Hit a milestone with visitors on this blog today.  thank you to those of you who read it.  I hope you find something useful that helps your teaching, or at the very least it triggers an idea.  Drop a comment if you want a particular topic or skill exploring .  You could also be the first comment (another milestone).

GCSE Languages places a heavier emphasis on writing and speaking, which can lead to listening being neglected.  Listening activities can be time consuming but they are vital in being able to understand a language.  They allow students to experience a range of accents, ages and speeds of talking without leaving the classroom.  Some are contrived and others are effective but how can you exploit a listening text for all it is worth?  There seems to be a school of thought emerging that if teachers teach using maximum TL then that counts as listening.  I think there is still a place for the recorded material.

Listening can be differentiated for pupils of various abilities.  Below are some of the ways I have used in a classroom that work.  I wish I did them all more often.  The majority will work at Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4.

This takes some planning but consider how you could stretch your more able and support your less able.

More able

• Ask them to look for particular things.
• Have a column of extra details if completing a table and get them to fill it in as they go.
• Could they do a dictée on a particular line?  You could suggest to a class that all those with a target grade of … could do this?
• Can you do a higher level listening with your more able while the foundation students do a reading activity and then swap.  This works for mixed ability groups.
• Could they write their own extract afterwards based on the recordings they have heard?

Less able

• Multiple choice – you can give them this on a handout or on a slide.
• Write down the words that they hear that they definitely know.  Essentially give them a chance to understand bits before asking them to find answers.
• Give them the script for the first recording so they can read along
• Give their TA the script – TAs appreciate this as the teacher’s guides generally have the answers afterwards.
• Give them the answers and have them highlight the ones they can hear this should help you see how much they comprehend,
• Teach them skills to help them – key words, cognates, sound patterns, discerning plurals etc
• VLC is an excellent media programme and has a facility to slow down recordings, I would not go much below 0.90 but it can help.

Conducting a listening effectively

1. Try not to talk too much
2. Consider the following order
   1. Play recording all the way through without stopping, students do nothing.
   2. Play through and students try to get answers.
   3. Play through and have breaks in between for students to either write answers or check their answers.
3. Make sure students are clear on what they are listening for.
4. Don’t tolerate chat in between.  It needs to be their own work
5. Try to do them regularly.

Make it lead to something.

Could your students do a similar thing later in the lesson?  Perhaps they could record it and you could use that instead (providing you have permission).   Could they do a speeddating style activity and use some of the phrases from the listening recording, or any other activity for that matter?