Humanising Language Teaching
Year 3; Issue 3; May 2001
Do I understand you right?
Time: 15-20 mins
Purpose: To encourage students to listen with heightened attention to both the language forms and the message when interacting with peers. To encourage students to reformulate words but maintain the speaker's original message.
Preparation: Bring some ink blots and pictures which require interpretation to class as a back up.
Lesson outline:
- Give the students some time to think of a topic they wish to speak about for about 2/3 minutes
ie hobbies, friends etc. They may take notes but are not to write a whole script to read out. If
they get stuck give them a picture/ ink blot to help them.
- Ask the students to work in pairs. Student A talks about their chosen topic. Student B listens
carefully stopping A only to clarify by asking questions like "Did you mean……." "Could you
say that last bit again?" or through phrases like "So you mean…….." "I understand that you
mean" At the end they try to summarise the key points in their own words. They are not
allowed to interpret, give their own opinion, argue, agree etc.
- They then swap roles.
- Discuss in pairs then in plenary how it felt to interact in this way. How tempting was it for the listener to jump in with their own agenda?. Was it strange for the speaker to feel that the listener was really listening to them?.
Note
This exercise is aimed at developing students' active listening skills. Becoming better, more attentive listeners per se will help them take on listening comprehension exercises with more confidence.
