Oral Communication Unit

Expectations

We are going to explore how listening helps us understand. We will also look at how speaking skills help us become effective communicators. Finally, we are going to reflect on the skills and strategies you have, and have developed in this unit.

Listening

Listening is a fundamental part of oral communication. Some questions to ask yourself:

1. Is there a difference between hearing and listening?

2. Why do we want you to learn to listen?

3. Can you get better at listening?

4. What does it mean to be an active listener?

Listening Tasks

Can you think of any other times you find yourself listening to understand? Here's a short list:

• oral text

  • poem aloud

  • podcast

  • video

  • song

  • speech

  • any text read aloud

• Class discussion

• Group work

• Presentation

• Lesson

• Broadcast

  • Video stream

  • Television

  • Film

  • Radio

  • Commercial

Listening Purposes

We listen for the following purposes:

• Understand points of view

• Identify main ideas and supporting details

• Identify bias

• Identify opinion

• Form mental images

• Identify two sides of an argument

• Gather information: W5H (Who, What, Where, When, Why, How)

• Pleasure

• Help us choose a position

• Help us prepare a counterargument

• Understand ideas

• Take notes

• Following instructions

Questions

Choose a listening task from the list, then:

1. Can you identify the purpose of these listening tasks?

2. Can you set a goal for the purpose?

5 Ways to Listen Better by Julian Treasure

Effective Communication for Listening and Speaking

When listening, remember to:

• focus on what is being said

• keep an open mind

• let the speaker finish before adding ideas

• respond with a question

• avoid sarcasm and put-downs

• consider your eye contact and body language

Who Listens Well?

Think about a person who you think listens well. Let's try to figure out how they do it.

With a partner, write down the answers to these questions:

1. What do you think a person who is actively listening looks like?

2. What do you think a person who is actively listening sound like?

Get ready to share your ideas with the class.

Active Listening Overview

Good listeners actively use strategies in order to encourage clear and complete communication between themselves and the speaker.

Listening Strategies and Skills

If we think about a strategy as an intentional choice, we can think of a skill that happens automatically. The difference between the two ideas is not always very clear. Read this list and decide if they are skills or strategies:

• prepare for listening, e.g., by making predictions and setting aside biases

• focus attention, e.g., by leaning toward the speaker

• paraphrase, or restate, what is heard

• respond verbally and non-verbally, e.g., by saying, “that’s interesting” and by nodding

• seek clarification, e.g., by posing questions at appropriate times

• use minimal encouragers, e.g., by saying “uh-hmmm”, or ask, “and what did you do then?”

• make connections

• mentally summarize

• assess the speaker’s authority

• continually assess the information, e.g., for accuracy and completeness

These strategies turn hearing into listening and help you understand what you are listening to, along with forming good listening etiquette.

Non-verbal Strategies

• Use gesture, such as nodding to communicate attention

• Use appropriate body language, such as sitting forward rather than leaning back

• Focus on the person speaking; minimize distractions for both speaker and listener

Verbal Strategies

• Paraphrase what you have heard: So, what I’m hearing is ...

• Empathize: I hear what you are saying. Do you mean that...?

• Clarify: I’m not sure I have this straight. I understand that...

• Summarize: Okay, may I summarize what I’ve heard...?

Reminders

• Before: If necessary, change locations to minimize distraction and give the speaker your full attention.

• During: Use posture and facial expressions to promote communication. A speaker will catch on if you “fake” it.

• After: When the speaker has finished, ask questions, restate what you have heard, or request clarification to make sure that you understood what was said.

Active Listening Self-Assessment Checklist

Use this checklist to evaluate your active listening. For each question, indicate S, I or U.

• Strengths

• area for Improvement

• Unsure

1. I make a conscious effort not to let my own feelings get in the way, e.g. I focus on understanding the speaker’s perspective.

2. I watch for a speaker’s body language and use this information to understand what I’m hearing.

3. I work at not being distracted by a speaker’s personal habits, such as clearing the throat.

4. I make adjustments when distractions interfere with effective listening, e.g., move closer to the speaker.

5. I anticipate what I will be hearing about and set a purpose for listening, e.g., listening to enjoy, listening to understand another point of view, or listening for specific information.

