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Webinar: Multilingual Learners Strategies for Developing Listening Comprehension

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Webinar: Multilingual Learners Strategies for Developing Listening Comprehension

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Presented by Beth Skelton, Education Consultant, Educational Consultants, LLC

Sponsored by Listenwise
Register Here Learn more about viewing the live presentation and the recording, earning your CE certificate, and using our new accessibility features.
In order to acquire language, multilingual learners need lots of comprehensible input. In this interactive edWebinar, you will experience comprehensible input activities that support students' ability to understand spoken English in podcasts and videos.

These strategies work for all students, especially experienced multilinguals at intermediate stages of language development. The strategies will build your students' confidence, enhance their ability to understand oral English in a variety of settings, and make language acquisition joyful!

This edWebinar will be of interest to elementary through high school teachers, school and district leaders, and education technology leaders. There will be time for questions at the end of the presentation.
About the Presenter
Beth Skelton has over 30 years of experience as a language educator and holds a master's degree in multicultural teacher education. She has worked with early childhood, elementary, middle, high school, and adult language learners in rural, urban, suburban, and international school settings. She is the co-author of Long-Term Success for Experienced Multilinguals, a best-selling book published by Corwin, and Putting It Together, materials for teaching adult English learners using a story-based curriculum. She is an active board member of Colorado TESOL. Beth currently provides professional development, coaching, and consulting with schools around the world focused on providing equitable education for multilingual learners.
Learn more about viewing the live presentation and the recording, earning your CE certificate, and using our new accessibility features.
Join the Helping ELL, ESL, and Bilingual Students Succeed community to network with educators, participate in online discussions, receive invitations to upcoming edWebinars, and view recordings of previous programs to earn CE certificates.

Listenwise is a fun and engaging way to teach grade-level curriculum and language together while developing comprehension skills. Podcasts, visuals, and videos provide multiple entry points for English learners to learn in a meaningful and engaging way. Our unique design can scaffold meaningful, rigorous learning for multilinguals in any instructional setting.

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Multilingual Learners: Strategies for Developing Listening Comprehension - edWeb

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Experience comprehensible input activities that support students' ability to understand spoken English in podcasts and videos.

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Article: TESOL How to Teach Listening Skills

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Article: TESOL How to Teach Listening Skills

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Listening comprehension is an area that many students feel they need improvement in. They feel lost when they have to deal with English outside the classroom, and don't always feel that they are making progress fast enough.

-Learn to create listening skills lesson plans with an advanced TESOL cours e-

How Can Teachers Help?

First, teachers need to encourage students to recognize that listening is a skill that takes practice. Students will not make significant progress unless they are willing to listen to English outside of the classroom, even though it is challenging for them.

Teachers need to provide effective listening lessons that help students gain confidence and learn strategies that they can apply in different situations.

Are You Testing or Teaching Listening Skills?

In the communicative classroom, teaching listening skills should be approached in the same way as the other skills - with a communicative purpose. Communicative TESOL is different. Often, listening is taught with a linguistic purpose first and foremost - to improve and develop listening skills in the target language (this applies to other language skills as well).

This is, of course, a key goal of most listening lessons; however, in the "real world," how often do we listen with this goal in mind? Do your students go to the shopping mall on the weekend to buy a cell phone, and then listen to shoppers and store workers intent on improving their listening?

In the shopping mall, we listen because we need to get certain information, whether that information includes specific prices and options on a cell phone, or another shopper telling you why she prefers shopping at one store instead of another.

-Online TESOL Certificate Courses-

Testing Vs Teaching Listening Skills

In the ESL classroom, simply playing a recorded dialogue and then asking students to correctly answer pre-cast comprehension questions based on that dialogue strips listening of nearly all of its real-world communicative context.

You are left with a mainly linguistic exercise, which may give you some information about your learners' current listening proficiency, but does not allow for the actual development of listening skills.

A cycle of listening/answering questions / checking answers/listening/ etc. is really just testing listening skills and doesn't help students learn how to develop their listening skills and improve their listening comprehension.

Developing Listening Skills

With communicative TESOL, good listening lessons will provide pre-listening activities to help students better predict what kind of information they will hear by creating a context and a purpose for listening.

Better listening lessons will also help learners to clear up misconceptions and miscues as they listen. In other words, developing listening skills requires that students are provided with feedback and support in the process of listening, not just based on their comprehension after they have finished listening.

When listening is approached in this way, effective strategies for listening can be discussed and applied during the process of listening, making it easier for students to understand the relevance of those strategies and how they apply.

What Are The Steps in an Effective Listening Lesson?

For a general lesson, the following steps provide a useful format:

Activate student interest and background knowledge with a relevant introduction

Keep the introduction fluency-focused to encourage more engagement with the topic. This helps warm students up to the topic. In the real world, we don't usually listen to information without having some idea of what we are going to be listening to, and when given a choice, we don't usually listen to things that aren't of interest to us.

Pre-teach vocabulary

Pre-teach vocabulary that is necessary for understanding the text, but don't turn this into an exhaustive pre-listening activity. The goal is to move into the main focus of the lesson, not to get bogged down with a huge list of new words. If you have to pre-teach too much vocabulary, it's possible the material or task is too difficult for the level.

Give students a purpose for listening at each stage of the lesson.

From the students' perspective, new listening is often a wall of words from which they are able to glean small bits of meaning. Help them breakthrough by giving them specific tasks for listening, especially at the lower levels. The first time they listen to a new text, give students 2-4 gist questions to ensure they have got the general idea of the listening text before you begin digging in more deeply.

Read for more detail

After you are sure students have a grasp of the main ideas, you can begin to focus on reading for more detailed understanding. There are many different activity types you can use, but as for the gist stage, give students a specific task for each activity.

Focus on language

After students have worked with the listening text, you can focus on a grammar or vocabulary point that is featured in the listening. This stage in the lesson can expand beyond the themes of the lesson. And It can help students build on the language they have worked on within the lesson. You can also focus on specific features of connected speech. So that students learn the ways that language changes when spoken naturally.

Ask higher order questions

Give students an opportunity to use higher-order thinking skills in English by including an opportunity for discussion on the ideas or themes addressed in the listening. Expand the topic beyond the strict limits of the listening text. And also encourage students to make connections to their experience and to the world around them.

Encourage Extensive Listening Outside of Class

Have a regular 'In the News' focus in class. Encourage students to share information that they have learned from current newscasts.

Have students keep in a journal in which they note words and information that they have gleaned from their sources.

Encourage students to listen to English for at least 15 minutes a day. Even if they have difficulty understanding what is being said. Regular listening will help habituate their ears to the rhythms of natural speech, which will help in the long run.

Related Articles: Using Songs with Adult Learners Teaching Fluency
Related Posts

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TESOL - How to Teach Listening Skills | How to Teach English

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Listening comprehension is an area that many students feel they need improvement in. They feel lost when they have to deal with English outside the classroom, and don't always feel that they are making progress fast enough.

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Not only does reading provide students with access to information and hours of pleasure, but it also leads to greater language proficiency.

As English language learners develop their reading comprehension skills, they usually make strides in other areas, such as grammar accuracy and vocabulary building.

Previously, we explored ways to enhance students' reading comprehension through pre-reading activities. In this post, our focus will be on post-reading activities, which are activities that are done after students finish reading a text.

Here are nine post-reading activities that will engage your students and help them have a deeper understanding of what they've read.

1. Write a Summary

If students can summarize a piece of writing, you can be sure they've gotten the gist of what they've just read. Refer to our lesson on How to Write a Summary if they need a refresher on giving a condensed overview of a text.

2. Create a Quiz

Give students the chance to step into the teacher's role. Have students come up with comprehension questions-short-answer or true/false-to test their classmate's understanding of the text.

