LISTENING ACTIVITY. GRAMMAR: USE OF “FOR” AND “SINCE”

Objectives and description

Listening is not seen as a skill to be trained, since it is thought that there is not much to do about it. Indeed, listening training is not an easy task, since listener will plays a central role. You must hear to listen, but listening is much more, since you must pay attention to listen.

In this sense, the activity has to motivate the students somehow. A well-known and effective resource is to address to students likes. That is the way chosen to develop this activity, which is intended to be fluid and stimulating.

This is a teaching activity with the group 3^rdC ESO. Specifically, it is a listening activity. There are some exercises to develop during the session, which is mainly participative. After that, I will explain to the classroom the use of for and since. The name of the listening activity is the following: Everybody is doing it.  It is an activity to test their listening, but it is also intended to demand students’ opinion about the matter suggested.

The general objective of this activity is to face a listening activity, as well as a grammar lesson. This involves a new opportunity to lead a teaching activity, from which I can with dynamism, creativity and enthusiasm. Specific objectives have to do with finding answer to specific questions around a warming up activity:

What worked well / didn’t work well and why?

How did I do in this specific area of teaching?

What will I change the next time I teach this kind of session?

There are further objectives, those that have to do with a classroom activity, i.e. learning objectives for students:

• Participate in student’s-teacher interaction.
• Be able to use vocabulary related to cultural events.
• Know and understand the use of for and since with present perfect.
• Understand oral texts about things that become very popular for a short time (crazes). 

 Methodology

The activity starts with a video-clip about crazy sports, and then a group discussion through interaction teacher-student and student-student: this activity is based on communicative approach. After that, an audio CD will be played and students will listen.  A number of exercises will be completed by students and then will be corrected trough the interactive whiteboard in order to be watched by the whole group. The skills evaluated are listening and speaking.

After that, I will explain the use of for and since with present perfect. After that, I will set homework on concepts learned. The skill evaluated is use of English (grammar).

 Materials used are the interactive whiteboard, a video-clip, the student’s book (Move On, Oxford University Press), an audio CD and a CD player. Students’ participation will be required in answering questions.