6. I check understanding, e.g. by checking what I hear against my predictions and adjusting my predictions if necessary.

7. I concentrate on what’s being said and on not letting my mind wander.

8. I consciously choose to pay attention to what is being spoken in the classroom, whether it’s a discussion or a reading aloud.

9. I ask that information be repeated or written on the board when I miss something.

10. I listen to empathize and make connections with others.

11. I listen to analyze what the person is saying.

12. I ask for clarification when I don’t understand.

13. I regularly summarize mentally what I’m hearing.

14. I am able to make effective notes from an oral presentation.

15. I make use of outlines or graphic organizers to identify important information.

16. I evaluate what a person says and how that person says it.

17. I am able to identify the main idea or gist of what a person says.

18. I recognize and recall main and supporting ideas in presentations.

Listening Comprehension Strategies

Listening comprehension strategies are tools that you can use before, during and after you have listened.

Strategy

• Ask yourself BEFORE

• Ask yourself DURING

• Ask yourself AFTER

Setting a purpose for listening

• Why am I listening to this text?

• Is what I’m hearing meeting my purpose for listening?

• Did I achieve my purpose? If not, why didn’t I?

Focusing and maintaining attention

• What will I do to stay focused? How will I minimize distractions?

• What is preventing me from paying attention? What more can I do to make sure my attention doesn’t wander?

• How well did I stay focused? What more could I have done to keep my attention on what I was listening to?

Monitoring understanding

• What do I already know about this topic that prepares me to understand? Does the title remind me anything I have heard about before?

• Does what I’m hearing fit with what I already know or think about this issue? What is not making sense?

• Now that I’ve finished listening, what is the text about? What am I unsure about? Did all parts of the text make sense?

Visualizing

• What images come to mind when I think about this topic?

• What am I ‘seeing’ in my mind’s eye? What sketches would capture what I am hearing?

• What image, literal or symbolic, captures the most important information in or feelings about this text?

Making Connections

• Based on the title or other information, what do I know that could be relevant to this text?

• What does this remind me of? How does this information connect to others texts, my own experiences or events and experiences beyond my classroom?

• Now that I’ve heard the whole text, with what events, texts, experiences, or knowledge do I group this text?

Questioning

• Based on the title, what are three things I want to know? The questions could begin with who, what, when, where, how, why, how much, which.

• What questions does what I’m hearing answer? What new questions does what I’m hearing raise?

• What do I still want to know about what I’ve heard?

Summarizing

• What kind of text am I going to hear, e.g., a story, an explanation, a description, a set of instructions? How will the information likely be organized? What graphic organizer will help me to summarize as I’m listening?

• What are the main ideas so far? Is the text organized as I anticipated? Do I need to reorganize my note- taking plan?

• What is the gist of what I’ve heard? What is the most important idea and three supporting details? How can I be sure I have the main idea? How can I be sure I’ve understood?

Inferring

• When I consider the topic, the title and the speaker, what do I predict this text will be about?

• What clues, in the text and in the speaker, are suggesting that there’s more to this than literal information? How does this oral text fit with my predictions? What predictions do I need to adjust?

• What knowledge not in the text did I need to use to make sense of this?

Organizing the Information Graphically

• What are the labels on the graphic organizer? Is information presented in the graphic organizer the same way it will be in what I’ll hear? Or is the information reorganized in the graphic organizer?

• Is there a space on the organizer for what I’m hearing? Am I hearing something I think is important that’s not on the organizer?

• How do my notes compare with my partner’s? Does the organizer capture all the important relationships between information?

The Doc Project

What is the The Doc Project? According to their website, "The Doc Project is where you'll hear the story you can't stop thinking about. Our original documentaries are Canadian in focus, universal in scope. Every week, we bring you high-stakes storytelling at its most artful and human — deeper stories that reveal our shared humanity. The Doc Project on CBC Radio. Stories that dive deeper." The Doc Project started in 2017, and they regularly broadcast new radio documentaries.

We are going to use CBC Radio's The Doc Project as our source for this unit.

What is a Radio Documentary?

CBC Radio's The Doc Project blogged about this question. Simply put, it is a story that has to be told. Here are the details:

A Radio Doc is Not:

• a magazine feature, if a magazine feature could talk

• ­an extended newscast ­

• a talk­tape, minus the irritating host who horns in on your piece

• ­an in­-depth exploration of an important or worthy issue ­

• a novel ­

• information

A Radio Doc is a story.

