English through Drama for Secondary School Children. Organising Listening Activities

 by Bogdan Lazanu, Şcoala Alecu Russo, Iaşi

Keywords: drama, listening skills, responses, pre-listening, while-listening, post-listeningactivities.

 

Whenever we plan to practise listening skills we should remember to set different tasksfor the listening material, which must be solved either while listening or after it. That iswhy most of the activities should run after the following pattern:

· Pre-listening: Before getting the class to listen we should introduce the topic of thelistening material. This is of vital importance because it will set our students in the moodfor listening and will arouse the students' interest in the subject and increase their motivation to listen. It will also help them to predict what the material will be about.

· While-listening: We could give them one or two guiding questions to focus their attention on the main points. At this stage the students listen and then answer the guidingquestions. This will allow students to listen to the tape with only a very general task to perform. They will concentrate on the general meaning which will help them tounderstand the listening material. On a second listening we can give our students a task tocheck detailed comprehension. The students listen for particular points, which requirecareful listening.

· After-listening: The listening activity should be accompanied by a follow-up stage.The students can reflect on what they have heard or use the material as a starting point for discussion, or written work.

There are different ways of classifying listening activities. Anca Cehan classified them bythe learners' responses to the listening material. The need to produce a response providesstudents with immediate motivation for listening and it also directs them towards certainkinds of meaning and therefore structures their listening activity. Sometimes students cangive short answers to what they hear.

Cloze texts

The listening text has occasional, widely spaced brief gaps, represented by silence or some kind of buzz. The pupils write down what they think might be the missing word.Saying the text ourselves, we can more easily adapt the pace of our speech to the speed of the pupils' responses.

 

Listening activity. The Passport Office - for pre-intermediate students

 

 

Pre-listening. In order to introduce the topic we show students a passport and ask themdifferent questions related to it like: "Do you know what this is?" / "Do you have a passport?" / "Where did you get your passport from?" / "What do you need a passportfor?" / "Have you ever travelled abroad?" / "Where?".

Then we tell our students that they will listen to an incomplete dialogue between a manand the clerk from the passport office and they have to try to guess what words aremissing and write them in their notebooks.

While-listening. We start reading the following excerpt from the dialogue and studentswrite down the words they think are missing. Every seventh word is missing and theyhave a blank space before followed by the correct word between brackets.

 

The clerk is working at her …… (desk). The man comes in and coughs …… (twice).

Clerk Oh, good morning. Can I help …… (you)?

Man Yes. Have you got any passports?

Clerk …… (Yes), we have.

Man Oh, good. The shop next …… (door) hasn't got any. I'd like twenty, ……(please).

Clerk Twenty?

Man Yes. All different colours.

Clerk I'm …… (sorry). That's impossible.

Man All right. All the …… (same) colour.

Clerk No, no - it's impossible to …… (have) twenty passports.

Man Is it?

Clerk Yes. You …… (can) only have one.

Man Oh, all right. …… (One) passport, please. He offers some money.

 

Clerk …… (Just) a minute. It isn't as easy …… (as) that. You have to answer some…… (questions).

Man Oh.

Clerk What kind of passport do you …… (want)?

Man What kind of passport?

Clerk Yes.

Man A …… (big) round yellow one.

Clerk We've only got …… (small) blue rectangular ones. When I say …… ('What)kind?', I mean: How long?

Man How …… (long)?

Clerk How long? Five years? Ten years?

Man …… (I) want it today.

Clerk No, I mean: …… (How) long do you want it to …… (last)?

Man How long do I want it …… (to) last?

Clerk Yes.

Man A hundred years.

 

After a normal speed reading we read the dialogue again but this time with faster speedso that students can check what they have written.

Post-listening. In pairs, students check up their answers and then we check with thewhole class. After that students get the script of the dialogue and in pairs they act thedialogue out. In the end one or two pairs will act the dialogue in front of the class.

 

Bibliography

1) E. Gheorghiu, “Developing Language Skills - Speaking and Listening”, in In-ServiceDistance Training Course for Teachers of English, Polirom, 2003, 141.

 

2) A. Cehan, Limba şi Literatura Engleză - EFL Methodology I, MEdC Proiectul pentruÎnvăţământul Rural, 2006, 116.

3) ***, English Sketches 1, Macmillan Publishers Ltd, 2002, 40.