Listening-Teaching notes

The following information is used for educational purposes only.

Minimal resources: Listening

By Adrian Tennant

Level: Starter/beginner, Elementary, Pre-intermediate, Intermediate, Upper intermediate, Advanced


Adrian Tennant provides tips and ideas for activities that focus on the process of listening and aim to encourage the learner to become more than simply an eavesdropper.


An introduction

When we ‘do’ listening in class there is often a fairly ‘standard’ approach: Introduce the topic, pre teach some vocabulary, set an extensive/gist task, play the recording, set an intensive/comprehension question type task, play the recording again, then check the (correct) answers. This ‘standard’ approach is a rather superficial way of dealing with listening. Firstly it relegates the listener to the role of a passive eavesdropper (simply overhearing a conversation etc.), and secondly it focuses on the product (i.e. the correct answers) as opposed to the process(es) of listening. Here is a collection of ten ‘listening’ activities that focus more on the process and aim to encourage the learner to become more than simply an eavesdropper. The activities also require the bare minimum in terms of material and preparation. A copy of the recording and/or the transcript (which can usually be found at the back of most coursebooks) is all that is needed for most of the activities – and the others require even less than that! I hope you enjoy these activities and find them useful.


1. Who’s speaking?

Choose a dialogue from your coursebook. Ask the students to look at the transcript (usually at the back of the book) and cover the names (these are usually on the left hand side) with a notebook/piece of paper). Ask the students to read the transcript and guess the following: who is speaking – age, sex, relationship etc. (You could also check what they are speaking about and why they are speaking e.g. to invite someone, to give directions, to tell a story etc). Elicit the ideas and write them up on the board. Play the recording and then ask the students if they’ve changed their mind/guesses.

Rationale:

Who is speaking and the relationship between speakers will influence the language used. Getting students to think about these things will help their overall listening skills and their speaking, choice of vocabulary etc.



2. Add a third

Choose a coursebook dialogue (between two people). Play it and get the students to think about who the people are and what they are talking about. Then ask the students to think about the dialogue and imagine what it would be like if there was a third person involved/speaking. Get the students to turn to the transcript and rewrite the dialogue adding the third person (this can be done working groups of three). Finally, ask a few groups to read out their new dia(tria)logue.

Rationale:


Coursebook dialogues are often ‘neat’ in a way in which real life conversations aren’t. Getting students to add a third person also demonstrates a deeper understanding of the material than standard comprehension questions ever could.


3. Listening Bingo!


Ask the students to draw a grid/table with six boxes (you can use more for higher levels e.g. nine boxes at Upper Intermediate). Tell them you will play a recording and tell them the topic of the recording (if you want you can give a bit more information e.g. You will hear two people talking about their plans for the weekend). Ask the students to write a word or phrase in each box. These should be things they think they will hear during the recording. Monitor and check they have completed their grids. Play the recording. Every time a student hears a word or phrase in their grid they should cross it out. If they cross out all six, they should put their hand up in the air (or shout ‘Bingo’).

Rationale:


Predicting vocabulary based on the topic is a skill that we all employ in our L1 before and while we are listening.



4. And the next word is…


Choose a recording. Tell the students the topic of the recording. Play a short piece and then press the pause/stop button. Ask the students to predict the next word (they can do this by whispering their ideas to the student sitting next to them). Press play and let the students hear the word. Don’t make any comments at this point. Play another piece and repeat the process. Do this with the whole of the recording. At the end ask the students how successful they were in predicting the next word.If you want, choose a volunteer student to come out to the front, their job is to operate the tape machine / CD player rather than you.

Rationale:

Predicting vocabulary based on the topic is a skill that we all employ in our L1 before and while we are listening. It is also important NOT to check or comment on the accuracy of their predictions while the activity is going on. The aim is not to get it right, but rather to concentrate on the content and vocabulary in order to make it possible to guess.



5. Finish my sentence

Read out a number of sentences (these can focus on language recently learnt/taught) but don’t finish the sentences. Ask students to whisper (or write down) the endings. Possible sentences include things such as: What’s your…? Can you pass me the…? Be …! Where are you…?

Rationale:

A low tech version of the previous activity and one that can be very useful for functional language.


6. Listen to each other


Ask students to think about a topic they are interested in e.g. a hobby, favourite film, a friend etc (this can be set for homework if you want). Ask one student to speak (you can set a time if you want e.g. speak for three minutes). The other students should listen and write down at least two questions they want to ask. When the student finishes speaking the other students should ask their questions. Note: In large classes this can be done in groups.

Rationale:


One of the best sources of listening texts is the students themselves.


7. We often interrupt

Choose a dialogue from a coursebook, e.g. a phone conversation. Read the first line of the dialogue. Ask the students to take on the other role (but without referring to the transcript). Once they have heard your line they should respond. Continue the process (either by using the next line of the coursebook dialogue – this then forces the students to readjust their thoughts – or simply by responding to what the students have said). Finally, if you want, you can get everyone to look at the original transcript.

Rationale:

Most coursebook listening activities put the students in the position of eavesdroppers. This is actually a very unnatural state of affairs in most real life listening. One aim of this activity is to make the listening activity much more realistic by making the listener take on an active role.




8. What do we stress?


Choose a text e.g. a listening from a coursebook. Ask the student to look at the text (transcript) and to read out the first line stressing every third word (you might want to demonstrate this, making sure you over emphasize every third word while keeping the other words unstressed). Next, get a different student to read out the same sentence, stressing every second/forth/fifth word etc. Finally, ask a student to read out the sentence, stressing the words they think would normally/actually be stressed. Next, put students in pairs and ask them to repeat the process for the whole of the text. Monitor and help where necessary. At the end you can play the original recording if you want. However, the aim is not to get the stress correct, but rather to become aware of how stress influences meaning.

Rationale:

Teachers often tell students about the way in which English is a stressed language and we often get students to listen to and practise the ‘correct’ stress patterns. But, by getting students to try out the wrong stress patterns we might actually make them more aware and tuned into the importance of stressing the words that convey the message.




9. Fill in the blanks


Choose a text e.g. a listening from a coursebook. Read/dictate the text but only saying the stressed words i.e. the unstressed words should not be said at all, but you should leave gaps where they would be (one way to do this is to say them in your mind). Ask the students to write the complete text (sentence), including the unstressed words.

Rationale:


Similar to the previous activity, but this time focusing on unstressed words.


10. No questions


Choose a recording from a coursebook. Play the recording once and then tell the students you want them to write some questions about the recording. They will ask other students these questions. Play the recording a further two or three times (more if the students ask) and get them to write their questions (this could be done in pairs or small groups). Finally, swap the questions around and play the recording again so that the students can answer each other’s questions.

Rationale:


This activity gets the students to focus on what they think is important in a listening text and not what the coursebook or teacher feels is important. It is quite interesting to compare the questions the students write to those in the book.



Adrian Tennant, Nottingham. August 2005


Source: www.onestopenglish.com