Exploring sound effects in recorded listening exercises can reveal language clues
It is important to encourage students to employ previously acquired knowledge gained through other classes or from life experiences when trying to make sense of English. One method to encourage students to use this knowledge is to focus on background sound effects and noises, i.e., non-linguistic features such as ring tones, doorbells, street noises and mechanical sounds included in many recordings.
Most sound effects can be placed on two interesting and very different continua.
The first continuum stretches from readily identifiable sound effects, such as traffic and airport announcements to those that cannot be identified, perhaps as they are not very clear. The second continuum includes sound effects unidentifiable as to country of origin to those that can be identified, for example, telephones and, sometimes, the language spoken in the background.
Identifying noises
As this exercise requires students to use non-linguistic clues to help understand what they are hearing, the content should be somewhat difficult. The goal is to have them use these noises to make some sense of what they are listening to and not vice versa. I find with a published material that recordings from later in the same text or from more advanced texts are ideal.
The first important step is to have students identify what they have heard. Before we listen to a recording, perhaps even before I have completed any pre-listening activities, I ask them to listen and make a list of everything they hear.
After the first listening, I elicit ideas from the class and write them on the board. A second and third listening often encourage students to add to the list. If they are uncertain about vocabulary, they can stop the recording and discuss what they have heard. When they have been able to identify most of the background noises, we can begin to use them to make sense of the recording.
Discussing noises
While I do not overtly mention the two different continua, we begin to classify the sounds. For example, which sounds might be heard in Thailand. Telephones, police sirens and ambulances are good examples of these sounds. In particular, with telephones, many students realise that while they of course, know it is a telephone, more importantly they know it is not a phone in Thailand.
It is great if the country of origin can be determined, because it might offer students insight into what is being said. This asks them to draw on one of many experiences gained outside class that they may be able to use to help understand a recording.
Another set of background noises are those unique to a particular environment. This includes arrival and departure information at airports, train and bus stations or sound effects from parks, zoos or stores.
These are also discussed in terms of where the conversation might be taking place and, as such, what the speakers might be discussing. While student answers might not be correct, it is encouraging them to use previously acquired knowledge to guess what speakers might be saying.
Adding noises
If a recording has some background noises, but could use more, I ask students for ideas. This exercise works best when students have been able to understand most, if not all of a recording, but perhaps found the content a bit dull.
I divide them into small groups and give them a tape script. Once they have reviewed the content and learned the vocabulary, they provide a secondary sound track. Encouraged to use their imagination and with the variety of electronic equipment they carry, students often use a wide range of sounds from roosters crowing to waves at a beach.
Once they are ready, it is show time with each group adding their background sounds while everyone else listens. Invariably quite funny and creative, students often have questions about different sounds a group has used leading to questions and conversation among each other.
If students are encouraged to listen to and use background sounds in a recording to help make sense of what they are listening to, another knowledge base is being actively employed in trying to understand English.
In doing so, students often come to realise they know a great deal from experiences in and out of school that they can use to help them to understand something in English.
