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1. Display or give copies of different pictures to different students
2. Get students into groups and have them exchange information on what they saw.
3. Instruct the Ss to find /establish common topic for all the visuals

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Divide your class into 2 groups: Note Takers & Question Makers

Note Takers are instructed to watch a video and take as man notes as they want

Question Makers are instructed to make challenging questions as they watch the same video

After the video is finished, the groups are given 1-2 minutes to discuss/vote on the best 3 questions

Question Makers ask their questions and Note takers reply relying on notes only.

Groups exchange roles

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Engaging ears, eyes, brains and minds: Authentic listening at every level

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Engaging ears, eyes, brains and minds: Authentic listening at every level

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Webinar by Lewis.

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Engaging ears, eyes, brains and minds: Authentic listening at every level - Teens Webinars National Geographic Learning - NGL ELT

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Accents, fast speech, idioms and slang - these features of spoken English make listening one of the biggest challenges learners face. But low-level learners don't want to wait to learn real English - they want to understand it now. And even at higher levels real-world listening continues to be challenging.

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By Anna Tonkikh

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Tips for bringing big ideas from TED Talks into the classroom

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Tips for bringing big ideas from TED Talks into the classroom

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By Hetain Pate

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Identity, voice and collaboration: Tips for bringing big ideas from TED Talks into the classroom - Adult Webinars National Geographic Learning - NGL ELT

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With content from Artist Hetain Patel, and ideas from National Geographic Learning and TED Talks, ELT materials writer Lewis Lansford makes connections between the big ideas of identity, voice and collaboration and the practicalities of language teaching.

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Download here

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The god of Teaching Listening and a really great guy

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Field, J. 1998 Skills and  strategies - towards a new methodology for listening

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By Field

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Field, J. 2000 Finding one's way in the fog MET

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Field, J. 2004 An insight into  listeners problems - too much bottom-up or too much top-down

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The extended monologue
In the second part of the IELTS test, candidates have to speak for 1-2 minutes on a given topic, having been given 1 minute to prepare. (Incidentally, I have mentioned IELTS in the title, because this is perhaps the best known example, but there are other speaking exams (e.g. Cambridge ESOL Skills for Life L1 and L2 ) where candidates have to carry out similar tasks).

Although Part 2 of IELTS is not actually as tough as Part 3, for many candidates, it is the part they dread the most. However, it is also the part where familiarity with the task and plenty of practice can really make a huge difference. As an IELTS examiner, I sometimes examine native speakers applying to emigrate to Australia, and even these perfectly fluent speakers can struggle with Part 2 if unprepared.

In IELTS the candidate is given a number of points to cover. For example:
Describe a leisure activity which you enjoy doing. You should say:
- What the activity is and how you do it

- When and how often you do it

- What equipment you need
And explain why you enjoy it.
[example from IELTS Foundation Second Edition]

In order to do well in this part of the exam, students need to:

1 Structure their answer well, so that it is coherent and cohesive.

2 Speak fluently, without too many hesitations.

3 Demonstrate accuracy and range in their language.

Live listening is an excellent technique for both modelling the kind of answer the students should be aiming for, and providing a source for language they can use.
What is live listening?
In a nutshell, live listening means listening to the teacher (or another visitor), in a face to face situation, rather than using a pre-prepared recording. The teacher can be a neglected resource in terms of listening, as teachers try to avoid the dreaded 'teacher talking time'. However, there is a world of difference between the teacher mumbling away to the class instead of giving clear and concise instructions, and using the teacher as a rich resource for listening.

Listening to the teacher speaking at length offers the benefits of:

- genuine, real-time communication.

- all the features of natural spoken English (hesitations, false starts, connected speech etc)

- facial expressions and gestures

- the opportunity to offer clarifications
Using live listening to prepare for IELTS Part 2
Using set of prompts like those above, the teacher prepares to talk for 1-2 minutes on the topic. You might want to spend more than the 1 minute that candidates are allowed, but it's important that you don't script what you are going to say.

Talk for 1-2 minutes to the students, and, ideally, record what you say. They listen and make notes on what you said about each prompt. Carry out brief feedback. This should help them see how to structure their talk, using the prompts.

Then play the recording (or repeat the task) and encourage students to write down any useful 'chunks' of language that they hear, which they think they could use in a similar task.

The reason that native speakers are able to speak so quickly and fluently is because they have a huge store of chunks of language which they are able to pull out and use; they don't have to create every word from scratch. So it makes sense to encourage learners to develop their own store of 'chunks'.

Here is a Vocaroo recording of me using the prompts above to talk about Qi Gong
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0J4pGleT6oB
And here is the language I might encourage the learners to pick out from this recording:
The leisure activity that I'd like to talk about is_______ It's a kind of __________ It's all about + ing It's quite similar to_________ The main thing about _____ is (that)____ I don't often get around to it. You don't actually need any equipment at all. Sometimes I find it difficult to motivate myself. I always feel better after I've done it.
Spend a little bit of time checking that students understand the 'chunks' and can pronounce them fluently, then put them in pairs and ask them to carry out the same task themselves, using any of the chunks they find useful.

