For English teachers there are a myriad of resources to expose our students to real-life English language. It is just a matter of finding suitable material. It can be hazardous and time consuming to find a fragment that is just the right language level, the right length and interesting as well.
Thank the internet for podcasts. These freely available radio shows are a gold mine when it comes to suitable listening material. They cover fun and interesting topics on all aspects of society. There are great shows which are masterpieces of storytelling such as Radiolab, This American Life, The Moth and Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!.
This last podcast (for the ones who are not familiar with it) is a news quiz in which the hosts and three comedians review the week’s news in several quizzes. These fragments are fun, current and best of all: between two and ten minutes per fragment. Perfect for an authentic, real-life listening assignment!
The Basics
Level: B2-C1 (Upper-intermediate, Advanced)
Focus: Listening to a longer piece of text, summarizing, speaking
Time: 20 minutes
Materials: Speakers and internet connection, students need pen and paper
Aim
Students will learn to focus on a longer piece of audio. They will practise taking notes in key words and verbally summarize what they heard. They can pick out the main idea of a fragment.
The Task
In the slideshow you will find a step-by-step lesson plan which can be used with little preparation. All it takes is going through the slides beforehand so you know what to expect. Before you present this to your students, double check if the audio fits their level of English.
Additional ideas
The podcast releases a new episode every week. You could adapt the audio so it is related to the week’s news.
You could easily extend this into a writing activity. Have groups of three students find a remarkable but true news story. Then one student summarizes the real story while the two other students come up with a fabricated story on the same topic that could be true. Students present their quiz to the class. The rest of the class votes on the story they think was the real story.
If you want to add an element of competition to the task you could add a points system where the students who guess correctly get a point whilst the students who chose the wrong story give a point to the story they chose (whilst they themselves receive none of course). The student with the most points in total wins.
Over to you: Do you ever use real-life materials in your lessons? What do you do with those materials? I’d love to hear your ideas.
Have fun teaching! ^_^
Love,
Astrid
Exciting English 