EL 107 MIDTERM NOTES

BSED – ENGLISH 2

Topic: Listening Comprehension and Subskills in Listening

Hearing Listening
• Accidental • Focused
• Involuntary • Voluntary
• Effortless • Intentional
• Physiological order • Interpretative order
• Perceiving sounds • Interpreting sound, verbal and non-verbal
• Passive process actions
• Active process

Listening
• It is the process of interpreting spoken language, which includes recognizing sound discourses,
comprehending the meaning of particular word.

In order to comprehend the speaker’s message, a listener connects gestures, postures, facial
expressions, silences, and other cues. When there is comprehension of what is being heard, language is
understood according to the link between words and actions. Therefore, listening entails more than just
hearing; it also requires the ability to evaluate and analyze the information that is received, as well as the
development of one’s own notions, opinions, and remarks on what is heard.

Listening Comprehension
• It is a part of the communication skills such as the development of reading and writing
comprehension.
• It has the multiple processes of comprehension in language when it is understood,
interpreted and spoken.
• This is connected to cognitive learning as it works with the development of memory,
attention, vocabulary, grammar and comprehension monitoring.

Sub-Skills are skills that make a part of a longer scale that is listening.

Sub-Skills in Listening
Skills Description

Listening for details • Listening for specific information (like

keywords and numbers)
• It is the intensive listening for scanning.

Listening for gist • Listening for main ideas or for the big
picture.
• Called global listening as the listener
listens to get a general idea.
• It is extensive listening for skimming.
• This happens when we listen to get a
general idea about a topic.

Drawing inferences Ability to fill in gaps in the input; listening

between lines.

Listening Selectively • To listen only specific parts of the input

that depends on the purpose of listening.
• Help listeners to listen in a more relax
manner.
• May lead to ineffective understanding if
the listener’s purpose is colored with
prejudice and bias.
 • This is when we listen to something
because we want to discover one
particular piece of information.

Making predictions The ability to anticipate before and during

listening what one is going to hear.

Listening for attitude To get an idea of their mood or attitude.

Extensive Listening It is a way to practice your English listening skills.

Intensive Listening It focuses primarily on brief exercises.

Topic: Approaches in Teaching Listening

Listening (Receptive Macroskills)

- It involves the process of receiving, understanding, and responding to what we have heard.

Listening Strategies
- Are techniques that will help us listen more effectively, contributing to our comprehension.

Approaches in Teaching Listening:

1. Bottom – Up Listening Strategy

➢ “the text-based strategy”
➢ the listener attempts to make meaning through the language’s: sounds
words
grammar

➢ it involves listening exercises which develop bottom up helping learners

to recognize individual words, sentences and clause divisions.
➢ recognize key linguistic features of the words and sentences.

Strategy is used for:

➢ listening for specific details
➢ recognizing word-order pattern
➢ recognizing word sounds
➢ recognizing cognates

2. Top – Down Listening Strategy

➢ “the listener-based strategy”
➢ It means making as much use as you can of your knowledge and the situation.

The listener uses:

➢ background knowledge of the topic
➢ situation or context
➢ type of the text
➢ language

Strategy is used for:

➢ listening for main idea
➢ making predictions
➢ drawing inferences
➢ summarizing
➢ taking down notes

3. Interactive Listening Strategy

➢ It is a combination of bottom-up and top-down listening strategies.
➢ It involves interaction or a two way process.
➢ It may start from the bottom to the top or vice versa.
 ➢ As a listener, you are not passive but active. This means you have to work at
constructing the meaning.
➢ It is a pedagogical approach.

Topic: Reading Comprehension and Subskills in Reading

Reading Comprehension
- it is the ability to read text, process it and understand its meaning.

Interconnected Abilities:
1. Word reading (or being able to decode symbols on the page)
2. Language comprehension (or being able to understand the meaning of the words and sentences)

Subskills in Reading:
1. Reading in 7. Recognizing Different Text Types/Genres
meaningful units 8. Distinguishing general statements from specific details
2. Scanning 9. Inference
3. Skimming 10. Evaluation
4. Prediction 11. Reference Skills
5. Guessing 12. Recognizing the communicative value of text
6. Recognizing discourse of 13. Dictionary look-up
functions

The Reading Subskills

1. Reading in meaningful units

• The more words students can see, the greater will be their reading speed and the better it
will be their comprehension.
• It consists of prefabricated chucks (multi-word units) that are often repeated in
communication.

2. Scanning
• We focus our search only on the information we want passing quickly overall the
irrelevant material.
• Useful skill to locate a specific item of information that we need, such as a date, a
figure, or a name.

