Course

Advanced Listening for Students of English as a Second Language

Important Notice

This course is not active. Please contact Department Chair for more information.

Faculty
Language, Literature & Performing Arts
Department
English as a Second Language
Course code
EASL 0345
Credits
3.00
Semester length
15 weeks
Max class size
20
Method(s) of instruction
Lecture
Lab
Typically offered
To be determined

Overview

Course description
This course is designed for students who wish to upgrade their listening skills for educational and/or employment purposes. This course is most appropriate for people who are intending to take college or university courses. Through listening to materials from a variety of sources on many subjects, students will improve their ability to understand and respond appropriately in increasingly complex or problematic situations. Students will also improve their listening skills for academic study by following formal discussions, taking good notes, and organizing and using these notes to complete simple academic assignments. Through these activities, students will also continue to develop language skills.
Course content

Listening

To follow conversations, discussions, reports and lectures

  1. Use pre-listening techniques to prepare for a listening task
  2. Identify purpose and/or issue, overall key idea, main ideas, and key details
  3. Use active listening strategies
  4. Use discourse and conversational markers to follow the organization of a discussion or talk
  5. Refer to pre-listening and reference materials, and use context clues (e.g., synonyms) to determine meanings of unfamiliar words and phrases
  6. Take notes
  7. Use notes to complete assignments
  8. Use notes to prepare for quizzes
  9. Recognize the difference between supported and unsupported documents
  10. Identify underlying issues and problems
  11. Recognize cultural differences and show awareness of the general features of own culture and associated world views

To listen for discrete items

  1. Write from dictation
  2. Transcribe speech
  3. Reconstruct text from dictocomps (retelling a story)
  4. Listen for how information  is organized (e.g., process, reasons, comparison/contrast)
  5. Listen for specific pronunciation elements (e.g., special intonation questions, vowel and consonant sounds, stressed and unstressed words, linking and final consonants)

Speaking

To participate in conversations and discussions

As participant:

  1.        listen and actively contribute
  2.        use appropriate functions and conversational signals

Reading and Writing

To prepare for, support, and extend listening

  1. Write notes and outlines.  Other written tasks could include interview questions and answers, reports, summaries and/or paragraphs.
  2. Organize notes identifying overall key idea, main ideas, and key details
  3. Use readings for listening tasks

Accuracy

  1. To identify and work on as need arises:
    • all accuracy items from 100 and 200 levels
    • perfect tenses: past perfect, future perfect, all conditionals
    • verbals: infinitives, gerunds, base forms
    • word forms: nouns, adjectives, adverbs
    • articles

Classroom skills

  1. To take responsibility for the following:
    • Attendance and punctuality
    • Class work and assignments
    • Participation and teamwork
    • Communication and completion of simple information management tasks using appropriate technology (Internet, course website, etc.)
Learning activities

The instructor will facilitate, observe and evaluate students’ participation in communicative activities.  Whole and small group instruction will be combined with individual assistance and student-directed learning.  Students will participate in the setting of goals by identifying their communicative and language development needs, and will participate in the selection of learning activities.

Means of assessment
  1. Complete assigned skill development tasks. These should include:
    • dictations, transcriptions, and dictocomps
    • reports on assigned and self-selected listening/tasks
    • oral/written reports related to listening tasks
  2. Take notes on discussions, interviews, oral reports, videos, presentations, and lectures and use notes to complete assignments and take tests
  3. Complete at least two listening and notetaking projects  (individual or group). These could include:
    • taking notes on a regular class lecture at Douglas College or a community presentation
    • listening to/taking notes on an interview
    • attending a play or other cultural event  and completing a follow-up task
    • obtaining detailed information about a college or university program by telephone
    • evaluating a group discussion or talk
    • interviewing an individual in the college or the community
  4. Complete oral and written tasks to a specified level of accuracy
  5. Complete skill-based quizzes; complete memory-based listening quizzes
  6. Complete at least one self-assessment of learning strategies, progress, and classroom skills
Learning outcomes

Overall Objectives

Extend communicative competence and language accuracy for a range of educational and/or employment  purposes

Specific Objectives

  1. Understand general interest and academic oral communication on sometimes unfamiliar topics to obtain detailed information, to explore academic content, and to develop critical thinking
  2. Take notes for a range of academic purposes
  3. Use strategies to learn academic material
  4. Speak to extend listening skills
  5. Read to prepare for, support, and extend listening skills, and expand vocabulary
  6. Write with a specified level of accuracy to extend listening skills
  7. Monitor and apply strategies to a specified level of accuracy in grammar, sentence structure, word choice and intonation/stress/pronunciation
  8. Assess progress
  9. Participate effectively in a college classroom
Textbook materials

Students may be required to purchase a textbook and/or audio materials.

Requisites

Course Guidelines

Course Guidelines for previous years are viewable by selecting the version desired. If you took this course and do not see a listing for the starting semester / year of the course, consider the previous version as the applicable version.

(Current)

Course Transfers

These are for current course guidelines only. For a full list of archived courses please see https://www.bctransferguide.ca

Institution Transfer details for EASL 0345
There are no applicable transfer credits for this course.

Course Offerings

Winter 2025