LISTENING LESSON PLAN
Listening Role Play: Planning a Day Trip
Background Information:
Teacher: Jennifer Sperry
Level: Intermediate-adult
This lesson was designed to fit into an integrated course for adults. The lesson involves listening, speaking, and some writing. Ideally, it would be used as part of a unit on travel or vacationing and recreation.
GOAL: Provide students with an authentic context for listening to a radio weather forecast and traffic report.
OBJECTIVE:
Students will listen selectively for information that is relevant to their situation and use it to plan a day trip with their partner. (Emphasize the fact that the students don't need to understand every word, but only what they need to plan their trip.) Students will learn: - to tolerate some ambiguity in listening activities
- to feel more connected to the community of native speakers.
MATERIALS:
- a tape recorder
- a recording of a radio weather forecast
- a recording of a traffic report
- 1 work sheet for every student
- 1 home work sheet for every student
PROCEDURES:
- WARM-UP / REVIEW:
(5 - 10 min)Talk about a time when the weather ruined your plans (e.g. a picnic that got rained out, a day at the beach when it was to cold to swim, etc.) Ask the students if they have had an experience like that. Review weather vocabulary if necessary. - PRESENTATION:
(30 min) Hand out the work sheets and tell the students that they are going to plan a day trip to Salt Lake with their partner. Explain that the weather might be bad and that they will need to plan accordingly. In addition to this the construction in that area might cause delays and detours on their way.
- Pre-listening:
(10 min) Ask the students what they might expect to hear on a radio report? Will all of it be important for their trip? What about commercials? Talk about some specific words that they might hear (e.g. north-bound, south-bound, heavy traffic, slick, icy, construction, detour, etc.) - Listening:
(5 - 10 min) Listen to the entire report once.(Depending on the level of the students you may wish to play the recording 2 or 3 times here.) Ask the students to start working with their partners to plan their trip. Explain that if they didn't get it all, that they shouldn't worry about it, that it will be broadcast again in another ten minutes, and to do the best they can for right now. - Post-listening:
(10 min) After the students have had five to ten minutes to work on the work sheet play the report again. This time allow just a few minutes for last minute alterations to their work sheets.
Ask the students if they have any questions. Are there specific words that they did not understand? Go over the trouble spots (including sounds of English that may have been more difficult, particulary reductions) and play the recording one more time, stopping it if necessary after certain trouble spots (but be careful here because the point is to teach students not to get hung-up on individual words, so be sure to stress the information they did get rather than what they missed. Show how even without understanding this or that word an educated guess can still be made as to the general meaning. Point out that they were still able to plan their trip)
EVALUATION:
Allow partners to share with the rest of the class what they did for their trip. Ask them to explain why they chose the activities that they did. (We went to a restaurant because it was too cold for a picnic, or we went to temple sqare and stayed late because I wanted to see the lights)EXTRA-CLASSWORK:
Pass out a homework sheet to each student. Tell them that that the first part of their home work is to take the in-class work sheet home and write a short paragraph about what they did on their trip. The second part of the home work is to take the homework work sheet home and answer the questions about tomorrow's weather forecast. The following class period, have a discussion about whether any of the students would need to change their plans based on the following day's forecast.IN-CLASS WORK SHEET:
- What should we wear?
Here I would include picture cues of some choices in attire that are very weather related, such as Sunglasses, sandals, an umbrella, a coat, boots, etc. The items in the picture cues are taylored to the specific recording used. - What time should we leave? What route should we take?
Here another picture cue should be provided including possibly a picture cue of a choice between I-15 and Redwood road, but I think that the details of the traffic report would be for a more advanced level. Plus many of the students might not own cars or drive very much, so the primary focus would be the wheather unless the teacher feels that the traffic would be interesting and appropriate for their particualar class. - How long will it take to get there? Are there any delays?
- What do you want to see?
Here again I would have picture cues, the choice of activities would be weather related, eg. a picnic in the park, a stroll around temple square, eating at a restaurant, shopping inside etc. - What time should we head home?
HOME WORK: WORK SHEET
Listen to a radio or TV weather forecast for tomorrow. (KFI 1160 AM plays a weather and traffic segment every ten minutes) You should tape the report if at all possible so that you can listen to it several times. After listening to it carefully, answer the following:
- What will the high temperature be tomorrow?
- Is it going to rain?
- What should I wear?
- Look at the things you planned on your work sheet from class, are there any things that you would change because of today's weather forecast?