3. Skimming
•The technique we generally use to determine whether a book or an article merits a more
careful and thorough reading.
• The key to this is to know where to find the main ideas of different paragraphs, and be
able to synthesize them into an organic whole by way of generalization.

4. Prediction
•Efficient reading depends, to a large extent on making correct predictions with minimal
sampling.
• A strategy in which the readers use prior knowledge of the subject and the ideas in the
text as clues to the meaning of unknown words.

5. Guessing
•Working out the meaning of unfamiliar words from the context (contextual clues) or
from word-formation analysis.
• The ability to infer the meaning of an expression using contextual clues.

` 6. Recognizing discourse functions

• The logical structure of a passage is often signaled by textual connectors, which are
expressions connecting ideas.
• Learners should be trained in recognizing these cohesive devices and their role in
signaling the relationship between and among clauses.

7. Recognizing Different Text Types/Genres:

• There are different text types, each with its own conventions both in terms of format
(layout) and content.
The main types are:
• Reference Text or citations - are used to acknowledge the work or ideas of others.

• Informative text- it educates the reader about a specific topic and can be found in reading
sources such as science books and instruction manuals.

• Creative Texts is a traditional independent small press producing high quality paperback, ebook,
hardcover, and audio books for our readers to enjoy.

• Interaction text- interacting with a text requires readers to ask themselves questions about the
text, visualize what they read, determine importance and use background knowledge to build
comprehension.

8. Distinguishing general statements from specific details

• General statements usually contain main ideas, and specific details are usually explanations and
examples that support the general statements.
• Very often they are introduced by signal words such as in general, above all, in conclusion and
it can be seen that.

9. Inference
• A conclusion reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning.
• Comprehension involves understanding not only what is stated explicitly but also what is
implied.

10. Evaluation
• The reader not only has to thoroughly understand what he has read; he also has to analyze it so
as to form his own opinion and judgement.
• The reader has to determine the author's purpose, consider his intended audience, recognize his
strengths and weaknesses, and distinguish his opinions from facts.

11. Reference Skills

• Reference has to do with understanding pronouns, adverbs, which refer to lexical words
mentioned in the text.

There are two processes:

• anaphora (backward reference) - occurs when a word or
phrase refers to something mentioned earlier in the discourse. You need to look backward
to understand.
• cataphora (forward reference) - occurs when a word or phrase refers to something
mentioned later in the discourse.

12. Recognizing the communicative value of text

• It refers to the understanding of the communicative purpose of the texts
• Texts might be: warnings, request, invitations, descriptions, informative, advertisement, etc.

13. Dictionary look-up

• Help the students increase their familiarity with these new words, as well as creating a system
by which they can continue to expand their vocabularies.
• To look up words in dictionaries effectively and quickly.
Topic: Approaches in Teaching Reading

Reading (Receptive Macroskills)

- abilities that pertain to a person's capacity to read, comprehend, interpret and decode written
language and texts.

1. Bottom-Up Reading Approach

➢ Depicts reading starting with the input of some of graphic signals or stimulus.
➢ Focuses on incoming sensory
➢ Data – driven
➢ Emphasize the written or printed text
➢ Derive meaning in a linear manner
➢ Start with basic skills such as decoding the letters

2. Top-Down Reading Approach

➢ Depicts reading beginning with the cognitive process occurring in the readers mins as
he or she read.
➢ Meaning is the central objective rather than the mastery or letters, sounds and words.
➢ Can already comprehend the information
➢ Silent reading
➢ Use previous experience and expectations

3. Interactive Reading Approach

➢ Depicts reading as the process of constructing meaning through the dynamic interaction
among the readers existing knowledge.
➢ Two-way process
➢ Meaning comes from a combination of different sources
➢ Incorporates interactivity into lessons

TAKE NOTE: The importance of these approaches is that these helps build vocabulary
and improve understanding in listening which is vital in reading.

Reading Strategies:
• Receptive Reading
• Reflective Reading
• Skimming
• Scanning
• Reading for details

Topic: Segmentals

Phonology
- is the study of the systems and patterns of speech sound in a language.

Two kinds of Phonology:

• Segmentals
• Suprasegmentals

Segmentals Phonology
- analysis speech into discrete segments, such as phonemes and studies the phonological rules that
govern the way of sounds function in a language.

In studying speech we divide the stream into small pieces that we called SEGMENTS.

Segmental Phonology has 2 basic concepts;

• Phonemes
 • Allophone
• In any language we can identify small number of regularly used sounds (vowels and consonants)
that we called PHONEMES.
• A phoneme is the smallest contrastive unit in the sound system of a language.

Vowels
- is a speech sound produced by humans when the breath flows out through the mouth without
being blocked by the teeth, tongue or lips.

