17 Listening and Speaking Activities. Communicative Activities and Games for Learning
17 Listening and Speaking Activities
17 Listening and Speaking Activities
17 Listening and Speaking Activities. Coming from a variety of teacher resource books, the activities listed in these pages are designed to foster communication through high-interest and motivational tasks. Each of these activities provides the crucial opportunity for practice that is so essential to the successful acquisition of a foreign language.
Told and Re-Told
Several students leave the room. The teacher tells one stu-
dent a story. While the teacher is telling the story, the first student is allowed to read along. The length of the story, number of details, vocabulary, etc. will be determined by the ability level of the students. A “crime has been committed” kind of story usually works best (providing the opportunity for a lot of detail). While the teacher is telling the story, his/her voice is recorded. The paper is then taken away from the first student, one of the students outside is called in and student no. 1 tells the story to no. 2. The story is then re-told, and recorded as each subsequent student tells the tale. The tape is re-played at the end and the class discusses when/what changes were made in the story.
From Language Teaching Games and Contests by W. R. Lee
Emotion Game
Put students in groups of 3 or 4. Give each group a box with preparation instructions (e.g. jello, cake mix, etc.) Instruct the students to read the directions according to different emotions: anger, fear, happiness, confusion, seduction, boredom, etc.
From Terri Bateman, a drama teacher from Tennessee
Damaged Property
Present a description of a piece of property that is damaged. Students then guess what happened. Be prepared to give hints to keep the interest level of the students high. e.g. A watch has stopped (dropped into the soup while cooking); A pencil with broken lead (I tried to open my desk drawer with it); A book with some pages torn out (I took it camping and urgently needed paper to light a fire); A squashed cake at a picnic (the youngest member of the family sat on it), etc.
From Five-Minute Activities by Penny Ur and Andrew Wright
Rumor (Telephone)
Students sit in rows. The teacher gives the first person in the row a slip of paper with some message written on it. That person reads the message, then throws it away and whispers the message in the next person’s ear, and so on…It is especially effective to use words that can be confused because of pronunciation difficulties, homonyms, or words with the same spelling but different meanings. (i.e. the seal is on the paper, there is a cap on the sheep, etc.) You can ask the final person in the row to say what he/she has heard, or to draw the message on the board.
From 101 Word Games by George P. McCallum
17 Listening and Speaking Activities
Serial Sentences
The first player (or teacher) says one sentence, which is the
beginning of a story. The next player adds a second sentence and so on. This is a particularly good game to record and play back for the class.
From 101 Word Games by George P. McCallum
Spin a Sentence
Players form a circle. One player “leader” is chosen to stand in the center of the circle (best if the teacher starts). The leader calls out a single word followed by a number (3,4,5 or 6). (The word can be one of the leader’s own choosing, or it can be one that is written on the board, or it can be from a pile of cards with single words printed on them which have been placed in the middle of the circle). The leader then closes his/her eyes, spins around in the circle once or twice and then points to the person he/she is now facing. That player must now say a sentence using the number of words the leader has given, including the leader’s word. e.g. dress-5 “I have a pretty dress,” dog-3 “The dog barked,” etc. If the sentence is incorrect the same leader will continue to be in the middle for the next round. If the sentence is correct, the chosen player becomes the new leader.
From Thinking Games 2 by Anderson and Bereiter
The sound of Actions
The teacher selects a volunteer and gives that student a piece of paper with a written sequence of actions on it. The rest of the class is instructed to close their eyes or put their heads on their desks. The selected student then carries out the sequence of actions, it is often best if this is done twice. While the actions are going on the teacher asks the class “What is John doing now?” He is walking. “Now what is he doing” He is opening some drawers. Or the teacher can ask after the task has been completed. “What did John do first?”, etc. Sample sequence: Walk across the room to the teacher’s desk. Open and close all of the drawers. Run over to the cupboard. Open the doors and close them with a bang. Hop on one foot to the door. Go out and slam the door behind you.
From Games for Language Learning by Wright, Betteridge and Buckby
Dictation
What’s the Question?” – Teacher dictates a random sequence of answers. (May be mixed or all of one grammar or tense type, e.g. “That’s the nicest thing that anyone ever said to me.” “I don’t know how to answer that” “I don’t care which,” “I hear that it’s really great!” “I can’t believe you said that to me!” “I’m really sorry” “No, gardening” “Fifty-five pounds” “In the spring,” etc. Pairs of students then work together to create questions to go with the answers. Report back to the whole class. The class may then want to vote on the cleverest, funniest, etc.
From Dictation by M. Rinvolucri and P. Davis
Giving Advice
This is both an excellent speaking skills activity as well as super practice in using modals. Students stand in two lines facing each other. Students in line A are given cards with problems written on them. The students in line A are instructed to tell their problem to the student facing them. Those students in line B are then instructed to offer advice for the problem, using identified starters such as: you should, you might, maybe you could, etc. After students have had a chance to talk (like Stop and Talk) the teacher rings a bell and the students in line B move forward one space, students in line A remain still. Now students in line A ask the new students in front of them a question. (If you want to provide even more opportunities for everyone to speak, give all students a card with a problem on it (no two problems are the same) and go back and forth from line A students asking/B solving to B asking/A solving.
