRomeNew YorkIiondon

Figure 2. Exercise sheet for Are You Really Listening?

Are You Really Listening?

The second exercise-may be used as a pfetest, post-test, or consciousness-raising device. The teacher ora student volunteer may read aloud (or tape-record)the following information. Using the multiple-.choice quiz, Are You Really Listening? (Figure 2),listeners then test themselves to discover how acscurately they listened. The information may be pre-sented a second time to allow listeners an oppor-tunity for second-chance listening.

In November, 1922, two archeologists, HowardCarter and Lord Carnarvon, discovered beneath someworkmen's huts a stone step that would lead them toone of the great moments in all scientific investiga-tion. Three weeks of patient digging led them down aflight of sixteen steps to the entrance to a tomb of oneof Egypt's ancient pharaohs. There in the Valley ofthe Kings, they found the lost tomb of Tut, the richesttomb in all Egypt. Beneath the rubble-filled passage,they found a door bearing the ancient royal seal. Withtrembling hands, Carter made a small hole in theupper left-hand corner. He lit candles to see if therewere any poisonous gases and then, slowly, enlargedthe hole. There, after centuries, was the magnificenceof the long-lost pharaoh's tomb: golden chairs, adiamrd-ericrusted throne, gold vases, two great stat-ues, an1 hundreds of priceless jewels. However, no-wheç could he or his friends see a sarcophagus ormumipy. Could this be the real tomb? they wondered.

In tke next days they searched carefully throughoutthe chamber. Eventually, they located in a rear cornerwhat appeared to be another door. They -eased thisopen and found themselves in another chamber, seven-teen feet long, eleven feet wide, and nine feet high.Here, between two enormous statues of solid gold,they found Tut, the eighteen-year-old "boy king." Themummy was in a gold coffin placed within a wooden

Teaching Accurate Listening 17

coffin within a third, golden coffin. It was surroundedby buried food, furniture, dishes, clothing, games, andother everyday objects of the king's court. The twoarcheologist's knew that the people of that time be-lieved the spirit of the dead would awaken and requirethe ordinary materials of daily life. Here they foundnot only great wealth But a record of the customs andneeds of an ancient people. The chamber walls werecovered with pictures depicting the life of the royalcourt. There were scenes of battles and the hunt, alldone in brilliant colors and with perfection of detail.They found, too, curious pieces of furniture, showinglions, crocodiles, and other African animals. Carterand Lord Carnarvon realized that they had unveiled arecord of Egyptian life never seen befor6.

Before- the year was over, they had loaded thirty-four packing cases (4.rpriceless material from the tombalong with four chariots and dozens of statues. Thesewere loaded on flatcars and carried on a small railroad .to the Nile River, where they could be placed on boatsfor the journey to Cairo. The murXy of the eighteen-year-old king was carried in its separate casing withits 143 pieces of jewelry. Carter filled thirty-three pagesof his notebook with a list of the tomb's contents.

Today, historians know more about ancient Egyptbecause of this discovery, and people from all over theworld may come to Cairo to see the splendors of KingTut and his times.

The answers for Are Y ou Really Listening?:1. 1922 9. 9 feet2. November 10. furniture3. 16 11. pictures4. rubble 12. 345. Tut 13. 46. second 14. train7. 18 15. 1438. 3 16. Cairo

3 tEACHING PURPOSEFUL LISTENING

Most talk is informal, spontaneous, disorganized,apd catch-as-catch-can. tisteners make sense of itby ,Picking up specific items of information, bygrasping the flow and drift of themessage, and by in-tuiting the intentions and feelings of speakers.Teathers can help students become better at this kindof listening by giving guided practice in accurate lis-tening, in listening for main ideas, in recognizingemotive language, and in critical listening in gen-eral. However, another kind of talk that is more for-malized, structured, and Purposeful is frequentlyfound in schools, colleges; shops, laboratories, andoffices. It is, fortunately, highly teachable. Studentlisteners with guided practice may become increas-

.. ingly efficient at the skills needed to follow directionsand understand structured presentations. Teacherscan teach such key skills as recognizing a speaker'sintent, following sequence, rioting structure, recog-nizing specific patterns of organizations, and pick-ing out signal words and phrases. Here is an areaof the listening program where students may-imme-diately profit by learning those listening skills mostneeded for success in school, work, and later life.

This chapter examines two important types ofpurposeful listening: listening to follow spoken di-rections and listening to recognize the organizationof spoken dikcourse.

Following Spoken Directions

The skill of following a speaker's directions is prob-ably a composite of several subskills, such as recog-nizing the speaker's intent, defining one's own pur-pose for listening, noting details, distinguishingbetween relevant and irrelevant details, and follow-ing sequence. Fortunately, all these subskilli areteachable and improve with practice.

Ideas are Presented for helping students in mid-dle school, junior high, and high schaol, as well asideas for correlating listening skills with other lan-guage arts and the other,...tontent `fields._

Teaching Ideas for Middle Schooland junior High

Some of the following strategies grow out of earlierinstruction in accurate listening; some are plannedto help students become conscious of the value offollowing spoken directions carefully.

1. Discuss with students theimportance of follow-ing directions by asking Rich questions as:

Where cto people have to follow directions?Why is this an important skill in school? on the job?Who, in particular, would have to be a good listener

to directions? Why?Why is following directions difficult for the average

person?What are the problems a listener encounters?When did you last have to follow spoken directions? .

What problems did you have?

2.7-T-rra-sim'ile warm-up game such as this ver-sion of Simtita Says ,clone with eyes closed:

Put your righrthumb on your left ear lobe.Place your left hand on top of your right thuMb.Put both hands flat on the desk top.Raise only your left thumb.Grip your left thumb with your entire right hand.

3. Point out that game's like Simon Says are easybut involve many of the same skills needed inreal-life listening situationi. Students can, actout the following situation to demonstrate thenecessity of accurate listening when followingspoken directions:

You are planting seeds and cannot hold the packagewhile you work, so a friend reads the directions aloudto you. "Loosen the soil to a fine condition. Covereach seed with a quarter inch of fine soil. Plant eachat least five itiches apart. Make each row eighteeninches apart."

4. Point out that memory plays a partin followingdirections. Read the foLlowing situations andallow students to test themseltves on their abilityto recall the necessary information.

' t

20 . Listen,ing Sbkitis Schoolwide

For a free copy. of Mr. 'Harris's talk, send your nameand address to Educational Services, General MotorsCorporation, Box 364, Detroit, Michigan 78965.:f What isr;the box number?

What will yip get?What city do you .send to?What was th zip code given?

A sample lesso will show you how pleasant andprofitable it cap be to study radio engineering athome. Send for free lessons now. No cost to you. Noobligation. Write tonight to American School of

_ Radio Engineering, 790 Commonwealth Avenue,Boston, Massachusetts 02215.

What is being offered?What is the name of the school?What is the street number?How much does it cost?

When you hear the air-raid warning, follow thesedirections. Pull oVer to the side of the road. Leavelanes open for emergency vehicles. Shut off motorand light's. Open windows. Get out and go to ashelter if one is available. If not, crouch down in'thecar. Resume travel fonly whop the all-clear sounds.For official civilian defense instructions, tune to thedesignated emergenCy broadcast radio station.

Should youShould youWhich laneShould youWhat radio

remain in your car? 'open or close your windows?should you stay in?turn off the car lights?station should you listen to?

Because tomorrow's assembly is scheduled for fourthperiod, girls in sections 3-G, 3-K, and 3-M will eatduring the second lunch period. Boys in these sec-tions will report to the assembly hall at the end ofthe first lunch period.

Which students are to have second lunch?When should girls report?Where should the boys go?When should %hey go?

)qalku come to Lynch's Drugstore. Turn right and con-east on Common Street for two blocks until

utinue on Madison Street. Number 264 Madison Streetis the third house from the corner of Madison andCommon Streets.

How many blocks must you walk before you reachthe drugstore?

How many houses from the corner is the one youwant?

What is the number of the house?What is the name of the drugstore?

5. Give students practice in responding on paperto spoken directions.

Listen to these directions. Do not write Until I havefin ished.a. Make an X on the third line from the top of the

paper. Make three zeros on the s(xth line fromthe top. Draw a line connecting the X with themiddle zero.

b. Draw a triangle with three equll sides. Label an- -.gles of triangle A, B, and C, beginning at lower -*

left angle. Draw a line from A to apoint midwaybetween B anct C.

c. On your paper write every other letter in yourfirst and last names. Begin with the second letterof your first name. Put a circfe around every vow- .el you write. Draw a straight line above everyconsonant.

d. On your paper write the odd numbers from I .to11 in a row. Begin with 1 andend with 11. Sub-tract the smallest number oin this series from thelargest. Write the answer under the last numborZ;in the series.

e. In the row of numbers you have written, multiplythe third number from the left by the next-to-the-last number. Write the answer under your answerto number 4.

IP f. When I have finished, you will be asked to drawa rough map showing the following: TO go fromtown A to town B, drive east on Main Street asfar as theintersection of Main and River Streetsabout one fourth of the distance. Turn,left onRiver Street and continUelor a short distance un-til you come to Route I. Cross Route 1 and cOn-tinue on this road, which leads into town B.When I have finished, you will be asked to drawa rough floor plan of the house I shall describe.Left and right directions are from the point ofview of a person facing the house. Listen care-fully. This house is L-shaped. TwO1:00111s of equalsize are at the front of the house. One room is inthe rear wing. The outside door opens into theroom at the right in front of the house. There aretwo windows to the left of the door in,this room.The left front room has four window*, two infront, one at the side, one at the rear. There arethree windows in the rear room, two on the leftof the house, one on the right. a

h.' When I have finished, you will be asked to drawa rough diagram of this stage setting. Rememberthe directions for stage settings are given fromthe point of view of the actor facing the audience.Listen carefully. This is the interior of a mountaincabin. There is a fireplace at the right. A door atthe rear leads outside. There is a small window tothe right Of this door. Another door in the leftwall leads to a back room. The furniture consistsof a bed between the outside docir and the fire-place, a table in the center of the room; and threechairs..

,6. Link direction following with content studY.

One literature teacher regularly has volunteersprepare large wall'maps of Dorset, the territoryd scribed in Thomas Hardy's novels. When stu-dents read Return of Me Native, they. give di-rections from their seats about where charactersfrom trie novel went while .listeners follow atthe map the specific movements of the charac-

g.

2GS.

ters. This exercise is designed to enhance ap-preciation and understanding of the novelwhile providing practice in following spokendirections.

7. Try Ceiling Zero. Divide the class into twoteams, each of which selects a controller, whomust guide a fellow team member in for a land-ing on a nighs,w hen visibility is zero. The pilotis blindfolded'alid, guided only by the spokendirections of the controller, must "land" in thefront of the room: All ,furniture is:moved againstthe walls, but to 'make the landing more diffi-cult, members of (he opposing team place suchobstacles as books, overturned chairs, and lunchboxes in the way of the blindfolded pilot. Thisexercise leads to increased attention and pro-vides good practice in following oral directions.

8. Set up useful learning situations. Have studentsserve is school guides. With the principal'scooperation, the class sets up an informationdesk in the school lobby each morning duringhomeroom period. When visitors and other stu-dents come in search of information, a studentis ready.with accurate spoken directions on howto locate the main office, the guidance office,the school custodian, and sp forth. Students getpractice in giving directions and must first tryout their directions on other students. In addi-tion to performing a useful school service, stu-dents become more aware of the skills involvedin giving and taking directions.

9. Move outside the school environment. Encour-age students to prepare directions on reachingtheir homes. Volunteers give the directions,which seleaed volunteers try to follow. Thisactivity works'well when the school communityis small and the:teacher is able to supervise thevolunteers.

10:. Try recipe following. Invite someone from thehome econothics department to give the classoral directions on preparing fudge. Selectedstudents then. follow the directions exactly and

° ihake the fudge. Tlie activity emphasizes theimportance of notetaking and accuracy.

11. Give hands-on practice,' too. Cut up coloredconstructi n paper into squares, triangles, rec-tang s, circles, ankl other shapes. Place fivc ofeach tolor and shape in an envelope for eachstudent. Have studentstsit back to back in pairs.

Teaching Purposeful Lislening 91

Appoint one student in each pair the direction-giver and the other the direction-follower. Thespeaker builds a geoitetric design step by step,telling the other person exactly, what each stepconsists of ("Put a yellow square in the middleof the desk. Put a Ted circle under it. Nowplace a blue triangle:to the left of the circle.").The listener, unable to see the speaker and rely-ing on oral directions, must reconstruct thesame design during a set interval of time.

Teaching Ideas for High School

As noted in chapter twO, many middle school andjunior high ideas may be adapted for older adoles-cents. Specific ideas fOr high school classes are listedhere:

27

1. Spend time discussing the importance of fol-lowing directions, both in school and on thejob. Ask students to list occasions when theyhave had to follow spoken directions in the

, past and occasions inAhe future when they willbe required to be careful listeners. Point outthe need for them to listen to items in sequencein school assignments, on their part-time andsummer jobs, and in their homes. Focus par-ticularly on questions such as: What are ob-stacles for listeners? How can such obstacles besurmounted? How can the average person learnto follow spoken directions better?

2. Take assignments from content-area teachersto use in listening sessions. For example, "Hereis a typical science assignment. Listen carefully.I'll read it only once. Be prepared when I'mthroughjo repeat the main steps, the exact or-der, and the final task. Think of problems lis-teners might run into when following thesedirectionS. How might you change them forthe better?"

3. Have students give directions to one another.Some possible topics are putting on a suitjacket, replacing laces in gym shoes, or tying anecktie. The students who volunteer to followthe directions must do exactly what the speakertells them to do.

4. Encourage students to collect examples fromeveryday life: "What's the last time someonegave you directions outside of school? Writethese down as you remember them, and we'll

22 Listening Skills Schoolwide

try them out on one another." Often the ex-amples students bring in from their jobs andhomes provide excellent materials for practicesessions.

5. Have students create their own paper-and-pencilexercises. Share with classes the exercises listedpreviously under Teaching Ideas for MiddleSchool and Junior High. Encourage studentsto develop similar exercises that may be triy.out on other students.

6. Have 'volunte r preps'are in advance detailed'instructions for completing an activity in class

,/(such as drawing a musical staff with the firstnotes of a-popular song or a map of the speak-er's neighborhood). Listeners follow directionsas given and share the results afterward withthe speaker. Questions for discussion are "Whatwent wrong? Was it the speaker's fault or thelistener's?",

7. To help students be aware of sequence, list onthe chalkboard before a talk the five mainpointsout of order. Tell students to listencarefully and place the items in what they thinkis proper order. Allow time afterward for dis-cussion of the importance of correct sequencingin giYing and following directions.

