Palmer, E. Teaching the Core Skills of Listening and Speaking

Teaching the Core Skills of Listening & Speaking
Palmer, Erik

Palmer offers a detailed analysis of speaking and listening standards with many examples, specific exercises, rubrics and tips culled from years of teaching. What follows is a collection of notes and examples from my reading of the book

Ch 1 Intro

Ch 2 core skills, core standards

Ch 3 Collaborating/Discussing

30  Collab requires people to agree on a goal, divide the task, delegate responsibilities and agree how to combine pieces to create the desired end product

collaboration brings people together to achieve something that could not be achieved individually

Standard 1--prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively."

high school students required to take more responsibility for discussion They don't just participate in teacher created discussions, they initiate them. They set the goals and the roles. Actively participate, not sit and listen to others. they bring others into the discussion and promote differing opinions.

Teachers guides not leaders, they ask questions..."What rules should we have for the discussion?" "How can we be sure we have heard all views?" When problems occur, "How can this be solved?  Is there new evidence or a new argument that we need?"

Collaboration--interacting with others in a group to accomplish a goal.
1 must have a specific purpose or point,
2 work towards a goal
3 be given freedom to use all tools at their disposal



40 Take action: Developing Collaborative Discussion Skills

Algebra--group members get questions with same process different problem--explain problem and answer to group members

English--comma usage different writing piece to edit, are there introductory phrases in the paper, are there items in a series--in groups discuss comma rules present in piece

Sci--give different labs, identify control, variables etc and explain to group

42 Require groups to collaborate to produce a single product

hand out difficult article to all members--all read discuss and write one summary per group they all agree summarizes all key points--can have person 1 write 1st sentence, 2nd person write 2nd sentence etc. If there is disagreement, they must collaborate to resolve the differences.

43 Collaborate then generate individual products

After showing a video, put in groups, each writes a paragraph with powerful topic sentence and three supporting points

44 Assign roles

writer/recorder,  timekeeper, summarizer, messenger, questioner, keyboarder, noise monitor, supervisor, reader, reporter

48 Take Action: Developing Civil Discussion Skills

collaboration cannot occur in a hostile environment--leads to shouting
discussion is not to make sure your idea dominates, but to increase understanding or come to a consensus

All discussions should have an announced and specific focus

50 Rules for Civil Discussion

1. Focus on the task at hand--clear desk, free hands in order to concentrate
2. Don't interrupt--cutting others off denies them their right to express themselves and shape the discussion
3. Build on what others say--shows you are paying attention to others and that you respect others' thinking ("I want to add to what Mary said..."
4. Control emotions--outbursts do not advance ideas--they shut them down.  Those too emotional may not understand others and may make others shut down
5. Control nonverbal signals--gestures and facial expressions can convey disrespect and shut down conversation
6. Don't jump to conclusions--don't assume you know where the speaker is going
7. Don't judge the messenger--separate people from actions--hate cleaning up the milk, not the person who spilled it.
8. Practice empathy--you may not know what someone or their family member has been through
9. Be patient--wait for others to finish speaking trying to interrupt shows you don't care about what others have to say
10. Ask questions--before stating your comment, ask one question of the previous speaker.  "You said ___________, but would you say the same if the situation were ___________."
11. Presume positive intentions--
12. Everyone's contributions are essential--don't let a class leader shut down conversation

52 Have evidence based discussions--require each speaker to cite a specific piece of evidence to support their comment

53 Traveling debate
Choose topic with yes/no answer
Choose one yes speaker objective is to convince no's to change their minds vice versa


54 model civil discussions--procon.org

Ch 4 Listening/Media Literacy
Standard 2  Grades 9-10
integrate multiple sources of information presented in diverse media (e.g., diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively and orally) evaluating the credibility and accuracy of each source

"Consider the article we read, the video we watched, the chapter in ____. All have different perspectives. Which one is the most credible to you?  Why?"

Julian Treasure TED Talk--"How to speak so people want to listen."  People spend 60% of their time listening, but retain 25 percent of what they hear.

61 Take Action: Developing Listening Skills
Ask students to define "good listening"
What does good listening look like? Sound like?


62Listen with purpose

Give students a recipe and read it for different purposes: find out if it includes ingredients found in their kitchen, to assess if it will be difficult to prepare, to evaluate if the recipe is healthy, etc.

