Listening Lesson
Breaks
Stage 3
Debating
Objective: To increase students’ ability to formulate and evaluate arguments
through listening to others point of views.
Instructions:
1. Divide room into 2 groups
2. Give each side affirmative or negative
3. 10 minutes planning debate
Think about/write down reasons that either support/deny the topic.
Think about what other side may say.
Select 4 speakers to present topic, and their order
4. Conduct debate
Rules:
- Affirmative goes first
- 1 minute speaking time each
- If you can’t think of a debate, finish up
- Affirmative/ negative and then 2 minutes to plan next debate
Suggested topics
The whole world should be made of chocolate
Children should be allowed to drive cars.
Adjustments
To make this activity easier give the students extended time limits and or give
suggestions to each team of what they might include in their argument.
To make this activity more difficult, reduce or delete planning time between each
teams turn.
Produced by the Riverina Schools Project Partnership, 2006.
Celebrity heads
Objective:
To improve the students’ word finding abilities and give them practice at
breaking down large categories into smaller ones; it will also make students
aware of word associations.
Instructions:
o The class will be divided into two teams.
o One member from each team will be at the front of the class facing the
rest of the members from their team and their back to the white board.
o The teacher or a designated student will write a word on the board. This
word can either be random or from a particular category.
o Each team gives three clues about the word on the board without saying
the actual word in any of their clues.
o After team one says their three clues, the student from team one who is
up the front has a guess at the word.
o If they don’t guess right then it is passed onto team two, who go through
the same process.
o This continues until the word is guessed.
Adjustments:
o To make the game easier or harder, change the number of clues given to
the students.
o To make the game harder, put time restrictions on the student guessing.
Possible categories:
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Animals
Food
Countries
Sports
Things you might find in the house
TV shows
Words related to the area of study the class was just working on.
Produced by the Riverina Schools Project Partnership, 2006.
Category Bingo
Objective:
An activity to encourage:
* Listening
* Phonetic awareness
* Thinking about categories
Instructions:
Give students one of the pre-made bingo sheets, ensuring each child gets a
different one. Give each child a counter for each square. The teacher then reads
out all of the words randomly. If a student has a word the teacher has called out
they place a counter over the word. When a student has placed all of their
counters on their words they need to yell out ‘bingo’. This student is the winner.
Adjustments:
For early stage 1 and stage 1 the game can be adjusted by changing the word
families.
For later stages give the students a blank grid and brainstorm a topic with the
students. Get them to choose 9 of the brainstormed words and write one in each
square. The game can be made more difficult by increasing how abstract the
category is. Bigger grids may be used when there is more time available.
Produced by the Riverina Schools Project Partnership, 2006.
Blank bingo sheets. Stage 2 & 3
Produced by the Riverina Schools Project Partnership, 2006.