Correlating with Other ,School St;bjects

The listening skill of filfflowing spoken directionsneatly correlates with related skil s in speaking, read-ing, and writing and with other ontent areas. Oneexample is an assignment revolvi g around the top-ic of changing crankcase oil. Firs it is a speakinglesson in which students must dçcide the mainpoints they want to get across, the logical order ofpresentation, the appropriate transition words, andthe possible difficulties listeners may encounter:Volunteers then try out their spoken directions onother volunteers who actually do the oil changingin the school shop. Listeners keep a record of diffi-culties they encountered in following directions.Next, both speakers and listeners together write outthe directions, edit their work, duplicate it, andpresent it to the entire class as part of the teacher'slesson in following directions in reading. As theteacher points out, similar cognitive processes un-derlie giving and taking directions in all contextsreading, writing, speaking, and listening. There-

fore, correlating instruction in all four skill areasenhances learning\ Other teachers approach thebasic skill of follovbing directions in Engl'sh classand in other content areas by using such ritingtasks as preparing .a manual for bicycle r airs;developing cookbooks; producing classroom g idesfor the shop, science labs, or home economics it-chens; and preparingall varieties of how-to-do t

manuals. The writing tasks are usually preceded bspeaking-listening "tryolits" and followed by read-ing activities based on the students' written direc-tions.

Implicit in all such instruction is attention totransition words and phrases or "signal words." Asstudents prepare to give or write out directions,they should be shown that speakers and writerssignal their intentiems by using such terms as first,second, next, and finally; Good listenersand read-ers, tooare able to use these signals to follow thesequence and discriminate among items. Teachersmay make clear the value of recognizing transitionexpressions by (1) listing them on the board, 2)duplicating common ones for student notebooks,(3) having students locate transitions on printeddirection sheets, (4) encouraging students to usetransitions as they write out directions, and (5) pro-viding practice sessions for students to jot downtransitions in aural-oral situations.

Recognizing a Speaker's, Plan

Much of the listening performed by students inschool and college (and often as they listen to radioand television announcements and speeches) isbased upon structured discourse. The speaker hasplanned and organized the talk. The presentationhas a beginning, a middle, and an end. It rests

'upon some design the speaker has consciously (orsometimes unconsciously) selected.

Even a modicum of instruction may have a dra-matic effect upon the listener's ability to`profit fromsuch material: When listeners "see" the speaker'sorganizational plan, they are better able to sensethe intent and direction of the talk. Cognitive psy-chOlogists, especially those interested in schematheory, say that cOmprehension is enormously im-proved when the speaker's (or writer's) schema ororganizational pattern is perceived by the listener(or reader).

AeI

What Are the Basic Patterns?

Many years ago, reading specialists noted five pat-terns that 'seemed to underlie the writing in mostschool textbooks. These same patterns are frequent-ly found in spoken presentations.

Simple enumeration. Here, the speaker notes thatseveral items will follow in some sequence. A his-tory teacher may say, "Six traits distinguished theearly Spanish settlers from other settlers." Listenersshould be immediately alerted that a list will prob-ably be presented. A science teacher says, "Thereare four points you should know before you beginthis experiment." Students should recognize thatan enumeration will sui-ely follow. Speakers signaltheir Use of this organizational plan by using suchtransitional expressions as first, second, third, next,or f inally.

Generalization plus example. GoocI speakerssupport their generalizations with evidence. Theyknow that it is not enough to say, "Americans inthe Gilded Age ran wild after profits." Examplesmust be given to support this generalization. Aliterature teacher maY, say, "Hemingway revealscharacter through speech," but then must providean example or two from a story. Trained listenersusually keep an ear open for evidence to supportthe speaker's generalizations, assertions, and infer-ences. Because so much formal (and sometimesspontaneous) talk is structured around this pattern,teachers need to give students Friuch practice inrecognizing supporting information in writing andin spoken language. Signal words here are for ex-ample, for instance, or another examp/e. Englishteachers often link this listening skill to composi-tion work by explaining that good writers "showinstead of tell" and by demonstrating how topicsentences are supported by other sentences.

Time or sequence. College composition teachersfrequently attack this same pattern in lessons on"process analysis" (the how-tO-do-it theme). It is,of course, the pattern basic to direction giving anddirection following, whether in speaking-listeningor writing-reading. Time pattern is importapt inhistory, current events, science, and other contentfields,, but it is basic to most work in literature,especially the study of narrative poetry, fiction, anddrama. The transition words and phrases associatedwith the chronological or sequence pattern are first,second, next, and finally.

Cause and effect. Here the speaker presents aneffect and its possible cause or leads listeners from

Teaching Purposeful' L s lening

cause to effect. MoSt students need help in under-standing the way speakers use and abuse this plan,

' but they can recognize it easily and learn to be,wary. High school classes can karn to use the cause-and-effect pattern in their compositions and in pre-paring talks. Most student listeners can learn thatcertain transitions signal a cause or an. effect. Com-mon signals are as h result, therefore, accordingly,and consequently.

Comparison and contrast. This pattern allowsthe speaker (or writer) to explain one item moredearly by calling attention to the ways it resemblesor is unlike an item already familiar to the listener.Good teachers frequently use comparison and, con-trast: "A noun clause is like a noun in that it doesthe job of a noun, but unlike a noun, it is a gronpof words with its own subject and predicate." His-tory and science teachers regular)y explain newconcepts by noting how they are like and unlikeconcepts students already understand. Transitionexpressions associated with the comparison-contrastpattern include however, nevertheless, and on theother hand.

4 , t

Genetal Suggestions for TeachingOrganizational Patterns

Many learning specialists and study-skills teachersbelieve- that the study '''of organizational patternsshould permeate all classes in all subjects. Listen-ers and readers are more effective when they perceivethe structures underlying discourse. Speakers andwriters do a better job when they know how toorganize their material according to soine plaitMany psychologists now believe that comPrehen-sion is enhanced when people are aware of thes emata around which information and ideas areor anized. Listening teachers may improve instruc-tidp in pattern use and recognition in at least fourw4s.

Relate listening to 'reading and writing. Whentopic-sentence development is taught in composi-tion class or main-idea sentences in a reading class,teachers may also review the generalization-plus-example pattern and provide additional practice inrecognizing and using it in short listening exer-'cises. All patterns may be approachedeither atthe same time or in parallel lessonsthrough read-ing, writing, and listening.

Help students visualize the patterns. Simpleboard drawings help students recognize patterns.For example, a bar containing a generalization can

0 r)Led LI

24 Lisfrning Skills SchoolwideT

be supported visibly by blocks containing the nec-essary evidence. The time pattern may be expressedpictorially by a time line; comparison andcontrastmay be expressed by two side-by-side blocks separ-ated by but or on the other hand. Such graphs andcharts (at first niade by the teacher and later bystudents) may be used in reading and writing classto guide students.

Give practice in testing organizational patterns.Once students recognize common patterns, presentthep with lists of topics (such as Hockey and Base-.ball, Setting Up a Bandstand, Mark Twain's Early

Years, The Influence of the Beatles) and have themtell which pattern is appropriate for developingthe topic in a talk or theme. Regularly share withclasses tape recordings of radio and television talksso that students may discover the patterns speakersfavor.

Teach transitional expressions. Because speak-ers tend to select certain transition words and phrasesto connect the parts of their presentations, listenerswho are aware of what they are doing can identifythe structure ,and follow the movement of the talk.The list of key signal expressions in Figure 3 may

Type:

Example wordsfor examplefor, instancethusin other wordsas an illustrationTime wordsfirst, second, thirdmeanwhilenextfinallyat lasttoday, tomorrow, soon

Addition wordsin additionalsofurthermoremoreoveranothet exampleResult wordsas a resultsoaccordinglythereforethus

Contrast wordshoweverbutin contraston the other handnevertheless

Key Signal Expressions

Usually found in:

generalization plus example(but may be found inenumeration and argumentation)

narration, chronologicalpatterns, directions (andwhenever events or examples arepresented in a time sequence)

enumeration, description,and sometimes in generalizationplus example

cause and effect

comparison and contrast(and whenever speaker makesa comparison or contrast inanother pattern)

Figure 3. Key signal ekpressions.

be used in reading and writing lessons as well aslistening lessons.

Spoken language includes many signaling de-vices that rarely appear in print. Remind studentsof the device used in the U.S. Navy to make surethat listeners are tuned in to the message: "Nowhear this!" Give students examples culled fromeveryday talk around the school, such as: "Nowthis is important," "Myinlain point is "Onething I'd like to emPhasize." Note that such ex-pressions, often colloquial, serve the same purposeas the transition words and phrases encountered inmore formal presentations: they call the listener'sattention to specific parts of the talk. Speakers seemto use such devices automatically when they wantto emphasize key points. They sense, too, that suchsignals assist their listeners in moving from onepoint to another. A follow-up activity for discus-sions of Now-hear-this-type signals is 'to have stu-dents search out similar items as they listen to otherteachers, to speakers outside the school, and topeople on radio and television.

Use frames. Less sophisticated students need'guidance in listening to formal spoken presenta-tions. They may know the basic patterns, but theyare not yet ready to abstract the patterns. One effec-tive approach for teachers is to provide printedframes. These are teacher-prepared guides that stu-dents complete during or after the talk.

A sample frame for a simple sequence looks likethis:

1. The climax of the story you will hear is like the punchline of a joke. What is it?

2. What happened just before this?3. What three events had to happen before the climax?4. Complete the following story frame:

Event 1:Event 2:Event 3.Climax or punch line.

A sample frame for a talk based On comparisonand contrast looks like this:

is different from in manyways. One major difference is Anotheris ' Still another isHowever, they are alike in many,ways. For instance, theyboth Also, they bothFinally, they both A good title for thistalk might be

A sample printed frame for a talk clearly based

- Teaching Purposeful Listening 25

on the generalization-plus-eitamples model lookslike this:

The speaker makes three main points. They are:, and

The first point is supported with two examples:and The second point

is supported by three examples., and Finally, the last

point is supported with two examples'and

Prinitd frames for longer lectures may includeseveral varieties. The speaker may begin with anenumeration and follow it with three examples ofcause-and-effect pattern. The lecture may then con-tinue in a comparison-and-contrast pattern andconclude with another enumeration. For highschool and college classes, printed frames may be-come increasingly elaborate. As many experiencedlecturers have pointed out, however, the time spentin preparing and duplicating printed frames is:wellspent because such frame development forces lec-turers to base their talks on a structure and to followthe plan in the classroom.

Notetaking and Study Guides

Listening with pen in hand is as important whenlistening to directions and to formal, organizedtalks as when listening for details. The notetakinglistener listens more attentively and accurately notonly to details but also to purpose and structure. Astudent practiced in simple notetaking habits notonly catches and remembers more information andideas from a spoken presentation but also tends toperceive a speaker's organization and to have a bet-ter understanding of the message. Many teachershave found that they need to build notetaking prac-tice into their classroom presentations and that onegood way to do this is with listening study guides.Such guides focus listener attention on the planand details of the talk. Suggestions for developingand using listening study guides follow.

1. Outline the lecture carefully before presentingit. Duplicate the outline and make sure everystudent has one to follow during class. As thetalk develops, call attention to main points andimportant details. Say: "In the next section, Iam going tO make an imPortant generalizationand support it with three pieces of evidence: Asyou listen, underline the generalization and, in

26 Listening Skills Schoolwide

the space provided, fill in the evidence." Tomake students aware of transitional expressions,say: "On the outline only main ideas and sup-porting evidence appear. As I talk I'll naturallyconnect these with common transition wordsand phrases. In the left margin, jot down thetransitions I happen to use as I talk." Allowtime after the talk to discuss student responses:"Wha&vidence did you fill in? What transi-tions did you write in the margin?"

2. Outline the lecture but duplicate an incompletecopy. After students have had practice with lec-ture outlines, have them fill in main headingsor supporting evidence. At first, such outlinedlistening guides may be fairly complete; thenafter each session, more and more items may beexcluded until eventually students outline theentire lecture. In a typical classroom talk, teach-ers may shift from one organizational patternto another. Guides initially need to indicatesuch shifts: "Note that the first part of the lec-ture iS simple enumeration; which organiza-tional pattern is used in the second part, causeand effect or comparison and contrast?"

3. Tape-record appropriate radio or televisionspeeches. Many television stations, for example,regularly present editorials and responses toeditorials. These are short and usually wellorganized. They provide opportunities for stu-dents to liSten to recognize organizational pat-terns, transitional devices, and speakers' pur-,poses. Because they are tape-recorded in advance,the teacher can prepare listening guides forclass practice.

4. Have other teachers record formal presentationsfor listening class. One English teacher has sev-eral of her colleagues tape eight- or ten-minutelectures for her classes. She (and sometimes thecolleague) prepares guides for students to -useas they listen. One of her guides looks like this:

a. What is che main topic of the talk? (to beanswered after you have heard the entire tape)

b. What is the main pOint of the talk? (again,to be answered after you have heard the tate)

c. What organizational plan does the speakerfollowenumeration, time, cause and effect,comparison and contrast, or generalizationplus example?

d. What transitional devices are used? (try tocatch at least five)

e. When did the talk digress from the mainpoin t?

1. What information was given that was notrelevant to the main point?

g. What is your personal reaction to the mainpoint?

h. In what ways do you differ with the speaker?

5. Try the Cornell System developed by WalterPauk for college students. He has listeners takenotes of main ideas in a right-hand column oftheir notebook page during the lecture and after-ward jot down key words and phrases in a small-er left-hand column, called the "recall" column.After class and when studying for exams, stu-dents cover the right-hand column with a pieceof paper and try to reconstruct it in memoryusing only the cues in the recall column. Thesystem works for college and high school itu-de ts. It may be varied and simplified for mid-& school and junior high students.

6. Use listening guides 'as advance organizers. Re-cent research in learning theory indicates thattvhen learners are given a preview of what theyare going to learn before the learning experi-ence, learning is significantly increased. Read-ing teachers sometimes give students a one-paragraph summary of the chapter they are to,read; often the teachers provide an outline, aseries of summary statements, questions to beanswered while reading, or some pictorial rep-resentation of the main points. Listening teach-ers can do the same. A listening study guidemay provide an overview of the lecture, its mainideas, notes about point of view, questions tobe answered while listening, a summary of themessage, and even a list of the transitional wordsand phrases.

7. Try second-chance lecture listening. When brieftalks are taped and students follow them witha listening guide, opportunities for "retakes"or second-chance listening are readily available.Students listen to the lecture with their guidesin front of them. They discuss what they havelearned and compare notes. Then they repeatthe tape and go through the experience again.Listening skills are sharpened, and students aremore apt to master the lecture content.

8. Experiment with mapping. All students do nbtprocess incoming material in the same way.

32

For many, a sequenced outline is difficult tounderstand and use; and all material cannot beoutlined. Much spoken material is spontaneous,informal, and discursive. Many teachersespe-cially in high schoolintroduce students tomapping as an alternative notetaking strategy.

After students have had experience with tra-ditional outlining methods of notetaking, sug-gest that they simply write the key word in themiddle of the page and that they then drawlines out from it to identify important sub-ordinate points and additional lines from the.important subordinate points th supporting ex-amples and details. Try a brief, prepared lectureor a selected recorded talk that may be playedseveral times. On the chalkboard,kmake a mapalong with the class, stopping the tape or lec-ture regularly to show students why certainlines "grow out" of certain pckints. Allow stu-dents opportunities to compareiheir maps withthe teacher-made map and with other studentwork, noting that such notetaking maps arequite individual and personal., A sample map oi this chapter appears inFigure 4.

