Theme: Effective ways of teaching listening and speaking contents introduction chapter problematic aspects of classroom listening and speaking

Sociolinguistic competence is understood as knowledge of the norms of using the language in various situations and possession of situational options for expressing the same communicative intention, respectively, the listener must know these options and understand the reasons for using one of them in the context of a particular communication situation (Nosonovich, Milrud 1999: 19).
Sociocultural competence implies knowledge of the rules and social norms of behavior of native speakers, traditions, history, culture and social system of the country of the language being studied (Nosonovich, Milrud 1999:20). psychopedagogical training listening english
The student must have the ability to perceive and understand the oral text from the position of intercultural communication, for which he needs background knowledge. Only with this knowledge, the listener can correctly interpret the verbal and non-verbal behavior of a native speaker (Elukhina 1998:25).
An analysis of the phenomena that make it difficult to perceive speech by ear allows you to correctly select and calibrate the material used to teach listening comprehension, and serves as the basis for developing a system of exercises aimed at teaching students to overcome the difficulties considered. The main conclusions that can be drawn on the basis of this analysis are that when teaching listening, it is necessary from a certain moment to put the student in such conditions in which he will have to face these difficulties. Each time it is necessary that the listening material contains some feasible difficulty with which the student was able to cope on his own.
Thus, for successful listening training, a methodological system is needed that takes into account these difficulties and ensures that they are overcome.
2.2 Possible solutions to the problems with speaking
Any oral presentation is built according to the laws of thinking and the laws of oratory, otherwise the audience will not understand it. The logic of speech is able to completely capture the listeners, to produce a literally "hypnotizing" effect on them. The audience can forgive a slip of the tongue, an incorrect emphasis in a word, but it will never forgive illogical, incoherent judgments, so when you start preparing a speech, stop thinking about what you will say. Concentrate on what your listeners will hear.
Let us comment on four constructive questions on which the system of oral presentation and the technology of oratorical activity of the speaker are based.
1. Why talk?
To answer this question means to reveal the topic of the speech, i.e. comprehend the task, impact, understand the concept, formulate the specific goal of the speech.
2. What to talk about?
This question involves the choice of the main ("reigning") thought that the speaker wants to convey to the audience. The topic of the speech is just an advertising headline. There are always a lot of thoughts and directions of their development in the topic, so you need to choose the leading idea, on which, like a rod, to string the entire presentation.
3. How much to talk?
This question obliges to limit the subject of speech, i.e. select the most essential to substantiate the chosen idea: necessary and sufficient. There is a certain critical duration of the speech, after which it is already difficult to expect full attention from the audience - 15 - 20 minutes, so 10 - 15 minutes are allotted for defense speeches. But also in
this range of attention is uneven. The maximum concentration of attention is observed in the first 30 seconds and in the last 30 seconds of speeches. At the beginning, listeners, as a rule, want to know what will be discussed, and at the end they concentrate in order not to miss the point of the speech. A guideline for the selection of material is the purpose of the course work.
4. How to speak?
It is important to remember that there is a discrepancy between what you say and how you say it. Listeners trust the tone of voice more. Discrepancy is a sign of the presence of subtext, hidden meaning, which is intuitively perceived as true. Let us formulate several rules for constructing an oral presentation.
- It is necessary to select the volume of the voice . It seems to others that if a person speaks loudly, it means that he is confident in himself, in his position. However, the loudness of the voice is not an effective means of influencing other people. The most effective tactic is to constantly change the volume of the voice. Paradoxically, it is true that what is said in a quieter voice against the backdrop of loud speech attracts much more attention than what is said even louder.
- It is necessary to choose the rhythm and pace of speech. Speech should not be neither too fast nor too slow, because people speak quickly when they are excited or worried about something, when they want to convince the interlocutor of something or persuade him; slow speech may indicate, on the one hand, fatigue or depression, and on the other, arrogance. Confused, broken speech, as a rule, indicates excitement or stress. When people talk about topics that are difficult for them, they stumble more often, build phrases incorrectly. Listeners, however, do not always make allowances for the speaker's excitement!!! The more discontinuous speech, the more hesitations, nasalizations (uh ... uh ... uh ...), words - parasites (“means”, “so to speak”, etc.), the more incompetent the speaker seems to the audience.
- Must be able to pause . A few seconds of silence can be more eloquent than words, they help you gather your thoughts, give you the opportunity to master yourself, attract or switch attention.
The beginning of the speech is the most difficult and is extremely important, since it determines the interest of the audience in the speech. Therefore, the presentation should be carefully prepared. Any speech begins with a greeting and an appeal. The appeal “Dear members of the commission, the results of a study on the topic are offered to your attention ...” is not just a formality. It helps to establish contact and draw attention to the speaker.
The beginning of the speech should be confident, you should spread the impression of confidence. The introduction should be short and consist of one or two sentences. Here are a few entry options as an example:
- posing a problematic issue;
- amazing fact;
- bright illustration;
- a convincing connection with the vital interests of the listeners;
- an interesting example;
- a brief historical excursion;
- persuasive quote;
- poster, object, graphic.
The formal beginning, standard, official phrases should be avoided. Performance should be free, natural. “Prepared improvisation” has an impressive effect on the listeners, when the material is carefully thought out in advance, but thoughts, comparisons, images seem to be born before the eyes of the public, creating an exciting atmosphere of free creativity, enthusiasm, and inspiration. The ideal is a speech so well prepared that it seems to be a casual improvisation. As studies by B. Scott (1987) showed, only 0.1% of people have a natural talent for true improvisation. For everyone else, 999 out of 1000 are carefully preparing for the performance.
There are four options for preparing a speech and its oral presentation.
1. Write the entire text of the speech, and then read it to the audience.
2. Write the text of the speech, learn it and read it from memory, sometimes looking at the manuscript.
3. Prepare only short notes.
4. Perform without any prepared materials.
We recommend, first of all, the second and third options. Even the ancients said: “If you don’t write, you won’t say well. Writing is the best assistant to the language. It is advisable for a novice speaker to completely write down the text of a future speech - not for reading from the podium, but for searching for colloquial expressions. Persuasiveness in a speech can only arise when using colloquial speech.
At the same time, the speaker must take care of the impeccable observance of language norms in grammar, word usage and pronunciation. Here are examples of expressions that allow you to avoid speech errors.

