VIDEO clip sites provide English learners and classes with a new tool to improve listening skills. The real advantage of these sites is that they offer authentic examples of everyday English used by everyday people.
Step One
The teacher decides on a particular topic that your class would enjoy. You can do this as a poll, take suggestions or choose a topic on your own that fits in well with the curriculum. Before the next lesson begins, go to video websites and search for short videos of about 20 to 25 minutes in length on the topic your class has chosen.
Step Two
After you’ve found appropriate videos, save them in your browser. Watch each video a few times and create a guide to difficult vocabulary. Write a short introduction to the videos you choose. The more context you provide the better your students will understand the videos they’re going to watch. Put both the short introduction and difficult vocabulary list on a class handout. Make sure to include the web page address of the video. Create a short quiz based on the videos.
Step Three
Hand out the introduction sheets and go through the introduction and difficult vocabulary list to make sure everyone understands them. Watch the videos together as a class. If you have a computer lab it will be better, as students can pair up and watch videos repeatedly. Students can then work on the quiz sheet in small groups or in pairs. Most likely, your videos will be amusing and students will want to watch many more. If possible, give students 20 minutes or so at the computers to explore similar video websites.
Step Four
For homework: Put students in groups of four to five and let them find a short video of their own to present to the class. Ask them to provide a short introduction, difficult vocabulary list and follow-up quiz modeled on the worksheet you’ve created for your class. Remind them to include the web page address of the video. Have students exchange worksheets with another group and complete the exercise. Students can then compare notes on the videos.
OFTEN listening activities are just activities that focus on right or wrong in the answers. The building and cultivation of listening skills may be lost in the process of doing the task itself. The following activity is aimed at constructing solid skills from bottom-up while developing student self-reliance and confidence. This listening activity is not an activity for accuracy, but an element for true practice and listening experimentation.
Step One
First, find a listening sample that best suits your class size and level. Next, find the language item that is to be focused on and draw a word web of ideas, themes and other topics that can be done by free association. For example, a listening exercise about a flight attendant would create a word web that included: airport, airplane, travel, flying, uniform, intelligent, etc. This is important as it helps to focus the students minds, activating their schematic knowledge. For the teacher, preparing the word web helps elicit a reaction and controls the direction of the task.
Step Two
Tell the students they are going to do a practice activity where there is no emphasis on right and wrong. They are simply practising their listening skills like they would practise a golf swing or musical instrument through repetition, self-awareness and form. First introduce the listening topic and write it on the board to begin the word web. Have students use free association while you elicit answers and fill in the web. Discuss the topic with students if you need to.
Step Three
Have students take a piece of paper and prepare to write down the specific language item targeted. Play the listening part two times (more or less depending on level, length of listening and item difficulty). After listening, have students compare what they heard with the word web. New items can be added and discussed as needed. This is also the time for students to discuss problems they had, what expressions appear difficult to them, and what the context of the expression was. Then listen once more to provide closure and wrap up all elements discussed.
Summary
The ultimate goal of this activity is to sharpen listening skills to pinpoint accuracy without the fear of getting it wrong. The student must be given the opportunity to see progress and lessen the fear of listening activities. It is an activity to be practised over many classes as a brief exercise or lengthy workout. Activating students’ background knowledge via the word webs is crucial because it helps students with learning about language prediction in many circumstances.
Give one dark coloured marker and two blank papers to each student. Read the following instructions, aloud, pausing after each one:“Draw a short line, Draw another line beside the first line you drew. Put your pencil at the other end of the second line and draw half a circle.” Ask students to follow the instructions as carefully as possible.
Step Two
After students are finished, post pictures on one half of the chalkboard. Discuss the differences of the drawings on display. Ask students what words or phrases could have been used to draw the picture more accurately. For example, “How long should the line be?” or “Should the line be horizontal, vertical or diagonal? ”, etc.
Step Three
Ask students to try again. Promise them that you will use clearer language. This time read the following: “Starting in the middle of your paper, draw a horizontal line about one inch long. Place the point of your pencil on the spot where the horizontal line begins, on the left. From that point, draw a vertical line. The vertical line should be about one inch long. Starting where the second line ends, draw a backwards ‘C’ going down. The tips of the backwards ‘C’ should be about one inch apart.
Step Four
The teacher increases the difficulty little by little, according to the method used above to train students’ adaptability to the relatively difficult phrases and expressions and thus develop their listening skills.