Teaching P rposeful Listening 27

Sample Lesson Plans

One seventh-grade English teacher relates listeninginstruction to the other language arts through theselessons based on a mock television program called"Crazy Celebrities."

ObjectivesTo give students practice in Writing directionsTo give further practice in following oral direc-tions

ProceduresI. Recall previous activities in following direc-

tions: "Why is it important to be able tofollow spoken directions? What should a lis-tener concentrate on especially?"

2. Encourage students to recall and discuss tele-vised interview shows: "Which Celebritieshave you heard interviewed? Who did theinterviewing? What kinds of questions usu-ally are asked?"

3. Suggest an interview-to-end-all-interviews.Tell students to imagine an eccentric celeb-rity, one who has unusually odd views onevery possible subject.

Ideas tor High School

Ceiling Zero ideahands-on idea

FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS

Ideas tor Junior,. High

Simon Says idearadio talks

NOTING PLANStimecause and effectcomparison

PURPOSEFUL LISTENING

NOTETA KINGoutlinesCornell Systemadvance organizersmapping

Figure 4. Sample notetaking map.

^

011'2: r,

28 Lisfrning Skills Schoolwide

4. Have them jot down eight odd characteristicsof their imagined celebrity and invent anequally odd name for the Reison.

5. Explain that the students should tell howtheir invented person might describe how todo something on a television interview. Say:"After asking some routine questions, theinterviewer asks the guest to tell the studioaudience how to do some simple task (suchas putting on a sweater, tying shoelaces,locating a telephone number in the direc-tory)."

6. Have students write out the directions thattheir crazy celebtW will give the audience.Suggest that they first write the directions ina straightforward sequence and then jumblethe items so that directions will be difficultfor a listener, to follow.

7. Have students (working individually or inpairs) plan (1) the questions the int iewerwill ask, (2) the answers from the t, (3) arequest from the interviewer for the uest totell the audience how to do some siniple job,and (4) the mixed-up directions given by theguest celebrity.

8. Give students time to practice their presen-tations.

9. Have three or four volunteers present- theirinterviews to the "studio audience."

10. Have every student answer in writing thequestion: "Why are mixed-up directionsmixed-up?"

11. Allow time for students to share their an-swers.

12. Lead the class to recognize that oral direc-tions" are frequently confusing because (1)the speaker fails to present the main itemsin the task, (2) items are given in incorrectorder, (3) minor or irrelevant items are over-emphasized, or (4) speakers may use wordsthat listeners do not understand.

The ninth-grade teacher who developed this planin following directions wanted students to be awareof the specific processes involved in direction givingand direction following.

ObjectivesTo give further practice in following directionsSpecifically:

in noting speaker's purpose in direction givingin identifying chief points in directionsin noting and using transitions

in distinguishing relevant from irrelevanti tem s

in noting and following a sequence of items

ProceduresI. Remind students of the difficulty of follow-

ing oral directions.2. Encourage them to list (in their notebooks

or on the chalkboard) obstacles to successfullistening in an oral situation.

3. Have each student choose one topic fromthe, following list:

finding the school supply roomlocating the school officefinding the nearest fire stationlocating the closest hospitalreaching a well-known local restaurant

4. Tell students: "You are standing in the doorof the classroom when a stranger .asks fordirections. You have to give full and accuratedirections, but you know how difficult it of-ten is for a stranger to find his or her wayaround. Therefore, you want to give the prob-lem some thought before you speak."

5. Have students think through their directionsby completing this form:a. The purpose of these directions is

b. The chief landmarks or conspicuous plac-es on the way a're."

, and

c. The sequential order (from here to there)is to go from to

to to

d. The actions or moves that the personneeds to make are.

, and

e. The transition (or signal) words that con-nect these are.

, and

6. Have students write out the directions usingthe form. (Remind them that they may needmore or fewer spaces than the form gives.)

7. Allow time for volunteep to read their direc-tions aloud to the ss.

8. Encourage students fn the class to discover

pitfalls and possible obstacles the strangermay encounter in following the directionsas given.

9. Point out that this is a highly artificial situ-,ation but that the steps involved are usuallyfound in all direction-giving and direction-followingcircumstances.

10. Suggest that students, as individuals or insmall groups, develop a community (orschool) guide in which points of localportance are listed with directions for reach-ing them from a central location. Such aguide may be duplicated for distribution inthe community or school after a class editor-ial board checks directions for clarity andaccuracy.

To preparestudents to listen to college-level lec-tures, one tenth-grade teacher invited a colleaguefrom a neighboring college to tape-record a psy-chology lecture.

Object*To give students practice in recognizing commonorganizational patterns used 'spoken discourse

Procedures1. Remind students'that formal lectures in high

school and college are not always off thecuff. Tell them that experienced lecturersfollow a structure that often includes the ba-sic organizational plans they have studied:enumeration, generalization supported byexamples, cause and effect, comparison andcontrast, and time sequence.

2. Distribute copies of an incomplete outlineof the lecture.

3. Explain that they will hear a ten-minute seg-ment of a college lecture on long- and short-term -memory given in a freshman-level psy-chology course.

4. Play the recording. Encourage students tolisten with pen in hand.

5. When the tape is over, allow students timeto discuss their responses. Note the speaker'sbasic pattern. Call attention to sections ofthe talk that include other organizationalpatterns.

6. Replay the recording while students double-check their outlines.

7. Allow further time for students to comparetheir responses with the recording.

8. Discuss the value of stfuctureboth for the

.0

....0004Teaching Putposeful Listening 29

speaker and ,the listeners. Note reasons whyspeakers sometimes alter their lecture planin the classroom ("Did today's speaker departfrom the plan? Why? Did the speaker comeback to it? Did you follow the plan? Why?Why not?").

Exercises,,,

These exercises include four activities, two for fol-lowing spoken directions and' two for noting or-ganizational patterns.

Giving and Following Directions

The chart in Figure 5 provides four geometric pat-terns. It may_ be used in a variety of ways. Forexample, a volunteer may come to the chalkboardwithout a copy of the chalt and try to'reproduce itfollowing only the spoken directions of anothervolunteer (while others in the class follow alongwith their charts before them). All four patternsmay be used in a single period-long activity orused one at a time four days in a row or four weeksin a row. When the four geometric patterns arefamiliar to students, volunteers may create similarexamples for late; class practice. The chart mayalso be used by individuals in pairs. The first stu-dent, viewing the chart, gives directions orally toanother who has only a blank sheet of paper. 'Thesecond must reproduce the pattern by followingthe spoken directions. In a second round, the secondstudent tells the first how to draw the figure, butthis time the second. 'has the chart open and thefirst now has the blank paper. Again, after studentsbecome familiar with the four drawings, they maycreate similar figures and continue such practicesessions.

Following Spoken Directions

The incomplete map in Figure 6 provides studentswith a rough sketch of a neighborhood. Using it'asa guide, listeners must develop a detailed m'ap fromspoken directions heard only on the telephone.Have the teacher or a student volunteer tape-recOrdthe following set of directions. When the recordingis played, student listeners fill in street names andimportant places. Afterward, they may comparetheir maps for accuracy and listen again to the taperecording to double-check the details.

2t1^..

30 Listening Skills Schoolwide

Giving and following Directions

Figure 5. Exercise sheet for Giving and Following Directions.

Teaching Purposeful Listening 31

Following Spoken Directions(Completing a map)

HIGH SCHOOI.,

Blackstone AvenueElmcrest Avenue

Elm StreetGreen Street

4

High Street

Figure 6, Exercise sheet for Following Spoken Directions.

t

32 Listening Shills Schoolwide

Noting Organizational Patterns

Talk #1Check the organizational plan the speaker uses

Simple enumerationCause And effectComparison and contrastTime or sequence_ Generalization plus example

List the transitional expressions:

Talk #2Check the organizational plan the speaker uses

Simple enumerationCause and effectComparison and contrastTime or sequenceGeneralization plus example

List the transitional expressions:

Talk #3.Check the organizational plan the speaker uses

Simple enume'rationCause and effectComparison and contrastTime or sequenceGeneralization plus example

List the transitionarlexpressions:

Talk #4Check the organizational plan the speaker uses

maple enumerationuse, and effect

Co arison and contrastTime'bi sequenceGeneralization plus, example

List the transitional expressions:

Figure 7. Exercise sheet for Noting Organizational Patterns.

-a

Teaching Purposeful Listening 3340

The All-purpose Listening Study Guide

Use this guide as you listen to spoken pfesentations in class. When you have become ,familiar with it, you may wish to create your own personal listening study guide.

What is the general stibject of this talk?

2.r4hat is the specific occasion? (Give hame of class, speakees narhe, and date.)o

;:s 4

3. What is the chief point or main message? (This may be answered after the talk isover.)

4. What organizational plan does the speaker follow? Os it enumeration? comparisonand contrast? cause and effect? generalization plus examples? a time or sequencepattern? Is it a mixture of patterns? Which are used?)

5. What transitional expressions does the speaker use?

6. Does the speaker digress from the main point?

7. In lam ways do you differ with the speaker?

8. What interested you the mo-st? the least?

9. What is your personal reaction to the main point of the talk?

10. Write the speaker's main point in no more than three sentences.

Figure 8. All-purpose listening study guide.

34 Listening Skills Schoolwide

*Voice on telephone: The main highway along the topof tht--map is Blackstone Avenue. It is north of thecity. To reach Elmcrest Avenue where the concert istaking place, drive south along Elm Street five blocks:Then go east on Green Street for eight blocks. Youwill see a highschool on Green Street across from aMobil station...After going eight blocks along GreenStreet, turn, south on High Street; then go down HighStreet four blocks td a large bank building and turnwest. This is Elmcrest. The concert is in an auditoriumalso used for spoils events.'It is three streets west onElmcrest.

Before students listen to the recorded directions,they should be told to pencil in all the streets andavenues named by the voite on the telephone be-cause someone else will need the map and 'direc-tions. The incomplete map given lists all street andavenue names on the bottom so listeners can spelleach one correctly. After students have listened tothe directions once and have made and comparedtheir maps, they may listen to the recorded. voiceagain to double-check their results for accuracy,

Noting Organizational Patterns

Orice students have revieWed tbe basic organiza...tional patterns speakers often use, the followingfour talks ma"), be read aloud to them. Their job isto indicate on the exercise sheet the type of patternand the transitional expressions the speaker uses.The talks maY' be read directly by the teacher, tape-recorded by the teacher, or read and -taped by astudent volunteer. Figure 7, the exercise sheet forNoting Organizational Patterns, may be used overagain during the school yearwith other short talksthat teachers or students mary locate or create.

Talk #1Changing a ribbon on an old portable typewriter

can be murder. First, you need to pry open the top ofthe machine. Then take out the old ribbon. As you do.it, you need to watch and make sure you rememberexactly how the old ribbon fitted in. Take the oldribbon to the store with you because sometimes youcan't go by the name on die typewriter. Show it to theperson in the store and get the same kind if possible.You need to unraver4he new ribbon and fit the endinto theAld spool. Next-, you try to get the new ribbonback in4The same route the old one came out of! Final-ly, you put the top back on and see if the machineworks. If it doesn't, you start all over again and hopefor the best.

Talk #2There are dozens of reasons to explain why we

have inflation. I'm going to focus on just a few. First,

4

we are the victims of the oil-prodiying countries. Theyhave decided that they have a monopoly on .oil andthat they should get as much money as they can fromthe countries that do uot produce oil. Second, toomany of our governnient pension plans are tied intothe inflation rate. That means that when the cost ofliving rises, the pension plans, like Social Securityand veterans' benefits, go up too. Third, there is gov-ernment spending. As/long as the state and fedeialgovernments spend and spend, inflation increases.Finally, there is greed. One businessman sees that costs

- are rising, so he just charges more and more.

Talk #3Miss, Harrower is the most egocentriC 'person I

know. She never, for example, lets you tell about yourinterests without turning the conversation around sothat she can tell about. what interests her. From the .time she starts to talk until she ends, she gives youstorrafter story about herself and how life is treatingher. To give just another example, I'd say that she

can turn the most general discussion into a long lec-ture on what she thinks, wbat she wants, what shebelieves. For instance, the last time ix talked to her, Inever got a chanceto tell her a thing: she monopolizedthe whole conversation and told me what she did dur-ing va,cation, what she was going to do during thenext vacation, and what was wrong with vacations ingeneral!

Talk #4Stan and Harry have a lot in common, but boy are

they different! Both play the guitar, but Stan worshipsJimi Hendrix while Harry likes Segovia. They bothspend all their time practicing, but Stan copies recordsand Harry plays from scores. Stan relies on what hecalls "musical feelings," while Harry, on the otherhand, trusts his teacher's judgments about music. Tome, Stan is an intuitive player in contrast to Harry,who is "schooled." Both are great, and I think they'llgo places.

4011.

T he A 11-purpose Listening Study Guide

Ideally, teachers should prepare listening studyguides for formal spoken presentationsoccasion-ally, if not frequently. For important lectures, teach-ers should give each student listener a guide to usein following the talk that includes an advarice or-ganizer, questions, and an outline. The all-purposeguide presented in Figure 8 is designed to fill agap:, students should be able to carry it to all lectureclasses, use it, elaborate on it, and make it a part oftheir persorial study equipment. Before distributingcopies to students, teachers should review many ofthe points discpssed in chapter three.

40

4

4 TEACHING' CRITICAL LISTENING

Since language arts teachers first became interestedin listening, many have singled out critical listeningfor attention. Since so much of what children, ado-lescents, and adults know is based upon informationand ideas taken in by the ear, many teachers decidedthat ,they should helyi students betier examine theways iri whirl such information is acquired. Theubiquity of television, radio; and motion pict&esin American society and the time spent by studentswith these media support the belief that Americans'

legm more-about-Iife through "their ears than theydo in the formal structure Of the American sehoolroom. Ask many, students, "How do you happen toknow that?" and theY wilt say, "I heard it on theradio," or "I heard it on TV." Information abouttheir local communities, national politics, the worldsituation, economic concepts, political ideals, ethi-cal standards, attitudes toward marriage and thefamily, habits of food selection and nutrition, evenunderstanding of human motivationall, are in-creasingly left in our society to the tutelage ofradio, television, and ilms.

In a democratic societWhere freedom of speechassures equal rights to the honest advocate and thedemagogue, critical ifstening becomes a matter ofmajor importance. It is possible for skillful butunprincipled speakers to address enormous audi-ences. They are now in a position to shape publicopinion, influence voters, and affect behavior. Andlisteners can be bombarded withspoken informa-tion that they have little ikill in criticizing beforethey assimilate it.

