Listening Markers

Purpose: To provide peer help with listening for specific information.

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Materials: Listening material; a fill-in-the-blanks activity that goes with the listening; index cards.

Preparation: Choose appropriate listening material. If the listening material has a corresponding fill-in-the-blanks exercise, make sure that the blanks are numbered. If the listening doesn’t have a fill-in-the-blanks activity, create one.  Number your index cards so that each card has a number that corresponds to a blank. If you have 10 blanks on the exercise, number your cards from 1 to 10. Make enough cards so that there is one for each student. Numbers can be repeated.

Procedure:

1. Play the listening material once. Learners should try to fill in as many of the blanks as they can.
2. Give out cards to students.
3. When the tape is played again, learners should hold up their card if they were able to fill in the blank that corresponds to the number on their card.  Learners who are missing the information can then ask their classmates to spell the word.
4. Play the listening material a third time. Those who weren’t able to hold up a card the first time may be able to do so on the third round.
5. Finally, check all the answers together.

Variation:

Assign the learners the information they should listen for and give them the appropriate card before they have listened to the material. When they hear their information the first time the tape is played, they should hold their card up and not write. When the tape is played again, they can write the missing information. Learners then work together to complete the cloze activity.