The documentarian needs to make choices to tell the story. That story needs:

• People being interviewed

• Both the audience and the people in the story are asked questions

• Key words or phrases

• Background sounds

• The documentary is edited in a way that reveals the story beginning middle end

• The listener travels to a physical location, or an intellectual journey or a curiosity quest

• The listener meets people

• The listener feels something

• The listener learns

• The listener is surprised

The Doc Project Activity

1. Listen to Meghan Mast's documentary, Resistance in the Bloodline.

2. Choose a listening comprehension strategy. Write down your answers for 'Before, During, After'.

3. Take jot notes as you listen.

4. Create 3 Main Idea Webs using your jot notes. Look for main ideas and supporting evidence.

5. Create at least 1 Venn Diagram using your jot notes. What two people or events will you choose?

6. Identify the important information and ideas in the documentary by taking the 3 Main Idea Webs along with your Venn Diagram and create a Concept Map.

7. Analyse the documentary, focus on the communication of information / ideas / issues / themes. How do these influence your response? Choose one of the three graphic organizers to finish this step.

8. Identify and analyse the perspectives and or biases in the documentary. Do these raise questions about your beliefs, values or identity? What is the role of power in the documentary? Choose one of the three graphic organizers to finish this step.

9. What choices did the documentarian make which effect the way you listened to it?

10. Make a connection between the ideas presented in the documentary with you, another text or the world.

11. Share your listening comprehension strategy with your partner. Compare your answers for 'Before, During, After'. When you are ready, share your answer with me in class.

12. Share your concept map with your partner. Compare your concept maps. What differences or similarities did you have? When you are ready, share your answer with me in class.

13. Share your Step 7 graphic organizer with your partner. When you are ready, share your answer with me in class.

14. Share your Step 8 graphic organizer with your partner. When you are ready, share your answer with me in class.

15. Save The Last Word Activity. Do the group participant's ideas make you consider modifying your own ideas? When you are ready, share your answer with me in class.

Taking Jot Notes

Taking jot notes is a excellent for focusing your listening, and it gives you something to go back to later.

Take jot notes as you listen.

• Next to the jot note, write down the time of the documentary so that you can go back and find that part later later.

• Keep the it short: No sentences! No punctuation!

• Focus on key words

• Note new details

• Interesting ideas: Indicate this with an underline, a star or my personal favourite ! or !!!

• When you have a question or are confused: Indicate this with a ???

Graphic Organizers

Save The Last Word for Me!

• Consider the text. Does one particular sentence (or group of sentences) “speak” to you? Is there a passage that seems to be particularly interesting or important?

• Choose a sentence or snippet of text that you especially like or that you think is most important.

• Write your selected piece of text on one side of your page.

• On the reverse side of your page, explain why you chose your piece of text. Give at least 3 supporting reasons for your selection.

• Form Groups of 4 to 6 students

• Share your ideas by taking turns with your group as follows:

  • the first student reads the selected passage without explaining why they chose it

  • each student responds, in turn, to the information shared

  • when each student has responded, the author of flips their sheet over and is able to have the last word as they explain their selection

  • repeat the process until everyone in the group has had the last word!

Speaking

As hearing is to listening, speaking is to talking. Speaking is an active form of communication. You will learn to use speaking skills and strategies to communicate with different audiences and for a variety of purposes.

Presenting

How can I improve my presentation skills?

• Understand and explain your content.

• Organize with a beginning, middle, and end.

• Emphasize key ideas (repeat, rephrase).

• Use strong, convincing language.

• Use visual aids.

• Repeat, rephrase key ideas.

• Practise.

• Prepare for questions.

Effective Presentation Skills Checklist

You can use this checklist on your own presentation, or have a partner evaluate you.

• Is the topic presented clearly and logically?

• Is the presentation clearly organized with an introduction, middle, and conclusion?

• Does the speaker have a thorough knowledge of the subject?

• Did the speaker gather information from a variety of sources?

• Did the speaker use visual aids to support the presentation?

• Did the speaker use appropriate tone and language for a classroom presentation?

