EFS 693B - STANFORD UNIVERSITY
Advanced Listening and Vocabulary
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EFS 693B
Notes: Week 4
I. You'll have your first individual meeting this week (20 minutes--be sure to be on time). Come prepared to be quizzed on your vocabulary lists and bring along any questions you might have about the material you've listened to or other questions about listening or vocabulary.
II. Any questions about the English sound system - an overview?
A. Basic sounds (phonemes): http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/#; see also http://www.manythings.org/pp/ for practice with difficult sound distinctions
B. Rhythm: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_timing
C. Stress: www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/word-stress.htm
D. Intonation: www.americanaccent.com/intonation.html
E. Linking: www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/linking.htm
F. Reduced forms: www3.telus.net/linguistics issues/ReducedForms.html.
III. Quiz on "No Time to Think". Use your notes and memory.
IV.
Reminder--Part III: The last two weeks we have talked about activities for
improving comprehension and activities for building language knowledge. This
week we'll discuss activities for improving language processing.
First,
processing of some sort is happening all the time: your brain is processing when
you simply listen for meaning, and it's processing when you pick out a key word
from a sentence you otherwise don't understand, or notice a single new word in a
sentence you otherwise understand fully. We use "processing" to mean something
different here--the ability to link the forms (parts of words, whole words,
phrases, and sentences) to the meaning rapidly, accurately, and ultimately with
limited conscious effort (such as translation), as you do when you listen in
your native language. Specifically, we are looking for listening activities that
increase speed, improve accuracy, and build capacity. Let's look at each one of
these individually.
Increasing
speed is important because 1) it allows you to comprehend faster speech and 2)
it frees cognitive resources from having to concentrate so hard on the language
forms that the meaning is hard to grasp, interpret, and retain. Speed of
phonological processing means that when you hear a string of English sounds you
can rapidly link it to a word or phrase, find the boundaries, and reconstruct
reduced forms. Speed of lexical access means how quickly you can get the meaning
when hearing a word. Speed of parsing means how fast you can create the
grammatical structure of a sentence, recognizing which words go together in
phrases and picking up on relations like tense. Finally, an important part of
speed is anticipation—the ability to predict the next word or phrase
based on what you’ve already heard and the context.
Processing
for accuracy means catching all of what the speaker said and possibly even what
the speaker didn’t seem to say but what grammatically must be there. This
includes correct word forms (e.g. present vs. presence), endings (lift vs.
lifts), grammatical words (articles, prepositions, and conjunctions), word
order, word boundaries, full versions of reduced forms. It also means using
meaning and context to select the most likely words from alternatives (e.g.
“tire” vs. “tie are” vs. “tie our” in “tie our present to the distant past”).
Accuracy can also involve getting relatively accurate forms for unknown words so
that they can be identified correctly.
Capacity
refers to how much language you can hold in working memory. This is important
both for comprehending longer sentences and for dealing with some of the
accuracy issues mentioned previously. Building capacity doesn’t really refer to
increasing memory so that you can recall a larger number of items (the general
target for humans is 7 +/- 2 (a range of 5 to 9 unrelated items)). It really
refers to “chunking”—assembling items into larger units and then remembering the
units. For example, the 10-digit phone number 816-523-6449 would probably be
hard to recall on just one hearing, while 650-725-1557 might be much easier
because “650” is a known area code and “725” is common Stanford prefix. You can
do the same thing with words and phrases, and it appears that this ability can
improve with practice.
Done correctly, dictation can be used to improve processing in all of these areas. Dictation typically works best with relatively easy, familiar material, though it can also sometimes be a way to focus attention on more challenging material. Other aspects of processing practice are to work with material that has challenging accents or that is faster than you can easily handle. In both cases, listening while simultaneously reading a script at least one time through can be helpful for seeing what's actually there. Similarly, the play speed control on media players may allow you to slow a segment down so that you buy more processing time and more difficult parts become easier to notice.
V. Go to the Online News Hour: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/. Click on "Videos" or "Recent Programs" at the top to get a list of programs from the last two weeks or so, along with access to the archives.
Today, we'll do http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/education/jan-june12/collegecosts_01-27.html. See http://newshour-tc.pbs.org/newshour/rss/media/2012/01/27/20120127_collegecosts.mp3 for the mp3 version that you can stream through a media player for greater control.
