1.Let students listen to you or a higher level student read a selected text or story. (don’t make it too long, depends on the level but I’d say no more than 3 min. listening).It might also even be a dialog.

2. Next, tell them to listen again. This time taking notes, drawing pictures or however they want to record the information. You might even give them a graphic organizer or chart to help categorize information.

3. The students get in groups and try to recreate the exact text from memory. After some trying, you might even reread the passage to help them.

4. Share each others passage and note the differences.

This activity is similar to Running Dictation - in that the students recreate a text.

This post was submitted by David.

This is a very easy activity.  Easy to prepare and easy to do.  Howvever, it is very efficient to evaluate sts listening skills and to get some creativity in the listening area in your class.  I actually modified it from another activity I read in this site posted by David.

Objective:  To evaluate sts listening skills by picking out words from a song.   

Steps:

1.  Choose a song with vocabulary that suits your class or that you have used.  Ex.  past verbs, past participles, animals, places, etc.

2.  Cut little pieces of paper with a word for every sentence in the song. You will end up with many pieces of paper.

3.  Place the pieces of paper infront of the sts.  Make pairs or groups of three or four. 

4.  Explain and model the activity. (Be funny and exaggerated to model activities, sts will laugh.  Always good in a class)

5.  Play the song and let the sts to GO FISHING!  The st who has more pieces of paper wins. 

Follow up: 

If you want to evaluate comprehension, ask a few questions about the song. 

Another great idea is to make a story with all the words.  This depends on the level you teach.

GO FISHING! CAN BE DONE WITH ANY LEVEL.

Let me know how it goes.

Vic

This post was submitted by Victor Mejia.

Clear the desks.  All of them.  Make sure the whole room is nothing but a big dance floor.
Start by writing all the significant terms on the board.  To the Left, To the right, to the back,  hop, stomp, left/right foot, hands on your knees, turn, reverse, Charlie Brown, slide left/right, criss-cross, cha-cha, go down low, bring it to the top.  Before you even show them the first clip review all the terms a couple times asking the students if they know what the term means and if they can demonstrate it.  There’s usually at least one or two kids who will demonstrate in some fashion and the others will get the idea.

Once you feel like they’ve been introduced to all the terms effectively show them the music video clip so they have a good idea of what it looks like and sounds like.  The second clip is the song with all the lyrics.  Get all the kids in the best order you can.  Make sure they give each other space.

Round one: Do the dance WITH them the first time with the clip containing the lyrics, emphsizing and calling out important terms as you do the actions. (like if we are moving back i call out “back”)  Tell them to read and listen.

Round two:  No help from teacher.  read and listen only.

Round three:  Listen only.  the music video clip is slightly remixed and a bit more challenging.  It’s your discretion which clip you want to use and if you want to do a fourth round of listening only.

By this time i have between 15 and 20 minutes left in class so for fun I teach them an easy line dance like the Electric Slide, Cotton Eyed Joe, the Chicken Dance, or maybe the Cupid Shuffle just the break the monotony of doing the same dance again and again.  This doesn’t really require explanation as they can copy your motions.

In the final five minutes of class I do the dance (listening only) with the students one more time.  Or you can watch again so it’s pure listening.  Most of my kids have a lot of fun with this and its REALLY good to teach some direction, listening, prepositions etc…  It’s also easy to modify because you can take this at the pace your students are at.  low level students whoa re just learning these terms may do best with reading and listening the whole time.  Reviewing the terms again is ok.

Links

This post was submitted by Joseph.

Divide class in two teams, A and B. Divide the board in the middle. Mark each side of the board for each team.  

On each side of the board draw:

• a river with stepping stones for students to get across the river. The winner is the team that crosses the river first. For every correct word they write, mark a stepping stone.
• a ladder. The winner is the team that climbs the ladder first. For every correct word they write, mark a step on the ladder.
• a mountain with climbing points for the teams  to climb and put their country’s flag up on the top. The winner is the team that climbs the mountain and puts their country’s flag up first. For every correct word they write, mark a climbing point.
• an apple tree with a ladder which the students have to climb and pick the apples from the tree. This is suggested for longer spelling and vocabulary homework since the students first have to climb up the ladder and then pick the apples. The winner is the team that picks all the apples first. For every correct word they write, mark a step on the ladder and then an apple on the tree.
• a daisy. The winner is the team whose daisy is wiped out first. For every correct word they write, wipe out a petal and after all the petals have been wiped out, then wipe out the leaves and the stem until the whole daisy has gone.
• an ice cream with 4-5 scoops of different flavours. For example, brown for chocolate, green for pistachio, red for strawberry, white for vanilla, etc. The winner is the team that eats their ice cream first, the whole of it, even the cone. For every correct word they write, wipe out a scoop until the whole ice cream has gone!
• a basket with basketballs underneath. The winner is the team that puts all their basketballs in the basket first. For every correct word they write, wipe out a basketball. 

Call a member from each team up on the board and dictate a word from their vocabulary to them. The students write the word they hear on their side of the board making sure at the same time that the student from the opposite team cannot see what the other student is writing. So cheating is eliminated.
This has proven a very nice and exciting way to check spelling, listening comprehension and pronunciation in a fun way. It also adds a lot of variety in my spelling and vocabulary games while my students’ motivation to learn English is enhanced. My students love it and look forward to their spelling game every time.
One final tip: In case of a draw, I treat the whole class to cookies, lollipops, or chocolates! 

This post was submitted by Barbara Koziori.

Extensive Reading: Voice Diary

This recipe works best if you combine it with Extensive Reading. It builds confidence and teaches reading, speaking, and listening
Encourage your students to make a voice diary with their cell phones. Its listed under the “Voice Memo” Feature. First you need to provide a high interest story to your students.

1.    Have them read the story once quietly
2.    Next read the story aloud and record it on their voice diary
3.    Then have them playback and listen while they read

And the best part of it is, the students can track their progress. If they keep at it for a couple weeks they can actually hear the difference. Its worked great with Tech students

Can be adapted to anything, if they see a funny or cool sign, they can read it and save.

This post was submitted by Jason K.

One great place for this would be The Speech Accent Archive . There you can choose mp3 samples from speakers all over the world. They all read the same paragraph so students can just concentrate on the “accent”. I’ve made a cool game from them.

Other recipes for doing this would be visiting Voicethread. There, students can encounter a wide range of authentic audio from speakers around the world. Here are some good examples.  Also, The Language Accent Game is fun too.

This post was submitted by David .

In pairs, students silently “mouth” very slowly, the questions from a handout. Simple questions. Go here for many lists - use the simple ones like “Favorites” or “Getting to know you”.   The other student responds with one or two simple sentences.

Students see if they can follow the other person. Doing this they will gain important information about how to get more information than the ear allows and increase their ability to read facial information – so important for language learning/speaking. Plus, they will just have a lot of fun!

This website from the U. of Iowa is the perfect compliment for this exercise and a must site for pronunciation!

This post was submitted by David Deubelbeiss.

This is a fun lesson. Lily is an amazing child and your students will be fascinated.

1. Choose a student and get the student standing at the front of the class. Place a map of the world at the front of the class.

2. Show the video of Lily. When she is asked to find a country, the student at the front must find it before Lily. If not – Game over! And a new student can try….

Lots of fun and lots more geography ideas coming soon under the GEOGRAPHY tag! Also see the Current Events folder on EFL Classroom 2.0 for lots of geography ideas and presentations.

This post was submitted by David Deubelbeiss.

Write a word on a slip of paper and show it to a student. This student must whisper it to the second student. Then the second student must draw a picture of what he or she heard, and show it to the third student. The third student, then, writes the word that represents the picture and shows it to the fourth student. Then the fourth student whispers it to the fifth student…. and so on.

This continues until you get to the last student, who must say the word to the class. Each line/group that is correct gets a point. Play to 5 points.

This post was submitted by Bridgette.

not have a chair. This person stands in the middle of the circle.

2. The person in the middle calls out one instruction.

eg, “Change if you are wearing a green shirt.”

3. All the people wearing a white shirt must stand up and change places.

The last person left standing without a chair, calls out another instruction.

eg, “Change if you live in Tokyo.”

4. All the people living in Tokyo now change places and the person

left standing calls out another instruction.

eg, “Change if you are married.”

5. Keep playing for a few minutes.

This post was submitted by David Deubelbeiss.