La gran Didáctica avanzada de la lengua inglesa

 Exercises [pic 1]

Task: Listening comprehension and pronunciation

Objectives: in this activity you will have the opportunity to:

• Revise and apply the theoretical contents included in unit 3.
• Reflect on how to exploit a text/recording.
• Learn how to design interactive activities to work on listening comprehension, making your students focus on the content.
• Learn how to design interactive activities to improve your students’ pronunciation.

Methodology: once you have read the key ideas, it is time for you to design two different activities to work on the oral skills: the first activity will be focused on the content, there is: our students will be expected to listen to a recording (song, conversation, story, etc.) and understand the content, the message (listening comprehension).

The second one will be focused on the way the content is expressed in the recording and the students will be asked to listen and repeat difficult or special sounds included in the recording, to practice pronunciation.

Activity: the first thing you have to do is to choose an appropriate recording you can use for a listening activity. You can choose a listening online or any written text that you can read to your students. Then, you have to design and explain two activities: the first one to work on listening comprehension, and the second one to work on pronunciation. Make sure the activities are as interactive, making our students have an active role.

Include the following steps:  

• A description of the target group (number of students, age, level, special needs, nationality, mother tongue …).
• Length of time for the activity.
• Teaching/Learning objectives.
• Materials used (if you use songs, stories, etc., include, at least, the title).
• Classroom arrangement (rows, circles, horseshoes, how the class is organized, whether the teacher is the focus of attention or not, etc.).
• Lessons procedure: explain in detail the steps you will follow, include examples of the students’ expected outcomes, etc.

Please, be original! No ideas taken ready-made material from the internet will be accepted.

Length: minimum 1-maximum 4 pages, Georgia body font size 11,5 , inter-line spacing 1.5, justified.

A description of the target group:

Number: 20 students

Age: 11 years old

Special needs: We don´t have children with this characteristics.

Nationality: We have a Chinese girl in the classroom, but she is able to speak English fluently. The rest of my class are Spanish.

Mother Tongue: Spanish and Chinese.

Length of time for the activity.

Four hours. (More or less two hours every exercise).

Teaching/Learning objectives.

• To recognice differences in English pronunciation stemming from vowel length (i.e., between long and short vowel sounds).
• Give my students practice in recognising the difference in meaning in words that are pronounced with different stress when used as different grammatical words.
• To acquaint my students with the use of weak forms of English words.
• To exercise the pronunciation and comprehension practice in a specific context.
• To acquire new knowledges about usual vocabulary.
• To share knowledge together.

Materials used (if you use songs, stories, etc., include, at least, the title).

• Papers
• Computer
• Blackboard
• Notebooks

Classroom arrangement (rows, circles, horseshoes, how the class is organized, whether the teacher is the focus of attention or not, etc.).

For the first activity, we will work together and students will be sitting in lines.

For the second activity, my students will work in groups of five and I will be sometimes the focus of attention as long as they need me.

Lessons procedure: explain in detail the steps you will follow, include examples of the students’ expected outcomes, etc.

Activities:

Listening comprehension:

As we are no doubt aware, English is a stress-timed language — that is, in a sentence, the stress falls at regular intervals. This gives spoken English its own definite rhythm, and sometimes this rhythm poses a problem for listeners who do not have a similar rhythm in their own language. One feature of English rhythm that commonly causes problems in comprehension is the use of weak forms. For example, when pronounced in isolation, auxiliary verbs or articles such as would, have or a are said with the vowels in their strong (normal) forms — /wud/, /hæv/, /ei/. But in utterances, these are pronounced in their unstressed, weak forms — /d/, /v/, /ǝ/, as in the sentences below:

• We’d like to see the principal, please.
• I’ve missed classes the whole of last week, you know!
• It’s a hit!

In classrooms, teachers usually speak to students slowly, articulating each word carefully for ease of understanding. While this is a good strategy when explaining a concept, it does not give students exposure to the “real” English that they will encounter outside the classroom.

In this activity, I will be able to give my students practice in understanding English spoken at normal conversational speed, when weak forms are used.

Before I begin the activity, we will have class discussions on contracted forms of verbs. This discussion is meant to refresh my students’ knowledge of the use of contracted forms in informal English. I can, for example, have students complete the following exercise in pairs. You can also ask them to add similar words to the list.

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