Listening and Sharing Opinions

Oral Listening

Keywords:
Culture, Discussion, Listening, Presentation, Speaking

Delivery: Fully online

Students learn how to use listening techniques in order to improve understanding of spoken English and we concentrate on preparation for “real life situations”. Students learn to how to focus on extracting specific information and details, as well as general meaning. At the end of the course, they will understand more fully what interpretation is and therefore be able to distinguish and respond to a speaker's attitude, intent and opinion. This course is best suited for students who are comfortable taking instruction and participating in class in English, and who want to become more confident in their ability to communicate and openly share their opinions.

Activities include:

Debate: Moral Dilemmas: What is Justice?
Presentations: Global Issues
Song lyric deconstruction & comprehension
Role-plays
Taking issues with Television Content

Students pass the course when they successfully complete all assigned course work. Final grades will be compiled from attendance, classroom participation, completed homework assignments, comprehension tests and presentations. Students are reminded to pay particular attention to university attendance regulations. Class Interaction via Moodle use is a mandatory course requirement and will be assessed in relation to the final grade. Plagiarism is unacceptable.

This course will focus on helping learners to develop and practice strategies for understanding and forming more accurate interpretations of interactions in spoken English commonly encountered in a variety of academic, professional and public situations.

Additional objectives include:

Learning to actively prepare for listening exercises
Understanding patterns of natural English speech
Speaking English for increased comprehension
Identifying general meaning and specific details in English speech
Developing simultaneous listening and note-taking skills.

In class Assignments (Participation): 20%
Homework (Moodle Assignments): 20%
Presentation 1: 20%
Presentation 2: 20%
Final Assignment: 20%
: %

1	Orientation / Self Introductions / Reported Information
2	Spontaneous Presentations: What makes you special?
3	Developing Listening Techniques for the 21st Century
4	Casual vs. Formal Spoken English
5	Predicting Content (Activities)
6	Interpretation / Subjective vs. Objective Interpretations
7	Identifying Global Issues (The United Nations’ SDGs)
8	Descriptions vs. Interpretations (Activity)
9	Interpreting Intent (Desconstructing Song Lyrics
10	Interpreting Attitude (Debate Positions)
11	Interpreting Opinion (Class Discussion). Life in Japan: Good & Bad Points
12	Moral Dilemmas: (Sharing Opinions). What’s the right thing to do?
13	Presentation Development
14	Group Presentations: The Intimate Dinner Party
15	Special Homework Assignment