神田外語大学2003年度シラバス

　　英語総合講座III-44　

HISAIZUMI TSURUO 久泉　鶴雄	4単位
	3～4年
	後期

Pursuing Strategies for Listening Comprehension of Broadcast News in British English

The goal of this course is to acquire skills and strategies for comprehending broadcast news in British English. The BBC TV news and ITN TV news broadcast early in the morning on NHK Satellite 1, and sometimes The World , the BBC radio news broadcast irregularly on Saturday morning during another radio news program The Public Radio News on AFN, are recorded into cassette tapes and studied in this course.
In order to develop high proficiency in comprehending broadcast news in British English, it is necessary first to have a basic knowledge about RP (received pronunciation), and to have ample knowledge about the people and the society in the United Kingdom, and then it will become a routine work in and outside the class to make an effort for the rough understanding of the content of the news and to continue the strenuous studying of various sound changes in spoken English.
The first step to comprehend broadcast English is to recognize the topic of the news, the second is to be able to comprehend the headline of each news and to be able to grasp the central idea of the entire news if the headline is not provided, and the third step is to be able to comprehend the main point of every sentence. If you pass through all these steps successfully you are sure to be able to summarize the whole news in your own words.
If you fail to comprehend the main ideas of some sentences, all you have to do is to select and pick up key words or expressions by listening carefully and try to guess at the messages those sentences carry by giving full play to your imagination. Predicting what kind of information may follow the present description, or predicting what type of English expression may follow the part of the expression you are listening to will also help you to perceive more precisely the sounds of English you are examining.
It is sometimes impossible for most Japanese college students to catch completely and understand with easiness every word of a given news item spoken in English, even though they complete comprehending of the overall message conveyed by the news.
Therefore, it becomes necessary for the students to start exploration of various types of sound changes in oral English and to cope with other difficulties in listening comprehension.
The hardest and the most important part of the class activities is the detailed study of perceptual problems in listening comprehension, i.e. the exploration of ellipsis and various types of sound changes, and other types of difficulties which can be coped with the knowledge of the grammar and usage of the English language.

評価方法：

(1) Attendance policy. If a student is absent from one 90-minute class period, he or she will lose 5% out of 100% grade points. If they are late for class they will lose 3%.
(2) Class participation: 50%. Students must prepare for the class participation at home by listening to the tape, by examining the meaning and usage of unfamiliar words and phrases, by interpreting parts of the news which they can manage to, and by transcribing whatever they can catch by intent listening. The degree of students’ preparation will be checked individually during the class and the evaluation will be recorded
(3) Quiz: 50%. A quiz will be given every Friday to check whether or not the students have completed the study of full details in the preceding class.
(4) Term-end exam. Those who fail to gain 60% by (1), (2), and (3) can be saved by this test if they can get more than 60 points out of 100, but the maximum grade point will not exceed 60.

参考文献：

Handouts, and photocopied newspaper articles.English newspapers and weekly magazines published in Japan.Internet news in English..
CVS News, ABC News, CNN News, National Public Radio News on AFN / Paul Harvey News and Commentary on AFN / AFN local news / Public announcements during the station breaks on AFN / The World, BBC international radio news, broadcast on Saturday through AFN / BBC news, ITN news, CNN news, ABC news on NHK satellite TV / BBC and CNN news on CS satellite.
Handouts in English

注意事項：

Bring two 60-minute normal type

cassette tapes to the first class in LL. Students need to have a strong motivation for comprehending broadcast news in English. Perseverance is highly requested to study spoken English in full details.

授業計画――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

１．	(1)The difference between RP ad GA / The difference of vocabulary between BrE and AmE / Information about watching and listening to BBC TV news, ITV news, and BBC radio news (2)Let’s listen to several items of latest TV news that have been broadcast by BBC recently. What’s the topic of each news item?
２．	(3)What’s happened in each event? Did you hear the headline of the news? What is each news about? Can you tell me the central idea of each item of the news? (4)Let’ pick up one of the news. Are there any parts of the news you cannot understand? Where are they? In which sentences? Do you understand the other sentences? Can you say the main points of each sentence in the news?
３．	(5)Watch and listen to the news once again. Do you understand it very well? If so,How about writing the summary of the news in your own words? (6)Let’ transcribe every sentence in the news to find whether or not we’ve understood everything in the news correctly, and also to find several parts of the news the pronunciation of which are unfamiliar to speakers of Japanese.
４．	(7)Let’s analyze and identify the nature of difficulties in perceiving some specific sounds of English which appear to be unfamiliar to speakers of Japanese. (8)Let’s review part of English phonetics which is related to sound changes, and also part of English phonology which deals with pitch, juncture, and stress shifting.
５．	(9)Can you distinguish each independent sentence from another in case you listen to a group of sentences spoken quickly with one breath, i.e. without any pause in between? How do you cope with that problem? Let’s think about the importance of some strategies to help you on such occasions. (10)Keep up with the flow of the main stream of meaning; in other words, try to follow the context, first of all.
６．	(11)Does a declarative sentence always end with a falling tune? Are all of the sentences ending with a rising tune yes-no questions? Pay attention to pitch. (12)Try to find conjunctions between sentences. Be well acquainted with the distinctions between strong and weak forms of conjunctions.
７．	(13)Check the presence of conjunctions and analyze the inner structure of a longish sentence, if you cannot say the number of clauses included in what seems to be a sentence. (14)Pay attention to inflectional endings. Don’ t miss the plural and possessive ߝs endings in nouns, the conjugational ߝs or ߝ(e)d endings in finite verbs, and the final ߝs ending in some adverbs. You must cope with ellipsis in spoken English. Study the latest news in British English.
８．	(15)So many article are used in English. Don’t miss them in listening. Make full use of your knowledge about the use of articles in English, but pay attention to the rhythm of spoken English and connect that to the use of reduced forms.Study the latest news in British English. (16)Study the reduced forms of prepositions. Make full use of your knowledge about some verbs and adjectives requiring specific prepositions to follow them.You can also make use of your knowledge about multi-word verbs which comprise of prepositional verbs and phrasal prepositional verbs beside phrasal verbs which consist of verb plus adverbial particles. Study the latest news in British English.
９．	(17)Study the weak forms of auxiliaries. Memorize some typical sound patterns of verb phrases which consist of several auxiliaries and a main verb and pronounced quickly in a breath. Study the latest news in British English. (18)Study the weak forms of pronouns. Study also the relation between the selection of strong forms and the semantic emphasis of a certain pronoun in a context. Study the latest news in British English.
10．	(19)Study ellipsis in spoken English and get acquainted with the causes of ellipsis. Study the latest news in British English. (20)Study the change of pronunciation resulted from the linking of a word ending to the initial sound of the following word. Study the latest news in British English.
11．	(21)Study set phrases which are often used for the introduction of a regular news program, the changing of topics, attracting the audience’ attention, and so on. Study the latest news in British English. (22)Study the reduced forms of and, in, and an, which are not distinguishable unless you study the context where those function words are used. .Study the latest news in British English.
12．	(23)Study the preposition with which is often hard to identify in spoken English. Study the latest news in British English. (24)Some features in the grammar of broadcast English. Listen to some of the latest news in British English.
13．	(25)Study the latest news in British English. (26)Study the latest news in British English.
14．	(27)Study the latest news in British English. (28)Term-end examination.