Intensive Listening Part 3

Listening Strategy

For this listening practice, we will use one video for a few different activities. You will practice with small parts of the video and then watch the complete video.

Objectives

Understand main ideas
Understand major details

TED Talk: "10 ways to have a better conversation" by Celeste Headlee

Here is the complete TEDTalk. The transcript is available here.

Exercise 1: Discussion Questions

Which of the 10 points do you think is most important? Explain your answer with specific reasons.

Tell your partner about a specific experience you had with either a great conversation or a bad conversation. Remember to include specific details about the situation and what made it good or bad. Your explanation should use the past.

Why do you think the speaker started by speaking more generally (ex. research) before giving her personal advice? Do you think this is an effective organizational strategy?

Celeste Headlee expresses an opinion that technology has a negative impact on our ability to have good face-to-face conversations with each other. Do you agree or disagree with this opinion? Give specific reasons and examples to explain your opinion.

The research from Pew that she shares shows that people (specifically Americans) are more divided than before and less likely to compromise. In your experience, do you agree that people (generally speaking, based on your observations) are becoming more divided? Give specific reasons and examples to explain your opinion.

How would you change this topic to have a different purpose or share this same information with a different audience?

Intensive Listening Review

Hopefully by the end of this practice, you are able to see how taking your time with one listening passage can benefit you. This is a great life-long learning strategy to have. Here are some tips for when you plan to do intensive listening practice on your own.

Choose a listening passage that has existing support.
- Accurate subtitles or transcript are necessary. Pre-made comprehension questions are a bonus!
Consider your purpose and level.
- Pick something shorter than 10 minutes. Listen to the first minute or two to see if you can understand the general idea immediately. Make sure to match the style with your goals. In other words, you probably shouldn't choose a tv show conversation if your goal is to be more comfortable answering phone calls at work.
Decide what strategies you want to practice.
- You don't have to do everything! Start with the strategies that you think will be most helpful for you.
Break up your practice!
- If you try to do all of this in one hour by yourself, you will most likely feel bored and tired. Do the practice with someone else to keep it interesting or do the practice in two sessions.