Listening for specific vocabulary example

The purpose of the activity

As they listen to a recorded text, learners will listen for specific words. They will use their prior knowledge and the context to work out the meanings of these words. This activity teaches the use of strategies to work out unfamiliar vocabulary.

25 ESL Listening Activities for Every Learning Style

Kinesthetic

Kinesthetic students learn best when they move and groove—that is, when theyget their bodies involved in the activity. Here are some listening activities you can do that will get studentsup and moving in class.

1. Simon Says

Simon Says is a great go-to listening game. It’s practically perfect for teaching with Total Physical Response. When your students play Simon Says, they will have to follow simple commands and move their bodies in the way you direct them.

This game is also great for reviewing vocabularyor grammar structures if you make a point of including them in your verbal directions.

2. Listen and Draw

If you have kinesthetic students who struggle to express themselves in English, Listen and Draw isolates listening from speaking. Simply have your students take out a blank piece of paper and give them instructions on what to draw.

For example, you might say the following:

• Draw a square in the center of your paper.
• Draw a triangle on top of the square.
• Draw a small rectangle inside the square, at the bottom.
• Draw two small squares inside the square near the top.

If your students listen correctly, they will have drawn a house (or something like it), and you will be able to tell with one glance whether they understood your directions.

Of course, you can make Listen and Draw as complicated as you like depending on the skill level of your students. This activity is particularly useful for reviewing vocabulary of colors, shapes and prepositionsof location.

3. Running for the Mouth

Running for the Mouth gets your students racing around your classroom to complete a dictation assignment. Have students work with partners or in groups, and make sure you have one available copy of arecording for each group (tape player, computer, CD player–anything will work, just work with what you have). The recordings are positioned around the edges of your room.

On your go, one student from each group runs to their recording and listens to part of it. The studentmust remember what theyheard then run back to theirgroup and dictate it to them. Another group memberwrites it down and then runs to the recording to memorize the next bit, later running backand dictating it to thegroup.

Play continues this way, rotating roles, until each group has written down the entire transcript of the listening material. Time your groups and give a ten-second penalty for each error in the transcript and see who came up with the best time. If you aren’t sure what to use for your listening material, try a dialogue from your listening textbook, a FluentU clip, a short YouTube video or a briefnews segment available online.

FluentU is a great way to amp up your classroom in general.

FluentU takes authentic videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.

You can try FluentU for free for 2 weeks. Click here to check out the website or download the iOS app or Android app.

Try FluentU for FREE!

4. Map It

In Map It, students listen to your directions and find their way along a map to a secret location. Start by making copies of a map for each of your students. It can be a real place, like this campus, or a simple diagram you put together yourself. Just make sure the streets are labeled and that you have several buildings marked on the map.

Give your students directions from a starting point, but don’t tell them where you are directing them. They should run their fingers along the map according to your directions. Once you are finished, ask students where they ended up. Hopefully they are at the destination you were leading them to.