3. Play a Game

Put students into groups of three or four. Have them put away the text. Give them five minutes to think of as many facts as they can about the reading. The team that comes up with the most facts wins.

4. Do Further Research

Ask students to do online research on the topic and report findings back to class.

5. Retell the Information

Have students sit in a circle. As they go around the circle, each student adds a sentence about the text, preferably in the order the information appeared in the reading.

6. Make an Outline

As students make an outline of the reading, the main ideas and details will become clear. If students need help writing an outline, try our lesson on How to Write an Outline.

7. Write Questions

Have students write 3-5 questions they have about the topic that the reading didn't answer.

8. Write a Story

Encourage students to choose 8-10 new or interesting words. Challenge them to write a short story using those words.

9. Identify Target Structures

Tie in the reading with a grammar lesson. Have students go back through the lesson and identify target structures (e.g., present perfect, modal verbs, articles, etc.).

Share Your Thoughts

We'd love to hear what post-reading activities you do with your students. Please share your ideas in the comments below!

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9 Post-Reading Activities to Help Students Get the Most Out of a Text

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Not only does reading provide students with access to information and hours of pleasure, but it also leads to greater language proficiency. As English language learners develop their reading comprehension skills, they usually make strides in other areas, such as grammar accuracy and vocabulary building.

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Article: Listening- The Ignored Skill in EFL Content

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Article: Listening- The Ignored Skill in EFL Content

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Boosting Your English Listening Skills

Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab has been providing online English listening comprehension activities for ESL and EFL learners since 1998. Visit Randall's other Web sites at DailyESL.com, EZslang.com, and Trainyouraccent.com for more language practice.

General ESL Listening Quizzes

Activities focus on everyday English comprehension skills at three levels based on content, voices, vocabulary, and natural speed. A combination of adult, teenage, and children's voices are included.

Explore More English Listening Activities

Randall has created a variety of other ESL listening activities to improve your comprehension, speaking, vocabulary, and cultural awareness.

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Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab - English Listening

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Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab helps ESL and EFL learners improve their English listening comprehension skills through conversations.

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English Listening Lesson Library Online

ELLLO has over 3,000 free listening lessons for all levels! Most lessons have audio or video, a transcript, vocab support and interactive quizzes.

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ELLLO - English Listening Lesson Library Online

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ELLLO stands for English Listening Lesson Library Online and features natural English lessons that come with quizzes, vocabulary training, and free printable worksheets. ESL students and teachers can access over 2,000 free lessons that feature World English with speakers from over 100 countries.

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The purpose of CUNY-NYSIEB’s new initiative, the New York State Network for Bilingual Education Programs (NYSNET-BE), is to support schools that offer bilingual education programs in New York State. This Network will provide professional development opportunities on bilingualism and education by vir…

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Aims to help students and children to memorize English (US) vocabulary in an easy and efficient way by using images, pronunciation and games. Free and Fun!

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End User License Agreement: You are free to download any resource from this site as an end user and MES-English.com grants you an End User License with the following restrictions: You may not redistribute, copy, modify, transfer, transmit, repackage, charge for or sell any of the materials from this site. You may use photocopies or printouts for distribution to your students. MES reserves the right to terminate or make changes to this agreement for any reason and without notice.

Copyright © 2008 - 2025 123 Listening | restrictions | privacy | about | contact

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123 Listening - listening tests and worksheets

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123 Listening hosts English listening exercises, audio and matching worksheets to download and print for free. There are also worksheet templates you can use to make resources to match your lesson plans.

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Engfluent-Listening Practice for Beginners & Intermediates

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Engfluent-Listening Practice for Beginners & Intermediates

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Let's practice your English listening skills!

Are you looking for exercises to practice your English listening skills?

You've come to the right place.

Here are 6 listening exercises for both beginners and intermediates.
English listening exercises for beginners: English listening exercises for intermediates:
As you can see, there are many ways to practice listening. Let's discuss them one by one.

English Listening Practice:
Beginner Level

Do you have trouble understanding even slow speakers?

If so, you'll love the three exercises in this section. (They are beginner-friendly.)

Exercise #1: Practice with ESL Listening Lessons

If you're a beginner, it will be hard to improve your English listening skills.

Why? Because almost all English materials (movies, TV shows, YouTube videos, podcasts) are too difficult for you.

So for someone like you, the best materials to use are listening lessons created for ESL students.

For your convenience, I've listed the best ones below. All the lessons listed here have transcripts/captions, so rest assured you won't be confused by the end of each lesson.
Best English listening lessons:
Note that some of these lessons are not necessarily "easy." They can be quite difficult even for intermediates. But I included them here anyway because they provide transcripts.

TIP: When you're practicing with a lesson on YouTube, you can slow down the video if you have trouble understanding.

ESL listening lessons will help you get used to natural spoken English (to some degree).

The problem is that there are very few good listening lessons out there, so the amount of practice you can get is limited.

But don't worry. There are other ways to practice listening.

Let's discuss the next listening exercise.

Exercise #2: Practice Listening
with TV Shows & Movies

If you enjoy American and British TV series and films, you'll love this exercise.

First, watch a movie or a TV show with subtitles. As you watch it, don't worry about listening practice yet. Just enjoy the show (and feel free to read the subtitles).

After you finish the show, watch it again without subtitles. This time, the goal of watching is to practice your English listening skills.

Simple, right?

Alternatively, you can also rewatch some of the the old shows that you saw a long time ago. But this time you watch them without subtitles.

Watching Shows a Second Time Without Subtitles - Is It Necessary?

Now you might be thinking...

"Boo! It's so boring to watch something twice! So I'm just gonna watch shows one time with subtitles. Hopefully, this'll be enough to improve my listening comprehension."

Unfortunately, this will not improve your listening much.

If you only watch shows with subtitles, you'll be practicing your reading skills instead of listening skills.

Think about it.

When you watch a show with subtitles, your brain is working hard to understand what's going on.

There are two ways for the brain to do that:

1. Read the subtitles

2. Listen to the dialogue

Which option do you think your brain will choose?

The answer is obvious; you brain is going to focus on reading the subtitles.

Why? Because it's much easier. The text on the screen is clearly defined, so it's very easy for you brain to process.

The sound of people talking, on the other hand, is not always clear. Quite often you hear a character whisper, mumble, or talk really fast. Sometimes the background music is too loud. So it's very difficult for your brain to figure out what's being spoken.

As a result, you brain will pay attention to the subtitles, not the sound.

So when you watch a subtitled show, you're not improving your listening.

You're actually improving your reading!

So now you might think...

"But as I'm reading the subtitles, I can 'hear' the dialogue too. Which means I'm also practicing and improving my listening skills!"

No, you're not. You may "hear" the dialogue but you are not "listening."

It's like having a news program on in the background while studying. You may "hear" the news reporter talking, but when you finish your study, you can't tell what the news stories were because you weren't paying attention.

So in order to practice listening effectively, you need to watch shows a second time without subtitles.

TIP: After you complete a show the first time, you don't have to watch it again immediately (because the plot is still fresh in your mind and it'll be very boring).

Wait for a while so that you forget some of the details. You can watch other shows in the meantime.

TV Shows VS. Movies - Which is Better?

Should you practice listening with TV shows or movies?

Well, it doesn't really matter. (You can do both.) What's more important is to watch stuff you'll enjoy.

That said, if you want my take on this, I suggest you focus on TV shows.

The reason? Because it's more time-efficient. TV shows usually have many episodes. So when you complete one episode, you can immediately jump to the next.

On the other hand, when you finish a movie, you have to make a decision about what film to watch next. You may have to spend time reading movie suggestions, synopses, and reviews.