• Did the speaker use effective eye contact with the audience?

• Did the speaker talk fluently without false starts?

• Did the speaker vary the volume of speech?

• Did the speaker vary the rate of speech?

• Did the speaker articulate clearly?

• Did the speaker use conjunctions effectively? (e.g., and, then, because)

• Did the speaker explain unfamiliar terms to others?

• Did the speaker talk for the appropriate amount of time?

• Did the speaker avoid unnecessary movements such as shuffling, toe tapping and shaking?

• Did the speaker involve the audience in the presentation?

• Did the speaker engage and inspire the audience?

Presenting Essays: The Seminar

One way of presenting an essay is the class seminar. Your job in a seminar is to convince your audience of the validity of your viewpoint - based on convincing evidence, creative arguing, and effective speaking skills. Remember, you are the expert on the topic. You must appear (and be) knowledgeable about it.

During your seminar always remember who your audience is: the students in your class. Although the teacher may be assessing your presentation, it is the students to whom it is addressed. Engage them right from the outset. Involve them actively. At the very least, provide opportunities for them to ask questions.

Planning a Seminar

1. Begin by setting a context for your topic (e.g., make connections to something read in the course or bring in a related newspaper or magazine article). If you are presenting a novel, for example, and a plot summary is necessary, it should be limited to two or three sentences - only what the students must know in order to understand your presentation. The best approach is to introduce information briefly, as needed, throughout the seminar.

2. Examine your arguments carefully. Consider whether handouts, blackboard notes, or charts might make it easier for the class to understand particular sections of the paper. Think about how to point out the ways in which your arguments and related evidence support your thesis (e.g., refer frequently to a large-type printout of the thesis on chart paper or an overhead).

3. Clearly separate the sections of the essay. Do you want to have a key question or two at the end of each section to ensure the class has understood your main points? What other kinds of markers might you want to use (e.g., transitions, chart or overhead summary) to signal that you're moving from one section or argument to the next?

4. Ensure that you have a strong conclusion. You may want to reinforce your conclusion with additional material, such as an excerpt from an appropriate text that reinforced your view, or a summary chart that diagrams how the key points have led you to your inevitable conclusion. Consider how you might use an effective analogy pull together your thesis, arguments, and conclusion in an unusual and memorable way.

Characteristics of a Good Seminar

• based on thorough research and careful planning

• presented using good oral skills (e.g., make sure you can be heard clearly, used varied tones for emphasis, make eye contact with the students - not just the teacher)

• is not read, but is not necessarily memorized either. You should be so familiar with your material that brief outlined phrases (perhaps on small cards) are enough to remind you of the next point or section.

• includes visuals (e.g., graphs, charts, overheads) and/or technology (such as PowerPoint)

• uses overheads, board notes, or student handouts. These might include a summary of key points or headings so that students can make point-form notes while listening to your presentation.

• creates opportunities to engage the audience (e.g., relate an effective anecdote, ask a thought-provoking question, show a clip from a relevant video)

• seeks the involvement of the student audience (e.g., indicate when you will accept questions - at certain breakpoints, when you ask the class a question, at the end, or at any time)

• uses clear methods of organization

Checklist Seminar Presentation

• Do the opening statements include the thesis and a description of content that supports it? Is the opening brief to ensure that more time is allocated for the arguments?

• Is information organized step by step?

• Is all information clearly related and supportive of the thesis?

• Are all difficult words or concepts clearly explained?

• Have you focused on the students audience?

• Is delivery clear and audible with varied tones for emphasis?

• Are knowledge and confidence displayed in both presentation and class interactions?

• Are visuals carefully prepared and supportive?

OC 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 2.7

The Doc Project Assignment

We have now finished the in class version of The Doc Project Activity. For your assignment, you will:

1. Choose a partner

2. Choose a documentary from The Doc Project archive.

3. Complete all the steps of The Doc Project Activity.

4. Present your findings with your partner. Use the following note to help you prepare:

   • Presenting

   • Effective Presentation Skills Checklist

   • Presenting Essays: The Seminar

   • TED's secret to great public speaking

   • How Not to Make a Presentation

   • How to avoid death by PowerPoint

5. Build your presentation with your school Google account using Google Slides.

6. Hand in your assignment in our Google Classroom