Listening Lesson Plan


Understanding Reduced Forms of Words


Teacher: Janette Priddis
Proficiency level: High Intermediate/Low Advanced
Date of presentation: October 14, 1999

OBJECTIVES

  • Help students recognize reduced forms of words.
  • Help students understand and identify the words being reduced


MATERIALS:

  • Tape recorder
  • Tape with sample sentences, and tape with (radio) advertisement
  • Chalkboard


TEACHING ACTIVITIES:

Warm-up: Bring in a radio advertisement, or an ad from somewhere else, and play it for the class. Ask them what is being sold, and some questions about the ad you picked. Talk about any difficulties they have in understanding it. Explain that the lesson today will help them with their listening skills.

Intro: Talk to the class about situations they've been in where they couldn't understand what the person has said because it either sounded different from what they had learned, or the person spoke too quickly. If they can't think of any, give them some suggestions to help them out.

  • Djeetyet?
  • Whattyaya want?
  • Wanna come?
  • Who'd he been to see?
  • Who'd he like to see?
Discuss how difficult it is to understand native speakers when they talk using reduced forms. Also discuss situations where contractions are used.

Instruction: Explain what reduced forms are and why they occur in English. Then get some examples and go over some of the most common ones such as "wanna", "I'd", "‘n", "what's". Show the areas that were reduced and then write the first few words of the sentences on the board. Give a couple examples, and then have the students pick out the reduced word and tell what it is. Also give examples of contractions and show how some contractions have the same reduced sound, but are different words. For example:

  • I'd like to see him.
  • I'd been to visit my friend.
Give the students a chance to get more familiar with reduced forms and then check to see how well they understand using the following activity/test.

Activity: Have each student take out a piece of paper. Explain to them that they will be listening to some sentences like the ones they have just been practicing. They need to identify and write down on the paper the full form of the second word of each sentence that they hear. For example, if they hear "Whadja do yesterday?" Then they would write down the word "did." There are 50 sentences for them to listen to. None of them are repeated. For this activity, the teacher can choose to either do all the sentence and then answer them at the end, or else stop after every sentence and discuss it. Ask one student what he got and then ask if everyone else got the same answer. If there are any differences, discuss them and listen to the sentence over. Help them out until they figure out the correct answer.

List of sentences:

  1. Jess's gone over the accounts already.
  2. Just's not right for him to work all night.
  3. He's finished with the first test, isn't he?
  4. This's got to be the best we've ever done.
  5. Where's there a pharmacy in this part of town?
  6. There's got to be a better way to do this.
  7. Just's I thought; he's not coming.
  8. What's been done to improve the class?
  9. Whose dancing ‘ll be judged best?
  10. Gonna get here for the soccer match?
  11. Cup o' coffee when you have a minute?
  12. Coulda been the postman ringing the doorbell.
  13. Wanna rain like the one we had last week?
  14. Wanna go with me to the movies tonight?
  15. What a nice drink of orange juice that was.
  16. What ‘n old fool he is to say such a thing.
  17. Justice ‘n peace: that's what we need.
  18. This ‘n ‘ll do the job all right.
  19. What ‘n the name of heaven are you doing?
  20. Want ‘n interesting book to read?
  21. John ‘n Nancy ‘re coming to the party tonight.
  22. Give ‘em a few days and they'll be back.
  23. Give ‘im five minutes and if he doesn't come, leave ‘im.
  24. Ahmana see ‘im in just two weeks.
  25. Where ‘m I gonna get five thousand dollars?
  26. How ‘ll he ever get finished in time to go at noon?
  27. When sh' we tell him to finish the schedule?
  28. Izzyer brother coming for the graduation?
  29. Wouldja like to have the party at my house?
  30. Let cher brother take your place if you can't come.
  31. So there ‘re no more books in the storeroom.
  32. So they're gonna come after all.
  33. Is their car the one that was in an accident?
  34. What they're saying shouldn't be repeated.
  35. Bill ‘r Ralph ‘ll come, but the others can't.
  36. Whose ‘re those keys on the table?
  37. Saw ‘er come in just a minute ago.
  38. D' he say what time we're supposed to meet tonight?
  39. Willy said just what I told him to.
  40. Will ‘e say what I told him to?
  41. Here ‘t seems like we're always busy doing something.
  42. Here ‘t headquarters it seems like we're always busy.
  43. How'd he ever be able to get here in time?
  44. Who'd he been to see yesterday?
  45. Who ‘da thought he'd ever remember her?
  46. What ‘d he done that made the judge so angry?
  47. What ‘d he do all day at the library?
  48. Where ‘d you like to go on your vacation?
  49. Whattaya think ‘ll happen to the new president?
  50. 'Zat a copy of the original document?


Conclusion:Ask the students about their experience. Did they understand? What were some trouble areas? If they had any problems, go over a couple examples for them. Encourage them to listen to roommates, friends, TV shows, or movies and try to pick out some examples to bring into class next time.


SELF-EVALUATION:

I tried to teach this to my classmates to practice. It went ok, but it is hard to know exactly how it will work in a real ESL setting because they can all speak English. I was a little intimidated during my teaching and discovered several areas I could improve on. I also got some good feedback They suggested that I might consider stopping between each sentence to discuss it because they were pretty fast. The speed of talking was good, but the students might need a little more time to think about the answer. Also, by discussing each sentence, it would help the students to see if they were really understanding or not. I think this is a good activity to help ESL students focus on an area they might have difficulty with in every day speech.
Reading | Writing | Listening | Speaking | Grammar | Culture | Literacy | Other

1998 © Department of Linguistics
Brigham Young University
Last Updated: Saturday, January 24, 1998