There are three types of vowels sounds in English namely:

o Short vowels- is made with only one position
o Long Vowels- sounds are where vowel makes the same sound as the way it’s name is
pronounced.
o Diphthong vowels- have two IPA symbols because they are made up of two mouth
position.

Consonants
- are produced by pushing air up from the lungs and out through the mouth and/or nose. Airflow
is disrupted by obstructions made by various combinations of vocal articulator movements, so that
audible friction is produced.

They are described in terms of:

• Voicing - refers to the presence or absence of vocal vibration during speech sound production. In
voiced sound, there is a vocal fold vibration and an audible ‘buzzling’ sound. In unvoiced sound,
there is no vocal fold vibration.
Voiced sounds- /d, b, g, v, ð, z, l, m, n, d, ʒ, ŋ, ʃ/
Unvoiced sounds- /t, p, k, f, Ѳ, s, ʃ, tʃ, r, h, j, w/
• Place of Articulation
• Manner of Articulation

Place of articulation is the physical location in the vocal tract that a phoneme is produced in, and the kinds
of articulatory movements that are involved in producing a sound.
• Bilabial consonants – upper lip + lower lip
• Labio-dental consonants- lower lip + upper teeth
• Dental consonants- tongue + teeth
• Alveolar consonants- tip of the tongue + alveolar ridge
• Post-alveolar consonants- tip of the tongue + root of the mouth
• Palatal sounds- tongue + hard palate
• Velar sounds- back of the tongue + soft palate

Final classification is the manner or process of articulation. This is related to the degree of closure
(complete closure close approximation open approximation.

• Plosives involve a complete closure, where the vocal articulators fully meet and air flow is
stopped.
• Fricative involves close approximation, where the vocal articulators do not fully meet and air
flow is forced through a narrow passage.
• Approximants involve an open approximation, where the vocal articulators are still close but not
enough to create friction.

Allophone
- a phonetic variant of a phoneme in a particular language.
For example: “pool”
Incorrect: [pul]
Correct: [phul]

When it’s important to make this difference:

• We’ll use [square brackets] to indicate sounds from a phonetic point of view, i.e. focusing on
their physical properties and the details of actual pronunciation.
 • And we’ll use /slashes/ to indicate sounds from a phonological point of view, i.e. as part of an
abstract representation independent of potential differences in the way the sound in pronounced in
specific contexts.
• I.e., [ ]= allophone, //= phoneme.

Topic: Suprasegmentals

Suprasegmentals
- the term refers to speech features that accompany consonants and vowels which are not limited
to single sounds and often extend over syllables, words, or phrases.

Suprasegmental Features:
• Word Stress and Sentence Stress
• Juncture
• Intonation

1. Word Stress (also called Lexical Stress) – the emphasis we place in a specific syllable of a word
when pronouncing it.
2. Sentence Stress - emphasis that certain words have in utterances. In other words, it is the pattern
of stressed and unstressed words across a sentence. Normally this emphasis is on words that carry
important information, although this can change significantly, depending on the specific meaning
the speaker wants to communicate.
3. Juncture - refers to the relationship between one sound and the sound/s that immediately precede
it or follow it.

2 Classification of Juncture
• Close Juncture - the movement from sound to sound which has no
intervening pauses or delay or the normal transition from one phoneme
to the next within an utterance.
• Open Juncture - a manner of transition from one phoneme to the next in
two utterances. Which means there is a slight stoppage of the last sound
till it blends with the next.

Double Bar Juncture (//)

: Appositives
- provides information that further identifies or describes the subject.

Double Bar Juncture (//)

: Non-restrictive Clause
- is a type of an adjective clause that provides additional information about a word. It begins with
a relative pronoun like who, which, whom, whose and that.

Double Bar Juncture (//)

: Parenthetical Expression
- is a word or words added to a sentence without changing he meaning or grammar of the original
sentence. It is usually separated from the main sentence by commas or other punctuation that can separate
parenthetical expressions such as commas, round brackets, and long dashes.
 Intonation
- the distinctive use of different pitch that carry meaningful meaning. It describes how the
voice rises and falls in speech.

4 Types of Intonation
• Falling Intonation - describes how the voice falls on the final stressed syllable of
a phrase or a group of words. A falling intonation is very common in WH-
questions. We can also use falling intonation when we say something definite or
when we want to be very clear about something.
• Rising Intonation - describes how the voice rises at the end of a sentence. It is
common in ‘yes or no’ questions and when requesting clarification or indicating
uncertainty.
• Fall-rise Intonation - describes how the voice falls and then rises. We use fall-rise
intonation at the end of statements when we want to say that we are not sure, or
when we may have more to add.
• Rise-fall Intonation - describes the rises and the falls of the pitch on the focus
word.