Listening & Speaking activity
Level: Higher elementary, Pre-intermediate and Lower Intermediate.
Length: 90-120 minutes.
Created by: Patrick Hayeck
You’re welcome to use this material in your classroom but it would be great it you could credit me for it and recommend this website to both students and teachers.
PART A: Minimal pairs /t/ and /d/.
| Description: The table below illustrates the layout of a phone screen with minimal pairs underneath the numbers. Prepare 2 to 3 phone numbers consisting of 10 digits. First, read the words for your students in order first from 1 to 9. Ask the students to repeat after you and to focus on the /t/ and /d/ endings. Also, advise them to focus on the length of the vowel before /t/ or /d/ endings. The vowels before /d/ are generally longer (except for “can’t” as it is negative). After some practice, Tell the students to write down the number of the words they hear. At the end of the game, they should have the phone numbers you prepared. Click HERE to read more about this activity. |
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PART B: Speaking & Listening practice – “ed” pronunciation.
| Description:
Write the following question up on the board “what did you do last night?” Make sure the students understand that what they are going to hear is an account of past events and that those events ended last night. Inform the students that, as per the previous activity, they will hear /t/, /d/ or /id/ (only when the verbs end with either letter [t] or [d]). Before you begin to read the small passage, give the students 5 minutes to swap turns asking and answering the question in pairs. Ask them to use their dictionaries and to think of some regular verbs they can use in their answers. |
What did you do last night?
Examples: |
| Read the following passage to your students I watched a movie at the Garden’s, and I enjoyed it a lot. The movie finished at about ten, so my friends and I decided to eat dinner. I wanted to go back home by twelve but I missed the train, so I waited for over 20 minutes for the next one. I finally arrived home at twelve thirty. I jumped in the shower, brushed my teeth, lied down and closed my eyes. I couldn’t sleep before two am though, so I really hated waking up early in the morning. |
Questions: 1-Did Patrick like the movie last night? 2-What did Patrick do after the movie? 3-Why couldn’t Patrick go back home at 12? 4-What time did Patrick finally get home? 5-What was the first thing Patrick did when he got home? 6-Why did Patrick hate waking up early in the morning? |
PART C: Speaking & Listening practice – Intonation.
| Description: The aim of this activity is to help the students to improve both listening and speaking through practicing sentence stress and intonation. The teacher explains to the students that the circles represent the “key words” of the text and that they should therefore say those words a little louder/longer or just stronger. The red lines however represent the level of the voice pitch (the voice loudness level). The teacher demonstrates to the students by reading the text as follows:  |
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PART D: Speaking practice through a dialogue – Intonation.
| Description: The aim of Part D is to get the students to practice the passage above in a more conversational format. Advise the students to use the text above to answer the questions given to them in this part of the lesson. During practice, go around the classroom and make sure you correct the students. It’s important that they are able to change their voice pitch and it’s equally important that they can hear it. As you can see on the right, Patrick’s answers start with expressions that are not found in the monologue above. Please inform the students that we cannot use the sentences from the monologue as they are as dialogues take place between two people and so our answers are more interactive and spontaneous. The parts highlighted in green are taken from Part C’s monologue. |
John: So what did you do last night? Patrick: Last night I watched a movie at the Garden’s. John: How was it? Patrick: Oh it was great, I enjoyed it a lot. John: How long was the movie? Patrick: Umm, about two hours, the movie finished at 10. John: Did you do something after that? Patrick: Yeah we were starving, so we had dinner. John: I called you at about 12:15 but you weren’t home? Patrick: I know, I wanted to go back home by 12, but I missed the train. John: So what time did you get home? Patrick: errrr, what time did I get home?! I think it was around 12:30. John: No wonder you look tired! Patrick: Yeah well, I couldn’t sleep before 2am, so I hated waking up early in the morning today. |
PART E: Vocabulary building – Natural English.
| Description: That is a fill-in-the-gap activity. The students get a chance to experience a different aspect of the language. Now they understand the situation, the content and main thoughts of the dialogue, so it would be a good idea to teach them some additional expressions that they are more likely to come across in everyday life. |
(1)head back; (2)was over; (3)got a kick out of it; (4)caught a flick; (5)to grab a bite; (6)getting up; (7)gave you a buzz
John: So what did you do last night? |
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