DEVELOPING LISTENING SKILLS

Nowadays English is a highly regarded subject for the society and at schools especially for parents. We like specialists in education have to capture the opportunities they give our but, we mustn’t do it like years ago. Teachers need a different way to teach English at schools because children require diverse methods and routes to learn English in all its aspects. In that essay we are going to focus on developing listening skills.            

         

Some games for our children become better listeners are:

• “Open your ears”: For that game the teacher will make a noise behind a screen which the schoolchildren will have to identify, using familiar sounds (ring the doorbell, dog barking, run the vacuum, drumming, etc.). Another way to do the same game is instead of doing the teacher it could do it by a student. The educator selects one child to go behind the screen and choose one item from the box, and make a sound with the object. The other children are to listen to the sound and guess what object is making the sound. 

• “Shake and listen”: The professor puts some unlike materials (rocks, rice, water…) inside different jars; she sits turn her back to her students and shake the bottles one per one. Children should guess what kind of material contains the pots.

•     “A colour story”: Before starting activity the teacher give all the students a different colourful flashcard. She explains them that they must stand up showing their flashcard when the teacher mention their colour.  Then, she is going to tell her students the fairy tale. Others possibilities might be a story about animals, seasons of the year, adjectives… it depends on the kind of vocabulary that they are studying in class.

•  “Storytelling”: It consists in tell to the pupils a story. While the teacher is articulating the fairy tale she asks her pupils to do that story say. For example: wave their arms, blow strongly, touch their nose, ears, mouth, knees, put a sad, happy, worried, frightened face, etc. Maybe if we want appreciate that our learners understand the instructions we can do two things: on the one hand, say them that close their eyes to do the entire story said and the other hand, we can make ask them that tell the story in their own words.  With that we will get that child work fine motor skills, expression and of course, listen skills.

• “Making crafts” A good way to improve listen skills is making a craft. While children are making an entertaining activity they are familiarizing with English vocabulary and expressions while are listen all the teacher’s instructions. 

• Songs and music videos