Today we will look at specific examples of exercises and types of listening tasks. As usual, we are helped by A.A. Akishina and O.E. Kagan’s book “Learning to Teach.” The book has already become a classic. If you haven’t read it yet, be sure to read it and use it in your work. So, what should you do in class to develop listening skills?
1. Understand the teacher’s commands that must be followed: слушай, читай, повтори, скажи, подними руку.
2. Respond to tasks or commands: Повторите, пожалуйста! Извините, я не понял(а). Да, конечно. Можно?
3. Listen and repeat pairs of words: живот – он живёт, мы живем – живьем, цел – цель, полет – польет, был – бил, мыло – Мила, бить – пить, жар – шар.
4. Listen to the wordsчей – чай – чья, шьем – шутка – шьют, сел – съел – съесть, порт – Петр – пьет, and find each of them graphically. This version of the task is in “Soroka” in the work on reading with cards, but this is also a listening task. There are several cards on the table. The student hears the word and chooses the card on which the desired word is written. This is such an easy option for children.
5. Identify rhyming words by ear, mark them with numbers (пример, премьер, ножом, ружьем).
6. Listen to pairs of syllables (words, sentences), write in the graphic key (on the card), plus (+) if the syllables (words, sentences) are the same, and minus (-) if they are different.
7. Listen to the questions, and mark in a graphic key what a possible answer is:
• Вопрос: Сколько времени?
• Ответы: Сейчас холодно; Сейчас 2 часа; В два часа
8. Listen to the phrases, and mark in the graphic key the words that are named (names, geographical names, company names, etc.)
9. Dictation. Listen to the text, and try to understand its content. Listen to the text, and write (or draw, like in our Surikov dictation).
10. Listen to the phrases, and write the type of intonation structure. A lightweight option for children who walk along “Soroka”: Each has two cards in their hands — on one there is a “+,” and on the other there is a “?”. The teacher reads sentences with different intonations. When students hear a question, they pick up a card with a question mark (?); when they hear a regular declarative sentence, they pick up a card with a plus sign (+).
11. Listen to the text (watch the video), fill in the gaps in the graphic version of the text.
12. Listen to a series of words, remember and reproduce from them those that relate to one topic (the topic is named in advance).
13. Listen to the phrases, and combine them into one sentence (two to three short phrases are presented). You hear: Девочка сидит. Мальчик сидит. Вы говорите: Девочка и мальчик сидят.
14. Listen and repeat the phrases after the speaker (teacher). (Their length exceeds the capacity of short-term memory, i.e. consists of 10 or more words). Вчера наши студенты играли в футбол со студентами соседнего университета и проиграли.
15. Listen to the phrase, and add one more to it that is related in meaning.
• Вы слышите: Я живу в Нью-Йорке.
• Вы говорите: Я живу в Нью-Йорке. Это большой и красивый город.
16. Story with a picture: A picture of a city, a portrait or a series of portraits accompany the story. You need to understand what in the description does not correspond to the picture.
17. Story with a picture, No. 2: Put a series of pictures in the sequence in which they are described in the sound recording.
18. “By telephone” instructions are given on how to get (or walk) to a certain place. You need to draw a route on a map (city diagram). In “Soroka” there are pictures with which you can do this task.
19. One student talks about his house, the second draws a house plan.
20. Two students have lists that are different from each other. At “Soroka 3” we work with lists. One student reads his list aloud, the second compares it with his own.
There are other listening tasks in the book “Learning to Teach,” but they are intended for students at a higher level than we have in “Soroka.” Therefore, if you’re interested, read pages 85 and 93 of “Learning to Teach” for yourself. And those who have already worked on “Soroka” saw that the Teacher’s Book already contains many of these tasks. They were written specifically for the textbooks “Soroka” and “Sarafan.” I would say that Sarafan has more listening tasks.
As usual, write in the comments what you use in your work, and what you like or don’t like. How do your students feel about listening exercises?
If you study according to “Soroka” and use all my recommendations, then from the first lessons your students will learn to hear and understand spoken language addressed to them. And this is exactly what we need in the classroom. We remember that our work order is as follows: listening, speaking, reading and writing. And listening comes first. Let’s all go listen! Best wishes!