,

Can teachers help students scrutinize spoken lan-guage more effectively? Can they teach youngpeople to be better critical listeners? Because of re-search and practice in critical listening instructionin the past decades, it is posSible to give positiveanswers to both questions. The next pages presenta variety Of classroom-tested ideas for teachi g keyskills in this arei.

,Key Critical Listening Skills

Five important critical listening skills are presentedhere with suggestions. for 'the classroom.

Recognizing. emotive language. Some languageis, by its nature; objective and relatively free fromemotional overtones. Other language, by design orchance, is emotive. Uncritical listeners too oftenfail to distinguish between thelextremes. Even adultlisteners sometimes do not realize that speakers aredeliberately trying tO arouse their feelings. A firststep in improving students' ability to listen criti-cally is to show them something of the nature ofemotive language.

Start by demonstrating to students the emotivepower of words. 'Some teachers db this with indi-vidual words, such as love, Mothfr, America, God,communism. Others show students examples ofgood, emotive language at workin poetry, in po-litical documents, in the Pledge of Allegiance. Stu-dents may be led to see that perfectly ordinary wordsin daily use dia indeed carry emotional overtones.:Follow-up activities to such demonstrations oftenhave students collect from their own immediate en-vironments words that trigger feelings. (Teachersmay or May not choose to deal with curses or pro-fanity, although the emotive power of such wordsshould at least be mentioned in upper-level classes.)

A second step ii to contrast clear-cut examplesof straight report language with powerful emotivelanguage. Some teachers start simply with pairedstatements, one of which is full of "loaded" wordsand the other unemotional:

The criminal is charged with two counts of armedrobbery and one of assault.The man is in co-urt today to answer some questions.

Many such examples may come from the ordinarydiscourse 'of students:

'Billy walked into the yard and took the b ke.Billy sneaked into the yard and stole the !like.

. 35,

36 Listening Skills Schoolwide

Students may be shown that such words as charged,armed, robbery, assault, sneaked, and stole are emo-tionally charged and that these words tend to colorthe speaker's message. Once students begin to indi-cate an awareness of basic distinctions, they can beasked to collect examples from their own lives.Later, many students, especially those in the uppergrades, can create paired examples to present to theclass.

One teacher draws on the board a cartoon of aformer girl friend, noting that the only neutral wordto describe her is overweight. He then has the classoffer positively loaded words that might describeher while she is still his friend. Once she rejectshim for another, the class lists other synonyms to

_describe her. The two lists of synonyms usuallylook like this:

Positive Synonyms Negative Synonymschu bbyplumpvoluptuous

fatgrosslardy

The main point for the students to learn is that allthe words more or less describe the same person.Each, however, carries different emotional over-tones. (The same activity may be done with under-weight and other common words.)

To link this understanding of emotive lapguageto listening, many teachers bring tape recordingsof ordinary language to class. As the recordings(usually based on dialogue from television dramasand situation comedies) are played, students are tojot down all words or phrases that they find emotive.After a few practice sessions, suidents begin to real-ize that some words are emotive to them and not toothers but that many words in English carry emo-tional power to almost all listeners. The folloW-upactivities may include finding examples from or-dinary school and home conversations and makiPgup examples to share later.

Recognizing bias. Students in fifth and sixthgrade may begin to see Obvious examples of bias inradio and television commercialg, in editorials, andeven in ordinary speech. High school studentsshould learn to detect bias in their sources of ideasand information. Teachers may begin with pairedstatements, such as:

Billy walked into the, yard and took the bike.Billy sneaked into the yard and stok ihe bike.

In previous discussions of emotive language, stu-clents have noted that walked and took are relatively

neutral words, while sneaked and stole carry strongemotional overtones. They m7 begin to realize atthis point that the two speakem, either deliberatelyor unconsciously, selected words\ that reveal theirown attitudes toward Billy and that encourage lis-teners to share their attitudes. Recognizing a speak-er's (or writer's) bias initially may present someteaching difficulties, but even in lower grades stu-

4' dents learn the skill with practice.One way to help students see ways in which

word choice indicates:speaker bias is to presentjumbled lists, such as the one below, and have stu-dents place words itho columns labeledPFavorable,Unfavorable, and Neutral:

venerable, old, antiquatedtime-tested, old, outmodedprogressive, modern, radicalcommunity, people, mobstrong man, absolute ruler, dictator

Ask: ."Who is apt to call an idea 'time-tested'thespeaker who i's in favor of it or the one who isagainst it? What might the speaker who is againstthe idea call it? Who might refer.to an old man as'venerable'his admirers or his enemies? How doesa speaker's choice of words indicate a certain atti-tude toward a person or idea? What examples canyou recall of speakers revealing their personal biasby their words?

To help students better understand the effect ofword choice in critical listening, place these threeexpressions on the chalkboard:

go-getter salesmanenergetic salesmanhigh-pressure salesman

Explain that Charley, "our friendly neighborhoodused-car dealer," has sold many cars in his time,some excellent vehicles and some clunkers. All hiscustomers are impressed by his nOnstop oral pre-sentations, but the satisfied customers can usuallybe recognized from the unsatisfied ones. Ask: "Whatare the satisfied customers apt to call him? Whatexpression Will probably be used by those who pur-chased the clunkers?"

Have students neutralize popular television ad-vertisements. Bring into class transcriptions of adsheard regularly on programs that students tend towatch. Note that these ads are prepared by peoplebiased in favor of the product and contain emo-

..

tionally loaded words. Have students listen to theads to identify the loaded words and then rewritethe same ads substituting relatively neutral words.

Present students with printed copies of two newsreports:

The State Department official courageously main-tained innocence.The State Department official refused to admit guilt.

Ask: "Which news report is biased against the offi-cial? What words and expressions reveal the bias?"(Such questions may lead into discussions of thepurpose and responsibilities of newscasters andanalysis of points of view on network news.)

Encourage students to prepare radio newscastsor editorials that are deliberately biased, These maythen be tested out on the class to see if other stu-dents recognize the bras and note the words thatgive it away. ,

Distinguishing between fact and opinion. Some-times speakers share factual, statements (that is,statements that may be verified by others); some,times they present their own personal opinionsunder the guise of fact. Explain the distinction tostudents by contrasting such comments as:

That new kid was picked up by the cops .once. ,The new kid is a regular juvenile delinquent.

Note that the first statement may be checked (theyouth was or was not picked up by the police), butthe second statement, as it stands, is the judgmentor opinion of the speaker. Students should learnthe danger listeners face when they accept opinionsas facts. Facts may be correct or incorrect; opinionsare simply reflections of how the speaker feels.

Present the class with a series of paired com-ments such as theSe:

Bob has been tardy for school three times this month.Bob is a lazy loafer.Susan got straight A's in math all year.Susan is a mathematical genius.Debbie could play the piano when she was four.Debbie is a musical whiz.

Students should recognize that opinion statementsare important: they express a speaker's opinion andmay be correct. The danger is that listeners willconfuse a speaker's personal judgment with factualevidence; the speaker may be ba-sing an opinion oninadequate evidence.

Present students with several opinions and havethem show .the kinds of factual statements neededto support them. Some possibilities include:

Speaker's opinion: Mrs. Jones is very religious.Possible factual support: She goes to church everyday.

Teaching Critical Listening 37

Speaker's opinion: He is a mean teacher.Possible factual support: He makes kids do homework.Speaker's opinion: Dave is bashful.Possible factual support: His face gets red when hetalks to girls.

Provide students with practice sessions in distin-guishing fact from opinion. Start with three opin-ion statements and accompanying factual state-ments that might support the opinions:

Opinion:Fact:

Opinion:Fact:

Opinion:Fact:

John is industrious.John works in a supermarket after schoolevery day.Ted is punctual.Ted has not been late for school or workin five years.Joan is careless.Joan lost both her textbook and Cus tickettoday.

Then, give students a list of opinion siatementsoverheard in the teachers' lounge or cafeteria. Havethem find at least one factual statement to supporteach oPinion.

Jane is poised.Jane is overly poised.Bilhis a good class president.The lunchroom is too noisy.My little brother is a nuisance.Seniors are mean to freshmen.Bill has a great musical talent.Movies give a distorted picture of teenagers.Television gives a distorted picture of family life.Japanese cars are better made tban American cars.

Share opinion statements from the news mediaand ask: "How would you support these opinions?What facts are needed to support the opinions? Aresuch facts provided? Are the opinions justified bythe facts?" SOme examples of opinion statementsfollow.

People have been eager to race cars since the day theworld's second' car was wheeled out.We live in a time when workers are basically lazy.Americans do everything more spectacularly 'thanmost people.Of all sports, hockey is the most primitive.

Once students begin to distinguish fact fromopinion, have them collect examples of unsupport-ed opinion from radio and television. Suggest thatthey keep a log of samples with the source and dateof each. Such opinions can serve as the basis offurther -class discussions.

Recognizing a speaker's inferences. Opinionstatements are expressions of the speaker's opinion,

38 Listening Skins Schoolwide

sometimes based on facts, sometimes not. Inferencesare "educated.gtesses" that speakers make basedon the available facts; they may or may not becorrect. The danger is that listeners will confuseinferential statements for facts. One way to explainthis to students is to say:

A strange man walks into our classroom. He stompsover to the window, looks outside, and says, "Thereare black clouds in the sky." He looks again and says,"It will rain soon.'" As he stomps out again, he mut-ters, "This place has lpusy- weather!"

Point out that the first statement is factual, becauseother observers can look out and check its truth orfalsity. The last is clearly this one speaker's per-

1onal opinion. The second statement, however, is aspecial kind of statement called an inference. It is aguess or prediction about the future based uponthe factual evidence at- hand and upon the speaker'sexpertise in the field. If the mysterious classroomguest is familiar with the geographical area, aninference about the weather might be valid; if he isnew to the territory, an inference is not much good.Remind students that listeners must be wary. Some-times inferentes, like opinions, are accepted as facts.

Present students with the following five sets ofstatements .and have them label each statementeither / for inference, 0 for opinion, or F for fact.Allow time afterward for students to share theirresponses.

I. I always received an A in my math classes.I received an A in algebra.I will do A work in tenth-grade georlietry.I am a good math student.

2. Susan refused to go to the dance with me.Janet said she was busy when I asked her to go.I'll never get a date to the prom.I am not popular with girls.

3. Senator X voted against tax reform.He sends his children to private schools.He-will never be elected president.He isn't very patriotic.

4. I am in tip-top condition.I haven't been ill since kindergarten.When I was four, I had the measles.I don't need- health insurance.

5. It was over 90 degrees yesterday.It rained all day today.The weather will be terrible tomorrow.This part of the country has awful weather.

Collect inferences from media presentatibns andhave students tell what factual evidence is neededto make the inferences valid. Some examples are:

Shop at X's and save!

Take Blubber's Pills and lose weightA vote for Sam W. Candidate is a vote for lower taxes.A longer school year will save taxpayers money.Eat sardines and prolong your life.Encourage students to locate clear-cut inferences

in advertisements for classroom analysis. Discussionquestions may include: "Is it a prediction or guess?What factual statements are needed to support it?What credentials does the -speaker offer to proveexpertise itr this area? In what war does an infer-ence differ from an opinion?"

Relate this critical listening skill to writing byhaving students develop brief themes containingthe following five statements:

a statement of the writer's opinionthree factual statements that support the opinionan inferegce that may be drawn from the factsHave students prepare brief talks based upon the

above outline. As each volunteer makes his or herpresentation, student listeners answer the followingquestions on their, outlines: Is it an opinion? Arethese really facts? Is that a true infeience?

Evaluating sources. Some speakers scem to knowwhat they are talking about; others clearly are talk-ing "from the top of their heads." Discuss the im-portanc, e to listeners, of ascertaining the credentialsof speakersespecially when they speak about acontroversial subject.

One way to introduce this skill is to give studentsa jumbled list of topics and "authorities" and havethe students match the correct person with eachtopic. For example, one set of speakers may includeMuhammad Ali, the name of the school scienceteacher, Bobby Orr, and the .name of the schoolcustodian; a set of corresponding topics would berepairing a fuse box, the roughness of NHL hockey,boxing in the future, and the world's worst volcano.Students can see that listeners expect certain speak-ers to be competent to speak on certain Matters. Asa follow-up activity, have students make up similarlists to try on the class. A

Students may list the qualifications they wouldexpect for a speaker on such topics as:

the futufe of the space programtelevised high school coursesthe history of rock musicguitar repairthe impact of televiewing on childrenjogging

Students can develop guidelines for judgingspeakers. One high school class suggested severalquestions to answer about a speaker:

1: What are this speaker's qualifications?2. Has the speaker wide experience in the field?3. Who chose this. speaker?4. 'is the speaker being paid?5. Is there reason to suspect the speaker is biased?6. Does the speaker have a hidden reason for discuss-

ing this topic?7. Does the speaker expect us to do something? What?8. Where may we find other opinions?

Warn studepts of the "they say" problem. Notethat many listeners base their thinking upon infor-mation that does not come from a competent source.Some speakers introduce important infqxmation bysaying, "They say," "It is reported," or "Researchsays." Encourage students to find examples of thishabit and discuss in class the dangers of such non-evaluation of sources.

To show the dangers of hearsay evidence, typeout a brief anecdote on a card. Take one studentoutside the room and read it aloud to the student.Have this student, in turn, take a second studentoutside to repeat (without the card) the same story.Have ihe second student repeat the story to a third,and cOntinue through ten or more students. Thelast student who has listened to the story shouldtell it to the class, and all students should comparethis version with the priginal anecdote, which theteacher hands out or writes on the chalkboard.Original and final versions rarely, if ever, agree.

Record a radio or television editorial or politicalspeech. As students hear the recording in class, en-courage them to follow along using a guide suchas this:

tsI. Exactly who is speaking?2. What are the speaker's credentials?3. Are facts being presented? What are they?4. Are opinions being presented? What are they?5. Is the language emotive? Examples?6. Are there loaded words? Examples?7. Is the speaker making any inferences? Examples?8. Does the speaker present hearsay evidence? Ex-

amples?

Such recordings may be played two or threetimes as students listen and check their guides point'by point.

The Six Basic Propaganda Devices

In the years before World War II, social psycholo-gists in the Institute for Propaganda Analysis iden-tified the six basic tricks that propagandists regularlyused. Since then, many teachers have introducedthese devices to students as an approach to critical

Teaching Critical Listening 39

listening. The six are still used by advertisers, poli-ticians, and other persuaders: Recognizing themstill gives listeners an edge in the oral-aural mar-ketplace. The basic six devices were given attention-catching names by the scholars at the institute. Theoriginal names are provided here with brief expla-nations of how each works and with some generalsuggestions for teaching students to be wary of them.

1. The Glittering Generality. Every item or in-cident may fit into some generality. Propa-gandists try to select for their purpose a gen-erality so attractive that listeners will notchallenge the speaker's real point. If the can-didate for public office happens to be amother, for example, the speaker may say,"Our civilization could not survive withoutmothers." The generalization is true, otcourse,and listeners mayif they are not carefulaccept the candidate without asking suchquestions as: "Is she a mother? Is she a goodmother? Does being a mother have anythingto do with being a good candidate?"

