English Language Learners need a lot of opportunities to practice their vocabulary in all four language domains. Students need to work on Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing. As an ESL teacher, I was always looking for new and exciting ways to practice those language skills. These are 10 activities you can use to practice listening skills. These activities can be used with any vocabulary list, and do not require a lot of preparation or fancy materials.
Dictation
Dictation is an oldie but a goodie. To do a dictation activity you need sentences or a short passage to read aloud. As you read students will listen and write down what you are saying. The length of your passage will depend on your students. You can find a passage that corresponds to your current vocabulary unit. A very simple and straightforward activity - dictation actually practices many skills in addition to listening. They are also practicing writing skills and conventions. Students need to include correct spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.
Flyswatter Game
This is a fun game to get students up and moving. In this game teams of students race to swat a vocabulary word after you have called it out. You can change this game up in lots of ways depending on the level of your learners. First, put your vocabulary words or images on the board or wall. Then, break your students into two teams and have them stand away from the wall. You can call out the word, definition, or another clue. Students will race to find and slap the word with their flyswatter. If you don’t have flyswatters, students can give the word a high five.
 |
| Vocabulary Cards from Farm Vocabulary Unit |
Color By Instructions
Do your students love to color as much as mine did? This fun listening activity is a creative way to practice listening. Search online for a coloring page that matches your current topic. Then write some instructions for how you would like students to color the page. For your beginner level students, you can use simple one-step instructions such as “color the sun yellow”. For more advanced students you can give two-step instructions such as “color the center of the sun yellow, and the rays of the sun oranges”. To extend this activity past listening, you can ask students to write a description of the coloring page.
 |
| Coloring Page and Instructions from Farm Vocabulary Unit |
Listen and Draw
Listen and draw is an activity very similar to Color by Instructions. However, this time students start with a blank page, and teachers give directions for what to draw on the page. This can be a great activity especially during a unit on shapes, directionality, or positional words. For example, you might ask students to draw a circle in the bottom right corner, draw a large square in the center of the page, draw a triangle inside of the square. You can spice this activity up a bit by giving students stickers. Then you can give directions for where to put those stickers.
Movie or Book Vocabulary Search
In this engaging activity, students listen to a book or watch a short movie and listen for target vocabulary. You can differentiate this activity by how much you scaffold this activity. For more advanced students they can start with a blank piece of paper. To provide more support you can give students a bank of words and ask them to cross out the words as they hear them. If you do not have time for a full movie, you can search for short films, or watch movie trailers. This also works really well during a read-aloud.
Mystery Box
This fun activity does take a little bit of preparation, and some materials gathering. To do this activity, find a box large enough for some manipulatives related to your theme. Cut a hole on the side of the box. The hole will need to be large enough for a student’s hand and any item to fit through. Once you are set up, describe an item to the student. They will need to listen to your description, then find the item by feel in the box. This is a great way to practice descriptive words such as soft, hard, long, fuzzy.
Not Quite the Same
In this activity, students listen to two almost identical sentences and identify the differences. First, you need to write two sentences with a few differences - the number of differences will be dependent on your students. For example, the sentences could be: ‘The horse was eating a bale of hay’ and ‘The horses were eating a bushel of apples’. In this example, students would identify that the number of horses changed and so did what they were eating. If the grammar of the sentence is changing you can use it as a teachable moment. In the example above I would point out that an ‘s’ was added to make horse plural, and that the verb needed to change as well.
Short Stories
This activity is a combination of a dictation activity or a vocabulary hunt. Write a short story using your target vocabulary. Give students a copy of the short story with the vocabulary words removed. Then students will fill in the vocabulary words as you read the story out loud. If your students need additional support you can provide them with a word bank to identify the words that they hear. You could also allow students to visualize the story. Simply, allow them to draw a picture to go along with the story as you read.
 |
| Short Story from Farm Vocabulary Unit |
Simon Says
This classic kid’s game is great for listening! Plus, it gives students a chance to move around a bit. It was always a favorite during our units on body parts. However, you can use it with any vocabulary theme, especially by incorporating Total Physical Response. You can ask students to ‘run like a horse,’ ‘drive a tractor like a farmer,’ or ‘snort like a pig’.
Telephone
Another classic game is a listening activity in disguise. In telephone, one student whispers a sentence or phrase to the next student, and that student whispers to the next. It continues until the final student says the sentence out loud to see how much of the original message was preserved. This activity also practices speaking. You can either provide students with sentences, or allow them to create their own.
 |
| Telephone Sentences from Farm Vocabulary Unit |
Are there any vocabulary activities your students love that I missed? Did you try one of these activities? Share them with me by commenting or connecting with me by email, michelle@teachingeternity.com, or find me on Instagram, @TeachingEternity.
Pin it - to come back later!
