Activities for listening practice and communication Sound discrimination Provide students with many similar contrasting sounds and ask them to discriminate which is which Word stress discrimination Read words (con’trast, ‘contrast; re’cord, ‘record …) and ask them to identify the stressed syllable Sentence stress discrimination Read a sentence with varying word stress and ask students to identify which word is emphasized Dictation Provide students with sounds, words, sentences, songs, and/or texts and ask them to write what they hear This is a very effective measure of comprehension Close exercises Songs: Transcribe a song and take out every th (6th, 7th, 8th …) word Play the song and have the students fill in blanks Texts: Similar to above Read or play a tape-recorded text and have students fill in the blanks on a transcript of the text Comprehension questions (provide before listening) These can be multiple choice; true/false; or open-ended Identifying/describing emotional tones Prepare texts showing anger, excitement, sadness, fear, joy, confusion, etc Compare and contrast them and ask students to identify and describe what they hear Progressive listening Students listen to a recorded passage several times First time through they listen for major divisions in the passage (How many people did you hear speak?) Second time through they answer the questions which have direct answers from the passage (What did the man think about the woman’s new dress?) Third time involves more abstract questions or inferences (How you think the woman feels?)