2. The Testimonial. To persuade listeners tohave strongly favorable feelings 'about someitem, person, or event, the' persuader links itwith another that does have prestige and re-spect. To convice people to like a product, anadvertiser associates it with a popular, well,liked athlete or film star: "Bozo Cereal mustbe good because Joe Footballstar eats it everymorning." Students generally have had muchexperience with this particular propagandadevice.

3. Name-Calling. Here the advertiser, propagan-dist, or persuader tries to pin a bad label onsomething listeners are lo dislike so that itwill automatically be rejected or condemned.In a discussion of health insurance, for ex-ample, an opponent may label the sponsor ofa bill a socialist. Whether the sponsor is or isnot a socialikt does not matter to the name-caller; the purpose is to have any unpleasantassociations of the name rub off on the victim.

.4. Transfer. In this device, similar to the Testi-monial, the persuader attempts to transfer theauthority and prestige of some person or ob-ject to another person or object that will thenbe accepted. Good examples are found regu-larly in advertising: Miss Starlet-of-the-Yearis seen using Super Soap, and viewers are sup-%

40 Listening Skills Schoolwide

posed to believe that they too may have healthy,youthful skin like the starlet's if they use thesame soap. Likewise, politicians like to beseen with farnous athletes or entertainers inhopes that the luster of the stars will rub offon them.

5. Plain Folks. Assuming that most listenersfavor common, ordinary people (father thanelitist, stuffed shirts), many politicians like toassume the appearance of common folk. Onecandidate, who really went to Harvard andwore $400 suits, campaigned in clothes fromJ. C. Penney's and spoke backcountry dialect."Look at me, folks," the candidate wanted tosay, "I'm just a regular country boy like you;I wouldn't sell you a %ill of, goods!"

6. Card Stacking. In presenting an argumentwhere the issues are. complex, the unscrupu-lous persuader often chooses only those itemsthat favor the positive side of an issue. Listen-ers get only the facts that support one pointof view, and any unfavorable facts are sup-pressed.

Teaching the Propaganfla Devices

This is one area of critical listening instructionthat has been developed extensively through theyears. Social studies teachers and English teachers,in particular, have prepared interesting and effectivelessons to alert students to the tricks played uponthem by propagandists. The following sequence ofinstructional steps has proved effective:

Explain the six propaganda devicesGive examples of eachGive students practice in recognizing eachHave students collect examples from their lis-teningReview the six devices regularly through the year

Some specific suggestions follow.

1. Encourage students to create advertisementsfor products they invent. Suggest that theyfirst prepare a straightforward descriptive ad-vertisement containing only accurate siate-ments and then rewrite it as an unscrupulousadvertiser might. Tell them to use loadedwords, emotive language, opinion statements,and at least one propaganda device. Whenthey share these with the class, other studentshave the responsibility of locating the tricks

of the 4rade and noting the specific propa-ganda device.

2. Initiate propaganda searches. After studentshave become,adroit at finding specific deviceson radio and television, suggest schoolwideor communitywide searches. Sometimes prop-aganda is heard in the most surprising places.

3. Have students justify propaganda. Explainthat people who use the devices often canjustify their activities. Ask: "When may it beacceptable to use propaganda? Is it ever ac-ceptable to trick people? Have you ever usedthese devices? Can you predict a situationwhen you might want to?"

4. Suggest planning a political campaign. Havethe class invent a fictitious candidate. In groupsor individually, students work out the detailsof a nationwide advertising campaign, focus-ing on such questions as: "What qualities shallwe emphasize? Which should we downplay?How can we use Transfer? the Testimonial?Plain Folks?" Volunteers may prepare televi-sion speeches, radio ads, and other talks forthe candidate to present in different parts ofthe country.

5. As a group or individual activity, suggest thatstudents analyze one hour of Saturday morn-ing television. Remind them that the networksset aside each Saturday morning for children'sshows and that many adults criticize theseprograms for their excessive commercialism.Have students draw up a chart indicating timeby minutes and have them fill in time devotedto entertainment and time spent on mer-cials. Have them use the Persuasi Ana sisChart (given at the end of this c apter) toanalyze one commercial and then note theparticular propaganda device that may havebeen used in each of the others. Students whoprepare the analysis should be allowed timeto share their findings with the group.

6. Encourage interested students to write a chil-dren's show. Have them develop an idea for athirty-minute program, prepare a script,_ andact it out with the aid of other students. Theymay make drawings of Main characters &theirshow is to bes animated. Each show should bedesigned to present one of the propagandadevices in action so that viewers learn to watchfor it. If time allows, student productions may

4 6

be presented to the entire class or taken to alower grade for presentation.

7. Remind students that one of the best ways tolearn something is to teach it to others. Sug-gest that individual students or small groupsprepare material to teach the propaganda de-vices to other students. They may preparesimple lesson plans and `Ip lay teacher" in an-other group, or they may develop lessonsthrough comic strips, slide presentations, tape-recorded dramas, drawings, or even motionpictures. Explain that they must focus uponone particular propaganda device and find x-_planatory material that learners will under-stand. Such lessons may be displayed in theclassroom or tried out on other classes.

8. Give students practice in noting the six de-vices by reading aloud examples of their use(or misuse) and having listeners indicate whichtype is found in each example.a. Rocky Roll 'em Over, the heavyweight

, champion of the world, says: "Buy HerculesBoots because they are the best!" Whichtype of propaganda is this?Senator Quagmire says: "Vote for me be-cause I'll lower the tax rate, I'll build upmiliiary strength, and I'll make sure ourpolice are adequately armed to fight law-breakers." nat device is being used?

c. Quagmire's foe says: "Vote for me becauseQuagmire is not a good American; the sen-ator was a member of a subversive groupfor many years!" Which trick is this?

d. Another candidate says: "You should votefor me because I am a veteran of the lastwar, and everyone knows veterans are morepatriotic than anyone else." Which of thesix is used here?

e. Slugger Sullivan says: "In baseball, energycounts; that's why I recommend NatUre'sOwn, the natural breakfast cereal. Eat itevery day ,and you'll be sluggin' away likemel." Which trick is this?

f. Mayor Drizzle says: "Education is the safe-guard of democracy. Vote for my ticket, andI'll see that the schools in our communityare well financed." Which device is themayor using?

g. Drizzle's opponent says: "I grew up in theordinary neighborhoods of this town. I

TeaChing Critical Listening 4 1

didn't go to a fancy private school as Drizzledid. I drive a nice Ford, not a big gas-guzzler like Drizzle. I understand yourproblems." How is this speaker trying totrick listeners?

h. Drizzle fights back: "My opponent is a so-cialist and would destroy all that's madeour ulwn great." What's Drizzle's device?

The Propaganda Detection Kit

One desired outcome of the study of critical listen-ing and propaganda techniques is a "PDK" orPropaganda Detection Kitbuilt into every stu-dent's ears. Teachers of middle sChool and juniorhigh students may modify the kit presented hereand try to share an appropriate version with everystudent. High school teachers may have their stu-dents develop one on their own. ,In times whenskillful speakers have ready access to the,ears of allAmericanschildren, adolescents, and adultsit isclear that all listeners need, some kind of PDK.

My Personal Propaganda Detection Kit

When 'listening to anyone, at any time, I need tocontinually ask:1. What is the speaker's purpose? (Is the speaker just

trying to pass the time? be friendly? Does the speak-er have a reason for this talk? What is it?)

2. What are the speaker's credentials? (If the talk issocial chitchat, it does not matter, but if the speakerhas a definite reason for this talk, what is it? Whatis the staied or public purpose? What might be thehidden purposes?)

3. Js there evidence of bias? (Can I spot clues thatgive away possible bias? Is the evidence stacked?too carefully selected? Does the speaker's back-ground give reason to believe a fair picture is be-ing portrayed? Does the particular choice of wordsshow prejudice?)

4. Does the speaker use emotive language? (Does thespeaker favor loaded words? Are there pat phrasesdesigned to trigger emotions? Is the rhythm, pac-ing, or style planned to arouse emotions? Is it thekind of talk where emotive language is acceptablepoetry, drama, ritualistic speech?)

5. Does the speaker make sweeping generalizations?unsupported inferences? (Do I hear predictionsabout the future without the speaker's reasons? Arethese educated guesses or unsupported statements?Do I detect Glittering Generalities?)

6. Do opinions predominate the talk? (Are these opin-ions only? Are opinions balanced with facts? Is itthe kind of talk where opinions are acceptable?)

47

42 Lisfrning Skills Schoolwide

7. Does the speaker,use any propaganda devices? (DoI hear examples of Card Stacking? Plain Folks?Name-Calling? the Testimonial? Transfer? Glitter-ing Generalities? If I 'do, need I worry?)

8. Do I accept the message? (Is this true according towhat I already know? What reasons are persuadingme? Am I being trOodwink -V Do I want to believefor emotional reasons? AMI biased? Do I believethis strongly enough to try to persuade others?Why?)

Can such a "kit" of questions be internalized?Social psychologists and, more recently, cognitivepsychologists who have studied the techniques ofpersuasion say it can. Most listeners with practicecan prepare themselves to listen critically. Is it theresponsibility of teachers and schools to providesuch instruction and practice? Most educators andsocial philosophers would say that it is. Unlessstudents are given help in school, they will notreceive listening instruction elsewhere in our soci-ety, and the evidence of history is that people whocannot listen critically may be victimizedas indi-viduals and as a society.*Time spent in class devel-oping and helping students internalize their ownpersonal propaganda detection kits is a step, how-evgr small, toward a more alert and safer society.

Sarni; le Lesson Plans

04e experienced ninth-grade listening teacher hasprepared scripts that may be used in a variety oflessons in cr,itical listening. The following can beadapted to fit different lesson purposes. .

ObjectivesTo help students evaluate sources of informationTo provide further practice in distinguishingfact from opinion .To give practice in recognizing speaker bias

ProceduresA few days before the lesson is scheduled, haveselected volunteers prepare a tape recordingof the following script. Tell them tliat theymay (1) use their own voices, (2) ask adultswith apprOpriate voices to read parts, and (3)make changes in the script if needed.

The ScriptNarrator: We are going to listen in on a meeting ofthe Chamber of Commerce in a small country town.We hear the Chair first.Chair: Ladies and gentkmen, the first order ofbusiness today is to examine the proposal for a

rock festival in our town this July. Mr. GeorgeSmith has asked to address our meeting and tellyou of his plan. Go ahead, Mr. Smith.Mr. Smith: Thank you. My plan is this. You havean enormous field outside of town owned, I believe,by Thomas Todd, who has a farm down the road.He says he will rent it to me for a rock festival.The spot is perfect. There is a train station and abus terminal nearby. The roads into town are ex-cellent. I plan to hire several famous rock bands,and I'll advertise all over the statenewspapers,television, radio, the works. I'll charge a fee, of

'course, but I also plan to give 10 percent of what Iget to any town charity you want. That's for yourcooperation.Woman committee member: I think this is a terribleideal Shocking! This will turn into another Wood-stock. Remember.that? We'll have hippies,all overtown throwing beer cans and putting sleeping bagson everyone's lawn. h'll cause more work for thepolice.Chair: Yes. That brings up a good point. What areyour plans, Mr. Smith, for housing these thousandsof people?Mr. Smith: Well, I assume that a lot will stay atyoui local motels. That'll be very good, you know,for business here. Some will bring campers andtents, I suppose, but that will be good fOr businesstoo because they will buy food here. And as theowner of the largest supermarket in town, Mr.Chair, you know that this is all money in yourtown's pockets.Woman committee member: No. I'd never vote forthis. The town just doesn't have enough space inthe motels and parks. We only have a couple ofrestaurants. We'd be inviting trouble. And peoplelike this are a bad influence. They drink. Theydress in strange costumes.Chair: Well, well. We ought to cinsider the plan.Whether you and I like this modern music isn'timportant. Rock is American music. Started righthere in these wonderful United States of America.There's that to think about.

2. Have students write ,the numbers 1 to 10 intheir listening notebooks and answer each ofthe following questions:a. What was the general purpose of this meet-

ing?b. Why does Mr. Smith want to have a fes-

tival? (Point out that he never says why hewants it in specific language.)

c. How much profit does he propose to donateto charity?

d. Which charity will he donate money to?e. Which speaker seems to have least to gain?f. Which committee member haS most to

gain?g. In what way will that speake\profit?

h. Which speaker is biased against rock music?i. Which comments reveal the bias?j. Which of the many statements you heard

was a definite fact?'Which was ad opinion?

3. Allow students a second chance to listen tothe recording.

4. Go over the questions and let students sharetheir responses.

5. Lead students to realize that some speakersare biased, some are better sources of informa-tion on controversial subjects, and some offeropinions as if they were factual statemenis.

6. Ask students to identify words and phraseswhich typify emotive language. Ask: "Whendo speakers tend to use such language? hywould One of these speakers wan( tlisteners' emotions?"

7. Have listeners identify -the speaker w o. triesto hide personal reasons under the guise ofpubliv-spirited ones.

8. Review the six propaganda devtice and ask:"Which one is used in this dis ssion?"

One seventh-grade language arts t acher whoregularly tries to link listening with r ading andwriting has students do variations of,th followinglesson.

ObjectivesTo giveopinionTo haveopinions

ProceduresI. Remind students of the difference between

factual statements (which may be verified byanother observer) and opinion statements(which express the feelings or beliefs of thespeaker or writer). Present several examplesof each and encourage students to recall andshare examples.

2. Point out that some opinions may be accept-able to listeners because they are supPorted byfactual evidence. Contrast:

, a. "The show was terrible."

practice in distinguishing fact from

students understand that well-formedare based on fact

b. "The show was terrible. The actcJr who wassupposed to be a young rancher was atleast seventy years old. The OM was in-credible: imagine having 747 jets in the

Teaching Critical Listening 43

years after the Civil War. The settings wereridiculous: there are no ocean beaches inKansas. And worst of all, they interruptedthe pr9gram every five minutes with an-other commercial."

3. Point out that the opinion statements in 2bmay be incorrect, but they are verifiable. En-courage students to apply the same opinionstatement to a television show they havewatched and then develop a speech in whichthe opinion is supported for listeners by threeor fouy factual statements.

4: Have students write an opinion statement intheir notebooks. Tell them that the opinionmay be "good" or "silly" but that most lis-teners will heed it more if it is supported byfacts. Have them write three or four factualstatements underneath it to give the statementan air of authority.

5. Allow students an opportunity to share anddiscuss the results.

6. Suggest that each student find an opinionstatement (on radio or television) that needsfxtual support. Have them bring it to thenext class session for analysis and discussion.

A tenth-grade social sludies teacher who believescritical listening and ditical reading are "differentsides of the same coin" irifludes this lesson in crit-ical listening each year.