Exercise #3: Increase Your English Vocabulary Through Reading

Technically, reading is not a listening exercise.

But as a beginner, it's important to increase your vocabulary as much as possible.

Listening and reading, combined together, are the most powerful way to build your English vocabulary.

If you do only one of them, that's okay. But if you do both, the results will be even better because you're learning both pronunciation and spelling.

When your vocabulary improves, your listening comprehension will get better as a result.

However, it's important the read the right material.

You don't want to read something like this:

"Strange Bedfellows!" lamented the title of a recent letter to Museum News, in which a certain Harriet Sherman excoriated the National Gallery of Art in Washington for its handling of tickets to the much-ballyhooed "Van Gogh's van Goghs" exhibit. A huge proportion of the 200,000 free tickets were snatched up by homeless opportunists in the dead of winter, who then scalped those tickets at $85 apiece to less hardy connoisseurs.

The language of the text above is old-fashioned. While it may be useful for advanced students, beginners like you should focus on something easier.

So what kind of material should you read?

I recommend English books or blogs that have similar vocabulary as spoken English.

Here's an example:

Are morning people born or made? In my case it was definitely made. In my early 20s, I rarely went to bed before midnight, and I'd almost always sleep in late. I usually didn't start hitting my stride each day until late afternoon.

Here the language is casual and similar to spoken English. Reading content like this will indirectly enhance your listening skills.

If you want a list of books to read, visit this page.

Can't afford to buy books? No worries. You don't to spend money on physical books. You can read blogs on topics of your interests instead. (Blogs are good because most of them use casual language similar to spoken English.)

English Listening Practice:
Intermediate Level

At this level, you shouldn't have much trouble understanding native speakers with a standard accent.

Of course, you may still find it hard to understand fast spoken English or uncommon native accents, but that's to be expected at this level. There's still room for improvement.

The exercises in this section are meant to "stretch" your English listening skills.

What do I mean by stretch?

It means doing something that's a bit beyond your comfort zone so that you improve faster.

Exercise #1: Immerse Yourself in English

The practice is simple: you listen to English at every possible moment.

It may sound simple, but it works.

Imagine that you listen to 10,000 hours of English. Do you think your English listening will improve?

The answer is YES! With that much practice, your comprehension will improve. There's no doubt about it.

But the question is, how the hell are you going to find the time to do this?

Well, maybe you don't have to practice for 10,000 hours. (That's almost impossible to do.) But at least you should try to practice as much as possible.

How to Find Time to Practice Listening

Take a look at these activities:

Commuting

Waiting

Exercising (walking on a treadmill, riding a stationary bike)

Walking in the park

Doing house chores like cooking

These activities have one thing in common: they are "mindless" activities. They don't require your mental focus or attention.

You probably have to engage in such activities every day. You can listen to English during these times.

Suppose you spend 10 hours a week on your daily commute. If you listen to English during your commute for a year, that's 520 hours of listening practice!

And this is only one activity. Imagine doing this during other activities as well.

Over time, the amount of listening practice will add up and lead to amazing results.

The best thing about this practice is that you don't to have to allocate your free time to do it because you'll be practicing during other activities.

If you want free English listening materials, check out this page.

TIP: If you have a pair of wireless earbuds, it will be much easier to apply this strategy because you can practice listening while doing something physical like running.

If you don't have a pair of these, I recommend getting them. There are plenty of affordable ones out there. (They're worth it!)

Unfortunately, this practice has one limitation.

The limitation is that your mind may wander to random thoughts during the practice. (So you'll be "hearing" English instead of listening to English.)

But I think that's okay. Even if you get distracted from time to time, the practice is still worth doing and you will get some results. (At least it's better than spending the time on social media or playing games, right?)

That being said, if you have trouble focusing, the next exercise is for you.

Exercise #2: Test Your English Listening Skills

Suppose you're a history teacher. Which approach is the best way to teach history lessons to your students?

1. Teach them the lessons without testing their understanding.

2. Test them once after all the lessons are taught.

3. Test them before and after each lesson.

Which one is the most effective?

You think C is the best, right?

Research shows that frequent testing can boost learning effectiveness by more than 100%. Testing motivates learners to put more effort into their learning activities.

You can apply this insight to your English listening practice.

How? By testing your listening skills from time to time to see how good they really are.

The process can be as simple as:

1. Find a video or audio with a transcript

2. Listen to it. (Don't read the transcript.) Then write down what the speaker is saying

3. Compare what you wrote with the transcript

You can use a movie, YouTube video, podcast, or something else for this exercise. But I suggest you pick something that's difficult for you to understand.

So what's the benefit of doing this?

Firstly, by testing yourself, you'll be able to assess the level of your listening skills.

But more importantly, testing is a great way to motivate yourself to practice harder.

If you perform poorly on this test (and you will if the material is difficult), you'll want to do better next time. So you'll get more serious with your listening practice, which will improve your results.

Exercise #3: Increase the Difficulty and Variety of Your English Input

A big mistake intermediates make is that they keep listening to the same people - people they can easily understand.

By staying in their comfort zone, they improve very slowly (or they aren't improving at all).

So if you want to continue improving, you must:

1. Listen to various types of English

2. Listen to conversations you find difficult to understand

Here are some examples:

British English

African-American English

News

Documentaries

Fast speakers

Topics that you aren't familiar with.

Of course, this will be a difficult exercise to do. But if you go through with it, you listening skills will become highly reliable.

Below you can find lists of various YouTube channels featuring different types of spoken English.
Fast speakers: British English: African-American English: News:
Have a listen to a couple of videos from each of the channels. If it's quite hard to understand (and if the channel seems interesting to you), hit the Subscribe button.

Be prepared to have trouble understanding some of this content. (That's the point of this exercise.) The more you're exposed to difficult English, the easier it becomes.

REMINDER: You can reduce the playback speed of YouTube videos if you have trouble understanding.

Action Plan for Your
English Listening Practice

You've learned 6 ways to develop your listening skills in English.

Now it's time to take action.

If you're a beginner, practice these beginner-friendly exercises:

1. Use listening lessons for ESL students

2. Watch TV shows and movies with and without subtitles

3. Read in English to learn new vocabulary

Feel free to allocate time to do these exercises however you want. For example, you might do exercise #1 for two weeks, then practice exercises #2 and #3 at the same time for three months.

If you are an intermediate, you can also practice exercises #2 and #3 of the beginner's level. These exercises are beneficial no matter what level you're at.

But if you want to take your English listening skills to the next level, here are the more advanced exercises:

1. Listen to English during "mindless" activities

2. Test how well you can understand difficult English

3. Listen to different types of English

Just like beginners, you can allocate time for the exercises however you want.

But remember that if you want to improve quickly, you must listen to something a bit challenging to understand.

However, be sure not to listen to stuff that's too difficult that you understand nothing at all. (You should at least be able to understand "the gist" of the conversation - the main idea.)

Thanks for reading. I hope you find these practice ideas useful.

Improving English listening skills takes time, so please be patient. If you're consistent with your English listening practice, you'll definitely improve.

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English Listening Practice: Exercises for Beginners & Intermediates - EngFluent

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Are you looking for exercises to practice your English listening skills? You've come to the right place. Here are 6 listening exercises for both beginners and intermediates. English listening exercises for beginners: English listening exercises for intermediates: As you can see, there are many ways to practice listening.

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English Listening Exercises - Improve Your Listening

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Improve listening skills at all English levels. Engaging authentic MP3 listening audio with free exercises and results.

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Here you can find activities to practise your listening skills. Listening will help you to improve your understanding of the language and your pronunciation.

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English Learning Hub on YouTube has Listening video "tests" that are great for ESL students. This "test" practices listening during conversation. (Good for LAS practice!)