Wrong to say:	Correct to say:
Forward Back Factor It doesn't matter He plays the role Thanks to him According to the plan Come from this problem characteristic of them	At first Again Fact Doesn't matter Acting Thanks to him According to plan Come out of this problem peculiar to them

The main part of the speech contains a systematized material, main thoughts, provisions, postulates, conclusions, arranged in a logical sequence. Separate important problems should be divided in the speech into private questions. Each of them can be separated into a separate paragraph. The beginning of each paragraph should be logically connected with the end of the previous one. For transitions between individual sentences, thoughts, you can use such words and expressions as: due to, therefore, based on, on the other hand, from these positions, etc.
When preparing the main part of the speech, it is necessary to keep in mind the main goal: to convey to the audience the author's version of the solution to the problem, to reveal the essence of the study, to captivate with the prospect of its implementation.
The speech can be built on the basis of logic:
- work structures, i.e. describing the main content of each chapter of the study;
- tasks to be solved in the work.
The first way of constructing a speech seems to be the least successful.
It is advisable to illustrate the presentation with handouts, diagrams, tables, experimental data, student work, etc.
It is possible to complete the presentation with a general conclusion based on the results of the study. It should be remembered that the finale is the final act, aimed at ensuring that the listeners, having understood the speaker, believe him, feel the completeness, completeness, integrity of the research presented in the speech.
When it comes to learning English, learners struggle the most with practising speaking. The main reason is that you need a speaking partner to practise speaking. But: do you really need a speaking partner?
Let’s not beat around the bush: speaking to someone is always the best and easiest way to improve your fluency. But there are good reasons you’re unable to speak to someone.

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

One of the reasons is that you need someone to talk to. In these COVID-19 times, it’s difficult to travel the world and speak to people who don’t speak your native language. Fortunately, there are ways to practice and improve your English speaking skills independently (= on your own), without a speaking partner.
Tip 1: Shadowing
This tip is particularly interesting for new learners of English. Shadowing is a technique you can use to improve your speaking skills. It does require some concentration, and you should do this regularly. What you do is you look for a native speaker you like to listen to (like I did with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie), and you mimic the way they speak. This means that you try to sound as much as them as possible, and you even try to move your mouth in the same way as the person you’re mimicking moves their mouth.
Shadowing works extremely well for your pronunciation because you don’t have much time to think about what is being said; you have to reproduce the language you hear, and since you’re doing that “on-line”, you don’t have time to use other brain processes to understand what you mean.
This makes shadowing an excellent exercise to improve your pronunciation and fluency. It appears to be more effective when you already have a high level of English proficiency, but using a simple example (without too many complex language structures) could still be benificial for beginners.
Here’s my video on the topic for those who prefer a video!
Tip 2: Retelling
This second tip is also an excellent way to improve your speaking skills in English on your own. Instead of following a particular person and mimicking what they say, this method focuses on the content. This is a good way to practice creating sentences, and this is an excellent way to practice some vocabulary.
Another benefit of this method is that you’ll get exposure to real-world language, ánd that you’ll do something with that exposure (which are two of the most important elements of language learning: exposure and interaction).
So, how does retelling work? As the name suggests, you retell something that you’ve listened to. This means that you need to listen to something (maybe a TEDtalk or a podcast) and make some notes while listening. Then, you pause the video (or podcast) and retell what you’ve heard.
Here’s an example of how this works:
Assume you’re listening to a talk on why gaming is the best way to learn English. Here’s a transcript of a part of the video:
“Because [gamers] are anonymous, because people are not showing or giving their real name, their real face, and the place where they live, they can use the language without people making fun of them and without annoying teachers — like myself — correcting them when they’re doing their game.”
When you’re retelling this piece of information, you could say something like:
“Gamers are anonymous. Because they are not showing their real name, real face, or the place where they live, they can use the language without people making fun of them and without teachers correcting them when they’re playing their game.”
As you can see, your retold version is mostly the same as the original version. That’s what you want: you want to stick as closely to the source as possible because you want to use as much language from the source as possible.
Tip 3: Focus on individual sounds
Tip 1 focuses on mimicking someone, tip 2 focuses on retelling chunks of language, and this tip focuses on individual words.
You want to pick some words you find difficult to pronounce and go to an online dictionary to listen to these words’ pronunciation. Then, try repeating that word several times until you sound as close to the recording as possible.
Most dictionaries like the Cambridge Dictionary or the Oxford Dictionary offer great recordings you could use (see the pronunciation of the word “country” — a word Dutch people mispronounce quite often). They also provide the IPA (the International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription, which is the transcription of sounds. You’ll benefit from some basic knowledge of IPA.