Re: Question about intructions for a listening comprehension exercise (3)
Hi,
Thank you very much for your advice.
To most of us, a listening comprehension is supposed to suggest that the students have understood the meaning of the words,not just understood the words. This is true, and it’s very realistic, but even they just parrot back with the exercise. They still have some difficulties to understand some of the words when they listen to them.
For example, take the following sentence: The weather was very hot and the students were all wearing shorts.
My idea of questions for a listening comprehension would be things like:
- Was it raining? (This checks whether the students comprehend that"it" refers to "the weather" and also that"raining" and "very hot" are weather-related words.)
- How were the students dressed? (This checks if the students understand therelation between "wearing" and "dressed".)
- Did the students need to wear a coat?
Your questions are more like:
- Write down what the weather was like. (They simply have to hear "The weather was ..." and they know they have to write the next thing they hear.)
- Write down what the students were all wearing. (They simply have to hear"The students were all wearing ..." and the next word is the answer.)
Your idea and examples are great and it certainly is an excellent way to test them in a listening comprehension exercise. Let me tell you what I will do after your suggestion, I’ll mix both ways in the exercise, yours and mine, depending on the difficulty of the sentence or sentences they have to listen to. What do you think?
There is nothing wrong with yours but they really don't test your students very much. Literally, all they have to do is listen to the piece, identify each word and then practically just copy the missing word into your indirect question.
Thank you for your words and advice as always.
Best,
L54