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A1 Listening Test | English Listening Test

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YouTube (Shanz Edubits): Listening Tests 

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YouTube (Shanz Edubits): Listening Tests 

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This is another great listening resource on YouTube by Shanz Edubits.

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Listening Practice 3 | IGCSE ESL | English as a Second Language | 2024 Tests | 0510 | 0511 | 0993

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This is a strategy that can be used before students listen to or read a text!

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Here the author refers to visualizing as a strategy for improving reading and writing however, I used this strategy for listening comprehension.

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Being able to visualize helps students with comprehension. Use these 3 tips to help you teach kids how to visualize.

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This article speaks to the importance of students making a movie in their minds in order to comprehend and track information and details for complex subject matters.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Play these engaging active listening activities for kids with your small groups!

Active listening activities promote mindful thinking. They encourage thoughtful, attentive communication and connect students to the speaker through both verbal and non-verbal cues. But it's a skill that needs to be practiced and honed, especially for younger students. Use these fun speaking and listening activities as a center during your next small group period to introduce or revisit this crucial skill.

Listening Activities for Elementary Students

1. Draw this

For younger students, or for students first being introduced to active listening, start with something hands-on and familiar, like drawing. For these active listening activities, either you or a student lead will list step-by-step instructions for an image.

For example, if you wanted your students to draw a house, the instructions could sound like this:
"Draw a large square in the center of your page"
"Then draw a small rectangle vertically on the bottom of the square."
"Draw two small squares on either side of the rectangle."
"Now draw a large triangle on top of the largest square."

These instructions should guide students toward a completed image that isn't recognizable until the final instructions. To help student leads, you can provide pre-written instructions for several images and allow them to choose from your selection. Students will then reveal their artwork to see if their drawings followed the given instructions.

Have students play this listening game first to practice.

2. Audio stories

If story time is a favorite activity in your class, your students will love this last center idea. Here, all you need to do is pick a read aloud story to play for your small group. Be careful not to let your students see the words. Once the story is finished playing aloud, have your students summarize what they heard in as much detail as possible. If time allows, replay the story so students can see if they were correct.

eSpark has several read-aloud stories that are perfect for this active listening activity. Here are a few to start:

My Pet Llamacorn Grade level: PK-K
Can We Make Smores Now Grade level: PK-1
Anisha Is Bored Grade level: PK-1
Squidges Day at the Doctor Grade level: 1
Azure Leads The Way Grade level: 2
Summer Drumming Grade level: 3
Game Night Grade level: 3
Swallowed Grade level: 5

3. Don't speak twice

This activity is an exercise in restraint for some students because until everyone has spoken once, no one is allowed to speak a second time.

For this speaking and listening activity, you or a student will select a broad topic of choice, such as movies or animals. Then, students will take turns commenting on or asking a question about the topic. If a question is asked, no one is allowed to speak unless responding to the question until an answer has been given. This is repeated until every student has spoken at least twice for one to two minutes.

4. Simon says

This classic childhood game is perfect for practicing listening skills in small groups. To make this game into a center, you or a student lead will say a command then wait to see if the players responded correctly. To make this game slightly more challenging for older grades, have students take turns giving commands.

Typically, students who perform a command that didn't begin with the phrase "Simon says" lose the game and must sit out; however, to keep all students engaged during the entire center, an alternative rule can be having that student miss their next turn to say a command.

5. Telephone

Another classic listening activity for kids is telephone. In this center, students will form a circle, then take turns creating a message that will be whispered to each student until it reaches the student who created the message. If the message at the end matches the message from the beginning, the group wins! The next student in the circle creates the next message and the game repeats.

This game works best with at least five students in the small group so there are enough students to pass the message to before it reaches the end. With smaller groups, it's also best to require longer messages that are about eight to 10 words.

6. Popcorn storytelling

This game can be played one of two ways. The first way begins with a student reading a passage from a book or printed story. At the end of any sentence, the student may call on another student to pick up where they left off. Students will do this until the story is finished or until it's time to move to the next center. This version works best for upper elementary students who are capable of reading long passages. Here's a story you can use for this listening activity.

The second method offers students a bit more room for creativity because here they will construct their own story. One student begins the story in any setting with any character and provides as much or as little detail as desired. They will then select another student at random to continue the story. Students will continue to add to the story until it's time to move to the next center. To give your students inspiration, have them read this story beforehand.

In both games, each student is required to speak at least twice.

7. My favorite toss

Not only does this game help students practice active listening - it also exercises their memory. In this center, everyone stands in a circle and one student is given a ball. The student holding the ball begins by choosing a topic, such as books or food, then shares their favorite item from that topic. That student then passes the ball to any other student who must first tell the favorite of everyone before them then add their own favorite.

For example, if the beginning student said their favorite sport was swimming, the next student would say, "Andrew's favorite sport is swimming, and my favorite sport is basketball." The following student would say, "Andrew's favorite sport is swimming, Maria's favorite sport is basketball, and my favorite sport is hockey."

The game continues until every student tells a favorite and correctly lists the favorites before their own. If a student lists the previous favorites incorrectly, the other students must help them repeat the list correctly. Once the game is finished, the next student creates a new topic.

Play-based learning with a twist

eSpark is the only elementary curriculum resource that combines play-based learning with evidence-based direct instruction to create a personalized, differentiated learning experience for every student in math and reading. The interactive stories and poems shared above are just a small sampling of the many unique and fresh activities students will encounter on their Quests or teacher-assigned Small Group Skills. Click the button below to claim your free trial account and see for yourself why teachers everywhere are talking about how eSpark delivers engagement they can feel and results they can see.

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7 Engaging Listening Activities for Small Groups - eSpark

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Active listening activities promote mindful thinking. Use these speaking and listening activities in your next small group breakout.

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"Lexical Bundles" are phrases of 3-4 words and frequently appear together in natural language. If we give our students opportunities to listen for some of these bundles, understand their function and apply them in their own speaking, writing, etc. we can help build their comprehension and support their listening skills/ proficiency

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Lexical Bundles in L1 and L2 Academic Writing

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We've been reading a text that discusses using dictation to improve listening. This article helps to summarize some of the ways to do this.

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In listening dictation, students are given a partially completed graph or other visual. Teachers read out the missing statements in short sentence-length chunks and repeat each sentence twice. Speak at a normal pace, but pause after each sentence to give students time to process the sentence meaning and add to the graph.

Some other forms of dictation include:

Watch this video to see listening dictation being used in a year 13 economics class
Teaching and learning sequence planning examples:
Primary level:

Secondary level:

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In listening dictation, students are given a partially completed graph or other visual. Teachers read out the missing statements in short sentence-length chunks and repeat each sentence twice. Speak at a normal pace, but pause after each sentence to give students time to process the sentence meaning and add to the graph.

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Game/Activity: Do they mean the same thing?

Here are a few samples; you can create more using content are ideas!

Students can determine if they mean the same thing or do no mean the same thing-works well with partners because the cards can be read aloud to the listener for analysis.

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Another strategy from the text is to increase student accountability as well as provide opportunities for students to discuss what they have heard with peers to fill in the gaps of information they missed or to clear any misconceptions.

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A Listening round or Round-Robin is a technique to ensure that all students have a voice and that students who might otherwise monopolise a conversation do not limit anyone else's opportunities to participate.

In a Listening round, students share their ideas in a group. Each participant has a turn to offer her or his answer. Nobody should interrupt the person who has the floor. Agreement, disagreement or surprise can only be communicated kinaesthetically. Nobody can pass. If a participant's answer is similar to or the same as prior ones, the person has to start by acknowledging peers who had similar ideas.

A Listening round provides opportunities for noticing and hearing new language for English language learners. It gives opportunities for forced language output for all students.

