Chapter 14: In One Ear, Out the Other: Learning To Listen 207
Keep in mind that you always set the task before playing the text for the
second time. Then the students listen, and have a little time to reflect on
their answers. After that, have a feedback session. You can carry out reflec-
tion and feedback in a variety of ways but it should happen immediately after
the listening. It’s quite tricky for the students to recall the nuances of what
they’ve heard on the following day, for example.Your task may be comprehension questions based on the grammar and
vocabulary in the text. It doesn’t have to be so traditional though. From time
to time you can use a text to focus on pronunciation and intonation too. The
objective can be for the students to listen carefully and then read a section
aloud themselves.Look for the nearby sidebar, ‘Listening activities to try’ for examples of activi-
ties to use.Planning Follow-Up Activities
Round off your lesson with a follow-up activity. This helps to conclude the
lesson in a balanced way because not everyone is good at learning through
listening and some may not appreciate your chosen listening text as much as
other classmates. After all, students have different styles of learning.When you finish with an activity that focuses on a different skill, more stu-
dents have a chance to shine. You can personalise a theme from the listening
text by having students do a quick writing exercise based on the topic the
listening text explored.After having the class listen to an interview with Madonna, you can say some-
thing like, ‘Now that you’ve listened to an interview with an American artist, I
would like you to think about a very popular musician in your country. Make
notes about this musician for two minutes including the reason why she is so
popular in your opinion and say whether you have any music by her at home.
Then give a 90-second presentation to your group.This kind of activity is also appropriate for written homework and your follow-
up activity may include a plan that leads to composition writing.Other ideas for follow ups are:✓ Making predictions: Ask students to speculate about what happened
after the clip finished. This kind of question lends itself to role-plays, stu-
dents preparing quiz questions, and story writing.