102 教育部英⽂文學科中⼼心種⼦子教師聽⼒力教學教案

台南市⽴立永仁⾼高中 蔡孟芬⽼老師
I. Title:

Listening UP---Ten Simple & Possible Listening Activities in the English Classroom

II. Introduction:

Listening is the very basic and foundational ability among the four, the ideal of listening

ability building is to ask students to listen a lot. But in daily English classrooms, that is not easy

to achieve. Nonetheless, teachers can take small steps, which take very little time away from

instruction, to create listening-rich classrooms or school environments. The goal is to surround

students, to the best of a teacher’s ability, with listening materials that students will gravitate

toward and be motivated to listen actively and effectively. There are ten simple and possible

listening activities provided in this lesson plan and some helpful tips are also added below.

III. Objectives:

1. to practice the behaviors of effective, active listeners

2. to listen effectively in a variety of materials

3. to respond to questions about the topic, main ideas, details and opinions

4. to take dictation with some repetition

5. to use schemata and real world knowledge to predict content

6. to participate constructively in pair conversation, small groups, and whole group discussion

IV. Materials:

1. Songs Dictation with Differentiated Instruction

2. Clips Listening and Watching with Differentiated Instruction

3. ICRT EZ News

4. Textbooks

5. Magazines

6. Novels

7. Movies

V. Ten Teaching Activities:

A. Listening Activities
1. Songs Dictation with Differentiated Instruction

Many teachers like to use songs as warm-up activities because students can feel

enthusiastic about getting the natural speech via melody and rhythm. As learners understand

the message of the song, they use grammar and vocabulary in their previous knowledge and

add new phrases into their list. In other words, both top-down and bottom-up strategies for

listening are developed at the same time. Cullen (1999) indicated that songs from the 1950s

and '60s especially made the voice louder than modern recordings, so these may be more

suitable for some students. Therefore, “Season in the Sun” is chosen as a song dictation

material. In addition to listening training, the idea of differentiated instruction is also added to

the design of worksheets. Students are grouped into Levels A, B, C based on their

performance in the monthly exam. Level A students listen and fill in the blanks. Level B

students listen and fill in the blanks with initial and final letters. Level C students with the basic

English level listen and choose the correct words from two options. In this way, the students

have better motivation and interests in the activity. The following are the worksheet samples:

advanced intermediate basic

Students work individually. The song plays twice. Next, since the blanks on different
worksheets are in the same place, the answers can be shown on the screen and be
checked together in class.
 1) Choose the songs with clear voice.

2) Record or download the songs in advance to avoid the Internet disconnection

problem.

3) Listen and decide the blanks. Every seven to eight words make a blank. Leave

time for students to spell the words.

4) Don’t quiz students on mixed chores.

5) Leave students one minute to check their spelling before checking the answers.

6) If the song is too long, just carry out a partial song dictation.(eg. Vincent, a very

long song)

7) Related activity: Ask students to express their ideas by writing a dialogue or a

letter to their beloved ones.

2. Clip Listening and Watching

Teaching English listening skills successfully requires using a combination of different

resources to expose students to spoken English. Clips are one of the authentic teaching

materials. With easier exercises in the beginning, it is important to keep encouraging them and

build up their confidence. Use dictation exercises to teach students how to focus on

understanding the context of a conversation. With the clip “Make Health Last” on “看Youtube學

英⽂文” /blog.youtubelearn.com/, the following two different activities are designed.

In the first activity, the teacher combines the differentiated instruction with clip dictation

exercise. Students are divided into three levels. Level C students with the best English ability

have to finish the most blanks and Level A students have the least blanks. Students work and

discuss together in homogeneous groups. The clip plays twice. After that, students exchange

the worksheets and check the answers while the teacher play and pauses the clip from time to

time with both English and Chinese subtitles.

 In the second activity, there are three stages--Before, While, After Clip Watching

Activities. First, students watch the silent clip and predict the main idea of the story. Students

discuss their answers with each other for five minutes and some of them read their predictions

in class. Next, students watch the clip with voice and write the main idea of the clip. After that,

students are asked to write down the most amazing part and how the clip affect them. In this

activity, students can practice their thinking, listening and writing abilities.
 1) Teachers don’t need to type the scripts by themselves; the scripts are available
beneath the clip.
2) Choose the clips that can arouse students’ interest.

3. ICRT EZ NEWS

It is never an easy task for senior high school students to start listening to ICRT News

Reports. However, teachers can make good use of ICRT EZ News at 10 AM and 07 PM every

day to improve students listening ability gradually. The latest EZ News will be posted on the

ICRT website. Teachers can find the audio files and transcripts available. There is a

demonstration on Youtube (http://youtu.be/mk3botbLvUo) about how to make listening

teaching materials with ICRT EZ News. The following are the teaching procedures.

1) pre-listening vocabulary list: ask students to guess the meanings of the unfamiliar words

in the context

2) audio feed: students listen to the news twice

3) blank-filling exercise

4) transcript: provide the complete transcript of the news

5) comprehension questions

6) discussion question

7) answers checking (http://www.englishclub.com)

The blank-filling exercise worksheet is provided below.