ObjectivesTo review basic critical listening-reading skillsTo relate critical listening and critical reading

ProceduresI. Have students read a 'selected section from

their textbook and answer the following ques-tions:a. Who is the author?b. What is the author's background?c. Where did the information come from?d. Are these trustworthy sources of informa-

1

tion?e. Which statements are facts? opinions? in-

ferences?f. Is there indication of bias?g. What is the date of the book?h. Which information may be dated?i. What other sources can verify this material?j. 'What protection do readers have against

misinformation and bias?

41 Listening Skills Schoolwide

Persuasion Analysis Chart

Name of student conducting analysis:

Time shown:

Length of conimercial:

Product being sop:

Reasons given for customers to buy:

1..

2.

3.

People included:

(Descriptio of action (if arty):

r

Description of music (why .aelected, why appropriate, and if effective):

Desaiption of scenery (why selected, whY appropriate, and if effective):

Propaganda devices used:

1.

2,

3. s

Noteworthy -features:

Opinion of student conducting analysis:

Figure 9. Persuasion analysis chart.

Teaching Critical Listening4

Critical Listening Chart

Name of s dent conducting analysis:

Nature of s ken presentation:

Where. heard:

Name of speaker

Speaker's expressed purpose:

Speaker's possible hidden purpose:

Qualifications of speaker:

Examples of emotive language:

Evidence of bias:

Propaganda devices used:

2.

3.

Examples of facts and opinions given in talk

, Facts:

Opinions:

Noteworthy features of presentation'.

Opinion of student conducting analysis:

In what ways was the talk effective? ineffective? Why?

Figure 10. Critical listening chart.

46 Listening Skills Schoolwide

2. Allow an opportunity for students to sharetheir responses to the questions.

.3. Play a tape-recorded speech or editorial fromradio or television and have students use thesame ten questions to analyze it. Again, allowan opportunity to s are and discuss responses.

4. Have students ch4se one of the followingactivities as a follOw-up assignment:a. Write and record a speech for class analysisb. Record a speech or editorial from TV or

radio for class analyst'sc. Apply the same guide questions to a section

from a textbook in another coursed. Tape-record a speech outside of school and

bring it to class for group analysise. Revise the ten guide questions as a simple

and handy "Critical Listener's PocketGuide"

f. Prepare a brief talk for 'the cidss on "WhyEveryone Needs to Be a Critical Listener"

g. Plan a pep talk on the importance of criti-cal listening that may be presented in aclass of younger students

h. Present such a talk and report back on itsSUCCESS

Exercises

The exercises for this chapter consist of two charts,the Persuasion Analysis Chart, which students mayapply to radio and television commercials for abetter understanding of the techniques of the pro-fessional persuader, and the more general CriticalListening Chart, which students may apply to mostorgitnized spoken presentations.

Persuasion Analysis Chart

It is suggested that enough copies of the chart inFigure 9 be duplicated for students to use on sev-eral ocC'asions during the school year. The direc-tions for students are to (1) select a commercial thatappears regularly on television or radio, (2) followit carefully one or two times before applying theanalysis, (3) use the chart, and (4) bring observationdata to class for sharing and discussion. Suggestionsfor teachers using the chart are (1) give classesenough introductory instruction so that studentsare familiar with.the terms, (2) allow 'ample follow-up time for discussion of student findings, and (3)post or duplicate selected student charts sci thatclasses will have a record of their observations.andanalyses.

Critical Listening Chart-

Because this analysis guide (Figure 10) may be ap-plied to many situations, teachers need to exercisecare in assigning it. After students have had suffi-cient instruction in the skills and topics outlinedin chapter four, teachers may ask students to applythe analysis to one of the teacher's own classroomtalks. A next step may be its application to the talkof another teacher. However, this step should betaken only with the consent of the colleague. Athird step may be the analysis of a tape-recordedtalk taken from the radio or television. (As noted,station editorials and political speeches allow forappropriate analyses.) Students need time to discussin class their observations and to link their findingswith class lessons in critical listening. As in the useof the Persuasion Analysis Chart, selected studentcharts may be posted in the classroom or duplicatedso that classes will have a record of their work.

5 DEVELOPING A SCHOOLWIDEPROGRAM

Specific activities, listening games, and other rec-ommended strategies work for individual students,small groups, or entire classes. Students who havelistened in the past with only "half an ear" may betaught to develop and use key listening skills. Theycan be taught to become sensitive, highly skilledlisteners. However, unless programs are school-wide, covering eveky student, every class, and everyteacher, the danger always exists that some studentsin some classes may not benefit from a program,no matter how effective learning activities may be.

This chapter suggests a schoolwide scope andsequence of learning skills with notation indic.2tingo&-specifically when a skill may best be introduced, atwhat grade levels it may 1;oe retaught, and when itmay be reviewed. The chapter also provides infor-mation on how teachers may test most effectivelyfor success, using both standardized and teacher-made instruments.

-

Tips for Talking Teachers

Although most teachers in middle school, juniorhigh, and high school are aware of the limitationsof the lecture method, they continue to talk. "Yes,"teachers say, "I know that I should have more smallgroup work, more individualized learning projects,and More media in my classes, but it's easier toexplain the material myself." These teachers arecorrect in many ways: talking is more direct, eco-nomical, and personal. If teacher talk and varia-tions of the lecture method are here to stay (andsurveys indicate that in most schools students spend-more time listening to their teachers than doinganything else), then stiggestions for improVingteacherS' oral presentations need to be shared bylistening teachers with their colleagues in othercontent fields. Here are five specific suggestions.

Prepare students for what they are going to hear.Authors of the teacher's manuals accompanyingbasal readers-have always,cautioned reading teach-

ers to build a background for the reading selectionbefore children read it. They have advised teachingdifficult or new words before boys and girls en-countered them in the text, explaining difficult andnew concepts in advance, and setting up a purposefor readers. In recent years, psychologists have ad-vocated the use of advance organizers (summaries,outlines, or overviews that would give learners anotion of what they are expected to learn). Bothresearth from learning theorists and decades of suc-cessful reading instruction reinforce the importantpoint: students learn more when they have an idea,however vague, of what they are supposed to learn.Teachers need to remember this point. Too often,college lecturers and secondary school teachers, pre-sent excellent, material to listeners who are simplynot prepared to take it in. To improve classroomlistening, all teachers should:

I. Give listeners an overview (in the form of anoutline, summary, or set of guide questions)

2. Explain new and difficult worth in advance (bydistributing a list with definitions and synonymsor by placing them on the chalkboard) ..

3. Explain new concepts in advance (assuming thatlisteners already know what in fact they do notknow leads to major breakdowns in oral-auralcommunication)"

4. Give listeners a purpose for listenin (by noting,for example, that "I'm going to tell `u the rea-son Thomas Hardy disguised his native countryas Dorset")

Give students a listening guide. A well-con-structed guide may include an advance organizer, alist of difficult words, explanations of new con-cepts, and guide questions. It can improve class-room listening in other ways: by forcing the teacherto structure the talk in advance of presentation, bygiving listeners an outline "to follow and perhapscomplete as they listen, by showing student listen-ers that the talk is so important that the teacherwent to all the trouble of preparing a guide, and by

47

.

48 Listening Skills Sch olwide

building into the lectnre r talk instruction in note-taking. Ideas for develop ng,guides and notetakingskills and a suggested All purpose Listening StudyGuide are presented in chapter three.*Workingfrom these, listening and c tent-area teachers mayconstruct a variety .of e fect ve guides. One success-ful listening teacher has s id, "If every teacher inthe school would take the t ouble to prepare a lis-tening guide, learning woul improve 100 percent!"As she likes to point out, "_ e talkers have a re-sponsibility to maximize listening, because studentsare not naturally going to give it all they've got."

Insist upon listening with pen in hand. Becausethe win memory is a fragile dimension Qf mindand, isonalaty, people capture only a fraEiion of

en language that floats by them. And asnote n chapter two, they tend to capture and re-tain in memory mostly those items that for some

reason touch them personally. The best justifica-tion for notetaking, then, may be that it forces thelistener to decide what is important and to write itdown. Successful listening teachers through theyears have accepted the notion that some listeningis for enjoyment and appreciation; listeners neednot capture on paper all that they hear. But asthese teadiers would indicate, ligtening in school ismostly serious; it 'is intended 013 be captured andretained, and the 'best way to catch it and keep it iswith a notebook. Thus, for formal presentations inclass, teachers in all subject-matter areas shouldremind students continually,of the importance offormal notetaking and insist that every student haveand use a pen arid notebook. Some strategies:

1. Give questions in advance (on the board or hand-ed out) and remind listeners to listen for possibleanswers

2. Provide a rough outline for students to completeas they follow the lecture

3. Have students jot down "new-to-me" items (sim-plelists of f ts or insights that the listener hadnot heard befo e)'

4. Use a formal n tetaking system (for example,the Cornell System devised by Walter Pauk, de-scribed in chapter three)

5. Provide maps, charts, or graphs that listenersmay fill in only if they listen carefully. (for ex-ample, one history teacher says, "In this tangI'm going to make several comparisons of thepopulations of the United States and China overa period of a century; as I talk, keep track of thefigures on the chart")

I Personalize. Listeners pay attention to what

is*

touches them personally. Skillful speakers have al-.

ways known this and have built into their talksbridges between the c6ntent and message and thelistener. Good teachers, too, have instinctively donethe same. They have realized that every time theyinclude listeners directly in the talk, they haveheightened involvement and have improved com-munication. At its lowest level, such personalizinghas led to admonitions such as, "81, t up and payattention, Thomas; you're to be tested o this." Atits highest level, personalizing means incorporatingthe plans, lives, and aspirations of students intothe tOpic. Personalizing may include:

1. Anecdotes about other students familiar to theclass to illustrate key pckints ("This reminds meof thel time Bob ran for class president")

2. Examples from the lives of students ("Inflationat the national level is very much like what hap-pens to you when you can't accept a part-timejob at a certain wage because the cost of gasoline

,to get to the job is more than the salary")-.3. Examples frOm school events in the past ("The

postwar election is similar to the student-councilelection we had last year in that ..

4. Study guides directed at individual students (aTeacher-over-the-Shoulder guide, for example,includes the names of students in the particularclass: "Bob,because you bave experience organ-izing dances,- you answer the question on page,78; Susan, because you know more than mostpeople about gOlf, you can do the item on page79 about terrain . . .")

5. Examples from the life of the teacher ('When Iwas in college, a'similar thing happened to me")

One of the reasons research reports are difficultto read is that they tend to be impersonal. Objec-tive, scholarly lectures are difficult to follow becausethey too are detached from the lives ,of listeners.Teacher-talkers who want to be listened to person-alize their talks.

Give listeners something to look forward to. Themost effective teacher-talkers build into their pre-sentations goals to be anticipated. One popular col-lege lecturer usually begins by hinting that hehopes no news reporters are present, implying thathe has shocking material' to share. His studentslisten attentively for his latest 'attack on the Mili-tary-industrial complex, labor unions, or the ad-

. 4mini r.: tion of the university. Many teachers atevery grade level have used the same technique.They note, "This question is sure to be on the bigtest," or "This item always turns up on SAT tests."

How can teachers build anticipation into their class-room talk? Several strategies have proven successful:

1. After giving the class background for the talk,ask students to lisi five, questions that they wantanswered in the,talk

2. After' building background, tell students to listenin order ni4ee up test questions

3. Have studerns make predictions about the out-come of t14 talk ("What point do you think I'mleading up to?")

4. Stop when the, talk is underway and have stu-dents jot down the conclusions they think youare aiming at

5. Stop in the middle of a talk and tell students towrite down answers to specific qUestions ("Ifwhat I've said so far is true, what conclusionmust we come to at the tend of this presenta-,tion?")

6. Give listeners the actual test questions before thelecture, have them use the questions to structuretheir notetaking, and then base the-content ex-amination on the questions

7. Give specific 'tasks that may be completed onlyafter hearing the oral presentation ("Here is amap of colonial Salem that you are to fill in fora home aisignment; as I talk, make notes to helpyou later when you fill in the details")

Are speakers responsible for the extent and qual-ity of , listening? Many teachers say yes. A listeningprogram that thrusts complete responsibility on thestudent listener, they would say, is simply not fair.Teachers have an obligation to prepare listeners, toprovide study guides, to personalize, to give listen-

- ers something to anticipate, and to insist upon lis-tening with pen!, in hand. 'Communication is, afterall, a two-way 4ireet.

Testing for ,Success

Why test listening? Experienced teachers of listeningsuggest at least four reasons for testing listeningskills.

1. A good standardized test of listening skills pro-vides a means for schoolwide assessment and'comparison with students in other schoolsthroughout the country. It helps answer suchquestions as:

-a. How well do our studento compare with otherstudents at the same grade level in other com-munities?

b. Do our students really need listening instruc-tion in a formal program?

Developing a Schoolwide Program

c. In what general areas do they need2. Teacher-made tests can focus upon specific

Standardized listening tests (like standareading tests) tend IC examine generalTeachers need to know exactly which skills

, to be developed. They need to know whic

3.

4.

49

elp?kills.dizedreaS.needspe-

cific skills students have already mastered. A1goodteacher-made listening test can answer queskionssuch as:a. Do my students listen accurately?b. Can they follow spoken° directions?c. Do they recognize a speaker's bias?d. Can my students see a speaker's plan ti\f or-

ganization?_e. Do they note transitional expressions?-1Listening tests may be consciousness-raisi4 de-vices. Many students are not aware of their lis-tening abilities. 'A testeither teacher'-made orstandardizedmay help make them realize theextent and quality of their own listening. It canhelp answer questions such as:a. How well am I listening?b. Do I need to improve my listening skills?c. What are my strengths? weaknesses?Testing highlights the importance of listeningin the school curriculum. Unlike reading, successor failure in listening is not readily observable.Listening tests may provide teachers and admin-istrators with ways of seeing where they and theirstudents have been, where they are now, andwhere they are headed. In the process, they helphighlight listening instruction as a worthWhile,significant part of education. They can help an-swer such questions as:a. How well are students doing this year?b. Have they improved since last year?c. What areas need to be worked on in the fu-

ture?

Standardized Tests in Listening

A few standardized tests in listening have been de-veloped, and some are still available. Onei that hasproved useful in comparing students with theirpeers across the country has been the Brown-CarlsenListening Comprehension Test (originally pub-lished by World Book Company in 1955)r This testwas designed to measure immediate recall, follow-ing directions, recognizing transitions, recognizingword meanings, and lecture comprehension. Teach-ers who use it read aloud from a manual containingshort selections and instruct students to respond 69questions by filling in blanks on an answer sheet.Reliability coefficients for the test are,Ahigh, and

55

50 Listening Skills Schoolwide

considerable evidence is' offered in the manual tosupport its claims to validity. The Brown-Carlsenmeasure has been used extensively in research.

Another standardized test in this area is the so-called STEP Test, one of a series of achievementtests published originally by the Educational Test-ing Service in- 1956. The Sequential Tests of Edu-cational Pjogress: Listening Comprehension testwas consicted to measure comprehending mainideas, remembering significant details, understand-ing the implications of ideas and details, and eval-uating and applying material presented. It is alsoadministered by an examiner reading aloud fromselections iti a manual as students check off appro-priate answers on an answer sheet. Like the Brown-Carlsen measure, it claims, validity and high relia-bility. Unlike it, the STEP Test measures students

as young as fourth grade rather than just in highschool and college. Both tests provide nationalnorms and, although dated, are still useful in plan-ning and evaluating a listening program.