Adapted from More Grammar Games by Mario Rinvolucri and Paul Davis
Five Good Minutes
Students think of all the minutes they had yesterday – 1,440 minutes! They recall five particularly good ones and tell about them in groups of 3 or 4. After sharing, the whole class determines what it is that our five minutes have in common: What makes five good minutes? Food, friends, family, quiet reflection, sports, study, etc.
From Five-Minute Activities by Penny Ur and Andrew Wright
17 Listening and Speaking Activities
Things (or People) that Go Together
Cards are prepared by the teacher in advance. A card is then taped to each person’s back. Students circulate and find out first what/who they are. Then they will look to find their partner, e.g. one student is a “pen” the other “a piece of paper.” This game can be played matching objects to other objects, professions to people or objects, food combinations, locations with activities, or famous couples – Romeo and Juliet, etc.
From 101 Word Games by George P. McCallum
To Tell The Truth
Students are instructed to write (in 1 or 2 paragraphs at the most) about something that happened to them, i.e. write about “A happy moment,” “Something terrible that happened to you,” “A time when you were worried,” “A time when you were angry” “A time when you lied,” etc. The teacher then collects the papers and gives the students another short assignment while he/she reads the papers and selects 2 or 3 of them (depending on the size of the class). After the teacher has selected a paper, he/she calls 3 or 4 students out of the class (depending on the size of the class), one of the students must be the one who wrote the paper. Once outside (the students inside are occupied with another activity), the teacher shares the paper with the 4 students and advises them that they are each going to tell a story, as though the central event or experience really happened to them. The class will ask each student questions and the students must answer as convincingly as possible. After several questions are asked, the class will vote and the real storyteller will stand.
From the Television Game Show “ToTell the Truth”
Evidence
Two students (one from each team) stand with their backs to the board – they are the “detectives.” You write a brief situation on the board. The rest of the class are “witnesses” and suggest evidence of the situation, without mentioning the situation itself. The detectives must deduce the situation from the evidence that is provided. e.g. if the situation is “The school must be on fire” the witnesses might say: I can smell smoke; It’s getting hotter in here; I can hear the alarm bell’ People are jumping out of the windows of the building; Fire trucks are coming down the street,” etc. The student to guess the correct answer first, gets a point for his/her team.
From Five-Minute Activities by Penny Ur and Andrew Wright
Are you Sitting Comfortably?
Encourage the students to get comfortable, to sit back and relax as you tell them a story. The story you will select should be at an appropriate level and any new vocabulary words should be written on the board and discussed before you begin to read the story. The story should be exciting and present a dilemma if possible – folk tales are an excellent resource. You may tell it two or even three times, if the students seem to need the reinforcement. However, don’t provide any other visual cues (other than the selected words indicated on the board) as this is primarily a listening activity. The students should then form pairs and work together to write an ending to the story – it doesn’t need to be long (usually only a paragraph or two). Have the pairs share their ending with the rest of the class, or – Use a tape recorder to allow the students to practice speaking clearly and to provide an opportunity for them to hear their own voices. One of the pair can read the story as you told it and the second student can read the conclusion that the pair has written.
From Recipes for Tired Teachers by C. Sion
17 Listening and Speaking Activities
Riddles
Excellent for enhancing listening/speaking skills while developing critical thinking skills. e.g. What is the explanation – The woman had a blackout for a minute and fell backwards into a deep hole. She was not hurt. (It happened while she was scuba diving in deep water); She was enjoying a swim when she suddenly felt something in her mouth and, scared, came out of the water fast. (She was a fish); The walls of the house were damp. But she assured me that they would not go moldy. She was right. (The house was an igloo); etc. (Two Minute Mysteries is a great resource)
From Five Minute Activities by Penny Ur and Andrew Wright
Bull’s Eye
Teacher introduces phrases such as: Turn around, go straight, move left/right, keep going, a little higher/lower, stop, etc. Draw a target on the board, 12″ diameter. Divide the class into teams. One member of each team is blindfolded, then directed by his/her teammates to the bull’s eye, where he/she must place a mark with chalk. If the noise level is too high, one person from each team can be assigned to give directions, instead of the whole team This is a good wind-up game in the last 10 minutes of a class to reinforce a preposition lesson, etc.
Top Ten
Put students into groups of 3-5. Give them a topic to brainstorm about and make a list (favorite movies, qualities of a good teacher/student, etc.) After they have compiled a list of 10 items, they must reach a consensus as a group to rank those items. A good way to make sure that everyone contributes is to give each student time in the beginning to compile his/her own list, then bring that list to the group to share with others. One of my favorite ranking activities calls for the students to divide into gender groups – on one side of a large piece of paper the females list the 10 most important qualities of a good boyfriend, on the other side a good husband; males do the same for girlfriend/wife; or if you feel that it might be more appropriate to the audience, you can simply say “date/mate”. This is an excellent activity to “gallery” – hang each of the papers around the room, give all groups a chance to review – then debrief as a whole class. Numerous extension possibilities for writing tasks.
17 Listening and Speaking Activities
17 Listening and Speaking Activities. Also check out these listening and speaking activities
