Course

Lower Advanced Listening and Speaking for English Language Learners

Important Notice

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

Faculty
Language, Literature & Performing Arts
Department
English Language Learning and Acquisition
Course code
ELLA 0350
Credits
6.00
Semester length
15 weeks
Max class size
20
Method(s) of instruction
Lecture
Lab
Typically offered
To be determined

Overview

Course description
This is an integrated listening and speaking course for students who wish to upgrade their listening and speaking skills for educational and/or employment purposes. This course is most appropriate for students 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 and speaking skills for academic study by participating in and leading small discussion groups, making formal presentations, and taking notes and organizing these notes to complete academic assignments. Students will continue to develop language skills including grammar, sentence structure, vocabulary and pronunciation elements.
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 arguments
  10. Identify implicit issues and problems

To listen for discrete items

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

Speaking

  1. To participate in conversations and discussions
    • As participant
      • Listen and actively contribute
      • Use appropriate language functions and gambits (short expressions used to open, close and extend conversation)
        • Use all functions and gambits  from 100 and 200 levels
        • Use functions appropriately  for expressing possibility, speculating, and critiquing
        • Use gambits appropriately for  participating in discussion
        • Identify issues and problems and respond appropriately
    • As leader
      • Give instructions for group tasks
      • Assign responsibilities
      • Use gambits to effectively maintain discussion
      • Ask questions
      • Encourage participants to participate
      • Manage turn-taking
      • Keep group on task
      • Report discussion outcomes
    • As interviewer
      • Prepare questions
      • Explain purpose
      • Ask/clarify questions
      • Take notes
      • Synthesize/summarize notes
  2. To prepare and deliver formal and informal reports and presentations
    • Select topic
    • Develop purpose and focus
    • Gather information/prepare outline
    • Identify, locate, and cite source material, and demonstrate an understanding of plagiarism.
    • Develop introduction, body, conclusion
    • Prepare visuals and explain models, formulas, graphs, tables, or other schematics
    • Rehearse/obtain feedback
    • Prepare note cards
    • Use effective presentation style: eye contact, body language, vocal delivery, and language use
    • Prepare questions for follow-up discussion
  3. Give impromptu talks on spontaneous topics and under timed conditions
  4. Use pronunciation elements appropriately
  5. Recognize cultural differences, and show awareness of the general features of own culture and associated world views

Reading and Writing

To prepare for, support, and extend listening and speaking

  1. Follow written instructions
  2. Use pre-reading techniques
  3. Identify purpose and/or issue, overall key idea, main ideas, and key details
  4. Use context clues to determine meanings of unfamiliar words and phrases
  5. Use readings in speaking tasks
  6. Write reflectively
  7. Write notes, outlines, interview questions and answers, reports, summaries and paragraphs
  8. Use written materials in speaking tasks (e.g., reports)

Accuracy

For explicit instruction and evaluation

  1. All accuracy items from 100 and 200 levels
  2. Perfect tenses: Past Perfect, Future Perfect, all conditionals
  3. Verbals: infinitives, gerunds, base forms
  4. Word forms: nouns, adjectives, adverbs
  5. Pronunciation elements
    • All pronunciation elements from 100 and 200 levels
    • Special intonation patterns, vowel and consonant sounds
  6. Articles

Classroom skills

Take responsibility for the following:

  1. Attendance and punctuality
  2. Class work and assignments
  3. Participation and teamwork
  4. 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/or  dictocomps (retelling a story)
    • activities in pronunciation elements
    • reports on assigned and self-selected listening and speaking tasks
    • oral/written reports on readings related to listening and speaking tasks
  2. Take notes on discussions, interviews, oral reports, videos, presentations, and lectures and use notes to complete assignments and take tests
  3. Participate in and lead small group and class discussions; carry out assigned role (e.g., leader, note-taker, reporter, observer, monitor), initiate and respond to questions and complete assigned tasks
  4. Complete at least one listening and notetaking project (individual or group). These could include:
    • attending/taking notes on a regular class lecture at Douglas College or community presentation
    • listening to/taking notes on an interview
    • attending a play or other cultural event and complete a follow-up task
  5. Complete at least one listening and speaking project which includes a written component. These could include:
    • participating in an exchange interview or discussion with students in regular Douglas College classes
    • arranging for /introducing/thanking a guest speaker from the College or community
    • obtaining and reporting on detailed information about a college or university program by phone
    • videotaping and evaluating a group discussion, interview, or talk
    • interviewing an individual in the college or the community
  6. Give at least one impromptu talk on a course topic or an issue or an unfamiliar topic to a small group and/or the whole class
  7. Give at least one formal report or summary to the whole class. These could include:
    • a report on a current event or recent trend
    • a summary of an educational video
    • a summary of an article
  8. Complete oral tasks with a specified level of delivery competence. This must include appropriate eye contact, body language, and vocal delivery features such as voice quality and appropriate pauses.
  9. Complete oral and written tasks to a specified level of language accuracy
  10. Complete quizzes both skill based and content based.
  11. 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 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 academic purposes
  3. Use strategies to learn academic material.
  4. Communicate competently in culturally-appropriate ways on sometimes unfamiliar  topics using appropriate language functions to obtain and give detailed information, to explore academic content, and to solve problems
  5. Speak comprehensibly in most contexts with frequent self-correction and rephrasing but with some global errors in grammar and  sentence structure that occasionally slow communication
  6. Read to prepare for, support, and extend listening and speaking skills and expand vocabulary
  7. Write with a specified level of accuracy to extend listening and speaking skills
  8. Monitor and apply strategies to a specified level of accuracy in grammar, sentence structure, word choice and pronunciation elements
  9. Assess progress
  10. Participate effectively in a college classroom.
Textbook materials

Students may be required to purchase textbooks 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.

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 ELLA 0350
There are no applicable transfer credits for this course.

Course Offerings

Winter 2025