Activities to Improve Listening Skills
Listen for the hidden phrase
An engaging whole class activity is to pair students up and give each pair a
"secret" word or phrase. For easier dialogues, give a simple phrase such as “I love
soccer,” or “My father works a lot;” etc… To challenge students, give a slightly
more obscure phrase, such as “John does yoga every Saturday,” or “I saw a UFO in
my yard last night.”
Students are then tasked with developing a dialogue with their partner that
somehow uses this phrase. Students may script the dialogue if they wish, but only
give them limited planning time (5-10 minutes). After they have prepared their
dialogue, students perform the dialogue in front of the class, and the other students
listen carefully to hear which words or phrases seem extra carefully planned to find
the secret phase. If you have individual white boards, have the students write down
the phrase as they hear it and then show their board after the pair has finished the
dialogue. If they found the correct secret phrase, they get a point. If no one finds
the pair’s secret phrase, the pair that developed the dialogue gets a point.
Listen for the word
Using popular culture media is always a good way to practice listening skills.
Using songs, watching TV shows, or even listening to podcasts will help build
skills. To go an extra step, have an additional task while listening to the song or
TV show such as assign students different words to listen for and have them keep
track of how often they hear these words. This is particularly helpful with
reductions like gonna, wanna, hafta.
Listening to various media is also a good time to practice unfamiliar words.
Encourage students to write down words they have never heard before. Without
subtitles or lyrics, students will have to rely on the sounds they think they heard to
make a guess at how to spell this unfamiliar word. Encourage students to write
down other surrounding words to help you decipher what the word might be or to
write down the time when they heard the word so you can go back to the spot and
listen again. These are important skills for students to master so that they can
continue learning even outside of the classroom by hearing new words.
4 ACTIVITIES TO IMPROVE INTERACTIVE
COMMUNICATION SKILLS
1.Starter Sentences (The use of question tags for asking questions)
This activity is simple and easy to prepare. What the teacher needs to go is give the
students a set of incomplete sentences to finish with their own ideas + question tag.
The students have the opportunity to improvise simple conversation and to also
start using question tags (an informal way of asking for confirmation or
agreement). I would always suggest a time limit or outcome to give the activity
added structure.
e.g. I am keen on ….., aren´t you?
I can´t stand ……, can you?
2. Time´s up!
This is an adaptation of the classic game time´s up where students need to try to
use target vocabulary (speaking alone) within a specified time limit. The difference
being that students work with a partner to speak for 2 minutes. The students
improvise conversation for a specified time limit. The main objective of the task is
to communicate with fluency and to form questions as a way of passing the turn to
your partner (students can not pass over without a question or question tag and
they cannot interrupt each other). The idea of the task is that when the time runs
out, the loser is the person speaking as they have not negotiated towards an out
come.
3.Speed dating
Using the concept of speed dating, we simulate a situation where two people need
to exchange personal information in a specified time limit. This activity is about
developing a conversation to include the maximum amount of content as possible.
Students are to speak to a partner for 2 minutes about a topic and try to accumulate
points (assigned to specific vocabulary or phrases). After 2 minutes a bell or
buzzer goes off and the students need to work with a new partner.
4. Role-play
Role-play is a wonderfully simple and effective way to simulate real life situations
and also to be creative with interaction. Setting up job interviews, sales pitches
(etc) can be really fun and stimulating for students. I would always suggest a time
limit or outcome to give the activity added structure.
Grammar teaching activities
Making Predictions
The grammar worksheets, ESL activities and games on this page focus on making
predictions. Students can learn and practice how to make predictions with the
future simple form 'will' and 'wont' as well as with the future perfect and future
continuous. Students can also practice the use of 'going to' to predict the future
based on present evidence.
Making Decisions, Offers and Promises
These enjoyable ESL grammar activities, games and worksheets help to teach
students how to make spontaneous decisions with 'will'. Students can also learn
how to make offers with 'will' and 'shall', and promises with 'will' and 'won't'.