Purposes of listening

• to remember or understand what happened in a story
• to remember or understand a procedure
• to learn important dates
• to find examples
• to find reasons supporting main ideas
• to solve a problem
• to find metaphors and similes
• to identify inflections int eh speech of the person talking
• to focus on how the speech was delivered
• to focus on the message only, ignoring the delivery
• to identify places where they have questions or need help understanding
• to indentify points they agree with or disagree with
• to find errors in verb tense, pronoun use, or word choice
• to find places where they might offer suggestions for improvement in an argument
• to identify how the speaker is feeling

**Watch short video multiple times and listen for something different each time.  LIsten to:

• determine th actions Kid President wants us to take
• to id different vocal styles he uses for emphasis
• notice how the scene changes/montage affect the message
• notice how the music in the video contributes to the mood

--listening is not the same thing as hearing

64 Teach about filters--
All messages are received through filters (beliefs, attitudes, experiences, expectations, etc)

"Making a lot of money is good"  Received differently by American and Buddhist monk

65 Ask students to paraphrase during discussion

Attention is key to effective listening, people spend too much time waiting to say their ideas and to little time listening

***require students to paraphrase what previous speaker said before adding their own comment

Sample phrases to use when paraphrasing:

• So you're suggesting
• You think that
• Your plan is to...
• What you are asking is...
• If I am hearing you right you believe...
• You feel that...
• You disagree with the statement...
• As I understand it, you want to...
• According to you, a good reason to _____________ is to ____________
• If you had your way, we would...

67 Teach Active listening


RASA--consists of verbs  listening is active

Receive--Pay Attention
Appreciate--give small acknowledgements ( um, hum"," oh year" Sure")
Summarize--repeat or paraphrase
Ask Questions get clarification or elaboration

67 Understand Media Literacy

No TV month
How many commercials per hour?  What persuasive techniques are used? What is the structure of a sitcom? What stories are on the local news and why were they chosen?

Teach a unit on internet literacy/ digital citizenship

"Getting information off the internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant"

Mitchell Kapor


70 Take Action:  Developing Media Literacy


Teach visual literacy
consistent message--message about success in some area should include pictures of you being successful, all pictures should match subject matter

National Archives and Register media analysis sheets

71 Taxonomy of internet domain names--what do they stand for and how reliable is the info found on these sites

.com
.org
.net
.gov
.edu
.info
.me
.us

Teach Wikipedia as tool and topic
--ease of editing, view history

1st source of info not last


Pacific Tree Octopus

U Conn researchers asked 25  7th graders to review website.  All found the website to be "very credible"

Have students peruse the website and then look for clues that it is a hoax

Teach students to find the source of online content

"about" or "About us" tabs--research people or group on the website

Truncate--shorten address to the domain suffix (.com, .net )


Google--before including info from a website research source of info

Find website owners

Teach internet reading

• web pages read in "F" pattern across top 2or 3 lines, then down a bit halfway across then down left edge
• 19-27 seconds per page
• browsing, scanning, keyword spotting, one-time reading & and non linear reading

Discuss

How internet changes reading habits

how and why to resist hyperlinks--focus on research question 

how web pages are structured and traps build into them

schmoop--award winning website, but includes ads, pop ups 

81 Require multiple sources--find youtube video, articles, blogs, etc about a topic and discuss which is most credible? most evidence? most persuasivee?which techniques worked to affect opinion?  Which one is best site?

81 Teach students to use internet evaluation forms see p 82 for form

Ch 5 Questioning and Reasoning

Standard 3

Evaluate a speaker's point of new, reasoning and use of evidence and rhetoric, identifying any fallacious reasoning or exaggerated or distorted evidence. 

Argument is a series of statements that lead to a logical conclusion

question statements to examine argument

Take action: developing questioning skills
 Question starters

• Can you explain what you mean by
• do you disagree with
• is there evidence for
• have you considered
• why would the author/speaker/expert believe
• would you agree that
• how did you know
• would you try to convince us that
• what would someone on the other side think about...
• Why would he
• what do you thing she was feeling when
• why did the character decide to
• What would have happened if
• How did the speaker's style contribute to the feeling of 
• What do you think we are supposed to feel about
• Have you ever felt like...

95 "Platonic Seminars"

Discussion with small group in Socrates role.  Socrates is responsible for asking questions once a claim is made. They may not respond with anything other than a question. No "good point" or "yes"

Require note taking

• write each speaker's name in discussion
• after the name write at least one comment the speaker made
• if you think of a question based on what the speaker said, write it down

96 Give students process models for analyzing evidence

statistics

facts

examples/individual

expert opinions

98 Take Action: Developing Reasoning Skills

Logic

induction

deduction

syllogism

101 Reasoning errors 

• attacking the person instead of content
• circular reasoning I like ice cream because I like ice cream
• cause vs correlation correlation is not causation eating skittles before getting an "A" on the test does not mean skittles are the key to academic success
• derailing--purposefully changing the topic to come up with something easier to argue
• posing a fake argument-misstating the opposing view to make it look worse
• distracting with emotion- diverting attention by using an emotional appeal
• changing the burden of proof--forcing the other side to disprove your point
• generalizing--taking one example and making a general statement "I was in Paris last summer and the weather in France is awful"
• either/or--suggesting there are only two possible answers
• ignoring some facts--selecting only facts whhich support you point
• prejudice/stereotype--making claim based on personal bias

Teach persuasion techniques

104 Teach rhetorical devices

• allusion
• analogy
• hyperbole
• parallel structure
• alliteration

have students find others

Ch 6 Speaking Well

Standard 4

"Present information, findings, and supporting evidence clearly, concisely and logically such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning and the organization, development, substance and style are appropriate to purpose, audience and task."