The beauty of this activity is that it requires minimal preparation, but, repeated on a regular basis, with different prompt cards, it can really help learners to develop their ability to structure a short talk and to use natural sounding 'chunks' of language.

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The extended monologue In the second part of the IELTS test, candidates have to speak for 1-2 minutes on a given topic, having been given 1 minute to prepare. (Incidentally, I have mentioned IELTS in the title, because this is perhaps the best known example, but there are other speaking exams (e.g.

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Have you seen in your ELT travels that teacher sitting in the classroom making personal calls on his mobile while he's supposed to be teaching? A common enough example of a blight in our overall profession? A sign of a teacher who lacks professionalism and consideration for his learners?
Well, of late I've occasionally been that teacher. Hopefully, if you read on, you'll decide not to bestow some of those less-flattering labels on the Raven...

Today I applied something I like to call "live listening" with a more advanced group of learners. This is something I've really been enjoying utilising as a teacher, as it isn't the sort of thing I had access to (nor might have been all that appropriate) when I was teaching in an EFL context. Here in an ESL context, with adult learners, it's a different kettle of fish.

Basically, I regularly bring real telephone enquiries into the classroom, based on what is happening in my real life (so long as it isn't too personal and correlates well with the learners' own needs and the curricular goals for their levels).

This can be things like calling up the phone or power company to check something about an actual bill I have received, booking in my car for a service, talking to the real estate agent about issues to do with our home... the list goes on.

There are a variety of ways to apply this for learning purposes, but my favourite method is to:
(a) Introduce the particular situation to the learners and discuss it with them in relation to their own lives (b) Have them draw a line down the centre of a page in their notebooks (c) Have them listen and write down notes (on the left-hand side of their pages) while I make the actual phone call, which I also video record on my Flipcam (d) Have them work in pairs or threes to try and accurately reconstruct what I said during the conversation (e) Have them work in their pairs/groups to try and figure out what was being said at the other end of the line (the voice they can't hear) (f) I play the Flipcam video again a couple of times for the class so that they can watch and listen again and make any adjustements or additions to what they've already got down (g) Check and discuss learners' transcripts and guesses about the other speaker's involvement, as well as anything noteworthy or interesting about the overall conversation
Often it works out best if the learners can do parts (d) and (e) at the same time, as it really promotes hypothesising and discourse awareness.

I don't broadcast the voice at the other end of the line out of respect for privacy, but also because I think it's more engaging from a language development point of view to experiment and try and work out ways in which what I'm saying could be working within an overall dialogue.

The telephone enquiry today was about making an appointment for my children to see a doctor at our local medical clinic. Real situation with real timing: my children were both sick last night, and the very haggard look of Mr. Raven in the video is genuine and warranted (it's 9:10 a.m. and I've had all of three hours sleep on account of our two suffering bairns).

What really amazes me about these real telephone conversations is how unlike the scripted coursebookish ones we're accustomed to presenting to our learners they tend to be. For example, the lady at the clinic today answered the phone and said (at 9:10 a.m.) "Good afternoon - um, oops!"

I also like the fact that the pauses as I listen to or wait on the person at the other end of the line give the learners a nice series of breaks to not only add to their notes about what I'm saying, but also think and hypothesize about what the person at the other end of the line is currently saying in response, using my facial expressions and body language as valuable cues. These pauses help to make this listening experience more manageable for the learners, but also more thought-provoking.

On a final note, it always interests me how real "live" listening experiences like this seem to automatically encourage the learners to notice and ask questions about speaking style and communication strategies, not to mention cultural aspects of "local" conversations. In the example above, how did I set a friendly tone at the start of the conversation (and why)? How did I push for appointment times that suited me better than the initial ones on offer? What did I push for and not get? How and why did I finish up the conversation the way I did?

Today, following this exercise, the learners (who all have a reasonably high level of English) confessed that none of them call the clinic to make appointments to see the doctor (for themselves or their children). They get their Australian spouses to do it for them... And following today, they all agreed they ought to be giving it a shot on their own, and that it isn't necessarily as intimidating as they previously imagined it would be.

Great activity - love using it in class!

=D

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Some benefits of a sort of "live listening" activity

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Have you seen in your ELT travels that teacher sitting in the classroom making personal calls on his mobile while he's supposed to be teaching? A common enough example of a blight in our overall profession? A sign of a...

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by Elizabeth Sautter & Kristen Wilson

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Social Thinking at School and Dealing with Blurting

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Part 2 Demo of some Engaging activities

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Файл из Облака Mail.Ru

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Облако Mail.Ru - это ваше персональное надежное хранилище в интернете. Все нужные файлы всегда под рукой, доступны в любой точке мира с компьютера или смартфона.