Rebekah Sidman-Taveau, Lecturer, EFS

EFS 688 – Stanford University

LISTENING AND DISCUSSION SYLLABUS

Summer 2006: TF 1:15 – 3:05, 60-62N

Instructor : Rebekah Sidman-Taveau
E-mail : rtaveau@yahoo.com
Aide : Dayoung Lee
E-mail: dayoungl@stanford.edu
Meeting place : 60-62N
Meeting time : TF 1:15 – 3:05
Office hours : Tuesdays after class or by appointment Tuesday morning.
Course website : http://www.e-sterical.com/stanford/coursedesc.html

INTRODUCTION

The goal of this course is to help you improve your listening and discussion skills so that you may participate more effectively in the academic setting. The primary focus will be upon academic language; however, non-academic material will be included for the purposes of developing listening and speaking strategies.

COURSE DESCRIPTION

We will investigate and apply a variety of skills and strategies as we listen to academic lectures, videos, and audio materials. The goal will be to increase your comprehension of reduced forms, idiomatic expressions, and rapid speech. We will also integrate content from the listening materials into discussions. We will hold small group and whole class discussions reflective of university classes in the United States. The purpose of these speaking activities will be to build your small group and seminar discussion skills.

ADDITIONAL LECTURES: The 2006 Frederick Hillier Summer Lecture Series

In addition to our regular class meetings, every Tuesday you will be required to attend a lecture given by a Stanford faculty member. The lectures will provide authentic listening practice and interesting topics for our discussions. They will also enable you to have contact with Stanford faculty from a variety of fields.

Day/Time : Tuesdays 11:00 am to 11:50 Education 128

Ken Romeo has created a website with videos of the lectures from last year. You may preview some of the lectures (Greenberg and Hillier) or just listen to a professor (Greely) by going to: http://www.stanford.edu/~kenro/efs2005/lecturetop.html

You may also review lectures from this summer at: http://cgi.stanford.edu/~dept-lc/wiki/efs/2006summer/LectureSeries/LectureWiki.php?n=Main.HomePage

Lectures will be posted shortly after they are given.

HOMEWORK

Homework will include regular quizzes and transcriptions as well as occasional computer based exercises and readings.

Collaborative Assignment: Lecture Quizzes

Weekly quizzes based on the lectures will be posted on CourseWork at:
http://coursework-pilot.stanford.edu
You may collaborate on these quizzes and use any materials to complete them. The quizzes will be due by 1:00 PM every Friday.

Individual Assignment: Transcription

On CourseWork, you will find short audio files in .mp3 format. You will listen to the passage, transcribe, and submit it to CourseWork. You may listen to the passage as many times as you wish; however, you must work alone on this assignment. Do not work with anyone else on the transcription. The transcription will be administered under Honor Code guidelines. Any collaboration will be considered a violation of the honor code. Your transcription work is due by 1:00 PM the following Tuesday.

CRITERIA FOR PASSING

The summer session is too short to allow for absences. You are required to attend each class and each lecture in the Fred Hillier Lecture Series (Tuesdays at 11am). To pass this course, you must have 90% or better attendance. You are required to participate actively in all class activities and to complete all homework assignments. We will be using CourseWork and e-mail for distribution and submission of homework, so please check your e-mail and the CourseWork website regularly.

MATERIALS

This course will be focused around the weekly lectures in the Fred Hillier Lecture Series. The lectures will be a source of material for in class activities and homework. Handouts and website locations will also be provided. I will recommend that you print out some of the online materials. Please keep a notebook to organize the handouts and materials so that you may bring them to class and refer back to them*.

DISABILITY NOTICE

Any student who needs special help getting to class, hearing in class, seeing written material, or doing some other task associated with the course must discuss the need with the instructor during the first week of class. Further, the student must obtain professional diagnosis of the need area by the University's Disability Resource Center.

*If you would like additional practice or materials, some recommended texts and websites are as follows:

Texts with CD's or cassette tapes:

Hagen, Stacy and Patricia Grogan 1992. Sound Advantage A Pronunciation Book . NJ: Prentice Hall Regents.

Kozyrev, Joann Rishel. 2002. Talk it Up! Listening, Speaking, and Pronunciation (1) , 2 nd edition. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Kozyrev, Joann Rishel and Marni Baker Stein. 2001. Talk it Through! Listening, Speaking, and Pronunciation (2) . Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Kozyrev, Joann Rishel. 2002. Talk it Over! Listening, Speaking, and Pronunciation (3) , 2 nd edition. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Schoenberg, Irene E. 2004. Speaking of Values: Conversation and Listening . White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.

Websites

The English Sound System*

Basic sounds (phonemes): www.auburn.edu/~murraba/spellings.html

Rhythm: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_timing

Stress: www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/word-stress.htm

Intonation: www.americanaccent.com/intonation.html

Linking: www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/linking.htm

Reduced forms: www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/ReducedForms.html  

Video and audio for listening practice:

English, Baby! http://www.englishbaby.com/ .

Randall's Cyber Listening Lab www.esl-lab.com .

Scientific American Frontiers www.pbs.org/saf/archive.htm .