Gerunds and Infinitives
These ESL grammar activities help students talk about various topics using
gerunds and infinitives with and without 'to'. There are also games and worksheets
to help students learn how to ask and answer questions, make sentences and match
verbs with gerund and infinitive forms.
Irregular Verbs
This page is packed with rewarding grammar games, ESL activities and
worksheets about irregular verbs. These resources help students identify and use
the infinitive, past simple and past participle form of irregular verbs. There are
matching activities and memory games as well as speaking activities where
students use irregular verbs in sentences and questions.
Activities to Improve Pronunciation
1. Find out what your students can’t do
Your students will have different problems with pronunciation depending on their
first language. Chinese learners often have problems with vowel sounds and r in
words like very. Arabic speakers can often get p and b mixed up, Spanish and Farsi
speakers sometimes add an extra e in front of words that begin with an s like speak
and Spain so they become espeak and espain. To find out what problems your
students have, you can listen to them talking to each other or get them to read a
text aloud for the class – note down the problems they have with their
pronunciation. You can also check on Google to find out common problems for
specific languages.
2. Introduce minimal pairs
Minimal pairs are words that sound almost the same but have a subtle
pronunciation difference. Studying them will help them become aware of different
vowel sounds and how to pronounce them. Here are some examples of minimal
pairs but you can search Google for an exhaustive list!
sheep/ship
bet/bat
low/ throw
bat/bad
food / good
cat/cut
tin/ten
3. Listen and read
A great way for students to improve their pronunciation is to listen to a text and
notice the way the words are pronounced rather than just listening for meaning.
There are lots of stories with audio on YouTube. Ask your students to watch and
read some of the stories several times and to comment on the words they learned to
pronounce.
How to Practice Your Pronunciation
The best way to use this poem to practice/test your pronunciation is to:
1. Read the poem out loud [speaking]. Do your best to read with a good rhythm as
it will help your pronunciation.
2. Look at the definitions of any of the bolded words below that you don’t know.
3. Listen closely to my recording of the poem while you read along. Do your best
to notice any errors you made in pronunciation.
4. Read the poem out loud again. Focusing on speaking with the same rhythm and
flow as the native speaker.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you can read the poem flawlessly [without making
any mistakes]
6. Study the poem more carefully, examining the strange pronunciation of the
words.
take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough
Watch out for meat and great and threat,
Others may stumble, but not you
They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.
On hiccough, thorough, laugh, and through.
A moth is not a moth in mother,
And cork and work and card and ward
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.
And font and front and word and sword
And here is not a match for there,
Well done! And now if you wish, perhaps
And dear and fear for bear and pear.
To learn of less familiar traps.
And then there’s dose and rose and lose–
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
Just look them up–and goose and choose,
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And do and go, then thwart and cart.
And dead: it’s said like bed, not bead–
Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start!
For goodness sakes don’t call it deed.
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I’d mastered it when I was five
.
Activities to Improve Speaking Skills
Face Game
If your students do not know already
then first teach them the following parts of
the face: forehead, chin, ear, eye, nose,
mouth. Now, ask the students to make fists
with both hands and touch their ears. On the
first round, you play the role of the leader
and say: ear, ear, ear – forehead (or a
different part of the face from the list
above). The third time that you say ear, say
it more slowly, so that other players know
that you are about to switch. When the new
part is called out (in this example, forehead),
everyone must quickly move both of their
fists from ear to forehead at the same time.
If anyone, including the leader, touches any
part of the face other than the forehead is the
loser and takes over as the new leader. As
punishment, the loser must share their views
on any subject of your choosing with the
class.
Fast Food Role Play
This role-playing exercise
requires two students. Ask for volunteers
or select from the class. One student will
act as the manager of a fast food
restaurant. The other will act as a student
looking for a part-time job. The
restaurant has advertised a part-time
vacancy, so the student has come for an
interview. The two should try to develop
a lively yet formal conversation of the
job duties, employee benefits, and the
student’s qualifications and experience
before the manager reaches his/her
decision. Some useful supplementary
vocabulary includes: wages, salary,
personality, official duties, and position
in a job.