General Strategies to

learn Listening and

Speaking
BY PABLO CASTRO
 Strategies
 According to Brace et at., (2013), effective speakers and listeners use
a
variety of strategies to comprehend and construct spoken language.
In this
context, when learning to listen and speak, it is important to
remember that
you need to select and use a wide range of strategies, and to
understand
that, such strategies will be determined by context, text form and
audience
(and the way in which you are familiar with these three features).
Some
strategies will be more appropriate to use during speaking and
listening;
others are more suited to reflection and review.
 Predicting
 this strategy, as you might remember, helps you to activate your prior
knowledge of a context or topic, allowing you to combine what you know with
the new information. Predictions will be based on whether you are familiar or
not with the topic and the context, and how familiar you are with the speaker
or audience. Consequently, a piece of advice for you is to make personal
predictions before and during speaking and listening processes; in this way,
you will be more prepared to deal with listening and speaking activities. For
instance, you, as a speaker, have to predict the type of spoken text that will
be appropriate to a particular purpose, audience and situation; on the other
hand, during listening activities, to be an effective listener, you need to
adjust and refine your initial predictions about a speaker’s message as you
receive information and make new connections.
 Self-talk
 This strategy, according to Wilson (2008), involves the running
commentary that goes on inside our heads, usually without any
verbalization. Thus, effective speakers and listeners continually use
this strategy as a part of their thinking process. Self-talk is how we
make sense of our thinking and reflect on our actions. Self-
questioning (a strategy that will be focused next) is part of self-talk;
the two strategies usually function together. Using Think- alouds to
verbalize, this strategy helps you build understanding of the strong
links between thinking and actions. By giving voice to your thoughts,
you will be able to perform better and use a specific structure for
reflective practice.
 Self-questioning
 his strategy, Brace et at., (2013) describe it as the use of
questions to help learners comprehend and make meaning; therefore, dear
students in order to become effective speakers and listeners, you need to
continually think and ask as many questions as possible before, during
and after speaking and listening interactions. Such questions are often
spontaneous and natural, with one question leading to the next. Questions
can refer to content, style, text form, important messages, events, actions
and inferences; they can also connect with predictions, the speaker’s intent
or attempts to clarify meaning. In this regard, it is important that you
develop this strategy since it helps us clarify our understanding, examine new
concepts, reason, analyze and hypothesize.
 Visualizing and Creating Images
 this strategy, creating mental images promotes the use of prior
knowledge. Consequently, dear students, in order to become
effective
speakers and listeners, it is vital to use all of your senses to
continually create mental images. Such images can be visual,
auditory, olfactory, kinesthetic or emotional. This strategy will
enhance your abilities to make predictions, draw inferences,
interpret information, remember details, and assist with overall
comprehension and memory.
 Code-switching
 This term is used to describe the process a speaker uses to alternate
between one or more languages or dialects, as in the case of speakers of
English as a Second Language (ESL) or English as a Second Dialect (ESD).
If code-switching is produced within a language, it is referred to as style
shifting. Even in our first language, we are code-switchers; for instance, our
conversation is not the same when we talk with our friends as if we speak
with an elder person, boss or supervisor. In this context, you should be
aware of how we code-switch to suit a particular situation or social context
in Standard English. The development of this strategy will enable you to
be competent users of English in a variety of contexts; a skill essential for
success in your professional life (Brace et at., 2013).
 Determining importance
 This is another strategy in which it is important to choose the
appropriate content, text form and conventions to suit the intended
purpose and audience. It consists of selecting which information to
retain in short- or long-term memory, and which information to
respond to. Dear students, it is necessary to keep in mind that when
you were learning the language skills of listening and speaking in the
early stages, you probably had a limited ability to determine
importance and might have included irrelevant details, as for
example, giving too much detail when retelling an event or story.
 Paraphrasing and Summarizing

According to Brace et at., (2013), when learners become competent on

the use of the previous strategy (Determining importance), they will be
more capable to paraphrase and summarize. Speakers and listeners use
paraphrasing to restate a spoken text in a way that retains the sense of
meaning and provides clarification for understanding. This strategy requires
you as speaker or listener restate the essence of the original text in a more
concise way. On the other hand, summarizing is important because it helps
the listener to be aware of what is being told. Dear students, not only the
previous strategy allows you to paraphrase and summarize; but also the
use of the predicting and synthesizing strategies. We have to recognize
that learning the strategy of paraphrasing and summarizing is complex.
 Connecting
 As it is stated by Keene and Zimmerman (1997), it is important to
mention that effective speakers and listeners will talk about, listen to
and respond to topics they know and care about. In this way, students
are able to make strong connections between their prior knowledge
and the information they speak about and listen to. The meaning that
learners obtain from any oral communication is interlaced with the
meaning they brought to it.
 Comparing and Contrasting
 This strategy, according to Brace et at., (2013), aims to make
comparisons, it is related to this and it is also an extension of the
connecting strategy. In this case dear students, when you make
connections to your previous knowledge, you also start to make
comparisons with the information you are receiving. When you make
comparisons, you start by asking questions as for example, how is this
information different to what I have heard before? Or How is it
different from what I already believe about this issue? Why is
their opinion different or similar to mine?
 Inferring
 Brace et at., (2013) acknowledge that this strategy is used by
effective speakers and listeners whose purpose is to take meaning
from spoken texts, and then add our own ideas to make inferences.
During the process of inferring, you have to make predictions, draw
conclusions and make judgements to create your own interpretations.
This strategy will allow you to move beyond the literal text and make
assumptions about matters that were not actually stated when you
listen to a conversation. Some suggestions on how to make inferences
can be made by using acoustic, vocal or lexical information within the
text to guess the meaning of unfamiliar language items, or to fill in
missing information.
 Synthesizing
 In order to compose and understand text, speakers and listeners use
synthesizing to put together information from different sources,
pretty much like when we put a jigsaw together. Dear students, it is
important that when you speak and listen, you continually reflect on
what you have just said or just heard. In this way, you will be able to
keep track of your thinking and maintain meaning. If you consciously
use this strategy, you will be able to continually monitor your
understanding, thus you will have the ability to pull together or retell
information that you have heard. Some processes that happen during
the synthesis include connecting, comparing, determining
importance, posing questions and creating images (Brace et at.,
2013).
 Self-monitoring and Self-correction
 These are the two last strategies for speaking and listening. In this
regard, according to Brace et at., (2013), speakers and listeners
continually reflect on what they are saying and hearing to confirm
their understanding. Therefore, dear students, if understanding
breaks down for you as speaker or listener, it is recommended that
you use repair strategies to retain or clarify meaning; for example,
repeating, re-casting, paraphrasing, summarizing and asking
questions. It is important to say that the ability to monitor our own
understanding requires practice and in order to make suitable
corrections if comprehension is not present is quite complex; hence,
it is necessary the effective use of the strategies previously discussed.
Reference:
 Brace, J., Brockhoff, V., Sparkes, N., & Tuckey, J. (2013). Speaking
and listening resource book. Port Melbourne, Vic: Rigby.
 Keene, E. & Zimmerman, S. (1997). Mosaic of Thought: Teaching.
 Wilson, J. (2008). How to teach listening. Essex: Pearson Education
Limited.