Liven up a Listening | Recipes for the EFL Classroom
Not sure what to do with a listening text coming up soon in the unit? Don’t like the comprehension questions in the book? Want some ideas to liven it up? Pre-listening Prediction work can be a really useful pre-listening activity, preparing the students for what they are about to hear. KWL charts This is an idea I took from JJ Wilson’s excellent book, How to Teach Listening. The basic procedure: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Bingo A fun and engaging vocabulary prediction task. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. You can try this with the weather forecast below: Whilst listening Giving students different tasks When we listen to many things in our day to day life, we are not interested in understanding everything, but just the salient points. An example: Using the text above, the teacher could think of a number of situations, write these on cards and give them out to the students. You can try this out if you like: choose a situation and listen to the weather forecast above. In summary Like this: Like Loading...
Micro-dictations/listening activities
Back in November, my pre-intermediate students were listening to a coursebook text. There was an Irish speaker telling a story about his aunt and uncle’s holiday, and most of the students had no idea what he was saying. It wasn’t just his accent that was difficult for them. Inspired by John Field’s Listening in the Language Classroom (Cambridge: 2009), I embarked on a series of activities to help the group get to grips with understanding connected speech, including introducing simple rules like ‘final consonant sound + initial vowel sound are linked’, as well as the idea of weak forms of grammar words like ‘was’ and ‘of’. My favourite way of bringing all of these rules together and giving the students extra listening practice at home is micro-dictations. Choose an excerpt from a long text or a very stand-alone short text, not more than about 3 sentences long. Since that lesson in November, I’ve set five or six of these micro-dictations as homework for this group.
Podcasts to help English learners practise listening
Do your students want more listening practice? Aoife McLoughlin, blogger with ELT-Connect.com and latest winner of the British Council's Teaching English blog award, recommends five podcasts to get them started. Do you spend enough time working on listening skills with your students? Is there ever enough time? In my experience, I would say no. Often, when we ask students what part of their English they most want to improve, they will say listening and speaking. But we often give less attention to the receptive skill of listening, perhaps in the belief that 'if you can do it alone, you can do it at home'. Podcasts are a great way for students to improve their listening on the go. With such a huge selection available, students are bound to find a podcast they are interested in that suits their needs. Here are my top five podcasts for learners of English: Englishclass101.com This is much more than a podcast. TED audio podcasts Podcastsinenglish.com IELTSpodcast.com Downtobusinessenglish.com
First Day ESL Activity: Introductions of English Students
The first day of teaching a new English class can be difficult for any foreign language teacher. Often ESL schools don't provide much information concerning the class, so the teacher goes into class with only a vague idea of the true English level of the students. A university foreign language class may speak at a low intermediate level, and a high school ESL class may be advanced. This raises the problem of entering an English class with a lesson plan and ESL activity that quickly proves to be too hard or too easy. There is a very easy ESL activity that can help make the first day of English class go more smoothly, discover the true level of the students, provide opportunities to speak English and learn more about the ESL students. Have the foreign language students introduce themselves in front of the entire class. Public Introductions as an ESL activity Other things to consider is how large is the class and how long the class is. Basic Level ESL Classes
Making the right choices: ‘Lean On Me’ – On the same page
Every word in the song “Lean On Me” by Bill Withers has been written into a grid with some distractors. Starting in the upper left corner, students complete the lyrics choosing one of the words available right next to the last word in any direction and using each square only once. To guide them through the process, the writing worksheet provides students with a few words in each line, including the first ones, which are also capitalised in the grid for easier reference. You may want to model and play the first two lines of the song so that the students can understand the procedure. Students will be practising a number of skills as they make their choices. Sometimes they will have to make decisions concerning subject-verb agreement, sentence structure, word order, or selecting the right preposition. Before listening to the song and checking the lyrics, students are asked to write down and share what they think the last line of the song is, adding an extra purpose to the listening task.
Neolithic Agriculture
Embed code Select a size, the embed code changes based on your selection. _abc Powtoon Transcript HI ESO CLIL 1! CC creative commons attribution Stonehenge, Winter Solstice 2008 Sign that the War Against Tibet is Over, Dharma Wheel, sewn fabric on Monastery awning, Boudha, Kathmandu, Nepal competition Before you add your video to the competition, please choose the category you think it fits best Quick-Clips for our competition can only contain videos embedded from YouTube. Terms & Conditions
Teach them English
Terrestrial Sequestration of Carbon Dioxide
<div class="noscript">JavaScript appears to be disabled. JavaScript must be enabled to use some functions of this site.</div> Terrestrial sequestration involves the collection and storage of carbon dioxide by plants and the storage of carbon in soil. Natural Terrestrial Sequestration Natural Terrestrial Sequestration Diagram. Source: EPA Click to enlarge Terrestrial sequestration involves the capture and storage of carbon dioxide by plants and the storage of carbon in soil. As part of the natural process, some of the carbon is released into the atmosphere, but some carbon is captured within the soil and increases the soil's organic matter content. Preservation or Promotion of Terrestrial Sequestration While terrestrial sequestration of carbon is a natural process that is always occurring, human actions to preserve the natural carbon sequestration capacity of land and to promote increased terrestrial sequestration are important tools to combat global warming. Promoting Terrestrial Sequestration