VI. Technical training: controlling speed on the media player. First, download the VLC media player: go to www.videolan.org/vlc/. It's free, though you can donate to them if you wish. They have versions for both Windows and Mac, as well as other operating systems.
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Load the video into the VLC Player, using the Media menu. It's best to use videos you have already downloaded (ecorner allows this). You can also try to use "Open Network Stream" if you have a URL for it. If you don't have the URL handy, right click on the video screen and select "properties" to find it; alternatively, for Flash videos you may be able to get it by using View > source in your browser and searching for "flv". Sometimes, you just can't find it...
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Note that the speed control is easy to use (see the red circle below).
VII. Instant dictionary option; Firefox browser only. Go to http://www.answers.com/main/firefox_plugins.jsp to load a plug-in that lets you get word and phrase definitions from web pages with a single click.
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Homework: Unless otherwise stated (e.g.,
the independent project) you should complete this material in time to discuss it
in the following class. Be sure to bring notes if requested. Remember that
everything except (1) is in addition to your independent project time.
1) Continue working on your independent project. Remember to incorporate any
suggestions made in the individual meetings. Plan to do some combination of 3-4 sessions for a total of
at least three hours. Try to have a mixture of
objectives that includes not only comprehension, but also building language
knowledge and improving processing. Be sure you are doing something about
reviewing your vocabulary. Get the report form here.
The report is due Monday, February 6 at 8:00 PM. Please follow the directions
and upload it to Coursework if at all possible.
2) Read (IV) above
and think about what it means to both your everyday listening and especially
your independent project work. This should only take about 5 minutes, but it's a
very important 5 minutes. Come to class next week with any
questions you might have after going through it. For previous classes, this
seems to be one of the more challenging concepts in this course.
3) Go to the Online News Hour http://www.pbs.org/newshour/video/ and either pick a story from a recent program or look at the archives and find one there. Use the following listening lesson procedure through at least one story: (note, if you're already using this for your independent study, do this anyway--it should not count as part of your three hours)
A.
Pre-listening: Read about the story.
Think about what you already know of the topic and predict what you might
hear. If you don't know much about the topic, go to
http://news.google.com and search for a
recent article to read before listening.
B. While listening: The first time through, pause occasionally (more often if you're having
trouble) and try to recall what you know up to that point; jot down a note of
the time for interesting or difficult parts. This is sometimes called a "punctuated
presentation."
C. Post-listening: What do you remember? What should you do
next?
- Listen again to the full story for comprehension,
or listen to selected parts for comprehension
- Look at the transcript for comprehension help;
look up key words that you don't understand--don't worry about others.
- Listen straight through one more time
Bring your notes to
the next class and come prepared to discuss your experience.
4) Ecorner with Marissa Mayer
(Google VP): trying different speeds. Note, for reference, the Carly Fiorina
clip on selective information was at 144 words per minute (wpm).
A. Go to http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=1524. [221 wpm] Follow the instructions in VI to activate the play speed control. Prepare for listening by reading Mayer's bio and looking at the description. Listen to the clip first at slow speed (~80%) and then again at normal speed. Did slowing it down seem to help your comprehension? Were you able to notice new words, reductions and linking, more easily?
B. Try the next clip http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=1525. [216 wpm] For this one, listen first at normal speed and then again at slow speed (~80%). Did you notice a difference in your comprehension?
C. Try the third clip http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=1526. [233 wpm] For this one, start at normal speed and then pause and change the speed as needed. Go through two times using this method.
Describe your experience briefly
on your next report. Does the slower speed seem to help or hinder your
comprehension? Which of the three options (A, B, or C) do you think would work
best for you when listening to fast speech?
5) Prepare to discuss your individual project with other students in the class (bring
a copy of your report
to help you remember)
1) What material are you using? Why did you pick that? What are your objectives?
2) Give an example of an effective procedure you're using. Why do you
think it's effective?
3) What is the most useful thing you've learned so far from the project?
4) What are your main challenges in doing the
project?
6) (optional) Try VII above: go to http://www.answers.com/main/firefox_plugins.jsp and install the plug-in for instant definitions. Use it on one of the