Question for discussion:

There is a little girl who got hurt seriously in the bomb accident. Please write a letter to
comfort this terrified girl. What will you say to help a little girl believe this world is still

beautiful?
 1) Start from weather reports to catch the temperatures or places.

2) Begin with true/false questions.

3) Provide Chinese news as background knowledge if necessary.

4. Jeopardy

“QuizBreak!” is a highly flexible program designed by Michigan State University that

allows teachers to create fun, Jeopardy©-like games for the language classroom. There is a

demonstration on Youtube about how to use QuizBreak! to make listening activities (http://

youtu.be/kTkDiY7mF9s). Students can work in groups and listen to the paragraph twice and

answer the comprehension questions. The game is just like the program “百萬⼩小學堂” in

Taiwan. Groups compete with each other. If one group get the right answer, this group can get

one point. Teachers can design the Jeopardy in daily lessons as warm-up or wrap-up

activities.

5. Listening G.O.

There are various types of learners. For visual learners, they prefer using images,

pictures and maps to organize information and communicate with others. They can easily

visualize objects, plans and outcomes in their mind's eyes. Therefore, geographic organizers

provide a good visual media to help visual students learn better. That is, geographic

organizers make sure new listening material is obvious among all the other visual images

floating around inside their heads. The following is a listening geographic organizer designed
 with Lungteng Book 5 Lesson 8 Istanbul Paragraph 8. This paragraph is played twice and

students fill in the information they hear.

1. Choose paragraphs with good organizations.

2. Don’t ask students to fill in peoples’ names or place names. If any, give

students word choices to prevent spelling errors.

6. DIY Magazines Listening Practice

Magazines are common learning materials in the English classroom. But not every

magazine article is a ready-made listening material. How can teachers turn a reading material

into a listening one? The QAR strategy will help a lot.

 Although some of reading comprehension questions are provided on the magazines, not all

of them are good listening questions. Some are too complicated, and while listening, students

can’t go back to check their answers again and again. Therefore, teachers can create

questions ranging from basic information questions to critical thinking questions. By playing

the MP3 attached to the magazine, the articles are transferred to reading materials. The

following is an example which is made out of an article on Life Magazine about Ann Lee’s

movie “Life of PI.”

♕ Listen and answer the B. His father are interested in

following questions.
1. What is “pi” in Ang Lee’s new
movie, Life of Pi?
A. A mathematical mark.
B. A Canadian young man.
C. An Indian teenager.
D. A cargo ship’s owner.
orangutans, zebras, hyenas
and tigers.
C. The political problems in
their country become worse
and worse.
D. His parents hope he can
continue studying the
mathematical ratio.

2. Why is Pi so familiar with 4. What happens after the

animals?
A. His father owns a zoo and
Pi likes to stay there.
B. His father buys him a zoo
and Pi takes care of
animals.
C. His father makes a living
by selling animals.
D. His family always take
trips to different zoos.
3. Why do Pi’s family move to
North America?
A. They want to visit a
famous zoo in Canada.
cargo ship sinks?
A. All the passengers and
animals survive the
shipwreck.
B. Pi loses everything and
drifts alone on the ocean.
C. Pi saves a 200-kilogram
Bengal tiger but is eaten
by it.
D. His family finally sell the
animals and make a
fortune.
5. How many animals are there
sharing the boat with Pi?
A. Two
B. Three
C. Four

B. Listening and Speaking Activities

Brown (2007) claimed that many speaking skills are related to listening skills. It is

necessary to combine the two skills in teaching activities; they can influence each other

effectively. Besides, speaking ability is often the natural consequence of listening acquisition.

Therefore, the close relation between listening and speaking can’t be ignored in the

classroom. Next are four speaking activities incorporated with listening training.
1. Reader’s Theater

Reader’s Theater is a popular and interesting activities which is welcome to students. It

provides an opportunity for them to develop fluency through multiple readings of the text by

using expressiveness, intonation, and inflection when rehearsing the text. Taking on character

roles helps students understand literary elements, such as motivation and characterization.

Reader's theater scripts also promote listening skills as students follow along silently and listen

for spoken cues. They will need to be attentive to other performers in the group so they know

when to speak and what is happening in the play. They will need to be attentive to other

performers in the group so they know when to speak and what is happening in the play. Not all

literature, however, makes a good Readers Theater script.

Look for literature that ….

• is interesting.

• has a strong story line, interesting characters, conflict, plot action, humor.

• uses dialogue.

• is not filled with descriptive passages.

2. Pair Dictation (Example Sentences / TOEIC)

According to Smith (2010), pair dictation is an activity that very effectively contributes to

improvement in all skill areas—reading, writing, speaking and listening. It is particularly useful

for practice with paragraph structure, grammatical accuracy and pronunciation. In addition, it

can be successfully employed in any class setting with any type of students. Teachers can

carry out pair dictation in lots of materials such as vocabulary example sentences, TOEIC

listening scripts. The following are the procedures:

1) Students work in pairs. In a pair, one plays role A and the other plays role B.

