Humanising Language Teaching
Year 6; Issue 3; September 04

I hear, I think

Gill Johnson
Hastings, UK

Level: Intermediate - Advanced

Preparation: Choose a recording of a singer you think your students won't know.

In class:

Tell your students they are going to listen to a voice. They needn't worry about understanding the lyrics or liking the song. Ask them simply to listen to the voice and as they do so, to build up a picture of the singer and his/her personality in their minds. Get the students to write down whatever words occur to them as they listen. When the song is finished, go to the board and elicit your students' ideas. Write down everything they offer. Tell your students that if they disagree with an idea they can shout "No!" (You will also record the objection.)

You should have a board full of vocabulary, after a while and you can use this as a springboard to
writing: stories about the singer, newspaper articles about the singer, a concert review, a descriptive piece, a character study, a life story, an interview transcript, a 'fanzine' article, etc.
speaking: role play e.g. interviewing the singer, a review panel deciding whether or not to sign the artist to their label, a 'documentary', the 'singer' talking about his/her work, and so on.

Finally, you can show the students a picture of the real singer for them to compare with their own mental one.

You might like to explore with your students the assumptions they made about the singer while listening (and where these assumptions come from). Often students hearing a jazz vocal will assume the singer is black, American, famous, rich, slender, with a slinky dress and long red nails!! Imagine their surprise when confronted with a picture of a white, plump, not-very-well-known British singer from Hastings!