Watch this video to see Listening round/Round-robin being used in a year 10 social studies class

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A Listening round or Round-Robin is a technique to ensure that all students have a voice and that students who might otherwise monopolise a conversation do not limit anyone else's opportunities to participate. In a Listening round, students share their ideas in a group. Each participant has a turn to offer her or his answer.

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Telephone is a classic!

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BridgeUniverse - TEFL Blog, News, Tips & Resources

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Listen Up! 9 ELL Listening Activities for Students of Any Age and Level

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Discover ELL listening activities that incorporate songs, games, videos, and more. Explore ESL activities for young learners, intermediate students, and even adults!

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A whole bunch of videos with transcripts that can be modified into gap fill activities.

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Man: Excuse me, is there a gym in the hotel?
Woman: Yes, there's one on the first floor.
Man: Great! And is there a pool?
Woman: Yes, there's a pool on the roof.
Man: Is there a changing room up there?
Woman: No, there isn't, but there's a restroom.
Man: OK, thanks.
Conversation 2
Man: So, what is there to do in your town?
Woman: Well, there is a mall, a cinema, and there are a few parks.
Man: Oh, parks, nice. I love nature. Which one do you recommend?
Woman: I think Central City park is the best. There's a huge garden there.
Man: Is there parking nearby?
Woman: Yeah, there's a huge parking lot across the street.
Conversation 3
Man: What is there to eat?
Woman: Ah, there is some pasta in the fridge.
Man: Mm, I just had pasta for lunch. What else is there?
Woman: Well, there is some stuff to make sandwiches.
Man: That will do. Where is the bread?
Woman: There's some in the cupboard I think.

Conversation 4

Man: Are there any exchange students at your school?
Woman: Yes, there are a few.
Man: Really. What countries are they from?
Woman: Ah, let's see. There is one student from Italy, and there are a few students from France.
Man: Oh, cool. Is there anyone from Paris?
Woman: No, they are all from Leon!

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Man: Excuse me, is there a gym in the hotel? Woman: Yes, there's one on the first floor. Man: Great! And is there a pool? Woman: Yes, there's a pool on the roof. Man: Is there a changing room up there? Woman: No, there isn't, but there's a restroom.

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This is a good word recognition warm up game maybe during a breakfast group or before a phonemic awareness lesson. The game can be played with different rules and I have students guess words to see if they recognize the beginning "e" vowel sound. The game is typically called green glass door but I play "Emocionante Expedicion por el Ecuador" and only things that begin with the "e" sound are allowed on the expedition. So elefante, espinacas, escoba, or edificio. Students take turns guessing items to bring on the expedition until they discover the rule.

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Listening games; Classroom teachers have the manuals

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Listening and Physical Activity

1. Simon Says, Follow the Leader

2. Action Verbs Charades: Students act out verbs (run, clap, jump, etc.), and the rest of the class guesses what the action is, or vice versa

3. Storytelling: Students act out actions of the characters (She put the cake in the oven.)

4. Songs: Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes; The Wheels on the Bus

5. TPR Scavenger Hunt: Students perform tasks around the classroom. (Teacher can say: "Turn to page 15", "Point to the door", "Put eight books in the basket.")

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Word ladders are great for recognizing similar sounds in a word. I use them a lot in the younger grades. The student builds the picture at the bottom with magnetic letters or the tiles from Fundations boards are great for this. They have to change the word to the next picture above based on which part of the word is changing and how they hear it, whether it's a different vowel team or consonant blend. You can even have students ask their partner questions about each picture. Your building coaches or a grade level teacher might have a set of worksheets or Ellen Delgado may have posted something similar on the literacy google classroom.

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Article on the how listening skills can help students with their speakig skills

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Article on the how listening skills can help students with their speakig skills

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Listening Is the Key to Teaching English-Learners How to Speak (REVIEWED)

By Larry Ferlazzo — April 27, 2023 in Education Week

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This post continues a series on how teachers can encourage English Language Learners to oral skills.

'Celebrate Even the Smallest Steps'
Wendi Pillars, NBCT, has taught for nearly three decades, both overseas and stateside, in military and civilian contexts. She is the author of Visual Impact and Visual Notetaking for Educators. Find her on Twitter @wendi322:
Want to help students improve their oral communication skills? Start with listening.

When thinking of speaking skills, we forget how powerful our listening skills need to be, and that they precede speaking ability. Listening while someone is speaking is key. It models patterns, intonation, prosody, accents, word order, co-locations, and conversational animation. It's also a vehicle for acquiring information, and preparing to continue a conversation, whether with more information or questioning. Pointing out all of these concepts explicitly to students, regardless of language proficiency, will heighten metacognition and awareness of how language works.

Training the ability to focus attention when and where you want it is pretty much a superpower in 2022. It's extra tough for students who are immersed in distractions; even more so when your brain and cognitive capacities are tapped out after trying to sift through new information in another language all day. Listening for many may be a product of sheer willpower, dependent upon the amount of sleep, their state of hunger, or myriad issues that take up space in our minds throughout the day. We have to help them regain the focus needed to listen first.

When asking students to speak, to communicate with partners, to answer in front of the class, to continue a conversation, or to give a presentation, they will need to hear, process, and understand multistep directions. We need to get their ears attuned and sensitive to changes in speech that mark a change, an important point, or impending question. This includes refining our own speech, which becomes critical as we model what kind of academic and social language is practical and expected.

Here are a nine ways to get started with this in your classroom:

Chunk your content by finding or creating phrases and sentence or question frames to envelop crucial vocabulary students need to master.

Teach explicit word order and how to emphasize information in questions vs. statements.

Build confidence by crafting one good sentence rather than an entire paragraph. Think of one sentence, vocab word, or idea you want students to express each day. It sounds ridiculous to a content teacher, but the ridiculously small gains are what aggregate and compound into solid gains and trust.

Provide multiple angles that your multilingual learners (MLLs) can weigh in on or approach a topic.

Provide questions or topics in advance so that students can prepare something in writing and practice saying it to themselves before speaking in front of the class.

Provide choice boards so that students have multiple options to express their learning. Speaking choices can include a voice recording, Flipgrid/video option, sharing out loud with a partner or in a small group; asking questions to a classmate; answering different types of questions (open vs. closed-ended, opinion vs. fact-based, etc.); interviewing someone, singing, or even a poetry slam.

Provide different ways to verbalize knowledge. Maybe it's a whole-class choral response or reading. Maybe there are small groups for not-so-daunting quieter public support. Maybe it's an oral assessment with a word bank, images to focus on, and a clear rubric or checklist so they know what's expected. Determine the intent-are they speaking for an assessment, an organic part of class, an authentic audience, social, or academic? Your mode of feedback should depend upon the purpose.

Teach them ways to advocate for themselves, how to ask for more information, to go to the office, to make a phone call, to say that something isn't correct. Learning to ask questions causes a power shift, one that empowers them to take more responsibility.

The most important action you can take is to speak to your MLLs on a daily basis at a social level. Many MLLs admit to me that they don't speak a word in their other classes ALL DAY LONG. No questions, no pair or small-group activities, no expectations to speak. Not even a hello. Heart Wrenching is an understatement.

What are YOU doing to help students speak more and with greater confidence? Make sure you've provided the pathways and space for your students to become more comfortable taking a few risks during their time with you. And always find a way to celebrate even the smallest steps.