Teacher-Made Listening Tests

Much more valual;le for classroom teachers are in-struments made by teachers for their own students.Five such tests are described here.

1. Informal appraisals. These are simple checkliststhat teachers keep for every student. One teacherduplicates these ten questions so that she has apage for each student in her notebook. She sched-ules an informal appraisal every two-weeks, notesher answers to the questions, and dates each entry.A sample appraisal sheet appears in Figure 11.

-1 Name of Student

Dates ObservedListening Behaviors and fiabits

1. Does he/she get ready tolisten? .

2. Does he/she keep attentiveduring oral presentation?

3. Is less attention paid tofellow students than teacher?

4. Does he/she look at speaker?

5. Does his/her behavior showinterest?

6. Does- he/she take notes?

7. Do his/her class commentsindicate a grasp of talk?

8. Is he/she polite when theteacher talks? ,

9. Is he/she polite when otherstudents talk?

10. Does he/she ask questions?

Figure II. A simple checklist for appraising listening skills of a' student.

Such a device, this teacher says, serves as a re-minder that she must be conscious of listening.It also reminds stuClents that in her class-listeningis considered important.

A more specific instrument measures skillsthat a teacher has tried to develop. The teacherlists exact behaviors from the lesson plan or cur-riculum guide, duplicates them so that there is acopy for each student, and periodically checksfor student mastery. A sample checklist measur-ing specific listening skills appears in Figure 12.

Such a checklist as this may be developed forspecifiC skills in accurate listening, purposefullistening, noting a speaker's plan, or aspects ofcritical listening. Again, such a device remindsthe teacher to watch for use of listening skillswhile reminding students that these skills areimportant to success in school and life.

A more general checklist for informal ap-praisal of an entire class may be constructed fora single area of listening. One teacher uses thelist in Figure 13 for checking critical listeninggrowth. A second informal checklist for apprais-ing students' listening skill appears in Figure 14.

Developing a Sehoolzvide Program 5 I

2. Content cecks. In order to identify students whofail to pick up ideas and information in oralpresentations, many teachers construct informalcontent checks. They select a passage from a text-book that students are currently reading (usuallytwo to four pages from a chapter at the end ofthe book) and prepare approximately twentymultiple-choice questions based on<content.They duplicate simple answer sheets listing theletters of the possible responses and distributethem to the class. Students are told that,they areto take a test of listening ability; they need tolisten carefully and then circle the letter of thecorrect response when they hear each question.Teachers can construct an ordinary tally sheer,estimate the average score for the class, and get arough notion of how individual students listenin comparison to the class as a whole.

Some teachers refine such content checks sothat, they are able to measure growth in par-ticular skills. Por example, one teacher whosessuch tests regularly during the school year hasnow built into the content tests items that mea-sure such specific listening skills as "Recogniz-

r

_ Name of Student

Observable Behaviors

,

,

,

Date Noted_

1 . Is able to follow directions_

in a game such as Simon Says

2. Is able to follow specificdirections on a guide (suchas, "Put an X on the secondline from the top; draw a circlearound the third letter of yourlast name.")

-,

,

3. Is able to draw a map by followingspoken directions

4. Is able to fold a piece of paperas instructed

..i,"

5. Is able to repeat directions fora specific task to a fellowstudent

Figure 12. A checklist for apprising specific listening skills of a student.

52 Listening Skills Schoolwide

Code: A AlwaysU UsuallyS SeldomN Never

,

Names of Students

Skills Notesbias

,

Distin-guishes

fact fromopinion

Notesemotivelanguage

Recognizesriropaganda

devices

1.

2.,

3;

4. .

5. .

6.

Figure 13. A checklig. for appraising critical listening grOwth of.class members.

Observable Behaviors

Names of Students

I. Had hearing checked with, audiometer

.

2. Has hearing lossS. Speaks too loudly

4. Speaks too softly .

5. Leans forward whenspoken to

6. Has trouble followingclass discussions

.

7. Has problems talkingto other students

8. Sometimes fails torespond

Figure 14. A checklist for appraising listening skills of class members.

ing a speaker's plan of organization" or "Findingevidenee tO .support a speaker's generalization." .

Sample questions sound like this:

Number 16. I am going to read four statements fromthe passage, labeled A, B, C, and D. Circle the onethat best supports the, following generalization.

Number 19. The passage followed a definite plan oforganization. Circle A if it was enumeration, B if itwas comparison and contrast, C if it was cause andeffect, and D if it was a time sequence.

This teactier keeps an informal checklist of stu-dent names and scores, not only on tests to mea-sure listening for details but also on specificskills. Constructing the latter type test is noteasy, but it gives the teacher information thatwould otherwise be unknown.

3. Taped tests. Because of the work involved inconstructing informal classroom tests, manyteachers tape-record them. They too must buildtests around textbook passages, prepare answersheets, correct the papers, and record the scores.However, rather than read the passages aloud tothe class, the teachers make recordings of thepassages. The tape recordings may be used withseveral classes each year and may be kept fromyear to year. One aspect of taped testing is that itallows the teacher to sit on the side of the roomand observe listening behaviors.

Some teachers have extended taped testing byrecording outside their own classes. One teacher,for example, has a colleague in another depart-ment read a passage from a book used in thatteacher's course; which helps students learn totransfer the listening skills acquired in Englishclass to history, science, and mathematics. An-other teacher records a friend's college freshmanpsychology. lectures. She prepares twenty mul-tiple-choice questions based on the lecture andtells her high school seniors that they are goingto get a taste of college. The students take thetest and discuss their answers. This sample lec-ture helps students to evaluate the listening'skillsneeded in a real lecture situation. This sameteacher uses the college lecture tape as the basisof lessons in notekking and other varieties oflistening with pen in hand.

Many listening teachers also prepare multiple-choice test items, answer sheets, and listeningguides to accompany tape recordings. Studentsfollow the talk using the guides to direct themto specific details and t6 the speaker's organiza-

Developing a Schoolwide Program 53

tional plan. Tape-recorded tests may be used asassessment tools and as effective teaching devices.Students can listen to talks several times andbegin to understand the specific skills needed for

'full comprehension of spoken language.4. Story tests. Many teachers start with stories.

Younger children have opportunities to listen totales, narrative poems, and favorite stories; sec-ondary students are frequently denied chances tosit and follow a well-told yarn. Listen,ing classcan provide an opportunity for adolescents tolisten to narrative fictionwhile providing theirteachers with another chance to test and teach.Many high school teachers save appropriate shortstories for end-of-the-day or end-of-the-week lis-tening activities. They sometimes check the skillof following sequence or the skill of noting im-portant details' by aski,ng six or eight questionsafter students have enjoyed listening to a story.One English teacher 'reads aloud a ten-minutestory each Friday. As a simple (but effective) testof listening skill', she places ten details from thestory on the chalkboard before she begins reading.When finished, She asks students to jot down the.four details that are most important to the out-come. The collected answer,sheets provide addi-tional information allout student listening abil-ity, and the experience for students is relativelypainless. A history teacher reads sections fromnovels and stories that relate to his course. Beforehe begins, he writes ten events from the 'story onthe board in jumbled time order. As studentslisten, they are to rearrange the events in correctchronological order. In addition to enliveningthe history course, the narratives give studentsvaluable practice in listening for correct sequence.

Another English teacher carries story listeningseveral steps further. She reminds her high schoolclass that good authors reveal characters' innerqualities not only by direct statement 'but alsoby their speech and actions. After listening to anappropriate story, students write down threequalities of the main character and indicate thereasons for selecting these qualities. Studentsshare their responses. Then the story is read asecond time, and students listen for speeches andactioQs that reveal the character's special qual-ities. For --eXample, in listening to Shirley Jack-son's short story "After You, My Dear Alphonse,"students may say the mother in the storyo is prej-udiced or middle class. They must find specificspeeches or actions that reveal this prejudice or

5 9

54 Listening:Skills Schoolwide

middle-class behavior. (The mother, for example,speaks to the black boy as if he were a stereo-typical inner-city boy; she corrects her son'sgrammatical usage in a way characteristic of sub-urban mothers.) Sometitnes class discussions be-come so enthusiastic that students demand a sec-ond reading so that they can double-check oneanother's responses and reasoning. Lessons suchas this provide for growth in listening skills aidlead to increased understanding of basic literaryconcepts. "And," the teacher adds, "they hav'efun, listening to the stories."

5. Real-life sltuations. Some listening teachers usereal-life situations to test listening skills. Oneteacher has collected recordings of conversationsin the school cafeteria, at school committee meet-ings; and in the teachers' lounge. With The per-mission of the speakerg, she uses these recordingsas the bases of informal listening tests. She pre-pares ten or twenty questions, has her class listento the conversations, and uses the questions todiscover how Well students listen for details, fol-low-sequence, detect bias, and perform other lis-tening skills...The tapes then become the materialfor follow-up lessons and other learning activities.

Several teachers, cautious about recording ac-tual conversations, write out conversations sim-ulating oral-aural situations and have actors readthe dialogue. One of these conversations is. pre-sented here.

Student's Voice: There is an automobile collision out-side your house. You rush out to see what happenedand overhear three peoplea man, a woman, and aboytalking to the police officers who have stoppedat the scene of the accident. This is what you hear.Man: That stupid idiot driver! She went right throughthe stop sign. I looked both ways. I thought she'dstop, but she pfowed right through. She's half-blindanyway. Look at those crazy glasses she's wearing.And that silly hat. Those went out of style years ago.Woman: Nonsense! I certainly stopped. J. checked rightand left. He zoomed dqwn the street 'at eighty milesan hour. After I'd stopped for the stop sign, I begandriving slowly through the intersection. That man isdrunk.Boy: The lady's car stopped. I saw it. She didn',t cometo a full stop though. The other car came out ofnowhere. At least I didn't see him uniil the crash.

The questions to accompany this hypotheticalconversation are designed to measure basic skillsin accurate listening as well as purpospful andcritical listening.

a. When did the accident take place?1. as the boy walked down the street2. while the boy was visiting his aunt3. just before you came out of your house4. as school closed

b. Which of these is a fact and not the speaker'sopinion?1. She's half-blind.2. That man is drunk.3. The driver's a stupid idiot.4. The woman is wearing glasses.

c. Of all the people named, which one has theleast to gain _ from the argument?1. the man2. the woman3. the, boy4. the man's insurance agent

d. Here are four judgMents that a listener mightmake after listening to these speakers. Whichone seems most sensible to you?1. One driver may have been injured.2. One of the cars was wrecked.3. There is a difference of opinion about who

was at fault.4. The police want to blame the man.

e. Which is a minor detail and not a main pointof the argument?1. One driver may have vision problems.2. Someone went through a *top sign.3. One driver may have been drunk.4. One driver wag dressed oddly.

f. To see how well you follow spoken directions,listen and do exactly as you are told. Thiswill not be repeated.

Write the word car beside the number 2 inquestion b. Now draw a circle around thesecond letter of the word you have just writtenand make a line going from the circle to thenumber 4 in question c. When you have donethat, write the 'third letter of your last namebeside the number 1 in question b. Now drawa line from the second letter of your last nameto the number 2 in question a.

Tests such as these take time: teachers mustcreate the scripts, find people to read the parts,make up questions and answer keys, tape-recordthe scripts, and administer the tests. But many

Co

teachers feel thai the time is well spent, becauseonce the test is 'made, it is long-lived: "I spenthours making up ten simple tests," says one lis-tening teacher, "but I've been using them forthree years in many classe."

When to Teach What

Developing a successful schoolwide listening pro-gram includes:

I. Making all teachers in the school aware ofthe listening skills of students

2. Helping teachers speak in class so that listen-ing is highlighted and maximized

3. Providing ready access to a rich variety ofteaching idea$ and strategies

4. Giving teachers a schoolwide scope and se-quence of basic listening skills so that all in-volved in the program will know what to teachand when to teach and review

This chapter has suggested five specific ways inwhich individual teachers may improve oral-auralcommunication. These tips 'for teacher-talkers maybe duplicated to share with the school faculty andmay serve as the basis for an inservice workshop. Italso suggested four reasons for schoolwide testingand numerous listening tests that teachers may use.Tests, whether standardized or designed by individ-ual teachers, raise the listening consciousness levelof both teachers and students and provide a meansof assessment and diagnosis. The entire book offerssuggestions for teaching activities.

However, teachers also need a structure on whichto build the program, a framework that spells outthe specific skills to be introduced, taught, and re-viewed at each 'grade level. Such a scope and se-quence in listening skills is presented in Figure 15.It may be modified for the needs and philosophy ofa particular school. As presented here, it can serveas a useful tool and as the baiis for valuable in-service workshops.

As noted in chapter one, not all experts in thefield agree upon the specific skills> or upon thesequence in which such skills may best be taughtand learned. Some authorities in language artsquestion the skills approach to learning in general.However, the point of view taken in this book isthat teachers need a jumping-off place, and a scopeand sequence provides just that. The one presented

Developing a Schoolwide Program 55

gives pegs on which to hang lessons. It also givesteachers involved in building a schoolwide programa structure for discussion in their planning sessionsand a tool for bringing listening lessons into everyclassroom.

Getting a Progrom off the "Ground

Listening is importad: Mastery of basic listeningskills is important to every student's success bothin school and in life. Basic skills are identifiable,teachable, and testable. How may they best be de-veloped schoolwide? What steps may individualteachers, sirpervisors, and administrators take to ini-tiate a listening program that truly touches everystudent in the school?

The Need for a Schoolwide Program

Individual teachers in individual classrooms acrossthe nation have taught basic skills in listening.Since langu-age arts specialists and various local,regional, and national professional organizationsbegan advocating instruction in listening, the ne-glected language art, teachers at all levels have pre-pared material and used it effectively. Their stu-dents have profited. Unfortunately, most Americanstudents go through twelve years of schooling, andoften four more years of instruction in college, with-out receiving direct instruction in the skills neededto listen accurately, puiposefully, and critically.Some individual students somehow learn the need-ed skills: indirectlythrough other assignments,casuallyin related school activities, or desperate-lyin order to survive. Few attempts are made toorganize an entire school for instruction in thispredominant language art.

