202 Part III: Teaching Skills Classes
✓ The language in the text:
You may want to remind them of what a particular tense sounds like
with its contractions – for example, I had done it = I’d done it – or what
form an irregular verb takes. Then there’s vocabulary. If the text con-
tains tricky words, get them out of the way beforehand by giving the stu-
dents a list of the words and a dictionary.
Another way to keep students’ motivation high is to remove the problem
of trying to listen while grappling with an unclear task at the same time.
So before the listening text is played make sure that students understand
exactly what they have to do and that they’ve read the relevant questions
thoroughly. Allow the students to familiarise themselves with the worksheet,
if there is one, and ask questions beforehand.
Of course, during the listening stage the students are fairly passive so the
pre-listening stage can give them the opportunity to discuss and compare
opinions with their classmates. An extended period of listening quietly is just
too much for some of the more active students. Fidgety students only disrupt
things if you don’t allow them to be more active for a time.
After you’ve done a few of these activities the class should be ready to tune
in and listen.
Running through some pre-listening tasks
In this section, I give you some examples of what you can do in the pre-listen-
ing stage.
Predicting
When students predict the answers to specific questions or overall content it
really raises their curiosity.
If students have an exercise where they need to fill in the gaps, they should
first of all try to predict what kind of word is missing. For example, is the word
a noun or a verb? Is it a place, a number or a name? This helps them to listen
for a few words.
You have an extract from a BBC interview with Madonna. After a short class
discussion about favourite pop stars you introduce the activity by saying
‘You’re going to listen to an interview with the international superstar
Madonna. Predict which three of these topics the journalist asks her about:
✓ Her divorce
✓ Adoption
✓ Writing children’s books