'Create the Right Environment'
Jana Echevarria, Ph.D., is professor emerita at California State University Long Beach, where she was selected as "outstanding professor." She is the co-developer of the SIOP Model of instruction for English-learners and the co-author of Making Content Comprehensible for English Learners: The SIOP Model, among other publications:
Oral language is the foundation for literacy development and thus academic success. Generally, not enough attention is given in classrooms to helping multilingual learners advance their oral language skills in English. Students don't "pick up" much more than social language in the classroom, and most can understand more English than they can produce. For these reasons, it's important for teachers to specifically focus on providing lots of opportunities to develop speaking skills, especially practice using academic language.

However, many multilingual learners are reluctant to speak in class since they may not have the words to express their thoughts completely. They are aware that they aren't completely fluent in the language their teacher and peers speak and understand. The following are four ways teachers can encourage students to improve speaking skills.

Create the right environment. Few people are willing to speak up or participate in group discussions when they feel anxious or if the setting is intimidating. Establishing a classroom environment where multilingual learners feel respected, welcome, and comfortable when speaking is the first step in building oral language skills. The affective dimension of language learning matters. Multilingual learners take a risk when they use their new language so it's important for teachers to be accepting of all attempts to express themselves and correct errors gently and only as a means for avoiding confusion. Another way of creating a stress-free environment is to accept translanguaging as an effective communication strategy.

Translanguaging is the process by which multilingual students use two or more languages strategically to accomplish a task. For example, at times, multilingual learners are able to express some ideas better in one language or the other and may mix the two languages in a discussion or when completing an assignment with a partner. Allowing students the freedom to use all their language resources encourages oral participation and signals to students that their home language is respected and accepted.

Select interesting topics. If we want students to talk, we need to give them something interesting and relevant to talk about. Teachers can use students' backgrounds and lived experiences to make connections to nearly any topic. A lot of language can surface in discussions that tap into what students know.

For example, when reading about a character in a book or a historical figure, ask: How would you react in that situation? Or What would your family say if you did that? Why? Pictures also can be used effectively to elicit language. For example, show an interesting picture, preferably related to a topic being studied, and ask, What do you think is going on in this picture? What do you see that makes you think that? What else do you see? This process is a less-demanding version of citing text evidence, an important academic skill, and elicits language by having students explain their idea and defend it using the picture.

Form groups intentionally. Opportunities to practice and develop speaking skills need to be planned, intentional, and purposeful. Research confirms what most educators know: Teachers do more than 80 percent of the talking in class. Speaking with a partner or small group encourages participation and provides each student with more practice speaking English, expressing themselves, and experimenting with the language.

Sometimes during a lesson, teachers realize they have been doing a lot of talking and so suddenly ask the students to turn-and-talk. This haphazard approach is not effective. Whether students turn-and-talk with a partner or participate in a more extended discussion with a small group, interactions should have an academic purpose such as making predictions, summarizing information, discussing an experience they've had related to the topic, and so forth. The group interaction should be structured, have an intentional purpose, and be given a reasonable time allotment.

Use technology. There are a number of voice- and video-recording programs available that give students a chance to practice speaking English privately to build oral proficiency. A recording allows students to listen to themselves and identify areas for improvement. Teachers should maintain a digital portfolio so that students can periodically listen to past recordings and hear how their speaking improved over time. Teachers have reported that some students barely recognize their own voice on recordings from the beginning of the year to the end, which is gratifying evidence of progress and a real confidence builder.

Isabel Becerra is the sheltered-instruction facilitator for the multilingual programs department in the Garland Independent school district in Texas. She was born in Bolivia and has been an educator since 1992. She is a passionate advocate for emergent bilingual learners:
'They've Got to Be Engaged'

Speaking in a new language can be a very scary experience. Emergent bilingual learners (EBs) are often too shy and feel embarrassed that they will make mistakes or are worried about being misunderstood. This can result in EBs going through the "silent period'' (when they do not speak but are learning a large amount of language). Even EBs that have a high language level can become intimidated during class discussions.

It is no secret that speaking is the lowest of the four language domains around the nation. As the sheltered-instruction facilitator for my district, I and my team are helping educators to redesign instruction by focusing more on the speaking domain. Lessons should embed a variety of activities that will lead emergent bilingual students to speak fearlessly and academically. Oral language is one of the most important skills our students can master-both for social and academic success. Emergent bilingual students use this skill throughout the day to process and deliver instructions, make requests, ask questions, receive new information, and interact with peers.

Something teachers can do from the very beginning is to promote a safe learning environment where emergent bilingual students will feel comfortable with their peers and the teacher. This type of environment will lower their affective filter and will allow them to begin taking risks and slowly opening to speaking and actively engaging in the learning process. If a student trusts their teacher and feels safe in their classroom, they are more willing to take these risks.

One way to create this type of environment is by planning for multiple opportunities to engage students in speaking during class activities. The sheltered-instruction approach teaches us the importance of developing a sense of accountability in emergent bilingual students by using Step 1, Teach students what to say when they don't know what to say (Instead of I Don't Know). The purpose of this step is for students not to opt out of a conversation. Instead of saying "I don't know," students can use a variety of other options such as:
"May I have some time to think?" "Where could I find more information about that?
"Can I ask a friend for help? "

When a student chooses another given option, ask the whole class to do the same thing and then come back to the student who initially asked you for the extra support. This will give students ownership for their learning, and it will allow them to build confidence in knowing that when they are asked to speak, they will have scaffolds to help them. This will make the emergent bilingual students in your classrooms feel included and important.
"Who can tell me?" "Who knows?" "Who wants to answer this?" Can someone show me?
Another great way to help emergent bilingual students with their speaking skills is to implement a system to call on students. We want to make sure we get away from asking questions such as:

These questions will only lead you to having the same eager student raise his/her hand and will exclude all other students from actively participating in the learning. The sheltered-instruction Step 3, Randomize and Rotate when calling on students is an easy step that will help you call every student in your classroom to participate in a discussion or a response. This step can support you in creating an environment where all students will be called to speak multiple times a day. You can use Popsicle sticks, numbered heads together, wheel of names, and turn and talk with partners. The more they practice speaking, the more fluent they will become in developing their language and content proficiency.

If you really want your emergent bilinguals to speak, they've got to be engaged. That means less teacher-led, whole-class instruction and more small groups and partnerships. You can also plan for Structured Conversations; these are great for students to practice language with their peers in a more personal, lower-risk setting. Emergent bilingual students need the opportunity to hear language in authentic and varied contexts all day and every day. Speaking opportunities will increase students' interests and engagement.

This is the second post in a multipart series. You can see Part One here.
Thanks to Wendi, Jana, and Isabel for contributing their thoughts!
What are the best ways to help English-language learners develop speaking skills?
The question of the week is:

In Part One, Laleh Ghotbi, Anastasia M. Martinez, Ivannia Soto, and Jody Nolf shared their recommendations.

Laleh, Anastasia, Ivannia, and Jody were also guests on my 10-minute BAM! Radio Show. You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at lferlazzo@epe.org. When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it's selected or if you'd prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo.
Just a reminder; you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email (The RSS feed for this blog, and for all Ed Week articles, has been changed by the new redesign-new ones are not yet available). And if you missed any of the highlights from the first 11 years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below.
Education Week has published a collection of posts from this blog, along with new material, in an e-book form. It's titled Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching.

I am also creating a Twitter list including all contributors to this column.

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Listening Is the Key to Teaching English-Learners How to Speak (Opinion)

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That communication skill helps students master patterns, intonation, accents, word order, and conversational animation.

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FluentU Language Learning/Blog/English Educator

How to Teach Listening in the ESL Classroom: 15 Activities

By Ruth Wickham

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I was surprised to find that one of the students in my "Listening" class was deaf.

She was proficient in lip-reading in her first language and she was learning to do the same in English.

So I tried to make sure I was always facing the class when I spoke.

She was actually managing well.

Obviously, though, a situation like this raises all kinds of questions for language educators.

