LISTENING...?UGHHH... NO! IT COULD BE ENJOYABLE!!

 

Hi everyone:

I know (as a teacher and as a student of C1 level) that listening activities could be boring, difficult, stormy and they produce lack of motivation on behalf of the students.

Because of that, I bring you an example of pre-, while and post listening activity that will make your English class more fun. Are you ready? Let´s begin with it.

The main activity is a video of an interview of Selena Gómez done by Vogue. These videos are authentic material, and they are very useful for the English classroom. The title of the interview is "73 questions" and you can find celebrities as Ariadna Grande, Taylor Swift, Zac Efron...

I have taken the video and I have adapted the content to my students. To that end, I have used the website "Edpuzzle" where you can edit the video cutting the lenght of the video, asking questions for the understanding of the activity, sharing the activities to the students, knowing who and who not look at the video...

I have chosen this video because I think that the pop star is very famous among the young people and the questions are easy to follow for them. I believe, it is a motivational activity for children that are working with quotidian questions.

With these type of activities, students:

- Learn how to ask and answer questions about another person.

- They use the "scanning" strategy to look for specific information in the video.

- Develop entrepreneurship and sense of intiave.

(Pre- listening) To start with, we prepare a "brainstorming round of questions". We propose our students the following statement:

"There is a new student in our classroom. She is Selena Gómez and you want to know more about her life. Prepare a list of questions that you want to ask to your new classmate".

Then, we put in common the questions writing them on the board and giving possible solutions.

(While listening) Now, it is time to listen to the video that I have edited. This activity could be done in the classroom, with the option "live" or as a way of "Flipped classroom" as a telematic activity.

Students are going to listen to the video and answer the questions that I have prepared for them. You can take a look at the video here.

INTERVIEWING SELENA GOMEZ

(Post- listening) The last activity  would be well- prepared. I like to involve my students in challenges, because they enhances the curiosity and they develop motivation towards them. 

So, the last part of the activity is a challenge:

"You are a journalist of the magazine "Vogue". You have to look for information about a popular celebrity nowadays. Prepare the questions for your interview and find the answers. Later, you will prepsent your interview to your classmates"

To sum up, I am going to analyse the positive effects and suggestions :

- Students feel comfortable working with this type of topics, because they are familiarized with the world of music and cinema. They love working with authentic topics and they like investigate about people that they are interested on.

- For the next time, I will introduce a game like "20 questions", or an interactive game created with Genily about different singers an actors to introduce the games in the session (to make it more complete).

LISTENING RULES!!