Listening instruction may be compared to'theteaching of reading in the secondary school andcomposition instruction at all levels. Some teachersat all levels plan occasional lessons in writing; somehigh school teachers teach reading. But as surveyafter survey indicates, few schools- currently boastof K-12 programs in either reading or writing. Onefeature doeS distinguish listening from reading andwriting instruction: most American schools providecarefully sequenced programs in reading up throughgrade, six, and most elementary school teachers doteach some of the elemenis of composition. Listen-ing is still the neglected language art. It is, at best,

61

56 Listening Skills Schoolwide

Scope and Sequence of Basic Listening Skills

Code: I IntroduceT Teach ,Grade Level

,tR Review 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

4

Specific SkillsI. Determining one's

purpose for listening2. Guessing the

speaker's purposeS. Following a sequence

of ideas and information4. Noting details

accurately5. Following spoken

directions6. Guessing a speaker's

plan of organization7. Noting tranSitional

expressions

I T R R R

I. T T T

I T T T T

8. Noting a speaker's ,dmain points I

9. Noting a 'speaker'ssupporting examples

10. Keeping track of mainpoints and examplesbY notetaking

11. Using a listening guide12. Distinguishing between

new and old ideas andmaterial

13. Distinguishing betweenrelevant and irrelevantmaterial

14. Noting possiblespeaker bias

15. Noting emotional appeals16. Distinguishing fact

from opinion I I T T T T R17. Recognizing a speaker's

inferences I I T T T T18. Predicting outcomes of

the talk I I T T T T R R

19. Drawing conclusions fromthe talk I I T T T T R R

20. Asking oneself questionswhile listening T T T T R R R R

21. Making personalassociations C6 T T T T R R R R

22. Summarizing a speaker'smain points I I T T T T T T

23. Evaluating a speaker'scompetence to talk abouta given subject I " T T T T R

24. Noting use of propagandadevices I T T T

T T

T T T

I T T TI I T T

,I I T T T T

I T T T TI T T T R

25. Predicting possible testquestibns T R

Figure 15. Scope and sequence of basic listening skills.

casually treated idelementary school and rarely animportant instructional goal in the secondaryschool, despite the efforts of a few indivj.al teach-ers who want their students to listen m e effectively.

(

Six Suggestions for Starting a Program

Listening teachers who have successfullytheir colleagues to the importance of listestruction say that six steps are involved in

, up a total-school program:

I. Begin in one or two classqs..As one teachersays, "Think big, but begin mall." He pointsdut the dangers in educating an entire teach-ing staff: "You dissipate your energies; youtry to explain to too many people all at once,and they don't really know what you're get-

, ting at." His retommendation is to plan a"spectacularly, dramatically successful" pro-.

gram in one or two classes, get test evidenceto show the program works, give demonstra-tions, encourage the students to spread theword, and, over a period of time, try to shareenthusiasms with the staff.

2. Test to trigger interest. Students often fail torealize how poorly they listen until they seethe results of their standardized tests. Teachersoften fail to realize how ineffectively their own_students listen until they see the results. Manylistening teachers note tbat the best single wayto generate interest in listening' in a school isto administer a standardized test and, sharethe results at a faculty meeting. However, thetriggering test does not have to be commer-cially distributed. In one school, which todayhas an excellent program, the triggering de-vice was a simple, teacher-made test in criticallistening that had been developed for an in-service course.

3. Set up a workshop. Many communities andschool districts encourtage, and sometimesmandate, inservice courses and workshops. In-stead of a traditional topic, organize a pro-gram around some aspect of listening (accu-rate listening, lecture listening, or followingspoken directions) and distribute reading listsand .anielWas well as copies of effective les-sons. Invite a teacher or specialist from a near-by university or from a neighboring school,or simply share ideas from successful classexperiences. (The References and Annotated

alertedng in-etting

Developing a Schoolwide Program 57

List of Selected-Teaching Materials found atthe back of this book provide a variety of ideasand approaches.)

4. Involve students. Teachers who have initiatedsuccessful programs in their schools say thatstudents are their hest advertisements. Oneteacher says, "My best salesperson is a boyfrom the senior class who scored forty pointsbelow class average on our homemade listen-ing test in September and who brought hisscore up to almost perfect by December." Stu-dent-made projects, charts, tests, and variousgraphics act as powerful inducements to skep-tical colleagues. When a schoolwide scope andsequence is discussed by the faculty, studentsshould be present to comment, edit: and advise.Always, when teachinernaterial ts, assembled,highlight student input.

5. Involve parents and the ,community. Manybusiness people are concerned today about thelistening skills of employees. Many companiespurchase materials designed to improve lis-tening skills Orr the job. If possible,,some ofthe materials used in business and industryshould, be examined in faculty discussions oflistening. It sometimes helps to convince anuninterested colleague by noting that Xeroxand IBM have invested in costly programs toteacl the very skills listed on the school's scopeand 'iequence chart. When parents with aninterest in listening can be identified, theyalso should be involved in program planning.

6. Set 'up a clearinghotse. As individual teacherscreate more and better material in listeninginstruction, ihey should be encouraged to filecopies in a central clearinghouse. Each teach-er's ideas and exercises may be studied andserve as catalysts for other ideas. The khool'sscope and sequence chart acts as a generalguide to grade-level placement of skills; lessonideas are always a teacher's own, but the ac-tivities of colleagues may provide stimulationand model lessons. The file can be augmentedby articles reproduced from professional jour-nals; a teacher finding a new article on teach-ing listening can place a copy in the file.

Using these six steps as guidelines, teachers canproduce an effective schoolwide program in themastery of basic listening skills. Students can' besuccessfully taught to be sensitive, skilled listenersboth in school and in their daily lives.

63

REFERENCES

Anderson, Jhn R. Cognitive Psychology and Its Impli-cations. an Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1980.

This llege textbook, selected as one of the out-standing books of the year,by the editors of Psy-chologY Today, presents much of the theoreticalbackground for recent research in listening andlanguage study.

Anderson, Paul S., and Dianne Lapp. Language Skills inElementary Education. New York: Macmillan, 1979.

This general peispective of language arts in theschools contains excellent ideas for teaching basiclistening skills.

Ausubel, David P. "The Use of Advance. Organizers inthe Learning and Retention of Meaningful VerbalMaterial." Journal (if Educational Psychology 51(1960): 267-72.

Ausubel, a Yale psychologist, researched the effectof advance organizers. His article explains the the-ory behind their use.

Castallo, Richard. "Listening Guide: A First Step towardNotetaking and Listening Skills." Journal of Reading19 (1976): 289-90 (ERIC No. EJ 129 220).

The author discusses the value of listening guidesand shows how they may be developed.

Devine, Thomas G.."Listening." Review of EducationalResearch 37 (1967): 153-58.

A 'careful examination of research in listening in-struction, factors affecting reading and listening,and tests in the area.

.`Devine, Thomas G. "Reading and Listening: New

search Findings." Elementary English 4541968): .34;48.

This article reexamines the belief that instructionin listening affects conipetence in reading and thatreading instruction affects listening.

Devine, Thomas G. "Listening: What Po We Know afterFifty Years of Research and Theoriiing?" Journal ofReading 21 (1978): 296-304 (ERIC NA; EJ 169 540).

One of the most complete surveys ot the researchin listening, the article tries to pinpoint what isreally known in contrast to what is guessed at.

Devine, Thomas G. "Listening in the Class-room." InTeaching Study Skills: A Guide for Teachers. Boston:Allyn and Bacon, 1981.

A variety of practical teaching ideas are presentedwithin the framework of book on study skills.

Duker, Sam. Listening: R.eadings. Metuthen, N.J.: Scare-crow Press, 1966. Listening: Readings II. Metuchen,N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1971 (ERIC Document Repro-duction Service No, ED 053 151).

These two volumes present dozens of impOrtant ,

articles written about the teaching of listening.Having them in a school collection saves muchlibrari, searching.

Duker, Sam. Listening Bibliography. 2d ed. Metuchen,N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1968 (ERIC Document Repro-duction Service No. ED 053 150).

This annotated bibliography contains 1,332 refer-ences. It is invaluahle to researchers and teachersin the field.

Green, Ijay A., and Walter P. Petty. Developing Lan-guage StilLs in the Elementary School?. 4th ed. Bos-ton: Allyn and Bacon, 1971.

The authors include dozeiis of good ideas for teach-ing listening skills within the context of the totalschool language arts program.

Landry, Donald L. "The Neglect of Listening." Elemen-tary English 46 (1969): 599-605 (ERIC No. EJ 005206).

The article examines the reasons for the neglect oflistening in schools. It provides valuable informa-tion for those arguing the need for listening pro-grams.

Lundsteen, Sara W. Children Learn to Communicate.Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1976 (ERItDocument Reproduction Service No. ED 116 220).

The central focus of the book is an approach tolanguage arts through creative problem solving forwhich, listening is a subskill.

Lundsteen, Sara W. Listening: Its Impact on Reading 4and the Other Language Arts. Urbana, Ill.: NationalCouncil of Teachers of English, 1979 (ERIC Docu-ment Reproduction Service No. ED 169 537).

Lundsteen, an outstanding authority in listening,,.looks at theory and practice. This is a "must" bookfor listening teachers. .

Moffett, James. A Student-Centered Language Arts Cur-riculuni, Grades K-13: A Handbook for Teachers.Boston: Hougton Mifflin, 1968.

The author includes many excellent ideas for devel-oping speaking-listening skills at all grade levels.

Morrow, James, and Murray Suid. Real-World Learning

59

. 60 Listening Skills Sckoolwide

in th'e Vhools. Rochelle Park, N.J.: Hayden BookCo., 1977.

This is a rich collection of teaching ideas growingout of media approaches to learning. Many of theideas lead to superb listening activities..

Palmatier, Robert A. "A Notetaking System for Learn-ing." Journal of Reading 17 (1973): 36-39 (ERIC No.EJ 084 375).

The author presents ideas for teaching notetaking,all based on research in study. skills.

Pauk, Walter. How to Study in College. 2d ed. Boston:Houghton Mifflin, 1974.

Pauk, director of the study skills program at CornellUniversity, shares hundreds of ideas for improvingstudy *ills; some of the best pertain to listening inthe lecture class.

Russell, David and E. F. Russell. Listening Aidsthrough the Grades. New York: Bureau of Publica-tions, Teachers Coflege, Columbia University, 1959.

Here are More than 100 useful ideas in listening,divided by grade level and type of skill. Every lis-tening teacher should have access tb this book.

Savage, Johh F. Effective Communications: LanguageArts Instruction in the Elementary School. Chicago,.Science Research Associates, 1977 (ERIC DocumentReproduction 'Service No. ED 145 424).

This excellent book on teaching language arts con-

tains creative and exciting activities in listening. Avaluable addition to the listening teacher's library.

Shafer; Robert E. "Will Psycholinguistics Change Read-ing in Secondary Sc Is?" Journal of Reading 21(1978): .3q5-yo, (ERIC 0. j 169 541).

,

This"aigcle gives ai,rief, understandable summaryof the controversy about the skills approach. Itshould be read. by all planning a scope and se-quence in listeningor reading.

Smith, James A. Adventures in. Communication: Lan-guage Arts!Methods. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1972.

Smith includes hundreds of specific strategies forteaching listening skills as well as a good theoret-ical view of the whole language arts program.

Thomas, Keith J., and Charles K. Cummings. "The Effi-, cacy of Listening Guides: Some Preliminary Findings

with Tenth and Elei,enth Graders." Journal of Read-ing 21 (1978): 705-709 (ERIC No. EJ 181 352).

The authors describe research in the use of listeningguides and also pointers on how to develop anduse them.

Weber, Kenneth J. Y es, They Can! A Practical Guide forTeaching the Adolescent Slower Learner. Toronto,Canada: Methuen, 1974.

A treasure trove of good teaching ideas for all kindsof learners. The material on listening and thinkingis especially valuable.

AN ANNOTATED LIST OF SELECTEDTEACHING MATERIALS

Many publishers now distribute excellent instructionalmaterials in listening. Representative items are listed andbriefly described below.

Countdown for Listening. Lakeland, Fla.: EducationalDevelopment Corporation, 1961.

These six cassette tapes include twenty-four sepa-rate lessons and a teacher's guide. Useful in middlegrades.

C-;\tlical Reading and Listening (CRL) Program. Hun-tington Station, N.Y.: Instructional/CommunicationsTechnology, Inc.

,More than 600 graded skill lessons (in kits and oncassette tapes) relate reading and listening skillsdevelopment in literal understanding, interpreta-tion, analysis, evaluation, appreciation, and appli-cation.

HM Study SkilLs Program. Reston, Va.: National Asso-ciation of Secondary School Principals.

Two programs (I for grades 5, 6, and 7; II for 8, 9,and 10) focus on nine study skills areas; each in-cludes a separate section on listening. Student textsare supplemented by a teacher's guide and materialfor conducting inservice woikshops,

Listening. Los Angeles: Churchill Film.This is fourteen-minute film aimed at interme-diate gradesrUse for consciousness raising.

Listening-Reading Program. Lexington, Mass.: D. C.Heath and Co.

An entire "minisystem" series with kits for grades1-6; each includes records, response sheets, andother aids.

Listening Skills Program. Chicago: Science Research As-sociates.

A set of thirty-six long-playing records covering arange of skills and offering a variety of materials.

Listening SkilLs Program. Chicago: Science Research As-sociates.

A related set of filmstrips and twelve cassette tapes

at three levels. Both SRA series are useful for mid-dle school students. -

Listening Skills Program. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Scho-lastic Book Services.

Unit I (for grades 1-3) aims at sixteen listeningskills.; Unit H (for grades 4-6) at fourteen. Eachunit contains forty taped short stories.on ten cas-settes, a set of forty illustrated worksheets on spiritmasters, and a teacher's guide.

Sourcetapes. Princeton, N.J.: Sourcetapes.Interesting tape recordings, sometimes Of actual

, events with real voices. Useful as material for teach-er-made exercises and lessons.

Spoken Arts Multi-Media. Orange City, Fla.: Rancourtand Company.

Cassette Library. I contains fifty tapes of fairy tales,poetry, and stories for young children; Cassette Li-brary II contains fif6y. tapes aimed at middle schooland junior high,classes. Tapes may be purchasedseparately. Useful as material for teacher-madelessons.

Tune-In Listining/Reading Program. Pleasantville,N.Y.: Sunburst Communications.'

Four boxes each contain four thirty-minute radioshows (for example, "The Lone Ranger" and "TheShadow") pla scripts for the programs and a teach-er's guide. Reading level is grade 4, but interestlevel extends into middle school and junior high.

Old-Time Radio Cassettes. Pleasantville, N.Y.: SunburstCommunications.

Each one-hour recording contains two or morecomplete radio programs, many with original com-mercials. Examples include: "The Aldrich Family,""Mr. Keen," "Fibber McGee and Molly," and "TheGreen Hornet." Useful for teacher-made lessonsand activities.

Your Communication Skills. Chicago: Coronet Films.This eleven-minute film provides a good introduc-tion to listening for middle school students.

61

AUTHOR

Thomas G. Devine is Professor of Education at the University of Lowell. Formerly hecoordinated the English and Language Arts Program at Boston University. His latest bookis Teaching Study Skills: A Guide to Teachers; other publications include secondary schooland college textbooks and numerous articles in professional journals. Dr. Devine has beena member of the Board of Directors of the National Council of Teachers of English and hasserved on NCTE's Committee on Reswek He is the recipient of the 1982 F. Andre FavatAward of the Massachusetts Council of Teachers of English.

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