ACTIVITY: DESIGNING A LISTENING

ALLIENS ACTIVITY

While we were thinking of an activity that allowed us work on’ listening’, and following the advise given in class, some new ideas came to our mind about what we should work  before and after the ‘listening’ activity. 

As we thought it would be interesting, we have developed 3 activities that will follow the knowledge progression. In this way, we will review some different concepts related to descriptions and parts of the body:

ACTIVITY 1: Crosswords

This session will be started with crosswords about ‘parts of the body’. This will serve to review the vocabulary worked in previous items and Science. We will start with this activity because this vocabulary is required to develop other activities.

AIMS:

·      Simple crosswords are easy to prepare and are an excellent way of reviewing vocabulary or structures.

·         Review vocabulary about parts of the body.

MATERIALS:

·         Crossword photocopies.

TIMING: 15 minutes.

PREPARATION:

1.      Prepare the crossword with answers.

2.      Draw the blank version twice, putting half the words on one place and the other half on another place.

PROCEDURE:

1.      Students will work in pairs, each one with a version of the crossword.

2.      A student will define a word on his/her version, using language, mime, or pictures. The other student will have to guess the word and write it on his/her version.

3.      Go on until both children have completed their crosswords.

Example:

ACTIVITY 2 Listening

AIMS:

·         Review vocabulary related to parts of the body.

MATERIALS:

·         Photocopies of cards

TIMING: 15 minutes.

PREPARATION:

1.      Find a ‘listening’.

2.      Find pictures.

3.      Photocopy cards.

PROCEDURE:

1.      Project the alliens’ image.

2.      The teacher will make the following questions to work the prediction.

Before listening:

•          Where do you think they are?
•        What do you think they are?
•          What are they doing?
•          What are they talking about?

3     Do the following exercises while doing the ‘listening’ part.

While listening:

1º) Questions:

·                  How many aliens are speaking?

2º) Complete the following table:

The objective of this activity is to complete the table below. During the ‘listening’ part, students will listen to the names of the different aliens and their main characteristics. They will have to write the characters’ names on the left part of the table and their main characteristics on the right part.

NAMES:	MAIN CARACTERISTICS:

Example:

NAMES:	MAIN CARACTERISTICS:
JOHN	-          Long legs. -          Enormous Head. -          Three small eyes.
JACK	-          Four arms. -          Cocodrile mouth. -          One feet.
PAUL	-          Elefant legs. -          Big stomach. -          Red skin.

3º) Using flashcards

This third activity can be left as a back-up in case that we decide not to work with the table. The teacher will hand out written cards, asking students to pick them up just after listening to the words written to them. There will be some words on the cards that will not have been included in the ‘listening’. 

After listening:

1    The teacher will show pictures of aliens to students and they will have to guess what alien is that. We could correct the table while doing this activity.

2      An activity that could be amusing and motívate students could be: The teacher will ask students to make a drawing of his/her own alien on a sheet of paper. When they finish them, they will  hung up all the drawings on the wall. A volunteer will have to describe out loud one of the aliens and the rest of students will have to guess what alien he is talking about.  

ACTIVITY 3: TWIN PLASTICINE MONSTERS

Each student will make a monster out of plasticine and will describe it to a classmate. The classmate will have to make another drawing similar to the first one.

AIMS:

·         Linguistic: parts of the body, colours, giving and understanding spoken descriptions.

·         Practice listening activities.

·         Other: Develop modeling skills.

MATERIALS:

·         Plasticine in different colours.

TIMING: 30 minutes.

PREPARATION:

1.      Make a plasticine monster yourself

2.      Make sure that there is enough plasticine for each child to have four or five different colors.

PROCEDURE:

1.      Draw a monster on the board and check that students  know in English the parts of the body and how to describe the monster – for example: He´s got a long tail.

2.      Show the children your plasticine monster and get them to describe it in English.

       

  

3.      Put students in pairs and give them plasticine. Each pair should have the same colors.

4.   Tell students how to use half of their plasticine to make a monster without allowing their classmate to see it. They will use the other half later to make a replica of their partner´s monster.  Put a time limit on this step or the monster will be too complicated!

5.      Now tell one of the students in each pair to describe their monster in English to their partner (still not allowing them to see it), so that the partner can make a ´twin´. When they have finished they should compare monsters, then swap roles.

6.      When all the monsters are finished, the children can give them a name and display them in a ´monster park´.

COMMENTS:

·      Make it clear that the aim of the game is to describe the monster so well that their partner´s monster looks just like theirs. Sometimes children think they have ´won´ if their partner can´t make one like theirs.

VARIATION:

·         The children could draw monsters instead of modeling them.

Other related activities:

·     Follow-up 1: Use the twin monsters to practice comparisons – for example: Pedro monster´s nose is longer than Alicia monster´s.

·     Follow-up 2: One child describes a monster from the ´monster park´ and the others guess which one it is.

·      Follow-up 3: Use the monster to make up a story.

Made by: Cristina Muñoz, Pablo Pérez.