2) A and B must not show the text to each other.

3) A begins with the first complete sentence slowly and clearly.

4) A and B take turns reading the complete sentences on their worksheets.

5) After they accomplish the sentences, they check each other’s answer sheet.
1. Teach vocabulary or key words before the pari dictation activity.

2. Remind students not to show the text to each other and copy the answers.
3. Be tolerant. The classroom will be very noisy when students are doing pair dictation.

3. Reading to Oral Fluency

Anderson (2013) stated that in almost any instructional context, a teacher can use a text

already covered in previous lessons as a springboard for short reading-fluency activities.

Using an already covered text allows students to concentrate on reading more quickly instead

of having to focus on meaning and unfamiliar words. Teachers can engage students in fluency

practice with activities that center on familiar texts. There are two simple and interesting

activities that can be carried out easily in the classroom.

a. Buddy Reading

The pedagogical procedures of buddy reading are below:

1) Pair students. Student A with higher English level.

2) Student A reads the passage aloud for 60 seconds as quickly and as accurately as

possible with appropriate pausing and intonation.

3) While Student A reads aloud, Student B follows along.

4) Then Students A and B switch roles. Student A assists B if necessary.

The following is a buddy-reading worksheet designed for a novel class. Students in

pairs read the assigned pages in A Christmas Carol and answer the two questions.

After the buddy-reading activity, here are some reflections from students:

✤ My partner helps me read. He corrects my pronunciation.

 ✤ We help each other to read correctly.

✤ I like buddy-reading because it is interesting. My English is improved.

✤ We remind each other and help each other.

✤ I can compare myself with my partner. I know I can do much better.

✤ When I meet new words, I can discuss with my partner.

✤ I can be corrected immediately and get correct answers.

✤ My reading ability is improved.

It seems that most students like buddy-reading and think it an interesting and

effective method to improve their listening and speaking abilities at the same time.

b. One-minute Reading

One-minute reading can also be held as a warm-up or wrap-up activity for every lesson.

Students work individually and sit back-to-back. Then students read for one-minute. It is

necessary to provide some practice time before beginning the one-minute reading. The

following are the steps of one-minute reading:

1) Ask students to reread a text for exactly one minute.

2) Stop students after 60 seconds and ask them to mark the last word read and count how

many words they read.

3) Have students keep a record of their weekly one-minute readings to chart their

improvement over time.

The record cards are distributed to students in the beginning of the semester and

sticked to their textbooks.

 Students give some reflections after one-minute reflection:

✤ I can read better by practicing more.

✤ I can have bettre ability to express myself in English.

✤ I can do better for the second time. I read faster and more smoothly.

✤ English ability should be built step by step. I find myself read smoothly through more

practice.

✤ I didn’t read smoothly in the beginning, but I do better and better by practicing

repeatedly.

✤ My speaking ability becomes greater. My reading speed improves but my

pronunciation remain poor.

✤ I still don’t understand the meaning of the sentences.

✤ I feel worried and anxious because I want to be better than last time.

4. Dubbing

It is not easy to carry out dubbing activities in the classroom. Teacher need to find out

proper clip and prepare lines in advance. Then bring students to the computer classroom to

record their voice. The following are the steps suggested:

1. Playing the clip

➡ without subtitles
➡ with English subtitles
➡ script practice

2. Group rehearsal

➡ pronunciation
➡ timing
 The grading card is used for self-grading, peer-grading and teacher-grading in five aspects and

comments are written below.

1) Find a clip without background sound effects or delete the sound effects.

2) Upload the clip on Youtube and give students scripts and clips to practice

individually at home.

3) Students practice the scripts in groups in the classroom before going to the

computer classroom.

VI. Teacher’s Reflection

The development of listening ability is a long-term process. What teachers need to do is

keep on doing a litte change and squeeze listening activity into the English classroom. In this way,

not only do students’ listening abilities become better but also students have more fun in learning

English. There are some suggestions for teachers if they want to apply the activities above:

1. Incorporating listening training into daily lessons is more time-saving and practical.

2. Different and interesting listening activities arouse students’ interest in learning English.

3. Students often ask for more time to practice in class but in fact they always can make it within

time limit. Insist on time limit!

 4. Preparation and testing the effects of the listening materials require teachers’ efforts and time.

But remember, next time, everything will be better.

5. Technical problems are sometimes troublesome. Ask professionals for help.

References

Anderson, N. J., Fredricka L. Stoller, William Grabe, and Reiko Komiyama. (2013). Instructional

Enhancements to Improve Students’ Reading Abilities. English Teaching Forum, Number 1.

Brown H. Douglas. (2007). Teaching by Principles--An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy.

New York: Longman

Cullen Brian. (1999). Song Dictation. The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. V, No. 11, November.

Smith, C. David (2010). The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. XVI, No. 2, February.