The Project: Lessons for developing listening comprehension

The Indonesian Language Project contains twenty, interactive, multimedia, listening-comprehension lessons for students of Indonesian, ranging from the intermediate-low to the advanced level on the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) listening proficiency scale. This project was funded by the U.S. Department of Education.

The lessons are delivered online in a web-browser interface for dual platform (PC and Macintosh) use. The lessons, which are based on authentic clips from contemporary Indonesian television and film footage, are developed using schema theory (Carrell and Eisterhold 1983, and Schank and Abelson 1977) and a communicative pedagogical approach (Omaggio Hadley 1993).

The three-fold objective of each lesson is 1) to teach listening strategies, 2) to develop cultural and linguistic knowledge, and 3) to move the student from intermediate-low to advanced level on the ACTFL listening proficiency scale.

Learners will develop knowledge of intonation patterns, speech acts and language functions, discursive practices, registers, pragmatics, socio-linguistic and cultural knowledge, as well as discrete linguistic knowledge (i.e. vocabulary and grammatical patterns).

The modules are intended for out-of-class use and designed to provide a challenging and motivating environment where learners can set their own pace (learner-centered) as they work through a variety of tasks and receive ample assistance and feedback.

We gratefully acknowledge the advice and basic template idea from the T4 (Transforming Teaching Through Technology) Project on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus directed by Professor Benjamin Rifkin.



References:

Carrell, P.L. and J. Eisterhold. "Schema Theory and ESL Reading Pedagogy." TESOL Quarterly 17 (1983): 553-573.

Kramsch, Claire. Context and Culture in Language Teaching. New York: Orford University Press, 1993.

Omaggio Hadley, Alice. Teaching Language in Context, Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 1993.

Schank, Roger and Robert Abelson. Scripts, Plans, Goals and Understanding: An Inquiry into Human Knowledge Structures. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1977.