For one thing, is it possible to teach listening skills to someone who has physical trouble hearing?

And if so...

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere.Click here to get a copy. (Download)

What Exactly Is "Listening," Anyway?

Even more to the point, what is the difference between "hearing" and "listening"?

In ESL teaching and learning, "listening" is a skill that involves more than just hearing.

We want our students to be able to listen to English with confidence and understanding.

From time to time, teachers try to test and evaluate their students' level of skill in listening, but this can be quite stressful for students for a number of reasons.

Teachers should be aware that...

Sometimes students just don't hear well. Maybe they have a physical limitation, or maybe there is a lot of other noise around, or maybe the equipment used to play audio material is not good enough.

What we think of as "listening" can involve more than just sound cues. It may be better to watch live action, or a video, rather than just using audio material.

Sometimes teachers give students a reading/writing task to demonstrate that they have understood a listening "text," but maybe they have a problem with literacy rather than actual listening.

Sometimes students panic and stop listening when they come across a word they cannot immediately translate. It's important to encourage students to pick up what they can without trying to translate.
So, how can we teach the skill of listening?
It is easier to teach facts and knowledge than to teach a skill. But teachers can improve students' listening skills and confidence by...

Teaching them strategies that they can use to listen more effectively.

Providing them with ESL activities that exercise the strategies we have taught.

3 Ways to Increase Listening Skills and Confidence

First of all, here are three basic principles.

1. Limit the use of translation.

Your students need to be able to understand and respond without having to translate in their heads all the time, especially when they are listening rather than reading. At first it might seem like the easy, comfortable way to learn a language, but if it develops into a habit then they will never be able to speak English fluently.

Translation is a habit that needs to be limited because...

Students tend to start to panic when they find they don't know every word.

Using those electronic translators especially can give warped ideas of meaning.

This doesn't mean that you never let them translate. Sometimes having an equivalent from their first language is the only way to move them forward, but quickly move on and don't allow them to keep returning to it.

In general, there are better ways to handle running into new vocabulary while listening.

When students hear a new word or expression, they need something to tie it to.

As their teacher, you can help them with this by providing...

Context: Help them to find clues to the meaning in the context of the listening "text."

Pictures: Show them a picture so that when they hear the word or expression again later, the picture will come to mind.

Action: Get them to perform an action so that when they hear the word or expression again later, they will remember that particular action.

English synonyms or antonyms: Their understanding of English will grow by leaps and bounds if they can explain an English word with other English words. Encourage (and guide) them to look up unknown words in an English dictionary.

Help students to relax, and not to panic, as they listen to material (especially the first time) and to find out how much they can understand. They will probably be pleasantly surprised. For some students, this in itself can be a real confidence booster.

2. Avoid confusing listening skills with literacy skills.

When you first introduce a new listening "text" (e.g., video, story, song, podcast...) concentrate on listening and don't provide subtitles or written script (yet). In real life, there are no subtitles, so let your students have a go just listening. (Later you can add subtitles or a written script as well as literacy-related activities.)

The reasons for this are as follows:

Firstly, we don't want students with poor literacy skills to be disadvantaged in learning the listening skill. They may have poor literacy skills because they are young, or because of limited vision, or because of a learning disability, or even because they come from a non-literate background. Nevertheless, they can learn to listen and understand.

Secondly, students who are confidently literate often want to be able to see and read the words while they are listening, but this would rob them of the opportunity to really listen. Students need to be able to listen and understand without seeing the written words at the same time.

Thirdly, as mentioned above, it can be a real confidence booster when they discover just how much they do understand without any other help. And, of course, this is more like real life outside of the classroom.

Once they have listened without seeing subtitles or script the first time, and you have discussed some issues, then you can listen and watch again with the assistance of subtitles or text.

3. Use videos because students can also watch.

We want to prepare our students to take part in conversations. We want them to be able to listen, understand and respond. A large part of that listening involves reading a speaker's facial expressions and body language, which can vary from culture to culture. So, most of the time, your students need to practice their "listening" skills by watching videos, or watching you talk or tell stories.

A great source for visual material is FluentU. FluentU makes it easy to create productive ongoing listening activities by allowing your students to access the same high-quality material at home and in the classroom.

There are two situations in which students are likely to be listening to English without seeing the speaker(s):

On the radio

On the telephone

But even in these situations they still need to be able to imagine the body language being used.

So do you just play the video, and see what the students make of it?

No!

Just as you would for a reading text, you need to prepare your students to deal with something new to concentrate on and listen to, whether they are watching a video, listening to someone read or tell a story, listening to a song or just listening to a live talk.

There are several activities you can use before, during, and after listening, and then later in the lesson or another day. All of these are designed to improve the students' skills and confidence in listening.

1. Predicting and guessing

In normal conversation, what we hear tends to fit in with what we expect to hear, and without necessarily thinking about it we tend to listen for specific details. It's telling that when someone says something totally unexpected or out of context, many people respond in surprise with "What?!" as if they didn't actually hear the words. While listening to people we are familiar with in a particular context, we can easily guess what they will say.

So before playing the "text," prepare your students for the experience, and get them thinking about the topic:

Tell them the title of the piece, and ask them to guess what it is about, or what they think might happen in the story. Writers and filmmakers think very carefully about the title of their story and they want readers, listeners or viewers to think about the title, so all of the words are important. Sometimes the title is designed to be tricky and possibly misunderstood at first to pique interest, so you can guide your students to enjoy that, too.

Tell them the names of characters involved and let them predict and guess who they are and what they are like. As the students get into the movie or story, they will probably identify with one or more character, so let them enjoy guessing about them and discovering more later on.

Ask a question to get them thinking about the theme of the "text" or something in it. For example: If it is something to do with food, you could ask them, "What is your favorite food?" If it is something that happens on a train, you could ask them about their favorite or most frequent mode of travel and talk about transport, just to get them thinking along those lines.

Show them a picture: a snapshot from the video, or a picture from the cover. Discuss it. Predict and guess. If the students are going to listen to you read or tell a story from a book, show them the cover and talk about the picture-there is usually a lot of information hidden there, and it helps bring out relevant vocabulary.

Hopefully, they might even remember relevant English words they have previously learnt. All of this will help to review known vocabulary, and introduce some new vocabulary.

2. Vocabulary preparation

When you choose something for your students to study in the context of a listening lesson, you need to consider its suitability for the age and maturity of your students and whether it is at an appropriate difficulty level. This could be based on the amount of "new" vocabulary in the "text."

Make sure you have watched or listened right through (never use something you haven't thoroughly examined!) and note down words or expressions that they might find challenging. Obviously, if there are a great many new words, maybe it's too difficult-unless maybe the meaning is really obvious from the visuals.

Make a list of words from your movie or story that some or all of your students may have difficulty with, especially words that are key to the story. You don't have to teach the students all of the new words the first time through. Just choose a few that are essential and teach them before playing the "text." Of course, including one or two that they already know will probably boost their confidence, too.

Remember: When you are introducing new words, translate only if absolutely necessary. Where possible, connect the words with pictures, actions and other English words.

During listening activities

While students are watching and/or listening, it's sometimes hard to tell whether they are really still paying attention or just relaxing and daydreaming. (At least if it's a video, they are more likely to stay focused.) So it's a good idea to give them tasks to do while playing the "text."

Here are some ideas.

3. Listen for specific words and expressions, or even watch for specific items.

Obviously, your students need to be listening specifically for the words and expressions you have just taught them. They should also have some words they already know to listen for, to help them focus and improve the skill of listening.

Give them specific questions to focus on, such as...

What is the word that comes after the target word?

Who says this word?

How many times do you hear this word?

You can even give them a small "Bingo!" card with the target words for them to mark off as they hear them.