Almost all emphasis is on building the speech

standard mostly focuses on informational aspect of speeches--competent speakers must tell a great story

Building  the speech                            
information, evidence,: concisely, logically such that listeners cna follow the organization, development, substance

 Performing the speech
style appropriate to purpose

114 Take Action:  Developing message-building skills

use real language
be specific and concrete
use organizers  www.readwritethink.org
provide a thinking map
www.thinkingmaps.com

122 Multiple Trait Speaking--PVLEGS

P--poise appearing calm and confident
V-voice--making every word heard
L-Life--putting passion into the voice
E--Eye contact--engaging each listener
G-Gestures--matching motions to words
S-Speed--pacing for a powerful performance

Take Action--Developing Delivery Skills

expect more
use mini speeches to practice key skills
video "rough draft" of speech
students watch and give feedback

127 figure 6.3 graphic design presentation rubric


Ch 7 Incorporating Multimedia

Standard 5
Make strategic use of digital media (e.g., textual, graphical, audio, visual, and interactive elements) in presentations to enhance understanding of findings, reasoning and evidence and to add interest

need interactive elements
135 Presentation literacy--having the skills and competencies to analyze, evauate an dcreate presentations using a variety of tools and methods

ask students to justify their use of technology or media

138  Presentation Design Principles
Simplicity--why that picture? for clarification? add to or take away from words? why that sound?

Focus--what is the first thing you notice?

Color-why choose color, why change color

Structure-visual organization

141 Take action: developing Presentation Literacy

Find multiple media sources on one topic--powerpoint, video, poster, audio description
Which did you prefer?  Why? what worked better in the powerpoint than video?

Life after death by powerpoint  by Don McMillan--4 min

Death by Powerpoint 20 min

142  Media Awareness Questions

• How did the images make you feel about...
• How did the music make you feel?
• Did the lighting contribute to the overall feeling of 
• Why were the shots constructed the way they were?
• What did the editing/montage do for the effect of
• Did the images used help convey the message?
• Did the interaction at the whiteboard add or detract from teh learning
• Did the slides seem to complex? too simple?
• Did the design of the visual aids work for you? Add or detract?

144 figure 7.3 tool for creating video presentations

Tips for avoiding listener view fatigue

• eliminate unnecessary words, sounds or pictures
• highlight
• don't ask the audience to read words you are saying
• put key words right on  the image
• synchronize pictures and explanations

145 teach design principles and include them in assessments

teach selection bias

teach power of music and images

use 21st C tools

teach advanced media skills

Ch 8 Adapting for the Occasion

Standard 6

"Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, demonstrating command of formal English when indicated or appropriate"

There is a culture of power--communicative strategies, presentation of self--ways of talking, writing, dressing and interacting

understand audience--to whom are you speaking?"Is this going to work with this audience at this time?

157 Take Action: Developing students ability to adjust for audience
Audience Analysis

1. Who is going to be in the audience?
2. What do they already know about the topic?
3. What do they need to know about the topic?
4. What mood are they in?
5. What  are they expecting?
6. How will they be experiencing the presentation?
7. What content adjustments need to be made to suit this audience?
8. How should visuals be constructed to meet the audience's needs?
9. What kind of language will match the language of the audience?

Use digital tech to provide practice addressing different audiences

skype google hangouts

Understand different types of speeches
informative-provides info
persuasive- convince listeners
entertaining
demonstrative

Take action:  developing students sense of task

Assign different speech situations
historical figure to provide eyewitness account


World's greatest expert activity--careful listening
two people sit in front of room
a student asks a question about topic
expert 1 begins answer

teacher claps

expert 2 continues sentence from where expert 1 left off

role play

Ch 9  Assessing Listening and Speaking


170 Take Action: evaluating listening

171-2 listening rubric

• Gives sufficient evidence of the ability to...
• includes specific references to places where...
• Adequately supports...

Evaluate questioning ability

after presenting info have students question rather than give answers
watch video and write questions

Why did director...

173 Evaluate reasoning

175 assess speech construction
rubric--equal weight for building and performing

evaluate everyday speaking

everyday verbal communications need to use pvlegs


choose a day to assess poise, when students speak
185
involve audience in scoring

fig 9.5 score sheet for student eval for speech