Teaching Listening at Upper
Intermediate Level
by Sam Smith
- Lesson plan 3

Stages of the Lesson

2. Reading and discussion Q's - To set the context and activate schemata.

Groups of 3 - 12 mins

Sts read a very short text about research on mice and discuss its content based
on questions. 2 sts discuss while a 3rd person observes for analysis of
interruptions, (dis)agreeing and 'who is the better speaker' and then feeds back.

3. 1st listening - To listen for gist and to get students used to the video and consider paralinguistic and facial clues as well as spoken ones.

Whole class + pairs - 7 mins

Sts watch and listen and answer the following questions: What's the relationship between the 2 speakers?
Are they discussing it for fun or seriously?
Do they interrupt?
Do they speak at the same time? - Is this natural?
Who is the better speaker? Why? - Think of how they speak and also how they move and sit
Who did you understand better? Why?

4. 2nd Listening - To Listen to identify topic areas.

Whole class + pairs - 6 mins

Sts listen and tick the topics they hear from a selection.

+ Question - Why is recognising topic areas important?

5. 3rd listening - To listen for more specific answers, practising perception on key areas, essential to meaning

Whole class - 9 mins

Sts answer true / false questions about the opinions of the speakers whilst listening twice.

6. Listening and reading tape-script - To allow students to see the areas they have most problems with.

Whole class + pairs - 7 mins

Sts 1st read the tape-script to find the answers to the true / false questions then listen and read at the same time to identify problem areas, before comparing with a partner and discuss why these areas were problematic and what can be done to help.

7. 1st Prediction and gap fill of small parts of the tape-script - To focus on speech features: repetition, fillers, correction and clarifyers.

Pairs + whole class - 5 mins

Sts fill, without listening a small section of the tape-script then listen to compare their predictions and see if they can hear what was said, followed by brief discussion of these speech features.

8. 2nd prediction and gap fill - To focus on ways of agreeing.

Pairs + whole class - 3 mins

Sts repeat the last stage with a small part where one speaker agrees with the other.

9. Drilling with the tape-script - To give students a chance to handle fast speech orally.

Pairs + whole class - 4 mins

Sts first practice in pairs a small part of overlapping, fast speech from the tape-script, then repeat with the video several times.

10. 2nd discussion - To put into practice the areas of conversation we have been focusing on.

Pairs - 4 mins

In pairs sts use prompts to have a discussion about other ideas related to the same topic.

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