They could also be looking for specific visual items. On the board or a worksheet, put the things they are looking for into chronological order as they appear: This could be in the form of English words or pictures.

4. Listen for sequence and order.

Students could be asked to work out the order that things happen. They could, for example, have several pictures on a worksheet that they have to put into the right order as they notice them happen. (Before listening, they could guess the order, and then check as they go along.)

5. Listen and watch for specific events.

Ask the students to watch out for specific happenings.

For example:

Notice who wears a hat.

Notice who gives something to someone else.

How many people say, "Hello!"?

Who drives a green car?

After listening activities

Right after watching the video or listening to the story for the very first time is a very important moment. At this moment, you want to...

Reassure students if they are feeling lost or overwhelmed.

Help them to make sense of what they have just seen and heard.

Help them to hang on to learning they have just acquired.

Prepare them for the very valuable second time through.

Here are some ways to cover that ground.

6. Refer back to pre-listening vocab and sequences.

Discuss how (and why) they were correct (or not) in their pre-listening predictions and guesses.

Talk about the characters, e.g., who they like and why.

Review the vocabulary that was discussed before listening.

Ask if they noticed the things they were asked to watch for.

Ask about the sequencing.

This could take the form of a class discussion, a prepared worksheet, discussion in pairs or even a quiz-type game.

7. Notice collocations.

Draw attention to the context of the newly-acquired vocabulary and ask if they noticed any familiar or unfamiliar words that might tend to collocate with them. The ability to notice this can become a valuable skill for students.

This is also a preparation for the second time they listen or watch. Now that they have noticed specific words, expression and characters, get them to widen their observation to see what is around.

For example: Let's say you are watching "Finding Nemo," and your students have been listening for the word "ocean."

Students could notice that...

Everyone says "the" ocean, not just "a" ocean.

Three times, someone mentions "the entire ocean."

Right at the beginning, Marlin had promised Coral an "ocean view." (What does this normally refer to?)

What always leads to the ocean? All drains.

Of course, if you are going to try to talk about specifics like this you could also...

Use FluentU videos, where there is lots of help from interactive subtitles.

Watch and be very familiar with your videos.

Find a script database and download the script. (Making it easy to do a search on particular words.)

Activities for later practice and reinforcement

Depending on your class setup, how long your lesson is, how old your students are and how long the video or story is, you could listen again immediately to reinforce all of your recent learning.

If that is not possible, then make sure you do take time later to listen again-more than once!

Here are some things to try:

8. Listen again for the same things (maybe some students missed them) and new things.

Listen (and watch) again, with the same instructions as the first time, to make sure that every student enjoys success.

Here are some additional ideas:

Students could be in pairs to point out to each other the things to pay attention to.

Add some extra things to listen for and notice, especially those collocations mentioned above.

Add some other new during-listening activities this time.

9. Listen for particular words and expressions in new environments.

Learning increases when students can start using new vocabulary in new situations. If possible, let them listen to something else that uses some of the new expressions. Maybe you could use a different medium. For instance, tell them a story (made up, if you like) that uses some of the new vocabulary. You could tell a story about a place that has great "ocean views," referring to the Nemo example above.

10. Listen to new expressions and compare them with similar ones.

Now take the newly acquired words and expressions and change them a bit, making substitutions for parts of them. Let students listen and notice the differences. Again, you could tell a story and change some parts. For a simple example: Instead of Goldilocks and the three bears, there could be three frogs, or Goldilocks could be a boy, etc.

There could be other changes in the language, such as gender of pronouns, or tense.

11. Play "listen and do" games.

The addition of movement to a learning activity can improve and cement the learning. So practicing newly-acquired words and expressions using action is both fun and beneficial. If students have learnt some verbs, these can be mixed with already familiar verbs in an activity that involves responding to the words with actions. For example, a "Simon Says" type game.

12. Use technology for listening practice at home.

If students only think about English during class time, then it will take them a very long time to learn it well because they need to learn to think in English. Nowadays, it is not difficult to provide them with a video, or story podcast, to listen to again at home. They could be so enthusiastic about it that it doesn't even feel like "homework"! They can be given set exercises or questions to help them focus, or they can simply relax and enjoy it, soaking up the language.

E xtra activities for after listening

There are other ways that students can be reminded of words and expressions taught during a listening session.

13. Dictation

The teacher can dictate quotes from the video or story that they have already watched and enjoyed, and the students can try to write them down. This helps to tie in their literacy skills with their listening, as well as reinforcing what they have learned through watching.

This could also be a "running dictation" where students are in pairs-one to run and dictate, the other to listen and write-and the written text to dictate is posted somewhere at a distance such as outside the classroom. The running student goes and reads and remembers as much of the text as he can, then runs back and dictates it to his partner to write down.

14. Bingo!

Words or expressions focused on in the video or story can be incorporated into a "Bingo!" game. Go to a website such as ESLactivities.com to create enough cards for the whole class, each containing the same words but in random order. Give students objects such as small stones or sunflower seeds to use as markers. Students place markers on their cards as you call out the words, and when someone gets five in a row in any direction they call "Bingo!" The winner becomes the next caller, the markers are removed and the game starts again.

15. Flashcard games

Words and expressions to be focused on can be written on flashcards and used for many different games. For example, students could have their own small set of cards and hold up the appropriate one when it is heard while listening to the "text." Or pairs of words could be placed on the boards with students in pairs racing to claim the right one when it is heard.

Listen again and again

It is very important for students to listen to the story or watch the video again, as soon as possible after the first time.

But it's also important to keep doing this later at greater intervals.

With every repeat, old information will be reinforced and new things will be learnt, too!

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere.Click here to get a copy. (Download)

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The Truth About Teaching ESL Listening Skills: What Works and Why

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I was surprised to find that one of the students in my "Listening" class was deaf. She was proficient in lip-reading in her first language and she was learning to do the same in English. So I tried to make sure I was always facing the class when I spoke.

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If you are looking for a site that has a variety of audio listening activities, with text as well, it is a decent site.

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Easily create beautiful interactive video lessons for your students you can integrate right into your LMS. Track students’ progress with hassle-free analytics as you flip your classroom!

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This series of articles will assist with your news-focused Mandarin based learning. Articles in The Legends Series are HSK graded level 5 and above.

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I've been using dictation as a listening strategy and it seems to help students to focus and improve their listening skills.

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book listening in the classroom teaching student how to listen

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Lexia English has helpful lesson plans and slides to practice listening (& speaking) skills

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Lexia Lessons Slide Decks

This instructional resource can be used to support the delivery of Speaking Practice Lexia Lessons to students. You will be prompted to make your own copy before opening.

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Lexia Lessons Slide Decks This instructional resource can be used to support the delivery of Speaking Practice Lexia Lessons to students. You will be prompted to make your own copy before opening.

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This article features instructional ideas for listening practice.

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Speaking and Listening in Content Area Learning

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Oral language development facilitates print literacy. In this article, we focus on the ways in which teachers can ensure students' speaking and listening skills are developed. We provide a review of effective classroom routines, including some that can be enhanced with technology.

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I like to use these Listening Card activities with the students and extend them with writing tasks at the end (i.e. write as many words as you can to label pictures, write a sentence about one of the pictures, etc.). We always warm up by brainstorming ways to listen and remember/ be a "good listener". I am attaching some of the cards that I have found most useful from level 1.

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Listening Cards, continued., These are some of the exercises that I found most useful in the level 2 collection. There are still opportunities to extend this into short writing tasks afterward.

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Love this site for Sp 1-3, transcripts available

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¡Cuéntame! | Learn Spanish with Comprehensible Input

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Listen to ¡Cuéntame! | Learn Spanish with Comprehensible Input on Spotify.