Listening Flashcards
Mimimal responsess
The sounds that we omit in order to show our speaker we’re understanding.
Hedges
These are words that tone down the meaning of the following word (e.g. that’s a bit
odd) or add a note of intentional vagueness to what someone is saying (e.g. she’s
about thirty years old.)
Conversational historical present
When people are talking about something that happened in the past the verbs are
usually in the past tense, but they are sometimes in the present tense instead. The
present tense makes the discourse more involving and lively because events are
presented as if they were actually happening right now.
General extenders
These are phrases such as and stuff, and things, or something or and all that. They
often indicate that the previous word is part of a set, so they extend the meaning of
that word without having to specify all the members of the set.
Intensifiers
These are words like very or really that occur before an adjective or adverb and boost
the strength of its meaning (very fast, really delicious, well funny ).
Assimilation
This is the process by which a speech sound becomes similar or identical to a neighboring sound. For example: He’s a good player. (assimilation /d/-/p/)
Elision
This occurs when word boundaries involving a consonant and a vowel disappear, as we tend to drag final consonants to initial vowels or vice versa. For example: He went into the dark. /ˈwentɪntə/
Intrusion
When two vowel sounds meet, we tend to insert an extra sound which resembles either a /j/, /w/ or /r/, to mark the transition sound between the two vowels. For
example: happy –j– or sad; here –r– and there; get to
- w– it.
Linking
This is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase to help maintain good rhythm. For example: See you next week. (/nekswiːk/)
No overt response.
Learners do not have to do anything in response to the listening; however, facial expression and body language often show if they are following or not.
Short responses.
Learners perform actions, or provide some form of response to the listening activity.
Longer responses.
Learners provide full or longer responses, gather lengthy information, or reinterpret the text presented.
Extended responses.
This kind of activity is meant as a lead-in to extended reading, writing or speaking.
